Harpo Marx - Biography - IMDb Harpo Marx Biography Showing all 51 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (2) | Trivia (30) | Personal Quotes (11) | Salary (2) Overview (4) 5' 5½" (1.66 m) Mini Bio (1) With the big, poofy, curly red hair, a top hat, and a horn, the lovable mute was the favorite of the Marx Brothers. Though chasing woman was a favorite routine of his in the movies, Harpo was a devoted father and husband. He adopted the mute routine in vaudeville and carried it over to the films. Harpo was an accomplished self-taught harpist whose musical numbers would many times bring tears to the eyes of the audience of an otherwise hilarious movie. - IMDb Mini Biography By: John Nehrenz Spouse (1) ( 28 September 1936 - 28 September 1964) (his death) (4 children) Trade Mark (2) Usually wore a raincoat, beat up top hat and a red wig.

Rarely spoke in his roles and never in films with his brothers. He would use pantomime and often had a bike horn to communicate with. He often had a scene where he would play a harp with great skill. In the Paramount films, his coat carried an infinite variety of items for whatever need whether it was a blowtorch for lighting cigarettes, a sword and fish for a speak-easy password, a candle burning at both ends, etc. Trivia (30) Recreated the mirror scene from Duck Soup (1933) in an episode of I Love Lucy (1951). When he taught himself to play the harp, he later learned that he played it the wrong way. However, when he became famous and wealthy, he on occasion throughout his career, took harp lessons from various harpists and music teachers in both New York City and Los Angeles to better increase his skill. However, due to his natural born talent, many musicians and music teachers ended up approaching him to learn his method of harp playing. Harpo first using the gag of chasing a screaming girl as a quick prank to throw his brother Groucho Marx 's timing off on stage.

Groucho wasn't fazed, but Harpo got in trouble when he found out the hard way that the girl had a violent mobster for a boyfriend. He quickly made peace with the man and incorporated the girl chasing for the rest of his career. Brother of Groucho Marx , Chico Marx , Zeppo Marx , and Gummo Marx . After his death, he was cremated and his ashes were allegedly sprinkled into the sand trap at the seventh hole of the Rancho Mirage golf course in California, USA where he used to play golf on a monthly basis. As a child, Harpo was apparently infatuated with music. He rejoiced when his family bought a piano. He then fell into dispair when he found out that they could only afford to let one brother have piano lessons. His brother Chico Marx ended up with the lessons, which he did not take seriously. Harpo, of course, later mastered the harp. Harpo officially became a mime after a theater critic noted in 1914 that Harpo was brilliant until his character spoke. From then on, Harpo never spoke while in character. Nephew of actor Al Shean .

Adopted father of Bill Marx , Alexander Marx, Minnie Marx and Jimmy Marx, from his marriage to Susan Fleming Son of Sam Marx and Minnie Marx (nee Schoenberg). Died on the day of his 28th wedding anniversary. One of only two Marx Brothers to play a recurring role in their films (not counting when they used their own names). He played the role of "Pinky" in both Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933). He was voted, as one of The Marx Brothers , the 62nd Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Legally changed his given name to Arthur around 1911 because he much preferred it to the very German Adolph. Was seldom recognized when out of character because he was almost completely bald. The character of Banjo in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart 's play "The Man Who Came to Dinner" is based on Harpo. Once crashed a Hollywood costume party at the home of Marion Davies , dressed as Kaiser Wilhelm II .

He had to hitchhike to get home and ended up being arrested by Beverly Hills police on charges of vagrancy, illegal entry, escaping from jail in Gloversville, New York, impersonating Kaiser Wilhelm II , and impersonating Harpo Marx. He was portrayed by actor Daniel Fortus in the Broadway musical "Minnie's Boys," which ran at the Imperial Theatre for 80 Performances from Mar 26 to May 30, 1970. Great-uncle of Jade Marx-Berti , Gregg Marx , Laura Guzik and Brett Marx Groucho Marx gave this reason for Harpo's silence: Once, while playing a theater in Winnipeg, Manitoba, during a vaudeville tour, The Marx Brothers had a disagreement with the theater's manager regarding their pay. At the end of The Marx Brothers ' engagement there, the manager paid them the amount they had demanded...in several large sacks containing the proper amount in the form of pennies, nickels, and dimes. Since the brothers' train was departing in ten minutes, the brothers had no choice except to lug the sacks onto the train with them.

As the train departed, Harpo shouted to the manager, "I hope your theater burns to the ground." And that night, it did. Groucho always said that Harpo's voice was like the axe hanging on the backstage wall of every theater: To be used only in case of emergencies. Is portrayed by 'J.M Henry' in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). Harpo was vacationing in the French Riviera and was engaged in nude sunbathing when he was surprised by an elderly man and woman. He wrapped his towel around his middle and stood up and introduced himself. The husband introduced himself as George Bernard Shaw, the famous writer and philosopher. Without warning Shaw snatched the towel away and then said, "And this is Mrs. Shaw!" It was the start of a lifelong friendship. Served as the basis for the character Banjo in the long-running comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner" by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart .

