All three brothers were born in Newark, New Jersey. The family name was Joachim (pronounced "jo-ACK-him", as Harry himself explained on a Joe Franklin TV interview), but the eldest brother Al, a vaudeville dancer, adopted a new professional name after he saw the name "Ritz" on the side of a laundry truck. Jimmy and Harry followed suit when the brothers formed a team. The Ritzes emphasized precision dancing in their act, and added comedy material as they went along. By the early 1930s they were stage headliners.