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The Marx Brothers were a team of sibling
comedians that appeared in vaudeville, stage plays, film and television.
Born in New York City, the Marx Brothers
were the sons of Jewish immigrants from different parts of Germany (Plattdeutsch
was the boys' first language). Their mother, Minnie Schönberg, hailed
from Dornum in East Frisia, Germany, and their father Simon "Frenchie"
Marrix (whose name was anglicized to Sam Marx) from Alsace, now a part
of France. The family lived in the Upper East Side of New York City
between the Irish, German and Italian Quarters.
****
The Marx brothers
All the brothers and their real names were
as follows:
Manfred, born in 1885 and died in infancy
Chico — Leonard, (March 22, 1887–October
11, 1961)
Harpo — Adolph (after 1911: Arthur),
(November 23, 1888–September 28, 1964)
Groucho — Julius Henry, (October 2,
1890–August 19, 1977)
Gummo — Milton, (October 23, 1892–April 21,
1977)
Zeppo — Herbert, (February 25,
1901–November 30, 1979)
Stage beginnings
The brothers were born to a family of
artists, and their musical talent was encouraged from an early age.
Harpo was hopelessly untalented on the guitar and piano (he boasts in
his autobiography Harpo Speaks! that he only knew two songs, and that he
could only play them with one finger!); however,he became a dedicated
harpist, from which he derived his nickname, and which he often played
on film. Chico was an excellent and histrionic pianist, and Groucho
played the guitar and sang.
They got their start in vaudeville, where
their uncle Albert Schönberg was performing as Al Shean of Gallagher and
Shean. Groucho's debut was in 1905, predominately as a singer. By 1907
he and Gummo were singing together as two-thirds of The Three
Nightingales with Mabel O'Donnell. The next year, Harpo became the
fourth Nightingale. By 1910, the group was expanded to include their
mother and their Aunt Hannah, and the troupe was renamed The Six
Mascots.
From singing to comedy
One evening in 1912, a performance at the
Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas was interrupted by shouts from outside
about a runaway mule. The audience hurried outside to see what was
happening (thinking a runaway mule was better entertainment). When they
returned, Groucho, infuriated by the interruption, made snide comments
about the people, such as "Nacogdoches is full of roaches" and "The
jackass is the flower of Tex-ass". But instead of becoming angry, the
audience laughed. Afterward, the family began to consider the
possibility that they had potential as a comic troupe.
Slowly, the act evolved from singing with
some incidental comedy to a comedy with some music, like their sketch
set in a schoolroom ("Fun in Hi Skule"), featuring Groucho as a
German-accented teacher presiding over a classroom which included
students Harpo, Gummo and, by 1912, Chico. The last version of the
school act, entitled Home Again, was written by Al Shean. Around this
time, Gummo left the group to fight in World War I ("Anything is better
than being an actor!"); Zeppo would replace him for their final
vaudeville years, through their leap to Broadway, and the subsequent
Paramount pictures.
During World War I, anti-German sentiments
grew, and the family tried to hide their German origin. Harpo changed
his real first name from Adolph to Arthur, and Groucho discontinued his
"German" stage personality.
By this time the brothers, now "The Four
Marx Brothers", had begun to incorporate their unique brand of comedy
into their act and to develop their characters. It has been noted in a
few of both Groucho and Harpo's memoirs that their now famous on-stage
personas were originally created by Al Shean. Groucho began to wear his
trademark greasepaint moustache and to use a stooped walk, Harpo began
to wear a red fright wig, carried a taxi-cab horn and never spoke, Chico
started to talk in a fake Italian accent, developed off-stage to deal
with neighbourhood toughs, and Zeppo adopted the schleppy, juvenile role
of the straight man. The on-stage personalities of Groucho, Chico, and
Harpo were said to have been based on their actual traits (although, in
real life, Harpo could talk). Zeppo, on the other hand, was considered
the funniest offstage brother, despite his limited, straight stage
roles. Being the youngest and having grown up watching his brothers, he
was also the one who could fill in for, and nearly perfectly imitate,
the others when illness kept them from a performance. "He was so good as
Captain Spaulding [in Animal Crackers] that I would have let him play
the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience",
Groucho recalled.