The play had one of its most memorable productions at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania, where Kaufman played Sheridan Whitside (the character based on critic Alexander Woollcott , Hart played Beverly Carlton (the character based on Noël Coward , and Harpo played Banjo, speaking his first lines on stage in over twenty years. Although it is popularly believed that Harpo never spoke on film, he is faintly heard in the newsreel footage during the premiere of MGM's "The Great Ziegfeld" in 1936. He approaches the microphone without his wig and make-up and says to Joe Schenk just out of range of the mic: "You gotta do the talkin'." (in a very thick New York City accent) Harpo leans in to the mic after Schenk finishes speaking, and loudly says: "Honk! Honk!".

At the beginning of the film Monkey Business (1931), The Marx Brothers , playing ship's stowaways concealed in barrels, are first introduced harmonizing unseen, singing the popular song "Sweet Adeline." And although he is cannot be seen, this musical performance marks the only time during one of The Marx Brothers ' movie that Harpo's voice -- a clear and pleasant baritone -- is ever heard. He and Chico were usually mistaken as twins when they were young. Was cousin of Sadie Marks - better known as Mary Livingston; brother-in-law of Benjamin Kubelsky, aka Jack Benny. W.C. Fields said that The Marx Brothers were the only act he couldn't follow on the live stage. He is known to have appeared on the same bill with them only once, during an engagement at Keith's Orpheum Theatre in Columbus, OH, in January 1915. At the time the Marx Brothers were touring "Home Again", and it didn't take Fields long to realize how his quiet comedy juggling act was faring against the anarchy of the Marxes. Fields later wrote of the engagement (and the Marxes), "They sang, danced, played harp and kidded in zany style.

Never saw so much nepotism or such hilarious laughter in one act in my life. The only act I could never follow . . . I told the manager I broke my wrist and quit.". Personal Quotes (11) If things get too much for you and you feel the whole world's against you, go stand on your head. If you can think of anything crazier to do, do it. [When asked how many children he'd like to have]: "So many that whenever we go out, there can be one in every window, waving to us." But I guess that's the way it is. When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost. you mourn for yourself. I am the most fortunate self-taught harpist and non-speaking actor who has ever lived. [on visiting Hamburg, Germany, shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power]: "I saw the most frightening, most depressing sight I had ever seen - a row of stores with Stars of David and the word 'Jude' painted on them, and inside, behind half-empty counters, people in a daze, cringing like they didn't know what hit them and didn't know where the next blow would come from.

Hitler had been in power only six months, and his boycott was already in full effect. I hadn't been so wholly conscious of being a Jew since my bar mitzvahs, and it was the first time since I'd had the measles that I was too sick to eat." [on comedy playwright George S. Kaufman] He had great integrity. You never had to watch him when he was dealing. The man who first inspired me was a guy called Gookie. Gookie had nothing to do with the theater. He rolled cigars in the window of a cigar store on Lexington Avenue. When he got going good he was completely lost in work, so absorbed that he had no idea what a comic face he was making. His tongue lolled out in a fat roll, his cheeks puffed out and his eyes popped out and crossed themselves. Over the years, in every comedy act or movie I ever worked in, I've thrown in a Gookie at least once. [on 'Duck Soup'] It was the only time I can remember that I worried about turning in a bad performance. The trouble was not with the script, the director, or the falls I had to take. The trouble was Adolf Hitler.

His speeches were being rebroadcast in America. Somebody had a radio on the set, and twice we suspended shooting to listen to him scream. [describing how he was once thrown out of a New York brothel in the 1920s]: One night I'm playing the harp at this local brothel bar when I felt sick and I practically keeled off the stool. And the Madame says: "Get that son-of-a-bitch back on that stool and play! I've got customers here." So a minute later... again I fell off the stool. She said: "What the hell is the matter with him?" to one of the girls. The prostitute said to the Madame: "He must be sick. I think we should call a doctor." So, they sent for a doctor. Ten minutes later the doctor arrived, he looked at me, and he said to the Madame: "He's got the measles." The Madame said to the doctor: "Then get him the hell out of here. I don't want any sick Jews around me." [on performing in vaudeville] If an audience didn't like us we had no trouble finding it out.

We were pelted with sticks, bricks, spitballs, cigar butts, peach pits and chewed-out stalks of sugar cane. We took all this without flinching - until Minnie gave us the high-sign that we'd collected our share of the receipts. Then we started throwing stuff back at the audience and run like hell for the railroad station the second the curtain came down. [on accommodation, while touring] Cheap hotels in the South and Southwest were apparently set up as bug sanctuaries by some Audubon Society for Insects. Fleas, ticks, bedbugs, cockroaches, beetles, scorpions and ants, having no enemies, attacked with fearless abandon. They had the run of the house and they knew it. After a while you just let them bite. Fighting back was useless. For every bug you squashed, a whole fresh, bloodthirsty platoon would march out of the woodwork. In one hotel hotel the ants were so bad that each bed was set on four pots of oxalic acid. Salary (2) the marx brothers | biography the marx brothers [ m a r x b r o t h e r s : b i o g .

] "Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse." - Groucho Marx t h e m a r x b r o t h e r s f a c t s Names: Julius Henry Marx (Groucho Marx) Leonard Marx (Chico Marx) Groucho Marx: 2 October 1890, New York, New York, USA Chico Marx: 22 March 1887, New York, New York, USA Harpo Marx: 23 November 1888, New York, New York, USA Zeppo Marx: 25 February 1901, New York, New York, USA Heights: Groucho Marx: 5' 8" (1.73 m) Harpo Marx: 5' 5" (1.65 m) Spouse: Eden Hartford (17 July 1954 - 4 December 1969) (divorced) Kay Marvis (21 July 1945 - 12 May 1951) (divorced) 1 child Ruth Johnstone (4 February 1920 - 15 July 19

42) (divorced) 2 children Chico Marx: Mary De Vithas (1958 - 11 October 1961) (his death) Betty Carp (?

