Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise

When researching the supporting cast behind The Three Stooges films, fascinating biographies emerge about secondary actors who have their own interesting backgrounds. Take for instance Dorothy Comingore, who played April Jenkins in October 1939's "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise," the only short Moe never hit Larry-not even once. Dorothy's role was brief; she's one of three daughters of Widow Jenkins' (Eva McKenzie), who sold her property on the cheap to some shysters who knew there was oil beneath her land. The famished Stooges walking by Mrs. Jenkins' house were offered a full meal, and in return they offered their services. While trying to fix a water pump in back, they discover oil, a scene where Moe suffered an eye injury from the pump's oil spurge. "Gazing up the opening," Moe wrote in his autobiography, "I jiggled again and then looked up a third time. Suddenly, a blob of assorted gunk got me right in the eye, it took hours to clean me up for the next scene." Medics had to extract the mess out of his eye.

Dorothy Comingore would later co-star with Orson Welles in 1941's "Citizen Kane," as Susan Alexander, the mistress, then wife of Charles Foster Kane. Dorothy, who took the name Linda Winters earlier in her acting career, drew rave reviews for the part that many found was a parody to actress Marion Davies, the actual mistress to newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst. Wrote journalist Kathleen Sharp: "The star also had acquired a powerful enemy - the 78-year-old Hearst. The media mogul so hated Dorothy's portrayal of his mistress that he used his chain of newspapers and radio stations to smear the young woman." Such smears included her membership to the Communist Party, which limited her movie opportunities to only three appearances after "Citizen Kane." Comingore died in Stonington, Connecticut, in December 1971 at 58, debilitated from a broken back several years prior to her death.