In the 1920s the Marx Brothers became one
of America's favourite theatrical acts. With their sharp and bizarre
sense of humour, they satirized institutions like high society, and
human hypocrisy. In addition, they became famous for their
improvisational comedy in their free form scenarios. A famous early
example was when Harpo instructed a chorus girl to run across the stage
in front of Groucho during his act with him chasing to see if Groucho
would be thrown off. However to the audience's delight, Groucho merely
reacted with an improvised joke of calmly checking his watch and
commenting: "First time I ever saw a taxi hail a passenger", and, when
Harpo chased the girl back the other direction, "You can always set your
watch by the 9:20".
Under Chico's management and with Groucho's
creative direction, the brothers' vaudeville act had become successful
enough to make them stars on Broadway, first with a musical revue, I'll
Say She Is (1924–1925), followed by two musical comedies, The Cocoanuts
(1925–1926) and Animal Crackers (1928–1929). Playwright George S.
Kaufman worked on the latter two shows and helped to sharpen the
Brothers' characterizations.
Origin of the stage names
The stage names for four of the five
brothers were coined by monologist Art Fisher during a poker game on the
road, based both on the brothers' personalities and Gus Mager's Knocko
the Monk, a popular comic strip of the day which included a supporting
character named "Groucho". The reasons behind Chico's and Harpo's are
undisputed, and Gummo's is fairly well established, while Groucho's and
Zeppo's are far less clear. Arthur was named Harpo because he played the
harp, and Leonard named Chico (pronounced "Chick-o") after his affinity
for the ladies ("chicks").
In his autobiography Harpo Speaks!
(Limelight Editions, 1985, ISBN 0-87910-036-2), Harpo explains that
Milton became Gummo because he crept about the theater like a gumshoe
detective. Other sources report that Gummo was the family's
hypochondriac, having been the sickliest of the brothers in childhood,
and that he therefore wore rubber overshoes, also called galoshes or
gumshoes, in all kinds of weather. However, since gumshoe detectives
were named for the rubber overshoes, the two explanations apparently are
minor variations on a definitively established theme.
The reason Julius was named Groucho is
perhaps the most disputed. There are three major explanations:
Julius' temperament. Maxine, Chico's
daughter and Groucho's niece, said in the documentary The Unknown Marx
Brothers that Julius was named "Groucho" simply because he was grouchy
most or all of the time. Robert B. Weide, a director known for his
knowledge of Marx Brothers history, said in Remarks On Marx, a
documentary short included with the DVD of A Night at the Opera, that
among the competing explanations he found this one the most believable.
The grouch bag. This explanation appears in
Harpo's biography, was voiced by Chico in a TV appearance included on
The Unknown Marx Brothers, and also offered by George Fenneman,
Groucho's sidekick on his TV game show, You Bet Your Life. A grouch bag
was a small drawstring bag worn around the neck in which a traveler
could keep money and other valuables so that it would be very difficult
for anyone to steal them. Most of Groucho's friends and associates went
on record publicly with their observations that Groucho was extremely
stingy, especially after losing all his money in the 1929 stock market
crash, so naming him for the grouch bag may have been a comment on this
trait. Groucho, in chapter six of his first autobiography, Groucho and
Me, insisted that this was not the case:
I kept my money in a 'grouch bag.' This was
a small chamois bag that actors used to wear around their neck to keep
other hungry actors from pinching their dough. Naturally, you're going
to think that's where I got my name from. But that's not so. Grouch bags
were worn on manly chests long before there was a groucho. The fact that
Groucho claims he couldn't have been named for the grouch bag because
grouch bags already existed is unsatisfying, to say the least. Perhaps
it was a slip of the pen that was never caught.
Groucho's explanation. Understandably
dissatisfied with being described as perpetually grumpy or excessively
stingy, Groucho himself insisted that he was named for a character in
the comic strip, Knocko the Monk, which had inspired the craze for
nicknames ending in O. And, in fact, there was a character in that strip
named "Groucho." However, he is the only Marx or Marx associate who ever
defended this theory, and as he is not an unbiased witness, few
biographers take the claim seriously.
Herbert was not nicknamed by Art Fisher, as
he did not join the act until Gummo had departed. As with Groucho, three
explanations exist for Herbert's name, "Zeppo":
Harpo's explanation. Harpo said in Harpo
Speaks! that the brothers had named Herbert for Mr. Zippo, a chimpanzee
that was part of another vaudeville performer's act. Herbert disliked
the nickname, and when it came time for him to join the act, he put his
foot down and refused to be named "Zippo," so the brothers compromised
on Zeppo.