- ?) (divorced) 1 daughter Harpo Marx: Susan Fleming (28 September 1936 - 28 September 1964) (his death) 4 adopted children Zeppo Marx: Barbara Marx (1962 - 1972) (divorced) Marion Benda (1927 - 1954) (divorced) 1 son Deaths: 19 August 1977, Los Angeles, California, USA Chico Marx: 11 October 1961 Hollywood, California, USA Harpo Marx: 28 September 1964, Los Angeles, California, USA Zeppo Marx: 30 November 1979, Palm Springs, California, USA Causes of death: Harpo Marx: following heart surgery Zeppo Marx: cancer leonard & herbert 2 [ t h e m a r x b r o t h e r s : b i o g . ] How did four nice little boys called Julius, Adolph, Leonard and Herbert grow up into the Marx Brothers?

Perhaps because they never really were nice little boys The Marx Brothers autographs, photographs and more @ ebay.com (direct link to signed items) - just checked and a bigger selection than I have seen everywhere else Groucho Marx seldom ventured any comment on his own comic style. He felt that humour, like romance and sex, loses its magic if examined too closely: 'If you talk about those things, they go away.' When asked why he thought he was funny, he would answer simply, 'I'm a funny-looking jerk'. He did believe, however, that all great comedy is based on character. the cocoanuts (1929) People who had known the Marx Brothers before they became famous (when they were still Julius, Adolph, Leonard, Milton and Herbert), even before they entered show business, all agreed that the five brothers never had to create the characters they played so convincingly on stage, screen, and television - they already were those characters. A neighbour of the Marx family in New York City during the early 1900s remarked: 'They were wild youngsters with a talent for having fun. The place would be a shambles, especially if Mrs Marx left them alone. They would tear down the draperies.

There was a woman across the way. a doctor's wife, who used to send over notes saying that she was going to call the police, which probably made them do it even more.' the poor marx brothers The Marx family was poor but, as Groucho said of his childhood: 'We didn't know it, so we were happy. At Christmas we didn't have a tree, just a branch, and we each hung up one of our black socks and got a half an orange each for Christmas. All our neighbours even had better garbage than we did. Harpo used to skate in Central Park with one ice skate he tied on. When my Aunt Hannah cooked the clam chowder, she used the same pot she used for the laundry, and there was plenty of starch in both.' Although the Marx Brothers' theatrical characters were based on real people and actual experiences, their mannerisms and costumes were developed through trial and error during their years in vaudeville. For Groucho this all began in 1905 when he joined a ' travelling troupe as a boy soprano.

He got the job out of economic necessity: 'I became an actor because I had an uncle in show business who was making $200 a week, and I wasn't making anything, not even an occasional girl.' Although the job didn't last long, and three times he found himself stranded on the road without money, Groucho persisted. Eventually he landed work with the Gus Edwards school act - his first professional encounter with stage comedy. donkey business Three years later Minnie Marx gathered her sons (Groucho, Gummo, and later Harpo) together into a singing act called first The Three Nightingales, then The Six Mascots. She was their agent, and sometimes joined the act with her sister, Hannah. Sam Marx (known as Frenchie), the father of the Marx Brothers, stayed at home with the cooking and housework, as well as a threadbare tailoring business. Apparently this pioneering role- sharing worked out perfectly: Sam was a superb cook while, in Groucho's words: 'Minnie couldn't make anything except my father.' But as an agent she was unsurpassed. Groucho often said: 'Without her, we wouldn't have been anything.

She was the most important woman in my life.' As a singing act the Marx Brothers were condemned to second-rate or even third-rate , vaudeville, and it was only by accident that they discovered how funny they could be. Groucho described the moment: 'We were playing a small town in Texas, a farming town. The farmers came in and tied up their horses beside the Pantages Theatre. We were doing a singing act. a mule runs away, and the whole audience left to catch the mule. Then they came back. By this time we were so angry we started making sarcastic remarks. Like, "Nacogdoches is full of roaches" and "The jackass is the finest flower of Texass." Instead of getting mad, the audience laughs. This is the first time we ever did comedy like that.' This incident happened in 1912 during ii tour through Louisiana. Texas and Oklahoma. school marx After their unexpected triumph they attempted comedy whenever it seemed appropriate, and in Denison, Texas, The Six Mascots were received so enthusiastically that they were invited to stay over, this time with a guarantee.

Wishing to please an audience of teachers who were there for a conference, Groucho wrote a comedy sketch based on the Gus Edwards school act. Groucho became Herr Teacher, Harpo played the stupid boy, and the other members of the troupe, who included Gummo, became the standard school act characters of that day. This act was called Fun in Hi Skule, and much of what the Marx Brothers did afterwards was influenced by it. Most notable of all, Harpo donned his famous red wig (later to become blond for the films) and became himself; Groucho assumed a stern countenance and an air of unqualified authority: and Gummo played the juvenile straight-man role that Zeppo later inherited. Then Chico joined the act as the confidently ignorant 'Eye-talian'. a night in casablanca (1946) All of the Marx Brothers shows that followed Fun in Hi Skule, including the films and even Groucho's TV programme, owed a great deal to it. You Bet Your Life was the same routine but in modern dress, with Groucho still playing Herr Teacher. Horse Feathers is Fun in Hi Skule graduated to college and Hollywood.

