Groucho Marx
"Groucho" redirects here. For other uses, see Groucho (disambiguation).Julius Henry Marx, known as
Groucho Marx (
October 2,
1890 –
August 19,
1977), was an
American comedian, working both with his siblings, the
Marx Brothers, and on his own.
The Marx family grew up on the
Upper East Side of
New York City, in a small
Jewish neighborhood sandwiched between Irish-German and Italian neighborhoods.
Groucho had a showbusiness uncle:
Al Shean of
Gallagher and Shean, a noted
vaudeville act of the early 20th century. According to Groucho, when Shean visited he would throw the local waifs a few coins so that when he knocked at the door he would be surrounded by children like adoring fans. Groucho respected his opinions and even had him write some gags for the Brothers.
For a time in vaudeville, all the brothers performed in ethnic accents; Leonard Marx, the oldest Marx brother, developed the "Italian" accent he used as "
Chico" to convince some roving bullies that he was Italian, not Jewish. Groucho also did a
German accent. However, after the sinking of the
RMS Lusitania in
1915, public
anti-German sentiment was widespread, and Groucho's "German" character was booed, so he quickly dropped the accent and developed the fast-talking wise guy character he would make famous.
 |
An early photo of the brothers with their parents. Groucho is the first on the left. |
Groucho developed a routine as a wise-cracking hustler with a distinctive chicken-walking lope and an exaggerated greasepaint
mustache and eyebrows, improvising insults to stuffy
dowagers (often played by
Margaret Dumont) and anyone else who stood in his way. He and his brothers starred in a series of extraordinarily popular movies and stage shows, often
ad libbing. (See:
Marx Brothers)
The use of greasepaint originated spontaneously before a vaudeville performance when he did not have time to apply the pasted-on mustache he had been using. The absurdity of the greasepaint mustache was never discussed on-screen, but in a famous scene in
Duck Soup, where both Chico and Harpo are disguising themselves as Groucho, they are briefly seen applying the greasepaint, implicitly answering any question a viewer might have had about where Groucho got his mustache and eyebrows.
In the
1930s and
1940s Groucho also worked as a
radio comedian and show host. One of his earliest stints was a short lived series in 1932 entitled
Flywheel, Shyster, & Flywheel, co-starring Chico, who was the only one of his brothers willing to appear on the show. Most of the scripts and discs were subsequently destroyed (except the last shows) only turning up in 1988 in the
Library of Congress. In
1947, Groucho was chosen to host a
radio quiz program entitled
You Bet Your Life, which moved over to
television in
1950. The show consisted of Groucho interviewing the contestants and "ad libbing" jokes. Then they would play a brief quiz. The show was responsible for the phrases "Say the secret woid [word] and divide $100" (that is, each contestant would get $50); and "Who's buried in
Grant's Tomb?" or "What color is the
White House?" (asked when Groucho felt sorry for a contestant who had not won anything). It would run 11 years on
television.
One quip from Groucho concerned his response to Sam Wood, the director of the classic film "A Night at the Opera." Wood was furious with the Marx brothers ad-libs and antics on the set and yelled to all in disgust that he "cannot make actors out of clay." Without missing a beat, Groucho responded, "Nor can you make a director out of Wood." A widely reported, but likely apocryphal, ad-lib is reportedly a response to a female contestant who had almost a dozen children. Groucho asked why the contestant had so many children, to which the contestant replied "I love my husband." Groucho responded, "Lady, I love my cigar, too, but I take it out once in a while."[
1]
Throughout his career he introduced a number of memorable songs in films, including "
Hooray for Captain Spaulding", "
Whatever It Is, I'm Against It", "
Hello, I Must Be Going", "
Everyone Says I Love You" and "
Lydia the Tattooed Lady".
Frank Sinatra, who once quipped that the only thing he could do better than Marx was sing, made a film with Marx and
Jane Russell in 1951 entitled
Double Dynamite.
