I was starting to amass quite a bit of material for my Sons of the Desert Tent’s quarterly newsletter Dante’s Info in the early part of 1995. Doing research and collecting was certainly a high priority in my life at this juncture. Bill Cappello, who I had become friends with after we met at the 1994 New York convention was assisting in any way he could. He had done a remarkable job at locating ‘missing’ celebrities. One such find was Bill Wolfstone, who had portrayed “Little Curly” in the the Three Stooges film Three Little Pigskins in 1934 (see photo at left).
Of course, I was not particularly interested in the Three Stooges, but Bill thought I might be interested in this particular actor because he had also worked in the Our Gang comedies. Although he only appeared in two of their films, The First Round Up and Washee Ironee (both from 1934), he did in fact have a speaking role in the latter film – one word: “Swell!” He also played the notable role of ‘Piggy’ 
in a pair of Penrod and Sam films (below right), as well as one of the child dancers in the Academy Award winner You Can’t Take It with You.
I introduced myself to Mr. Wolfstone via a telephone call. He was extremely cordial and willing to chat and be interviewed. He also agreed to print up some photos that he had, sign them, and send them to me at cost. So I obtained three of these photos, plus a set for my friend Bob. A friend and fellow tent Grand Sheik named Jack Taylor from Seattle caught wind that I had interviewed Bill Wolfstone, and was anxious to get his contact info from me. Turns out that Bill lived extremely close to Jack, so Jack snapped up the chance to get him to a meeting. And thus Bill was introduced to the Sons of the Desert.
A scene from “The First Round Up.” Bill is in the center with the derby.
As I said, I was stockpiling articles at the time, so my article did not see print until Dante’s Info #14 in the Fall of ’95, by which time Jack had already published quite a bit of info about him in his Seattle Beau Hunks Banner newsletter – with my permission, of course. Interestingly, the national fanzine The Three Stooges Journal also asked to reprint my article, and it appeared in the Spring 1997 #81 edition as Whatever Happened to Bill “Little Curly” Wolfstone?
Bill was not in the best of health when I began communicating with him. As you can see in the photos above, his signature was labored as he suffered from acute arthritis. He didn’t attend too many meeting of the Seattle Beau Hunks, but the great photo below of Bill with his wife Clarice was snapped at the tent’s 6th anniversary meeting on May 18, 1995. He passed away on November 12, 1997.
1995 will continue with the next “Dante’s Info”…
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