As the great white hunter in Animal Crackers, the prime minister in Duck Soup, or the bogus doctor in A Day at the Races, Groucho is still in many respects Herr Teacher, and his brothers play almost exactly the same roles as in Fun in Hi Skule. harpo loses his voice It was their uncle (Minnie's brother), Al Shean - himself a big star in American vaudevvvvvvvviiiiille - who had helped to crystallize further each brother's stage personality. Groucho was allowed to talk incessantly, while Harpo became mute, and Chico played comic straight-man to both. According to Groucho, AI Shean felt that Harpo's voice did not match his whimsical appearance. Harpo was disappointed, but accepted Uncle Al's dictum. Thereafter Harpo talked professionally only once again during his entire career. A quarter of a century later, he spoke at the end of the stage tryouts for Go West. The brothers decided that this speech, whilst comically effective, departed from the innocent Harpo character, and it was omitted from the movie.

In later life, after his retirement from films, Harpo would not accept any speaking engagements, and requested that his family never allow a recording of his voice to be played. He felt that to allow his voice to be heard by the public would be unfaithful and destructive to the character he had created. Groucho said the question he was most often asked was, 'Can Harpo talk?' His answer was always, 'Of course not.' duck soup (1933) By 1914, Mr Green's Reception, as Fun in Hi Skule was now called, had established the Marx Brothers as rising vaudeville stars. They were not yet, however, known by their famous 'O' names. This happened while they were touring Illinois in 1914. Another performer on the bill with them had a penchant for giving nicknames to his friends. Julius became Groucho because of his serious demeanour. Adolph became Harpo for the obvious reason. Leonard became Chico because of his passion for the chicks, as girls were then called.

(Thus the correct pronunciation of his name is 'Chicko') Milton became Gummo because, as he later explained: 'I always had holes in my shoes, so I'd wear rubbers, or gumshoes, over them even when it wasn't raining, and I got called Gummo.' Herbert was only 13 and at home in Chicago when his brothers were being renamed, but he became Zeppo later. No one, especially Zeppo, is certain why. They continued to use their real names until 1924, but the 'new' names eventually took over. he stoops to conquer Harpo's devotion to the harp was not accidental. His grandmother had played, in the family's travelling magic show in Germany, on a wondrous instrument without strings. As a child Harpo would also 'play' on this harp which was stored in a closet in their New York apartment, and when he finally got a harp with real strings he taught himself to play, but in an unorthodox style that in later years amazed professional harpists.

a night at the opera (1935) Before they were established as stars, however, the Marx Brothers ran through a number of what were then called musical tabloids: several thinly plotted scenes, as sumptuously mounted as a tight budget and difficult physical conditions would allow, were held together by song, dance and comedy. In each of these shows the brothers enriched their comic characters and developed routines that would serve them - with variations - for decades. The sloping, stooping Groucho walk, for instance, happened by accident: 'I was just kidding around one day, and I started to walk funny. The audience liked it so I kept it in.' After one failure, the Marx Brothers appeared in the successful On the Mezzanine Floor, which, along with Home Again, toured Great Britain in 1922. They opened at the Coliseum in London. At first, the audience did not understand the Marx Brothers' humour and responded by throwing pennies onto the stage.

In those days, Groucho recalled: 'it was the custom when the audiences didn't like an act - a pretty dangerous custom, too, since the English penny was as large as a silver dollar.' Groucho waded into the shower of coins and addressed the audience: hose days, Groucho recalled: 'We came all the way from America to entertain you, so you might at least throw some shillings.' His ad lib won over the audience, and their entire British tour was enormously successful. a night in new york Back in the United States in 1923 they had serious difficulties with the United Booking Office, which controlled virtually all of vaudeville. Unable to get work they were forced to put on their own show. They were helped by a Pennsylvanian industrialist who owned a theatre in Philadelphia and the sets and props from several theatrical flops, and were thus able to put together I'll Say She Is, their most ambitious musical tabloid to date. Although Groucho always referred to this show as 'a real turkey,' it was a huge success in Philadelphia. After a tepid road trip, they came to Broadway.

Fortunately, on the night they opened in 1924 a more important show postponed its premiere, and the most influential New York drama critics went to I'll Say She Is instead. Their rave reviews established the Marx Brothers as permanent superstars. a day at the races (1937) Two even bigger Broadway hits followed: The Cocoanuts in 1925 and Animal Crackers in 1928: both were later filmed in New York - in 1929 and 1930 respectively - almost exactly as they were presented on the stage. After filming Animal Crackers, the Marx Brothers left for California, where they remained. Their first three Hollywood pictures were produced for Paramount by Herman J. Mankiewicz. writer of Citizen Kane (1940) and one of Hollywood's great non-conformists. (Assigned to write a Rin-Tin-Tin picture, he had the courageous police dog carry the baby into a burning building instead of out of it.

