Groucho Marx, right, and
George Fenneman on "You Bet Your Life." (NBC)
By Robert Kistler and Dale Fetherling, Times Staff Writers
Groucho Marx, whose
twitching eyebrows, flicking cigar and quick-witted irreverence made him one of
the world’s most enduring and revered funnymen, died Friday night at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 86.
Death came at 7:25 p.m.
after a two-month weakening battle with pneumonitis, a normally mild form of
pneumonia, according to a hospital spokesman.
Marx, whose distinctive
brand of comedy spanned more than 65 years of vaudeville, films, radio and
television, last entered the hospital on June 22, the day after he had been
released on recovery from corrective hip surgery in March.
The comedian’s condition
had been described as “fair” until Thursday, when Marx appeared to worsen and
his periods of unconsciousness became more frequent, hospital spokesman Larry
Baum said.
A further deterioration of
Marx’s condition was noted Friday morning when his vital signs were reported to
be “unstable” and the master showman was
placed on the hospital’s “critical” list.
His son, Arthur,
daughter-in-law, Lois, and grandson, Andrew, were by his side, another hospital
spokesman, Robert Powell, said.
Erin Fleming, who had waged
a bitter and much-publicized court battle in recent months against Arthur Marx
for the conservatorship of the comedian’s estimated $2.8 million estate, also
had been at Groucho’s bedside in the hours before his death.
However, Powell said Miss
Fleming, 37, who had been Marx’s constant companion and personal manager during
the last seven years, “had stepped outside the room a few minutes” before death
came.
Earlier, Miss Fleming had
told the Associated Press by telephone:
“Groucho’s just having a
nice little dream now. He’s sleeping peacefully.
“He’s just going to have a
nap and rest his eyes for the next several centuries.”
An eye-rolling, moustachioed
comic with a lope, a leer and an inevitable cigar, Julius Henry Marx, his real
name, was a master of the ad-lib, the squelch, the snappy comeback.
With his brothers, he made
14 films which have become comedy classics. Together, they made an art form of
zaniness.
But perhaps Groucho’s
greatest fame came as emcee of the radio and television quiz show You Bet Your
Life in which the quiz was a kind of afterthought to the comedian’s tart and
biting wit as he wisecracked with contestants and the show’ straight
man-announcer, George Fenneman.
Born Oct. 2, 1890, in New
York City, Marx was the third of five sons of Jewish immigrants. His father,
Sam, was a poor, struggling East Side tailor who lived to be 101. His mother,
Minnie, was the daughter of a wandering magician and sister of Al Shean of the
famous Gallagher and Shean vaudeville team.
Minnie Marx had show
business in her blood and, despite the family’s poverty, she managed to save
enough to give the boys music lessons.
Groucho wrote in his
memoirs that he originally wanted to be a doctor. But apparently his lack of
education—he never finished grammar school—and the lure of the life of a
vaudevillean changed his mind.
His first venture into show
business came in 1905 when he landed a $4-a-week singing job with a trio that
later left him stranded in Colorado.
His mother then organized a
singing troupe which eventually came to consist entirely of her sons Chico
(Leonard), Harpo (Arthur), Zeppo (Herbert) and Groucho.
But the fleeting nature of
the adolescent male voice prompted a change from song to a loosely structured
comedy act, which played in many tank towns before the brothers struck success.
“I always had a real fear
of poverty,” Groucho said as a wealthy man in his 80s. “It came from years of
living in boarding houses, bad hotels, bum clothes and cheap shoes.”
But all that began to
change in 1919 when the Marx Brothers took their act to the Palace Theatre in
New York, the citadel of big-time vaudeville.
They were a hit in New York
and later took their act to Europe. When they returned, the brothers had three
straight successes in Broadway musical comedies.
In those plays the zany
characters who soon would delight movie fans were formed, with Groucho as the
quick-quipping charlatan. In fact, he ad-libbed so much that playwright George
S. Kaufman, who wrote one of the musicals, once scolded a fellow theatergoer to
silence, saying “I think I just heard one of the original lines.”
With the coming of talkies,
Hollywood turned to Broadway for comics who both looked and talked funny.
The first two of the
brothers’ mad-cap films—“The Cocoanuts” (1929) and “Animal Crackers”
(1930)—were adaptations of their Broadway hits.
Groucho moved to Hollywood
in 1931 and a string of other movies, such as “Monkey Business” (1931),
“Horsefeathers” (1932) and “Duck Soup” (1933) followed.
The Marx Brothers’ movies
were essentially filmed vaudeville shows but with more enduring lines, most of
them emanating from Groucho. Thus, when a woman in “A Day at the Races” said
she had never been so insulted in her life, Groucho would tell her: “Don’t
worry, it’s early yet.”
Harpo, Chico and Groucho in
"A Night at the Opera." (File photo)
Groucho, Harpo and Chico
(Zeppo dropped out in 1933 and Gummo, whose real name was Milton, never was in
the movies) hit their cinematic stride in 1935 with “A Night at the Opera.”
Their last movie was “Love Happy” in 1949.
The films were adversary
comedies with the brothers as zany outsiders intent on deflating stuffed shirts
and kicking sacred cows. Virtually every institution and sentiment was
playfully debunked, and perhaps for that reason, those movies have won millions
of college-age devotees in recent years.