Chico's explanation. Chico never wrote an
autobiography, and gave fewer interviews than his brothers, but his
daughter, Maxine, in The Unknown Marx Brothers related the story that
when the Marx Brothers lived in Chicago, a popular style of humor was
the "Zeke and Zeb" joke, which made fun of slow-witted Midwesterners in
much the same way Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes mock cajuns, or Ole and
Lena jokes mock Minnesotans. One day, as Chico returned home, he found
the much younger Herbert sitting on the fence, and Herbert greeted him
by saying "Hi, Zeke!" Chico responded with "Hi, Zeb!" and the name
stuck. The brothers called Herbert "Zeb," and when he joined the act,
they floated the idea of "Zebbo," eventually preferring "Zeppo."
Groucho's explanation. In a tape-recorded
interview excerpted on The Unknown Marx Brothers, Groucho said Zeppo was
so named because he was born when the first zeppelins started crossing
the ocean. The first zeppelin flew in July of 1900, while Herbert was
born seven months later in February of 1901; the first transatlantic
zeppelin flight did not happen until 1924, when Herbert was a young man.
Maxine Marx reported in The Unknown Marx
Brothers that the brothers listed their real names (Julius, Leonard,
Adolph, Milton and Herbert) on playbills and in programs, and only used
the nicknames behind the scenes, until Alexander Woollcott overheard
them calling one another by the nicknames and asked them why they used
their own rather stiff and formal real names publicly when they had such
wonderful nicknames as an alternative. They replied, "That wouldn't be
dignified," which Woollcott answered with a belly laugh. Since Woollcott
did not meet the Marx Brothers until the premiere of I'll Say She Is,
which was their first Broadway show, this would mean that they used
their real names throughout their vaudeville days, and that the name
"Gummo" never appeared in print during his time in the act.
Hollywood
The Marx Brothers' stage shows became
popular just as Hollywood was making the change to "talkies". They
struck a contract with Paramount and embarked on their career in films.
Their first two released films (they had previously made – but not
released – one short silent film titled Humor Risk) were adaptations of
Broadway shows: The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930). Both
were written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. Following these
two feature-length films, they made a short film that was included in
Paramount's twentieth anniversary documentary, The House That Shadows
Built (1931), in which they adapted a scene from I'll Say She Is. Their
third feature-length film, Monkey Business (1931), was their first that
was not based on a stage production. Horse Feathers (1932), in which the
brothers satirized the American College system and Prohibition, was
their most popular film yet, and won them the cover of Time magazine. It
included a running gag from their films where Harpo revealed having
nearly everything in his coat. At various points in Horse Feathers Harpo
pulls out of his coat: a wooden mallet, a fish, a coiled rope, a tie, a
poster of a woman in her underwear, a cup of hot coffee, a sword; and,
just after Groucho warns him that he "can't burn the candle at both
ends," a candle burning at both ends. In another famous sketch, Harpo
drops a full banquet's worth of silverware out of his sleeve; then takes
scissors and cuts off a singer's dress, unhooking her bra and holding it
up to show that it has three cups.
Their last Paramount film, Duck Soup (1933)
– directed by the most highly regarded director they ever worked with,
Leo McCarey – is now considered by many their finest: it is the only
Marx Brothers film on the American Film Institute's "100 years ... 100
Movies" list. Common wisdom holds that the film failed, but this was
actually incorrect. It did not do as well as Horse Feathers, but was the
sixth-highest grosser of 1933. The Marx Brothers left Paramount because
of disagreements over creative decisions and financial issues.
Tired of the unrewarding status of playing
second (or fourth) banana to his elder brothers, Zeppo left the act to
become an agent. He remained his brothers' agent for the remainder of
their career as the Marx Bros. Groucho and Chico did radio, and there
was talk of returning to Broadway. At a bridge game with Chico, Irving
Thalberg began discussing the possibility of the Marxes coming to
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and they signed, now known as "The Three Marx
Brothers," or simply "The Marx Bros." Thalberg insisted on a strong
story structure, unlike the free-for-all scripts at Paramount. In the
rest of their films, their comedy would be interwoven with romantic
plots and non-comic musical numbers while the targets of their mischief
were largely confined to clear villains. While aficionados feel only
their Paramount films represent what is considered their genius in its
pure form, Groucho is on record disagreeing with this sentiment. In a
June 13, 1969, interview with Dick Cavett, Groucho said the two movies
made with Thalberg were the best they ever produced.
