Marx Brothers

• 1. Introduction

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  The Marx Brothers made their name on a mistake. One evening in 1909, during a performance at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas, the audience bolted from their seats when shouts from outside announced a runaway mule. Groucho, left standing on stage, seethed. When the crowd wandered back in, he greeted them with insults: "Nacogdoches is full of roaches," he announced, and "the jackass is the flower of Tex-ass." The audience laughed. That accidental pivot from a singing act to a comedy troupe set in motion one of the most improbable careers in American entertainment history.

  Five brothers from New York City's Upper East Side would go on to perform in vaudeville, conquer Broadway, and make thirteen feature films. The American Film Institute would eventually rank five of those films among the greatest comedies ever made, with two landing in the top fifteen. Critics, scholars, and fans would place Chico, Harpo, and Groucho collectively among the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. And yet this was a group that was once blacklisted from every major theater circuit in the country, that watched its first film screened to a disinterested audience in the Bronx and decided to burn the print, and that kept making movies largely because Chico kept running out of money.

  Who were these brothers, and how did a family of immigrant performers from the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan transform American comedy? The answers run from a runaway mule in Texas to a standing ovation at the Academy Awards.

• 2. The Family Behind the Act

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  Minnie Marx was the architect. Born Miene Schoenberg in Dornum, East Frisia, then part of the Kingdom of Hanover, she came from a family of funfair entertainers: her mother was a yodeling harpist, her father a ventriloquist. Around 1880, the family emigrated to New York City. Her husband, Sam Marx, was from Mertzwiller, a small village in Alsace, France, and worked as a tailor. The two married on the 18th of January 1885.

  Their firstborn son, Manfred, died aged seven months on the 17th of July 1886, of enterocolitis. He is buried in Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, beside his grandmother. The surviving sons arrived in quick succession: Leonard Joseph "Chico" on the 22nd of March 1887, Adolph "Harpo" on the 23rd of November 1888, Julius Henry "Groucho" on the 2nd of October 1890, Milton "Gummo" on the 21st of October 1892, and the youngest, Herbert Manfred "Zeppo," on the 25th of February 1901.

  Minnie was the force that propelled all of them into show business. Her younger brother Abraham Schonberg, performing under the stage name Al Shean, had found success in vaudeville and on Broadway as half of the comedy double act Gallagher and Shean. His example, combined with the family's theater background, convinced her to push her children toward the stage. She managed the brothers under the name Minnie Palmer, hiding the fact that she was also their mother so that agents would not dismiss her. All five brothers described her, at various points, as the head of the family and the only person who could keep them in order. She was also said to be a tough negotiator with theater management.

  In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, home to three major vaudeville talent agencies. They lived in several Chicago locations, one of which now carries a historical marker, before moving east again in 1920.

• 3. Nicknames, Personas, and the Birth of Characters

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  Art Fisher handed out the Marx Brothers' stage names during a poker game. Fisher was a monologist, and as he dealt each brother a card he addressed them, for the first time, by the names they would keep for the rest of their lives. The nicknames were shaped in part by a comic strip called Sherlocko the Monk, drawn by Gus Mager, which featured a character named "Groucho" and reflected the "O" nickname fad of the era.

  Julius became Groucho, a name most accounts tied to his notably moody temperament, though alternative theories pointed to the Groucho character in the comic strip, or to the "grouch bag" he carried containing money and necessities. Leonard became "Chicko" because of his reputation for chasing women, a nickname later shortened to Chico but still pronounced "Chick-o" rather than "Cheek-o." Arthur became Harpo because he played the harp. Milton's nickname Gummo came from his habit of wearing rubber-soled shoes, though the details shifted depending on who was telling the story. Harpo claimed Milton earned the name by sneaking around theaters like a gumshoe detective. Other accounts described him as the troupe's hypochondriac who wore rubber overshoes whenever rain seemed possible.

  The brothers' distinctive stage personas hardened into place through a production called Home Again, written for them by their uncle Al Shean after critics began finding their material stale. Shean created for Groucho a fast-talking character that incorporated the trademark greasepaint mustache and a stooped walk. For Harpo, he intentionally wrote few lines, nudging Harpo toward silence. Shean attributed this to Harpo's lisp; Harpo himself noted that positive reviews often said he was better when he did not speak. The wig and the horn followed. Gummo, and later Zeppo, took on the romantic straight man role, a part the critic James Agee famously described as "peerlessly cheesy."