Groucho was married three times, and all of his marriages ended in divorce. His first wife was chorus girl Ruth Johnson, by whom he had two children, Arthur and Miriam. He had a daughter, Melinda, by his second wife, Kay Gorcey, former wife of
Leo Gorcey. His third wife was actress Eden Hartford (married 17 July 1954, divorced 4 December 1969)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366692/bio.
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Groucho Marx appears on America Salutes Richard Rodgers |
Off-stage he was bookish and stated late in life that he lamented the fact he had never finished school or gone to college. Despite his lack of formal education he wrote several books, including the autobiographical
Groucho and Me (1959) (Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806665) and
Memoirs of a Mangy Lover (1964) (Da Capo Press, 2002, ISBN 0306811049).
In later years he grew a real moustache, the lack of which had earlier been an effective means of hiding himself from fans.
His stage name was said to have been bestowed on him by another performer during a back-stage card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois, because while in
vaudeville he kept his money in a bag around his neck known as a "grouch" bag. An alternate story is that he was grouchy. The comedian himself wrote that he did not know the nickname's origin, but in his autobiography he wrote that it was not from the money-holding grouch-bags. In any case, he was a master at improvising clever insults and became well known for this. One of his frustrations in later years was that when he insulted people who annoyed him they tended to laugh, thinking it was just part of the famous comedian's act.
In the early
1970s, Groucho made a comeback of sorts doing a live one-man show, including one recorded at
Carnegie Hall and released as a double album,
An Evening with Groucho, on
A&M Records. He also sprung up a friendship with television host
Dick Cavett, and became a frequent guest on Cavett's late-night talk show. His previous works once again became popular and were accompanied by new books of interviews and other transcribed conversations by Richard J. Anobile and
Charlotte Chandler. He had become quite frail by this time and his last few years were accompanied by descent into
senility and a controversy over a companionship he had developed with
Erin Fleming, which consequently raised disputes over his estate.
Groucho Marx died of
pneumonia on
August 19,
1977. He was cremated, and the ashes were interred in the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in
Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California. (He had jokingly expressed desire to be buried above
Marilyn Monroe.) Aged 86 at death, Groucho was the longest-lived of all the Marx brothers, though younger brother
Zeppo survived him by two years. His death undoubtedly would have received more attention at the time had it not occurred three days after that of
Elvis Presley. In an interview, he jokingly suggested his epitaph read "Excuse me, I can't stand up.", but his mausoleum marker bears only his stage name and years of birth and death.
Various Groucho-like characters and Groucho references have appeared in popular culture, some long after Marx's death, a testament to the character's lasting appeal.
*
Bugs Bunny dresses as Groucho for the cartoon
Slick Hare (
1947), where he's trying to hide in plain sight in the
Mocrumbo restaurant. (Meanwhile, Elmer Fudd dresses as
Harpo Marx.)
*Bugs again befuddles
Elmer Fudd memorably in "Wideo Wabbit" (
1956) by imitating the mustachioed comedian in a "You Bet Your Life" parody called "You Beat Your Wife". Later he imitates
Art Carney and slaps comical glasses on Elmer, admonishing "don't be such a Groucho".
*In
The Way We Were (1973),
Barbra Streisand and
Robert Redford attend a party where everyone dresses as one of the Marx Brothers.
*
Alan Alda often vamped as Groucho on
M*A*S*H and a minor semi-recurring character in the series (played by
Loudon Wainwright III) was named Captain Calvin Spalding in a nod towards Groucho's character in
Animal Crackers, Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding.
*On
Pokémon,
Dr. Quackenpoker (a parody of Dr. Hackenbush from
A Day at the Races) meets up with Ash & Company. He sounds and acts like Groucho (sans the cigar). A joke includes, "One day, I found a Magikarp in my pajamas. How it got into my pajamas, I'll never know."
