- He, Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard appear in only one short together, Hold That Lion! (1947). Curly appears uncredited as a train car passenger (watch for the man with the hat on his face). This was a short, non-speaking cameo, due to Curly's health issues.
- As a teen, he once crashed his car through the front window of a barbershop. The incident shook him up so much that he never drove again in his life.
- He got the name "Shemp" when he was a child. Whenever his mother would say his name, "Sam", the combination of her heavy Lithuanian accent and abrupt manner of speaking made it come out sounding like "Shemp". The name stuck.
- Was multiphobic, many who knew him jokingly said he was even afraid of his own shadow.
- After Curly Howard had his stroke, Shemp was brought back, with Curly's blessing, to be a stopgap until Curly got better. Unfortunately, Curly never got well enough to continue, so Shemp stayed with The Three Stooges until his death.
- After attending a boxing match, he slipped into the back seat of a taxi. He was mimicking the action of the boxers when he suddenly slumped over, dead of a heart attack. He was only 60 years old.
- During the early 1940s, when his solo career was at its height and he was a contract player at Universal Pictures appearing with everyone from Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to W.C. Fields to John Wayne, he was promoted as "The Ugliest Man in the Movies".
- Once when he and his brother Moe Howard, as children, were left to watch younger brother Curly Howard (Jerome), they turned his baby carriage into a soapbox racer and were about to test it out when their parents came home.
- Of the six men who became members of The Three Stooges, he was the tallest at a towering 5' 7".
- Like brother Moe Howard, he played hooky from school often and his mother would have to come down and straighten things out. When he graduated grade school, it was said that he did not graduate, but his mother did.
- Member of what would become The Three Stooges until 1933, when he was replaced by his brother Curly Howard (Jerome) until 1946. Shemp rejoined the team following Curly's debilitating stroke.
- Director Sam Raimi, a huge fan of The Three Stooges, credits stand-ins and body doubles in his movies as "Fake Shemps", a reference to the body doubles that Columbia Pictures used after Shemp's death.
- When he was six years old, at a family picnic, he sneaked off with a plate of tomatoes and hit a man with them. The man dragged Shemp back, kicking and screaming, Shemp's mother beat the man with her umbrella.
- Has two granddaughters from son Mort: Jill Howard (b. 5/2/53) and Sandie Howard (b. 10/5/56).
- Was forced to leave his vaudeville act with Moe Howard when he was drafted during World War I; he was soon sent back home because he was very nervous about being a soldier, and the army did not want a bedwetter.
- Had a son named Mort Howard (2/26/27-1/13/72).
- During the 1940s he had his own series of comedy shorts that were made at Columbia by the same team that were making The Three Stooges shorts.
- As a young man, he attended a trade school to learn to be a plumber. His younger brother Moses (Moe) also attended the trade school and studied to be an electrician.
- His favorite Stooges comedy was Fright Night (1947), his first comedy with The Three Stooges, and which dealt with boxing.
- Performed together with brother Moe Howard in vaudeville, accomplishing a rare feat of working for two different vaudeville companies at the same time when actors from one company were not hired by another. They achieved this by performing a blackface act for one company, then doing a whiteface act for the second.
- Was an avid boxing fan.
- He was of Lithuanian ancestry.
- In the early '50's he, Larry and Moe put together a pilot consisting of a hodgepodge of routines from their previous two-reelers but sponsors and networks passed on it. Comments included, "It was fun to see them in a free-wheeling situation but it was ineptly directed"; "It was impossible to tell what was going on" and "a lot of the time the camera was on the wrong Stooge".
- Baseball player Hideki Matsui, nicknamed Godzilla, was also nicknamed Shemp due to his hairstyle being similar to that of Shemp Howard.
- His wife Gertrude (1897-1982) was a cousin of retired Congressman Barney Frank.
- He was Alex Trebek's favorite Stooge.
- Was the second member of the 3 Stooges to pass away the first one being Curly who passed away 3 years before Shemp.
- Interred at Home of Peace Memorial Park in Los Angeles, CA.
- Was the first actor to appear in a major motion picture as Sinbad, in Universal's Arabian Nights (1942).
- Was one of the Stooges that also worked with Abbott and Costello the other one being Joe Besser.
- He was of two of the Stooges that also worked with Abbott and Costello in a movie the other one was Joe Besser.
- He was very good friend's with Vernon Dent.
- Was the Godfather of Huntz Hall son Gary Richard Hall.
- His great grand-daughter, Chandler Isaac, is a social media vlogger and influencer.
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