  Home Again drew packed audiences and earned a contract with the United Booking Office, which controlled the highest-paying theaters in the country. A review in Billboard praised it as "a good meaty character comedy," noting that "the company's work fully entitle them to their six curtain calls." In 1915, the Home Again tour reached Flint, Michigan, where fourteen-year-old Zeppo joined his four brothers for what is believed to be the only time all five Marx Brothers appeared together on stage. The 3rd of September 1915 edition of The Flint Daily Journal documented the performance, noting that Zeppo sang "four or five songs" and "gives promise of becoming as much of a favorite as the rest of the family."

• 4. Bans, Failures, and Broadway

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  In April 1921, the brothers produced a short silent film called Humor Risk. Written by Jo Swerling, it featured Groucho playing a villain and Harpo in a romantic lead role named Watson. A single screening in the Bronx went poorly, reportedly marked by disruptive children and impassive adults. The brothers chose not to release it. No copies of Humor Risk are known to survive.

  The summer of 1922 proved more damaging. Facing thin bookings in the United States, the brothers took their act to the UK, performing in London, Bristol, and Manchester. E. F. Albee, who ran the United Booking Office that controlled their contract, required that acts in his chain get his permission before playing anywhere else. The brothers had not asked. On their return to the United States, they were blacklisted from every UBO-controlled theater in the country.

  They tried the smaller Shubert circuit, producing a show called The Twentieth Century Revue, but the Shuberts were at that moment engaged in a lawsuit against their uncle Al Shean. The brothers made less money, and their act was padded with Shubert performers of uneven quality. The Cincinnati Post of the 12th of February 1923 described those other acts as periods where "everyone is sparring for time." Former cast members sued over unpaid salaries, and when sheriffs seized the Revue's assets, the show closed.

  With both major vaudeville circuits closed to them, Harpo recalled in his memoir Harpo Speaks that the team had begun discussing breaking up entirely: Groucho would audition as a solo act, Zeppo would return to Chicago with Minnie, and Chico would hire out as a piano player. Harpo's response, as he remembered it, was: "Nuts."

  What saved them was a man named James P. Beury, who had recently purchased the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia and was reportedly looking for a starring vehicle for a chorus girl he was dating. He backed a new show written by Tom and Will Johnstone, assembled partly from the unused scenery and costumes of a failed production called Gimme a Thrill. That show, retitled I'll Say She Is, premiered in Allentown, Pennsylvania in May 1923, toured successfully, and reached Broadway in May 1924. For the premiere, Minnie Marx had been fitted for a custom dress when she fell and broke her ankle. She attended opening night on a stretcher.

  Positive reviews appeared in most of the New York dailies, and the show ran for 313 performances. The reviewer for the New York Sun was Alexander Woollcott, who would become a lifelong friend of Harpo's and who introduced him to the Algonquin Round Table, a gathering of intellectuals who met regularly at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan. Woollcott also convinced the brothers, who until that point had been billed by their given names, to use their stage names in public.

• 5. Margaret Dumont and the Broadway Peak

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  George S. Kaufman did not want the job. When Sam Harris approached him to write the Marx Brothers' next Broadway show after I'll Say She Is, Kaufman, a member of the Algonquin Round Table himself, reportedly exclaimed: "Are you crazy? Write a show for the Marx Brothers? I'd rather write a show for the Barbary apes!" He signed on anyway, believing that a show starring the brothers with music by Irving Berlin was almost certainly going to succeed.

  The Cocoanuts, set during the Florida land boom, opened in Boston in October 1925 and came to Broadway in December of that year. Its plot followed a hotel owner named Hammer, played by Groucho, trying to sell real estate amid the theft of a valuable necklace and a romantic subplot. The show featured a now-classic routine called "Why a Duck?" in which Groucho attempts to explain a map to Chico, producing an escalating series of misunderstandings about "viaduct" and "why a duck." Woollcott called it "so funny it's positively weakening." The production ran for 276 performances.