He was never assigned to a Rin-Tin-Tin film again.) The Marx Brothers' pictures of this period - Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), and Duck Soup (1933) - all bear the imprint of their iconoclastic producer. under thalberg's wing The next two films, A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937), were produced by Irving Thalberg at MGM. Groucho credited Thalberg with saving their careers after Duck Soup had done poorly at the box office. Thalberg felt that the Marx Brothers were appealing only to a minority, and that they were missing especially the female audience that so often decided which film the family attended. He found the Marx Brothers characters of the Paramount films 'unsympathetic' because they were not helping anyone. To remedy this, he reinforced the plots so that they could stand alone as romantic comedies, recast the Marx Brothers as helpful avuncular types rather than totally uninhibited anarchists, and added the kind of lavish production numbers that a major studio like MGM could afford.

He also allowed the Marx Brothers to try out material for their next picture in front of audiences on a road tour; this was especially helpful, as the Marx Brothers had always depended heavily on the reaction of live audiences to their ad libs. Thalberg returned to the original successful formula of George S. Kaufman who, with Morrie Ryskind, had conceived and written The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, and at Groucho's behest, Kaufman and Ryskind were imported from the East Coast to write A Night at the Opera. animal crackers (1930) After Duck Soup Zeppo had quit the act and started a talent agency. Zeppo had never been happy with his role as a straight-man: 'I always wanted to be a comedian, but I came along too late, and three comedians in the act was already enough.' Gummo, who had been out of show business since his discharge from the army in 1919 and never appeared in the films, joined Zeppo, and the two built their agency into one of the biggest in Hollywood. One of Zeppo's first deals for the Marx Brothers was buying the rights to the Broadway hit Room Service for their next picture in 1938.

Thalberg's premature death during the filming of A Day at the Races marked a crucial point in the Marx Brothers' career as a team. No longer did they have their champion at the biggest studio in Hollywood. Their next three pictures, At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941), were made for MGM on a production-line basis, and by 1942 they were ready to retire as a team, each brother going his own way professionally. the laughter maker Groucho, who had published Beds in 1930, continued to write, eventually writing five books. He had always aspired to being a writer, even before wanting to become an actor, and he was as proud of his literary output as of anything else he ever did. He was also proud of being able to make people laugh. He said: 'It's a lot easier to make people cry than it is to make them laugh.' Groucho also tried radio but was unsuccessful until You Bet Your Life in 1948. Although he was known as one of the screen's great talkers, the visual aspects of his comic style were important, too.

Lee Strasberg noted: 'The way he moved greatly enhanced his character'. Studying the famous dialogues between Groucho and Chico, one immediately becomes aware of Groucho's sense of movement, even in a static scene. He is always in motion, yet what he does is so appropriate to what is being said that it heightens it while not being obtrusive. Director King Vidor noted that Groucho's reactions were always perfect, and that reacting is the most difficult aspect of film acting. final marx During their first 'retirement' Harpo and Chico continued to make personal appearances on stage, in concert, or at nightclubs, sometimes alone, sometimes together. Occasionally Chico would join Groucho on a radio broadcast, but by 1945 Chico, who was an inveterate gambler, was broke. To help Chico, the other brothers agreed to come out of retirement and made A Night in Casablanca in 1946. This film. which satirized Casablanca (1942), was successful but the team disbanded again immediately afterwards.

However, a later re- union, Love Happy (1949), was not successful, and the team made only one more professional appearance, in a television special called The Incredible Jewel Robbery (1960). In neither of these last two productions does Groucho make more than a cameo appearance. At the time his own career was soaring with starring roles in major motion pictures and with his own successful TV quiz show, You Bet Your Life. go west (1940) Chico died in 1961 (aged 74), Harpo in 1964 (aged 75), and Gummo in 1977 (aged 80). Groucho died in 1977 just before his 87th birthday. He had survived his brother Gummo by a few months but wasn't told by his family of his brother's death because of the distress it would have caused him. Zeppo, who was born in 1901, lived in Palm Springs and had not been associated with show business for years before he, too, passed away in 1979.

He was survived by his ex-wife, Barbara, nearly 30 years his junior, who went on to marry Frank Sinatra. Others have tried this same kind of irreverent comedy, but none with the elan or style of the Marx Brothers. Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo really were those zany characters they played on stage and screen. As children, the Marx Brothers slept four in a bed, two at each end, and early developed the respect for each other's privacy and the close friendship that lasted throughout their lives. Groucho once said: 'We played every town in America and I think we were the only group that never fought. No act in vaudeville got along better than we did. There never was anyone like my brothers and me.' He was right. [ m a r x b r o t h e r s : f i l m o g r a p h y ] Filmography Groucho, Harpo.

Chico and Zeppo: 1926 Humorisk (unreleased and no cast list) 1929 The Cocoanuts 1935 A Night at the Opera 1937 A Day at the Races 1938 Room Service 1946 A Night in Casablanca 1949 Love Happy The Cocoanuts: The Marx Brothers on Broadway — Utah Shakespeare Festival The Cocoanuts: The Marx Brothers on Broadway The Cocoanuts: The Marx Brothers on Broadway By Lawrence Henley The Cocoanuts is, essentially, a rollicking farce set amid the Florida sun and a bevvy of palm trees. Constructed around a young romance, a wonky hotel, and a trio of concurrent swindles, to some this show might simply seem an exercise in frivolity. Well, folks, “not so fast!” In actuality, this romp in the tropics is the collaborative work of some of the most significant theatrical talent of the early twentieth century. And, for good measure, the zany plot actually bears significance to modern times.