*In
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (
1968), Grandpa Potts (
Lionel Jeffries) tells a variation of the "elephant in my pajamas" joke.
*
Sir Isaiah Berlin also had a quatrain stating, "The world wouldn't be /In such a snarl /If Marx had been Groucho /Instead of Karl".
*In the
Fred Astaire/
Ginger Rogers musical
Swing Time (1936), Astaire sings "Never Gonna Dance" by
Jerome Kern and
Dorothy Fields, which includes the lines: "To Groucho Marx I give my cravat/To Harpo goes my shiny silk hat."
*
Gabe Kaplan portrayed Marx in the biographical
Groucho (1982) which was originally produced on Broadway. Kaplan also impersonated Groucho, his hero, in his television series
Welcome Back Kotter, and in
WhatzUp Magazine recalled that he had even approached Groucho to make a cameo on the show but Groucho's care-giver, Erin Fleming, would not allow it. (According to
Mark Evanier,
Marx did visit the set with Fleming, but was not well enough to perform.)
*
Dave Sim, in his controversial
comic book Cerebus the Aardvark, cast Groucho as the slippery, wisecracking but indomitable Lord Julius, Grandlord of the bureaucrat-ridden
City-state of Palnu.
*In the
Tiny Toon Adventures episode "A Night in Kokomo", Groucho and his brothers have been re-assembled. This is noteworthy because most of the target audience of this show most likely never watched their movies.
*In Tiziano Sclavi's comic book series
Dylan Dog, the hero's sidekick and assistant is called and looks like Groucho Marx. His moustache was removed in the US version of the series.
*
Rob Zombie uses four Groucho Marx character names (Captain Spaulding from
Animal Crackers, Otis Driftwood from
A Night at the Opera, Rufus Firefly from
Duck Soup, and S. Quentin Quale from
Go West) for his movies,
House of 1000 Corpses &
The Devil's Rejects.
*At the end of the basketball episode of
Clone High where Joan reveals that she dressed up as a man to play on the team, Principal Scudworth calls out for everyone else wearing a fake moustache to please leave. A man with a fake moustache walks by, followed by a goose wearing a similar moustache, followed by Groucho Marx (or the clone thereof).
*In an episode of the
Spanish sitcom
Aquà no hay quien viva, Paco (Guillermo Ortega) does an impression of Marx in costume, sporting the fake moustache and eyebrows, glasses and a cigar, imitating Marx's high-pitched fast-talking voice while speaking in
Spanish.
*Two of
Queen's albums,
A Night at the Opera (
1975) and
A Day at the Races (
1976) are named after two of the Marx Brothers' films.
Queen were Marx Brothers fans and decided to use these titles for their fourth and fifth albums after watching the films. (From "The Making Of A Night At The Opera")
*In character as
Mike Stivic,
Rob Reiner imitated Groucho Marx on a few occasions on the 1970s sitcom
All in the Family, including a few scenes in a 1974 episode in which Mike Stivic and his wife
Gloria (
Sally Struthers) get ready to go to a Marx Brothers film festival; Mike, dressed as Groucho, does a number of imitations. Gloria is dressed as Harpo Marx.
*
Robin Williams's Genie in
Aladdin briefly impersonates Groucho while enumerating the conditions of wishes at the beginning. He appears for a few seconds in black and white and is even followed by a duck dropping from the ceiling (a reference to
You Bet Your Life). Doubtless, this in-joke was intended for the adult audience of the film. Also, in the second sequel of the film,
Aladdin and the King of Thieves, the genie briefly morphes into three of the Marx brothers at once when trying to cheer up
Princess Jasmine.
*The Vlasic Pickles stork mascot is clearly a homage to Groucho, holding the pickle like a cigar and having a very similar voice.
|
The Vlasics Pickles Stork |
*In the animated series
Animaniacs, the character Yakko acts similarly to Groucho quite often.