The first film that the brothers shot with
Thalberg was A Night at the Opera (1935), a satire on the world of opera
music, where the brothers help two young singers in love by throwing a
production of Il Trovatore into chaos. The film (which includes a scene
where they cram an amazing number of people into a tiny stateroom on a
ship) was a great success, and for decades (until critics and fans took
a second look at their Paramount films) was generally considered their
best work. The film was a huge success, followed two years later by the
even bigger hit A Day at the Races (1937), where the brothers caused
mayhem in a sanitarium and at a horse race (this sequence includes
Groucho and Chicos' famous "Tootsie Frootsie Ice Cream" sketch).
However, during shooting in 1936, Thalberg died suddenly, and without
him, the brothers didn't have an advocate at MGM.
After a short experience at RKO (Room
Service, 1938), the Marx Brothers made three more films before leaving
MGM, At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941).
Prior to the release of "The Big Store" the team announced their
retirement from the screen, but Chico was in dire financial straits and
to help settle his gambling debts, the Marx Brothers made another two
films together, A Night in Casablanca (1946) and Love Happy (1949), both
of them released by United Artists.
Groucho and Chico appeared together briefly
in a short 1957 film promoting the Saturday Evening Post entitled
"Showdown at Ulcer Gulch," directed by animator Shamus Culhane, Chico's
son-in-law. Then they worked together, but in different scenes, in The
Story of Mankind (1957). In 1959, all three acted in a TV pilot, Deputy
Seraph, to star Harpo and Chico as blundering angels; Groucho would
appear in every third episode as their boss, the "Deputy Seraph" (A
seraph is an angel). The pilot was never finished when it was discovered
that Chico was seriously ill with arteriosclerosis and was uninsurable.
He and Harpo did appear together in a half-hour film shot later that
year, The Incredible Jewel Robbery, a pantomime show with the pair as
would-be jewel thieves. Groucho made a brief appearance in the last
scene.
From the 1940s onward, Chico and Harpo made
nightclub and casino appearances, sometimes together. Groucho began a
career as a radio and television entertainer. From 1947 to the
early-1960s he was the host of the humorous quiz show You Bet Your Life
(along with a money-bearing artificial duck). He was also an author; his
writings include the autobiographical Groucho and Me (1959) and Memoirs
of a Mangy Lover (1964).
The 1957 television talk show Tonight!
America After Dark, hosted by Jack Lescoulie, may supply the only public
footage in which all five brothers appeared.
In 1970, the Four Marx Brothers had a brief
reunion of sorts in the animated ABC television special The Mad, Mad,
Mad Comedians, produced by Rankin-Bass animation (of Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer fame). The special featured animated reworkings of
various famous comedians' acts, including W.C. Fields, Jack Benny,
George Burns, Henny Youngman, The Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson,
Phyllis Diller, Jack E. Leonard, George Jessel, and the Marx Brothers.
Most of the comedians provided their own voices for their animated
counterparts, except for W.C. Fields, Chico Marx (who had died), and
Zeppo Marx (who left show business in 1933). Voice actor Paul Frees
filled in for all three. The Marx Brothers' segment was a reworking of a
scene from their Broadway play I'll Say She Is, a parody of Napoleon
which Groucho considered among the Brothers' funniest routines. The
sketch featured animated representations, if not the voices, of all four
brothers. Romeo Muller is credited as having written special material
for the show, but the script for the classic "Napoleon Scene" was
probably supplied by Groucho.
On January 16, 1977, The Marx Brothers were
inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame.
Many TV shows and movies have used Marx
Brothers references, such as multiple episodes of Disney's The Suite
Life of Zack and Cody have similar jokes, too close to be coincidence.
Animaniacs and Tiny Toons have also featured Marx Brothers jokes and
skits. Although longer and less focused than modern comedies, the best
Marx Brothers' films have aged extremely well. Many film-goers consider
films such as Duck Soup, Animal Crackers and Horse Feathers to be among
the funniest movies ever made.
Filmography
Films with the Four Marx Brothers:
Humor Risk (1926), previewed once and never
released; thought to be lost
The Cocoanuts (1929), released by Paramount
Animal Crackers (1930), released by
Paramount
The House That Shadows Built (1931),
released by Paramount (short subject)
Monkey Business (1931), released by
Paramount
Horse Feathers (1932), released by
Paramount
Duck Soup (1933), released by Paramount
Films with the three Marx Brothers
(post-Zeppo):
A Night at the Opera (1935), released by
MGM
A Day at the Races (1937), released by MGM
Room Service (1938), released by RKO
At the Circus (1939), released by MGM
Go West (1940), released by MGM
The Big Store (1941), released by MGM
A Night in Casablanca (1946), released by
United Artists
Love Happy (1949), released by United
Artists
The Story of Mankind (1957), released by
Warner Bros.
