Groucho Marx
Eden Memorial Park
With his trademark swallowtail coat, greasepaint moustache and ever-present
cigar, the career of comedian Groucho Marx spanned more than 70 years, and included
success in vaudeville, films, radio and television. He also wrote six popular
books, including "Groucho and Me," "The Groucho Letters," "Beds" and "Memoirs of
a Mangy Lover."
Groucho -- born Julius Henry Marx -- was the master of the ad-libbed
insult and the hilarious non sequitur, usually delivered with rolling eyes
and arched eyebrows. With his brothers Harpo (Adolph), Chico (Leonard) and
sometimes Zeppo (Herbert), the Marx Brothers created a comedy world of slapstick
farce, rapid-fire repartee and free-spirited anarchy, usually aimed at deflating
the pompous and the upper class. A fifth brother, Gummo (Milton), performed
with his brothers during their early vaudeville days, but left the act to become
a theatrical agent. (A sixth brother, Manfred Marx, died in infancy.)
The Marx brothers got their names from Art Fisher, a comedian
who specialized in making up nicknames -- Adolph played the harp and became Harpo,
Leonard had a reputation as a woman-chaser and became Chico, Milton wore gum-soled
Groucho's father, Sam, was a struggling, immigrant tailor in
New York City and their mother, the former Minnie Schoenberg, was the stage-struck
sister of Al Shean, of the popular comedy team of Gallagher and Shean. Minnie
Marx pushed all of her five sons into show business, even joining them for a
while in an act called "The Six Musical Mascots," which consisted of Groucho,
Harpo, Gummo, a young singer named Janie O'Reilly, Minnie and her sister, Hannah.
When Minnie and Hannah left the act, it became "The Four Nightingales," then
"The Marx Brothers and Company." While touring through small towns in the South
and Midwest, the Marxes began to add more comedy to the act, including a wide
assortment of jokes, puns and ad-libbed comments, usually made up for their own
entertainment in the small-town theaters, and often at the expense of their audience.
Groucho was also gradually creating his familiar look. The
swallowtail coat was added when he played a teacher in a classroom sketch. The
cigar was a useful comedy prop to make him look older, and also helpful to puff
on while trying to remember a line. Even Groucho's distinctive walk came from
a sketch that required him to portray an older man. Groucho hunched his shoulders
and leaned forward, but when he walked quickly across the stage, the audience
laughed, so he continued to do it. His painted-on mustache was born when he
arrived late at the theater, and didn't have time to apply his fake mustache,
so he just smeared greasepaint under his nose.
The Marx Brothers' first appearance on film was in a silent
comedy short titled "Humor Risk" (1921). The film was previewed once, shown
again five years later, but never widely released, and is believed to have been lost.
Eventually, the Marx Brothers returned to the stage in New York
City and, by 1924, they were a hit on Broadway with their musical comedy show,
"I'll Say She Is," They followed that with two more Broadway hits -- "The Cocoanuts"
and "Animal Crackers." When talking pictures were introduced in the late 1920s,
studios came to Broadway looking for comedians, and the Marxes were signed
by Paramount Pictures to appear in the filmed version of "The Cocoanuts"
(1929), which they worked on during the day, while appearing on stage in
"Animal Crackers" every evening.
"Animal Crackers" was filmed in 1930, with Groucho in one his
most popular roles as celebrated big-game hunter Capt. Jeffrey T. Spaulding.
Groucho arrives as the guest of honor at a high-society soiree, and greets
the guests with the song, "Hello, I Must Be Going." He then delivers a lengthy
discussion of his adventures in Africa, in typical Groucho fashion -- "One morning
I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know. ...
While shooting elephants in Africa, I found the tusks were very difficult to remove.
But in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa."
Although the Marx Brothers films were officially written by
some of the top comedy writers of the time, including George S. Kaufman,
Morrie Ryskind, S. J. Perelman, Nat Perrin, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby,
the versions that finally appeared on the screen were often more ad-lib
and re-writes by the brothers than the original script. Kaufman once jumped
to his feet during a rehearsal, apparently shocked at something he had heard.