*MTV's
Celebrity Deathmatch included an episode in which a deathmatch pitted Groucho against
John Wayne, in which Harpo and Chico also make appearances during the fight. Roger Jackson provided the voice of Groucho, and Jimmy St. Cleve voiced Chico.
*In a tribute to Groucho, the BBC remade the radio sitcom
Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, with contemporary actors playing the parts of the original cast. The series is currently being repeated on digital radio station
BBC7.
*In the
Cartoon Network series
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, a character named Rubber Chicken wears Groucho glasses and talks like him and makes jokes like him. Also, in the episode "Imposter's Home for Make-em-ups", when Frankie dresses in a costume and calls herself "Goof-Goof", she talks to herself about her plan in a Groucho voice and does his eyebrow raising face.
*In a
Sesame Street movie promo for Lowe's Theaters,
Elmo is seen dressed as Groucho, with Telly as Harpo and Herry Monster as Chico.
*In the
SpongeBob SquarePants episode
Scaredy Pants, Patrick Star disguises himself as Groucho when he goes trick-or-treating with SpongeBob.
*Groucho is mentioned in the song
Fly on a Windshield by
progressive rock band
Genesis featured in their album
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
*In Woody Allen's film
Everyone Says I Love You there's a Groucho based musical number in French.
* In the final
Tintin album
Tintin and the Picaros a giant mask representing Groucho is seen in the crowd celebrating
carnival.
*A puppet representing his image features on the cover art of
Have You Fed the Fish? by singer song writer
Badly Drawn Boy.
In a
2005 poll,
The Comedian's Comedian, Groucho was voted the 5th greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. His glasses, nose, and moustache have become icons of comedy â€" to this day, glasses with fake noses and moustaches (referred to as both "nose-glasses" and "Groucho-glasses") resembling Groucho are still sold by novelty and costume shops, and worn by young people, some of whom may not understand their origin.
"Marx and Lennon"
|
Marx/Lennon postage stamp sheetlet issued by the Republic of Abkhazia, 1994 |
The liberal political views of Groucho Marx and singer
John Lennon were not lost on satirists, who capitalized on the coincidence of their surnames' similarity to
Karl Marx and
Vladimir Lenin:
*A book called 'Marx & Lennon: The Parallel Sayings' was published in 2005. As the title implies, it recorded the parallel sayings between Groucho Marx and John Lennon.
*In 1994 the
Republic of Abkhazia (an
unrecognized state that is officially part of the
Republic of Georgia) issued two
postage stamps featuring John Lennon and Groucho Marx, spoofing Abkhazia's
communist past.
*The cover art for
Firesign Theater's 1969 album
How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All featured a Communist icon banner with pictures of the two enjoining "All Hail Marx Lennon" printed in pseudo-Russian lettering.
*In his book
It All Started With Columbus, first printed in the mid-1950s, humorist
Richard Armour discussed Karl Marx and referred to him as "the funniest of the Marx Brothers".
*In the comedy role-playing game Paranoia, the Communist faction carries pictures of Grocho Marx and sing John Lennon songs due to a lake of knowledge of communism itself
Quotations about Groucho Marx
* "Groucho Marx was the best comedian this country ever produced. [...] He is simply unique in the same way that
Picasso or
Stravinsky are." —
Woody Allen* A famous French witticism (often attributed to
Jean-Luc Godard) was,
"Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho," i.e. "I'm a
Marxist of the Groucho variety". This line was notably heard in the 1972 comedy by Claude Lelouch "
L'aventure c'est l'aventure", (starring Lino Ventura, Aldo Maccione, Jacques Brel, Johnny Hallyday and Charles Denner) where the would-be heroes get involved with a central-American guerilla; it spread to other nations as well in the 1960s and 1970s.
*
Groucho Marx at Marx-Brothers.org*
Marx-o-rama*
Groucho Marx biography at Clown-Ministry.com*
Alistair Cooke's reflections on his friendship with Groucho