Solo endeavors:
Groucho:
Copacabana (1947), released by United
Artists
Double Dynamite (1951), released by RKO
A Girl in Every Port (1952), released by
RKO
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957),
released by 20th Century Fox (uncredited)
The Mikado (1960), made for television
Skidoo (1968), released by Paramount.
Harpo:
Too Many Kisses (1925), released by
Paramount
Stage Door Canteen (1943), released by
United Artists (cameo)
Chico:
Papa Romani (1950), television pilot
Zeppo:
A Kiss in the Dark (1925), released by
Paramount (cameo)
Characters
Film Year Groucho Chico Harpo Zeppo
Humor Risk 1926 The Villain The Italian
Watson, Detective The Love Interest
The Cocoanuts 1929 Mr. Hammer Chico Harpo
Jamison
Animal Crackers 1930 Captain Geoffrey T.
Spaulding Ravelli The Professor Horatio Jamison
The House That Shadows Built 1931
Caesar's Ghost Tomalio The Merchant of Weiners Sammy Brown
Monkey Business 1931 Groucho Chico Harpo
Zeppo
Horse Feathers 1932 Professor Quincy
Adams Wagstaff Baravelli Pinky Frank Wagstaff
Duck Soup 1933 Rufus T. Firefly Chicolini
Pinky Lt. Bob Roland
A Night at the Opera 1935 Otis B.
Driftwood Fiorello Tomasso
A Day at the Races 1937 Dr. Hugo Z.
Hackenbush* Tony Stuffy
Room Service 1938 Gordon Miller Harry
Binelli Faker Englund
At the Circus 1939 J. Cheever Loophole
Antonio Pirelli Punchy
Go West 1940 S. Quentin Quale Joe Panello
Rusty Panello
The Big Store 1941 Wolf J. Flywheel
Ravelli Wacky
A Night in Casablanca 1946 Ronald
Kornblow Corbaccio Rusty
Love Happy 1949 Sam Grunion Faustino the
Great Harpo
The Story of Mankind 1957 Peter Minuit
Monk Sir Isaac Newton
(To avoid a possible lawsuit, this name was
chosen instead of the intended "Quackenbush" after it was discovered
that there was a real doctor by this name.)
See also
Margaret Dumont
Thelma Todd
Trivia
Harpo was the first brother to appear on
screen in a widely released film, having been cast in Too Many Kisses as
"The Village Peter Pan." It was in this role that Harpo spoke the only
line he would ever speak in front of a movie or TV camera: "You sure you
can't move?" But as it was a silent movie, audiences still didn't hear
his voice.
The Marman clamp was invented by Herbert
Marx, better known by his stage name of Zeppo Marx as one of the Marx
Brothers. It was manufactured by his company Marman Products. At the
time it was designed to secure cargo during transport. The U.S. Military
used it to transport the atomic bombs used at the end of the Second
World War. Marman clamps are found in almost every modern moving
vehicle.[1]
Influences
Cult TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000
made numerous references to the Marx Brothers throughout the show's run:
During the host segment of episode 701
(Night of the Blood Beast), where Mike is laboriously trying to write a
song as Gypsy is singing at the same time; the song eventually breaks
down into chaos and a (somewhat altered) version of the "Pop Goes the
Weasel" song from the movie Duck Soup.
Several MST3K episodes contain references
to lines and routines performed in Marx Brothers films; these are
usually spoken during the movie segments, when the characters are
"riffing" on the film being played for them. Recurring Marx Brothers
"riffs" include:
Animal Crackers (usually a take on the "I
can't think of the finish!" "That's funny — I can't think of anything
else" routine)
Duck Soup (Crow imitating Margaret Dumont
saying "Professor Firefly"; another favorite usually occurs when a
monster or villain grabs a woman during a movie, which usually prompts
one of the MST3K trio to state a variation on Firefly's "what I'm trying
to say is I love you" line)
Horse Feathers ("Anything further,
father?")
A Day at the Races (variations on the "If I
hold you any closer I'll be in back of you" line; variations on the
"Either he's dead or my watch has stopped" line)
A Night at the Opera (an apparent favorite
is the routine referencing the cramped cabin sequence, when Driftwood
orders lunch: Crow T. Robot adds "And two hardboiled eggs" to someone's
line in the movie; Tom Servo then goes "honk", which prompts Crow to
amend "Make that three hardboiled eggs.")
****
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