The Cocoanuts is set during the hysteria of the infamous Florida real-estate boom of the 1920s, prior to the bottom falling out. When the land bubble burst, it was a contributing factor in the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression of the 1930s. As the rest of the nation’s economy collapsed, so did the economic fortunes of the Sunshine State. Florida wouldn’t fully recover from the bust until after World War II. Not surprisingly, the lessons of this seismic real-property disaster went unheeded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, resulting in a similar real estate and housing crisis (the effects of which the American Southwest is still recovering from). Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, c’est correct? In the Roaring Twenties, musical theatre in America bore little resemblance to the phenomenon it would become in the late 1930s and 1940s. Immediately prior to that time, Broadway began to morph out of Vaudeville, the touring variety entertainment format that had dominated the theatre business since the late nineteenth century.

Hardcore fans of vintage Broadway and classic films will be familiar with the legacy artists largely responsible for that transformation: Irving Berlin, George S. Kaufman, George M. Cohan, and the Gershwin Brothers. Broadway icons in their heyday, the Marx Brothers are often overlooked (doubtless owing to their later career success in Hollywood). Truthfully, their three Broadway hits (I’ll Say She is, The Cocoanuts, and Animal Crackers) were an innovative comedy-musical trifecta that still speaks volumes as to their significance. The five Marx Brothers were all part of the act at one time or another. In order of age they were Chico (Leo Marx, born 1887); Harpo (Adolph, later changed to Arthur Marx, born 1888); Groucho (Julius Marx, born 1890); Gummo (Milton Marx, born 1893); and Zeppo (Herbert Marx, born 1901). A sixth Marx brother died in infancy (Manfred, or Mannie). All were blood brothers, born into an emigrant family with a performing background dating back to nineteenth-century Europe.

Family was extremely important to the creation of the Marx Brothers. Their parents, Frenchie (Samuel) Marx (a tailor) and Minnie (Meine) Schoenberg, were first generation Americans from Western European Jewish families. The grandparents of the Marx Brothers fled untenable conditions in the Old World, sailing to a new life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Meine, was the Marx Brothers’ first manager (working under the name “Minnie Palmer”), and the boys’ act was greatly influenced by their uncle, famed vaudevillian Al Schoenberg (stage name, Al Shean). The Marx Brothers evolved from a series of strictly musical acts. Groucho Marx’s habit of injecting his razor sharp humor into their performances would eventually change the family’s dominant milieu from music to comedy. While all of the Marx Brothers were forced to leave school to support the family, Groucho, the most famous, was the lone brother with scholarly interests. Indeed, his world class wit is clearly evidenced by his dexterous use of wordplay in the Marx Brothers hit films. Equally famed as a radio and television personality, Groucho’s show business career spanned seven decades.

His signature greasepaint moustache, duck walk, and cigar chomping antics are still imitated. Chico, the eldest, was Minnie’s favorite. As such, he got away with much juvenile mischief. Street-smart at a young age, he inherited his father’s love of card games, which developed into a lifelong gambling problem, always Chico’s “Achilles heel.” In an attempt to get him off of the streets, his mother pushed him toward music, and it worked. Chico’s brilliant piano stylings became as much his trademark as the brain-boggling malaprops and faux tough-guy Italian accent. A benevolent con man with a talent for business, Chico Marx sealed the deal that brought the Marx Brothers to Broadway. Their 1923 debut, I’ll Say She Is!, was a smash hit, paving the way for the The Cocoanuts in 1925. Perhaps the best loved Marx Brother was the purposely mute Harpo, whose nickname alludes to his self-trained mastery of the angelic-sounding stringed instrument. With his curly red fright wig underneath a slouch hat, Harpo Marx was the master of comic pantomime.

Without fail, Harpo let his antics, athleticism, and bicycle horns do the talking. Harpo’s funniest bits were usually tag-teamers with Chico. Zeppo, the youngest Marx, joined the act when Gummo Marx departed to join the military to fight in World War I. Gummo, who shunned the limelight, later took over as the group’s manager. Generally playing “the straight man,” Zeppo’s forte was the young romantic typecast. His job was to advance the action and set up the zingers for Groucho, Chico and Harpo. Although a significant portion of their act was based on improvisation, the entertainment world owes the Marx Brothers a great debt as the forefathers of popular sketch comedy. With perpetual action and rapid-fire dialogue, their antics could also be thought of as being reminiscent of commedia dell’arte, in that they created and played their own stock characters with their use of signature makeup, wigs, hats, musical instruments, and crazy accents. The Cocoanuts exemplifies this use of caricature. The Groucho character is forever scheming to get-rich-quick through highly suspect business practices, and continually flirting with rich widows.

