Biography
Onscreen from 1938, balding American comedian Joe Palma (sometimes billed Joseph Palma) became a fixture in Columbia Pictures short subjects, earning a reported 55 dollars a day supporting everybody from "Woo-Woo" Hugh Herbert to
Vera Vague to
The Three Stooges. Along with
Johnny Kascier and the veteran
Al Thompson, Palma played bit parts and did stunt work in virtually all the Stooges comedies of the 1940s and early '50s. When
Shemp Howard died suddenly of a heart attack in November 1955, Palma doubled him in four comedies before producer/director
Jules White finally settled on
Joe Besser as the third Stooge. The studio kept up the charade by filming Palma, as Shemp, from the back or having him carry heavy loads of props that completely obscured his face. Joe Palma outlasted the Columbia short subject department, retiring from screen work in 1965. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide