Review: I REMEMBER GROUCHO
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 26, 2014
The Marx Brothers were comedic geniuses! Harpo said a mouthful with only his eyes and a honk or two; Chico did used poor grammar to make you pay attention; Zeppo joined Gummo's successful talent agent agency so you will rarely see Zeppo on screen and never (as I understand it) see Gummo, though there are pictures of all brothers in the book.Groucho stole the show. He was the emcee on You Bet Your Life: The show that began: Say the secret word and you win $25.My favorite interview from that show was from a man who had (I think) 8 children. Groucho was appalled. If his mustache could have spun around, it would have.The man playing You Bet Your Life defended himself by saving, "I love my wife."Groucho quickly replied, " I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth occasionally."That was more than forty years ago, so please forgive my rusty memory.I did, however, sit up nights to watch Groucho on You Bet Your Live. Groucho would sometimes seem to steer his contestants towards the secret word, especially (it seemed to my young mind), if they wore wore a uniform, any kind of uniform!Only one of the Marx Brothers served in WWI. Their family had (luckily) emigrated from Germany before their sons were born. You can read the book to get the details of that and the many divorces another brother suffered through.If all you know about the Marx brothers comes from their zany movies, this book will open your eyes to the other parts of their lives.