Chico is the fast-talking con artist, and Harpo the loveable, if slightly-crooked clown. Zeppo is the handsome singer and straight man. While they all enjoyed chasing members of the opposite sex, Groucho above all reveled in romancing the wealthy, obstinate society women played by famed character actress Margaret Dumont. The talents of two other theatrical geniuses elevated both the 1925 Broadway and the 1929 hit film versions of The Cocoanuts. The show’s score was written by the musical phenomenon, Irving Berlin. Frequently called the greatest popular composer of the twentieth century, Berlin was born Israel Beline (born 1888) in Czarist Russia. A brilliant melodist (who could only play piano in a single key), Irving became the “King of Tin Pan Alley,” producing such classic works as “White Christmas” and “Cheek to Cheek” and the musicals Puttin’ On the Ritz, Annie Get Your Gun, Easter Parade, and Alexander’s Rag Time Band. One of Berlin’s greatest tunes, “Always,” was actually cut from the The Cocoanuts score right before it moved to Broadway! I’ll Say She Is!

had been a tremendous success, but the Marx Brothers wanted to add better production values to their next play. Gifted scriptwriter George S. Kaufman was brought on board to add class and sophistication to the writing of both The Cocoanuts and 1928s Animal Crackers. Perhaps the top American theatrical and film auteur of his era, Kaufman’s other greatest hits, such as You Can’t Take It with You, Stage Door and The Man Who Came to Dinner are still produced with regularity in regional and academic theatres. Kaufman (born 1889) also wrote the Marx Brothers’ classic film, A Night at the Opera (1935). By 1929, the previously silent motion picture business had added sound. Now, the comic escapades of the Marx Brothers could be marketed to a mass audience. Everyone on Broadway knew that the real showbiz gold would now be mined from the movies, and many fled New York for the Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio lots. The lure of Hollywood beckoned for both George S. Kaufman and Irving Berlin.

The Cocoanuts, chosen as their first Marx Brothers motion picture, was filmed in New York, but by the early 1930s the Marx Brothers had moved west, on their way to becoming Tinseltown legends. × Marx Brothers (Creator) - TV Tropes Marx Brothers You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account Share WMG L -R: Zeppo, Chico, Harpo, and Groucho. The Marx Brothers were vaudeville comedians from the early 20th century. They later starred in their own Broadway shows, and subsequently movies. They were wild and outrageous, gutbustingly hilarious with the central three being masters of different kinds of humor: verbal (Groucho), ethnic and musical (Chico), and surreal pantomime slapstick (Harpo). A family act, the Marx Brothers went through several incarnations under varying names (including "The Four Nightingales", "The Six Mascots", and others) before an appearance in Texas, where the audience left the theatre during a performance to go watch a mule .

This outraged the team, and they began breaking from their script to abuse the audience, which went over better than they expected with the audience finding it hilarious. Their act quickly incorporated a significant component of what would be referred to today as improv comedy, frequently mocking theatrical clichés and tropes, and they began to move up the ranks of vaudeville performers, eventually reaching the pinnacle of vaudeville fame, performing at New York's Palace theatre. A disagreement with the executive running the biggest vaudeville circuit at the time exiled them from big-time vaudeville, and sent them into regional touring, which was difficult and draining. The troupe was about to disband when a backer willing to fund a legitimate theatre production was found. Success on the road with I'll Say She Is, a revue based in part on their vaudeville routines, continued when the show was brought to Broadway. Their performance caught the attention of the theatrical critics as well as the audience, and their relatively haphazard, underfunded show ran for months. Their subsequent show was also a success, and was adapted to film, starting one of the greatest series of film comedies ever made.

The family had five brothers, although only four (and later three) performed together at a given time. According to interviews Groucho gave late in his life, their stage names reflected personal traits or important events in their lives, and were inspired by a comic strip called "Sherlocko the Monk", which triggered a brief rash of nicknames ending in "-o". Groucho (Julius Henry Marx), nicknamed for his abrasive wit. (Some sources say the name came from his "grouch bag", a bag worn around the neck, and used to keep money, as vaudeville performers were sometimes not above stealing from each other.) The patron saint of Deadpan Snarkers . Known for his cigar and mustache (which was actually a stripe of greasepaint, at least until he became the host of You Bet Your Life in 1947 and grew a real one). He's the singer of the group and, although it's not as showcased as Chico's and Harpo's instrumental talents, a gifted guitar player. A cross between a participant and a commentator, Groucho's on-screen persona would inspire comedians from Alan Alda to the MST3K team.

Later in life, he became a fan and friend of Alice Cooper , oddly enough. Chico (Leo or Leonard Marx); pronounced "chicko", his nickname referred to his habit of "chicken chasing" (womanizing). His trademarks were an outrageously fake Italian accent, a conical black hat, and a distinctive style of piano playing where he appear to literally "tickle" the piano (a play on the phrase "tickling the ivories") and would "shoot" selected keys with his fingers held to form a gun. The most traditional comedian of the three major brothers, Chico would typically find himself providing the verbal component to Harpo's mime, or sparring with Groucho. Despite his Funny Foreigner persona, he was widely-beloved by Italian-Americans as a basically-flattering caricature, since most of his scenes have him outwitting his WASP antagonists.

Harpo (Adolph Marx, later changed to "Arthur" , though not for the reason you might assume note he just plain hated the name and had it legally changed in 1911, long before the world had heard of Adolf Hitler and even before World War I 's anti-German hysteria was even an issue), nicknamed for his virtuoso harp playing (which was completely self-taught). His trademarks were harp playing, a silent mime performance (using a horn instead of speaking), and a clown-like costume featuring a raincoat with apparently bottomless pockets , a curly red (later blond, as it looked better in black-and-white film) wig, and a top hat. He is a virtuoso kleptomaniac with a special knack for pickpocketing, ending up with such unlikely prizes as Groucho's boxers and a random man's birthmark. In the early stage shows, he did an Oirish accent, but it was eventually decided that having him be The Speechless was funnier. His mime routines (most notably the famous Mirror Scene from Duck Soup) have become a staple for comedy shows today, and even inspired all of Mr.

