Fake shemp
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fake Shemp is the term someone is credited with who appears in a film under heavy make-up, filmed from the back, or perhaps only showing an arm or a foot. Although use of the term is limited, it is frequently used in connection to Sam Raimi movies.
[edit] Origin
The term references the comedy trio The Three Stooges. In 1955, Stooge Shemp Howard died of a heart attack. At the time, the Stooges still had four shorts left to deliver by the terms of their annual contract with Columbia Pictures. By this point in the trio's career, budget cuts at Columbia had forced them to make heavy use of stock footage from previously completed shorts anyway, so they were able to complete the films without Shemp. New footage was filmed of the other two Stooges (Moe Howard and Larry Fine) and edited together with stock footage. When continuity required that Shemp appear in these new scenes, they used Shemp's stand-in Joe Palma to double for him, appearing only from behind or with an object obscuring his face. Hence, Palma became the original "Fake Shemp," although the term was not officially in use at the time.
[edit] First Usage
It was aspiring film maker Sam Raimi, a professed Stooges fan, and his rag-tag film team who first coined the term in the movie The Evil Dead. His first project was riddled with potholes and first-feature obstacles that only a dedicated director of Raimi’s stature could handle. And handle he did -- with Fake Shemps. When most of his crew and cast abandoned the unfinished project he was forced to use himself, his die-hard (deadites, to Raimi fans) friends Bruce Campbell, Rob Tappert, Josh Becker and assistant David Goodman, as well as his brother Ted Raimi as ‘shemps’.
The term stuck. To this day in all of Sam Raimi productions, both feature film as well as TV work, the term is used to refer to stand-ins or nameless characters. However, the term is not always used in the final credits. For example, in ‘Darkman’ Bruce Campbell’s quick cameo in the final scene is credited as ‘Final Shemp’.
[edit] Classic Shemps
There have been many Fake Shemps over the years, but the most notable ones are Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi, who have ‘shemped’ frequently throughout their careers. Both have had ‘shemp’ cameos in nearly all of Raimi’s movies, most notably in the Spider-Man franchise. Campbell is also known to shemp in many Coen Brothers movies, who were involved in the editing process of The Evil Dead.
