"I disappoint them with the plain truth that he was exactly what you would hope he was. A simple, uncomplicated, beautiful, funny soul, who loved and cherished his friends and family."
“Prettiness had never attracted Harpo,” she writes, “but whatever I said made him laugh [the night they met]. It should have been etched in stone, but neither of us could ever recall exactly what I said to him. It must have been good. We became inseparable.”
Chico, she writes, “womanized and gambled his way through life without even a thought about [his wife] and their daughter, Maxine” [whose high school classmate he "hit on"]. ...
Zeppo was very funny in his own right, she writes: “He had style, taste, and good looks, but there simply hadn’t been room for a fourth comic Marx Brother, and Zep had to settle for the humiliation of straight roles.... a psychological problem he struggled with to the end.”
Groucho, she writes... could be casually cruel to his wives.
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Made women feel bad. There's no worse thing you can do.
Essentially, their "characters" were portrayals of who they each actually were, (Zeppo excepted).
I like the Marx Brothers in very small doses.
For Harpo, very small doses. He is perhaps the creepiest man in movies. IMHO.
My favorite has always been Chico.
And what about Gummo? There is never any love for him.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
And yet, of all of them, Groucho is immortal...
Zeppo was very funny and he was also the best looking. He was wronged.
The characteristics displayed in the movies were apparently pretty close to who they were. Interesting, and not surprising. I can see Harpo as an uncomplicated good man, Chico as a swindler/conniver, Zeppo as unsure and shut out, and Groucho as his namesake. That said, they were all brilliant together and to this day can bring out the full belly laughs from me. I spent many hours at midnight movie orgies in the 70s in East Lansing watching Marx Bros movies (followed by Fantasia for those just hitting their peak). Good times.
Groucho remains one of the most clever, quickest comedic minds we've seen. He might not have been a great guy, but he found his talent and shined with it.
They were originally cast as ethnic stereotypes. Chico, the Italian greengrocer. Groucho, the German schoolmaster. Harpo, the Irish vagabond. I'm not sure who Zeppo represented. The WASP straight man?....It's reassuring to learn that Harpo was a good guy. I would have expected Groucho to have had a lot more scandals in his domestic life. He wasn't especially awful by Hollywood standards....I think Buster Keaton is now placed higher in critical esteem than Chaplin. I think this might have something to do with Chaplin's fondness for underage girls. He was worse than Polanski. Your private life counts for how your artistry is perceived.
Harpo was not a comedian; he was a clown. Clowns are always creepy. They fall right into the uncanny valley.
Zeppo did play himself. He was a successful engineer and theatrical agent in real life. A fairly serious person, in other words. As he was in the movies.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Both Harpo and Groucho have really interesting autobiographies that bring out all of this current information.
Harpo Speaks!
Groucho and Me
Harpo especially is a much more interesting person than popularly portrayed, though not because Groucho isn't interesting, just that he tends to get a lot more press and was closer to his real self in his work over the years.
Neither had any illusion about Chico. Their childhood and success really is an interesting story for the whole family and the intersections they had in so many ways in the Golden Years of Broadway and Hollywood.
Zeppo was very funny and he was also the best looking.
Many believed he was the funniest of the brothers, too. Once, when the Marxes were on stage, Groucho had to drop out briefly to get his tonsils removed, and Zeppo painted his face and replaced him. After a few performances, Groucho rushed to get out of the hospital and back on stage: not because Zeppo was inadequate in the Groucho role, but because he was afraid his little brother would put him out of a job!
Harpo was my favourite. He truly was an angel.
A book with good Zeppo material is Barbara Sinatra's "Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank." The author was also married to Zeppo Marx. She wrote:
""Perhaps it was Zeppo’s ardent pursuit with dinner invitations and flowers or the new Thunderbird convertible he bought for me. Or was it the time he stood behind a group of strangers in an elevator and pulled faces until I was laughing so hard I had to get off? Not only did Zeppo have the caustic wit of the Marx Brothers but he made fun of himself rather than of those around him. I think that may have been why he was always given the role of romantic lead while his brothers insulted him."
Blogged here.
"And what about Gummo?"
As I understand it, Gummo was playing the Zeppo-type role in the family vaudeville routine when WWI hit. Zeppo was too young for the military, so Gummo was the family contribution to the saving of democracy. Zeppo took his place in the act. Zeppo and Gummo eventually became agents/managers for the act.
Per Groucho, Zeppo was very talented, understudied all of the older brothers in their shows.
"...he made fun of himself rather than of those around him. I think that may have been why he was always given the role of romantic lead while his brothers insulted him."
I think it was because he was 10 to 15 years younger than his brothers, who all had established comic roles. After Zeppo left the act, they used Allan Jones in the same sorts of roles.
American geniuses. The more I read the more I think they owed it all to mama, who must have been a very busy woman.
I can't recall--was there any significance (or even notice) given to birth-order in the movies? They were Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo in order over 14 years.
Not-so-fun fact: Groucho's passing away was largely overlooked because it happened in the same week as Elvis's.
"Harpo Speaks" and "Blessings in Disguise" by Alec Guinness are two of the warmest, kindness books I have read. I had our children read them both when they were young as hopeful inspirations of basic human decency and consideration beyond our household. I am looking forward to reading Susan Fleming's book as well.
First, Maxwell in a movement for social progress. Oprah was an associate of Weinstein in his casting couch enterprise.
A good straight man is invaluable to comedy. There are many a comedy routine that will fail if the straight man does a poor job. That's why Margaret Dumont was so key to the success of many of the Marx Brothers bits. The thing is she did not seem to understand she was the straight woman and seemed perplexed by the whole thing, but it worked.
If we knew everything about all the great creatives in the history of the world, how many of them would be terrible persons of one type or another? Being a creative is often because the creative is not normal and therefore thinks differently and may find rules... unnecessarily restrictive. As they say, good persons make for boring biographies.
Abbott and Costello split their money 60/40...in Abbott's favour. At Costello's insistence.
"I can't recall--was there any significance (or even notice) given to birth-order in the movies? They were Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo in order over 14 years."
I could be wrong, but I don't recall any movies where they were supposed to be brothers.
I spent many hours at midnight movie orgies in the 70s in East Lansing watching Marx Bros movies (followed by Fantasia for those just hitting their peak).
Do I smell reefers?
Groucho's passing away was largely overlooked because it happened in the same week as Elvis's.
Have you ever seen a photo of Groucho, and Elvis in the same place, and the same time??
That's what I thought!!
Don't like Harpo
Can tolerate Chico, best when he's playing off Groucho.
Groucho - I like.
usually FF any Marx brothers film when they start playing the Harp/Piano or Harpo starts doing his Mime "clowning".
Until now, I always thought Barbara had been married to Harpo, and liked Sinatra because she finally had somebody to talk to.
I also didn't know that the brothers' parents were French and German Jews, who were thought to be more serious, formal and responsible than Jews from farther East, who were assumed to be wilder and less repressed.
Thanks for the reply, Rory. The question hadn't even occurred to me until reading about their early days just now.
We watched a lot of them, under various influences.
Anyone who finds Hsrpo Marx "creepy" has a heart of stone and no sense of humor.
Anyone who finds Harpo "creepy" has a heart of stone and no sense of humor.
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