When asked if there was a problem, Kaufman said, "I think I just heard one
of the original lines."
"Animal Crackers" was followed by "Monkey Business" (1931),
"Horse Feathers" (1932) and two films that most Marx Brothers fans agree
are the brothers' best work -- "Duck Soup" (1933) and "A Night at the Opera"
(1935), which was their first film at MGM studios. Irving Thalberg, the vice
president and head of production at MGM, was given the responsibility of
controlling the Marxes, but he quickly discovered that they couldn't be
controlled. According to a popular story, the Marxes were called to Thalberg's
office for a meeting, but were kept waiting for more than two hours. When
Thalberg finally arrived, he discovered the brothers sitting in front of
his fireplace, nude, roasting potatoes over the open fire.
"A Night at the Opera" was also the brothers' first film
without Zeppo, although there were four members of the family in the film.
Sam Marx, their father, appeared in two scenes as an extra. The three
remaining Marx Brothers -- Groucho, Harpo and Chico -- made five more films
at MGM -- "A Day at the Races" (1937), "Room Service" (1938), "At the Circus"
(1939), "Go West" (1940) and "The Big Store" (1941). After taking several
years off, they returned to the screen in "A Night in Casablanca" (1946)
and "Love Happy" (1950) -- which is perhaps less significant as the Marx
Brothers' final film together than it is as one of the first film appearances
of a young actress named Marilyn Monroe.
With his film career essentially over, the 60-year-old
Groucho moved to a new medium - television - as the host of "You Bet Your Life,"
a comedy and quiz show that premiered in 1950 and ran for more than 10 years.
Groucho started hosting "You Bet Your Life" on radio in 1947, and the show
was popular more for Groucho's interviews with the contestants than for
the actual question and answer portion of the show. Though Groucho never
received any major awards during his film career, he won an Emmy in 1951
as "Most Outstanding Personality" for his work on "You Bet Your Life."
The show was also nominated for five Emmy awards, first as Best Comedy Show,
and later as Best Quiz Show. In 1948, "You Bet Your Life" won a Peabody Award,
which honors distinguished achievement and meritorious service in radio and
television.
In the 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of fans discovered
the Marx Brothers. In May 1972, Groucho appeared in "An Evening With Groucho,"
a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In 1974, Groucho
was given an honorary Academy Award, "in recognition of his brilliant
creativity and for the unequaled achievements of the Marx Brothers in the
art of motion picture comedy."
After Marx died in 1977, his remains were placed at Eden Memorial
Park. Five years later, in May 1982, his ashes were stolen, and were found later
that day at the gates of Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles, about 12
miles away. The kidnapper -- or, in this case, ash-napper -- has never been
caught, and so the questions remain. Why were Marx's ashes stolen? An
obsessed fan looking for the ultimate souvenir? A ghoulish opportunist
planning to make a ransom demand, then changing his mind? Or simply someone
who thought the comedian should be buried at a more high-profile location
closer to Hollywood?
Whatever the reason, the management at Eden Memorial Park
responded to the incident by moving Marx's remains to a more remote
location in a room inside the mausoleum, and installing security monitoring
devices throughout the cemetery. And they also are reluctant to give out
the location of any of their more-famous residents.
Recently, the American Film Institute selected a ranked
list of "America's 100 funniest movies" of the past century. Even though
the Marx Brothers made only 13 films together, they placed five in the top
100, including "Duck Soup" (ranked 5th on the list), "A Night at the Opera"
(12th), "A Day at the Races" (59th), "Horse Feathers" (65th) and
"Monkey Business" (73rd). "Duck Soup" also appeared in the 85th spot
on AFI's list of the top 100 films of all time.
Groucho was married three times, and had three children.
His son, Arthur Marx, is a successful scriptwriter and author of several
Hollywood biographies.
Marx was born Julius Henry Marx in New York City, NY,
on Oct. 2, 1890. He died on Aug. 19, 1977, in Los Angeles, CA.
BIO
1890 - 1977
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