Funny 's entire character in the 2009 season of The Mr. Men Show . Zeppo (Herbert Marx); according to Groucho, his nickname was born from the arrival of a German zeppelin at Lakehurst, NJ, but the dates don't match. Harpo, in his book Harpo Speaks, claims that the name was derived from a chimpanzee appearing in a comic strip of the day, Mr. Zippo, but when Herbert objected, this was changed to Zeppo. (There are other stories concerning the name's origin, such as the time the brothers were pretending to be farmers in order to dodge serving in World War I and gave each other hayseed names like "Zeke" and "Zeb".) Zeppo was the youngest and most handsome of the brothers, and while still part of the act generally played the straight man and sometimes the romantic lead. His trademark is less developed than the above. (He was a talented comedian, however, once filling in for Groucho during a Vaudeville tour when the latter was ill.) After several movies, he followed brother Gummo in leaving the act and becoming a manager for his performing siblings. A talented mechanic and inventor, he also founded a manufacturing company.

Gummo (Milton Marx), nicknamed for the sneaky, or "gumshoe", way he had of walking around backstage, or a pair of galoshes ("gumshoes") he had as a child. Gummo left the act when drafted during World War I , although he never reached Europe, about the time the Marxes were first becoming famous. According to That Other Wiki , the contemporary actor Gregg Marx is his grandson. There was actually a sixth Marx Brother, Manfred Marx, who was also the oldest; he died of enterocolitis while still a baby. They are in no way related to Karl Marx , author of The Communist Manifesto, despite humorist Richard Armour's assertion that Karl was the funniest of the brothers. Also frequently joining them was the matronly figure of Margaret Dumont, typically cast as a wealthy widow who was a perfect foil for Groucho; he would alternate between shamelessly flirting with her ("Ah, married. I can see you right now in the kitchen, bending over a hot stove...") and viciously insulting her ("But I can't see the stove."). Their comedic style was chaotic and absurd, with lots of word play, pantomime and satire.

In general, they would appear in stock stories, tired even by the standards of the day, and demolish them. The surrounding characters, trapped by their roles, would attempt to continue on through the story, mostly ignoring the literary deconstruction going on. In particular, Chico, Harpo and Groucho had their own identifiers: Chico spoofed the ignorant Italian Immigrant, always looking to con, steal or otherwise make a quick buck. He was the only Marx Brother to keep using his vaudeville accent into the movies. It's notable that Chico's character worked on another level besides the obvious spoof; he often got the better of Groucho and other characters with a hint of Obfuscating Stupidity and more than a little gusto, particularly in A Day at the Races. One Marx historian proposed that this was a vicarious release for actual immigrants, seeing "one of their own" get one up on the establishment. Given that the brothers' parents were immigrants (Alsatian Jews rather than Italians), there might be something to that.

Harpo originally spoofed an Irish Bruiser in the early vaudeville days, but later developed his trademark pantomime, "speaking" only through whistling, charades, and honking a horn. (In Real Life , Harpo actually had a pleasant baritone voice, and was described as talkative and intelligent; among his friends were Alexander Wolcott and George Bernard Shaw . He, like Wolcott, was a member of the Algonquin Round Table.) He was the clown of the group ï¿½ okay, they all were, to a point. He'd literally chase women, randomly snip people's ties off with scissors, eat random objects, and produce unlikely items from his pockets and tattoos. In the team's vaudeville days, Groucho originally played a German-accented character; but he was often booed for it (there was a World War going on) and so became the fast-talking "authority figure", and possibly the king of wordplay. It was he who uttered those immortal lines, "Once I shot an elephant in my pajamas.

How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." However, one of the absolute best-known of his lines is something he never actually said ï¿½ a supposed comment to a woman with lots of children who appeared on You Bet Your Life : Woman: I love my husband. Groucho: I love my cigar, too, but I take it out once in a while. Pretty racy stuff, for the 1950s. Groucho and Harpo went on to inspire the characters of Yakko and Wakko respectively in the hit 1990s Warner Bros. cartoon Animaniacs . In fact, an episode of Animaniacs entitled "King Yakko" is very similar to Duck Soup , following a similar plot and with Yakko and Wakko falling into roles similar to those of Groucho and Harpo. The episode even ends with Wakko having a beautiful woman hold his leg, one of Harpo's Running Gags . Also, Bugs Bunny : Bugs actually stole some of his mannerisms and lines from Groucho, including the famous line "Of course you know, This Means War!

" It is also argued that the way Bugs holds his carrot is meant to be reminiscent of Groucho and his cigar. There was even a Looney Tunes short in which Bugs disguised himself as Groucho to evade the attentions of restaurant chef Elmer Fudd. It didn't work, because Fudd was already disguised as Harpo. Groucho also has the distinctive pleasure of starring in a series of successful mystery novels by author Ron Goulart in which he and his writer Frank Denby investigate various murders and crimes that popped up in Hollywood during the 1930s (in the novels, Groucho did the investigations in between his working in movies and his hosting a weekly radio program). Not to be confused with Marx, a character from Kirby Super Star . Or that other Marx . The Marx Brothers' films:

Question: What was the real first name of the silent Marx Brother?
Answer: Adolph