“When we made the movies,
we’d get no more than 10 or 12 letters a month. And most of those were
threatening,” Groucho said a few years ago. “Now I get 100 letters a week.”
Groucho himself had always
said one of his favorite characters was the lecherous Professor Hackenbush, the
wise-cracker with stooped walk like a tiger stalking a water buffalo.
In the brothers’ early
pictures, probably their best, Groucho played such knavish and fraudulent
characters as J. Cheever Loophole, detective Sam Grunion and Wolf J. Flywheel.
But, whatever his role,
Groucho’s appeal was enduring. Testimony to that came during a May 6, 1972
concert, “An Evening With Groucho,” at Carnegie Hall in New York.
The first night’s
performance was sold out the day it was announced—and more than 3,500 youths,
many dressed as the various Marx Brothers, were turned away from the theater.
Groucho was considered the
most creative comedian of the brothers. But a half dozen movies he made without
them—one as recent as 1968—were undistinguished.
He had also done comedy and
variety work in radio in the early days and in 1947, Groucho began as host of
You Bet Your Life. The show began what was to become an 11-year run on
television three years later.
The program, recipient of
several radio and television awards, centered on Groucho’s often brash, if not
abrasive, interviews with a succession of often improbable “contestants.”
True to form, Groucho
usually managed to make his guests the foils for his quick wit and sometimes
suggestive remarks, the comedian normally spending most of his interview time
wisecracking—and eyebrow-wiggling—at the female member of the contestant-team.
The audience loved it and
some of the show’s funniest moments came when Groucho, during a chat with a
buxomy contestant, would turn to the crowd or camera and say nothing.
He didn’t have to. His
eyebrows, leering sideways glance and flicking cigar said it for him.
Fenneman, now 57, told The
Times shortly before Marx’s death that the two had maintained “what I believe
is a very special friendship over the years.”
“I was 26 or 27 when I won
the audition to be the show’s commercial announcer only . . .
“But, one night when I was
doing the commercial, Groucho interrupted me and started poking fun. From that
time on, he sort of just pulled me more and more into the show. It wasn’t
planned, so help me.”
The resulting humor between
the two became a mainstay of the show.
Indeed, years later Groucho
would give Fenneman what the former announcer says was the “ultimate
compliment.”
Said Fenneman: “At a
tribute to him a couple of years ago, he introduced me as ‘the perfect straight
man, the kind a comedian looks for all his life.’ I’ll never forget that night
or those words.”
Fenneman said he “was in
total awe of Groucho” during their beginning years together . . . and, I guess
I still am in awe of him a little bit.”
Fenneman, who had known the
comedian for 30 years, said Groucho’s facial expression had undergone “a
transformation” in the lingering months of his illness.
“His face had softened a
great deal and had become serene, almost beatific.
“But, there were still some
signs of the old Groucho . . .”
Fenneman said he had been
at the entertainer’s home one day after Groucho’s hip surgery and was carrying
Marx from his wheelchair to his bed when the comic, in a tired but still witty
voice said:
“Fenneman, you always were
a lousy dancer.”
Again, for the record, did
Fenneman and Groucho ever rehearse the comedic charisma that was apparent
between the two on the program, which was filmed before a live audience?
“No, I swear, we never did.
The only thing I did to get ready for You Bet Your Life was to take a deep
breath, go on stage—and pray.”
In private life, Groucho
was a voracious reader and a literate and articulate man who preferred to talk
of books and sports rather than show business.
He always regretted his
lack of schooling but took pride in the fact that he wrote six books.
He also collaborated on
movie scripts and plays and carried on correspondence with such notables as
T.S. Elliot, Harry S. Truman, and James Thurber. In 1965, Groucho’s letters
were given to the Library of Congress.
Marx, who lived in
Trousdale Estates, had been in failing health for several years.
Last July 27, Superior
Judge Edward Rafeedie—with the comedian’s approval—appointed Marx’s 27-year-old
grandson, Andrew, son of Arthur, permanent conservator of Groucho’s personal
affairs.
Rafeedie also designated
that the Bank of America continue as conservator of the comedian’s business
interests and his estate.
At the time, after a brief
session with Marx at the entertainer’s bedside. Rafeedie said Marx was
“reasonably alert . . . although he has
had trouble speaking and gave only one-word answers to my questions.”
Marx, who had been married
three times, was divorced from his first wife, Ruth Garrity, in 1943 after a
22-year marriage. They had two children, Arthur and Miriam.
He and his second wife, Kay
Gorcey, were divorced in 1950. They had a daughter, Melinda.
Groucho was divorced from
his third wife, Eden, in 1968.
Zeppo is the only one of
the Marx brothers still living.
A few years ago in an
interview, Groucho predicted: “My obituary will probably say, ‘Had been a
moderately funny comedian.’ “
For once, Groucho seemingly
had been caught in a moment of public modesty. For the Marx Brothers comedy
team is considered by critics to rank among such masters of the art of laughter
as Laurel and Hardy, Will Rogers, Charlie Chaplin and W.C. Fields.
Funeral arrangements were
not immediately announced.
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/archives/la-me-groucho-marx-19770820-snap-story.html
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