  The Cocoanuts introduced Margaret Dumont to the Marx Brothers. A former small-time vaudevillian who had married into wealth, been widowed, and returned to the stage, Dumont played Mrs. Potter, a wealthy widow and object of Groucho's romantic pursuits. Writer Morrie Ryskind remembered that from the moment she stepped on stage, "it became obvious that the addition of Miss Dumont filled a long neglected void, and that a great comedy team had been launched." She would go on to reprise her role as straight foil to Groucho in six further Broadway productions and seven of their films.

  Groucho later claimed that Dumont "never understood any of my jokes." Interviews told a different story: Dumont understood comedy well and was a skilled performer who knew precisely how to play opposite him.

  The next Broadway production, Animal Crackers, opened at the 44th Street Theatre on the 23rd of October 1928. Kaufman returned to write the book, this time with co-writer Morrie Ryskind receiving full credit. Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby replaced Irving Berlin and supplied the song "Hooray for Captain Spaulding," which would become Groucho's signature tune and later the theme music for his television program You Bet Your Life. The New Yorker described Animal Crackers as "the very concoction for which the word 'wow' had been coined." It ran for 171 performances.

• 6. Paramount, Thalberg, and the Films

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  Filming The Cocoanuts at Paramount's Astoria Studios in Queens, beginning in February 1929, presented challenges the brothers had never encountered on stage. Sound film technology was primitive and highly sensitive. Paper props had to be sprayed with water to prevent microphones from picking up crinkling sounds. Cameras were kept in soundproof boxes that limited their movement. Throughout production, the brothers commuted daily between the Astoria set and Manhattan, where they continued performing Animal Crackers on stage each evening.

  The Cocoanuts premiered in New York in May 1929. The brothers had reportedly worried they would have to buy back the print. Instead, critics outside New York received it warmly, and it proved a significant box office success. Then, on the 13th of September 1929, Minnie died. Woollcott wrote a full-page obituary in The New Yorker, praising her as having "invented" the brothers: "They were just comics she imagined for her own amusement." The following month, the stock market crashed. Harpo and Groucho, who had borrowed heavily to invest, had to liquidate everything they owned.

  Three more Paramount films followed: Monkey Business in 1931, Horse Feathers in 1932, and Duck Soup in 1933. Horse Feathers, a satire of the American college system and Prohibition, was their most popular Paramount film and won them the cover of Time magazine. Their final Paramount picture, Duck Soup, directed by Academy Award winner Leo McCarey, is the highest rated of the five Marx Brothers films on the AFI's "100 Years... 100 Movies" list. The film sparked an actual dispute with the village of Fredonia, New York, whose city fathers objected to the fictional country "Freedonia" in the script, claiming it was hurting the town's image. Groucho fired back a letter asking them to change the name of their town, because "it's hurting our picture."

  After Zeppo left the act and the Paramount contract expired, Irving Thalberg signed Groucho, Chico, and Harpo at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Thalberg's approach differed sharply from Paramount's: he insisted on stronger stories that made the brothers more sympathetic characters, interweaving comedy with romantic plots and non-comic musical numbers, and ensuring the brothers' jokes targeted obvious villains. He also required their scripts include a "low point" where all seems lost, and he introduced the practice of testing scripts before live audiences before filming began, retaining jokes that earned laughs and replacing those that did not.

  The first MGM film, A Night at the Opera in 1935, featured the brothers helping two young singers in love by throwing a production of Il Trovatore into chaos. It included the famous stateroom scene, where a large number of people crowd into a tiny ship cabin. Groucho later said in a 1969 interview with Dick Cavett that the two Thalberg films were the best they ever produced. A Day at the Races followed in 1937, set in a sanatorium and at a horse race, featuring the classic "Tootsie Frootsie Ice Cream" sketch in which Chico cons Groucho into purchasing a wheelbarrow full of worthless racing tips. Thalberg died suddenly on the 14th of September 1936, two weeks after filming began on A Day at the Races. Without their advocate at the studio, the brothers left MGM in 1937.

  Their final film together, Love Happy, released in 1949, was originally intended as a solo vehicle for Harpo. Chico, again in need of money, joined the production. Groucho agreed only after being told financing could not be obtained unless all three brothers appeared.

• 7. Legacy and Reach

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  Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, whose drawings of the Marx Brothers were used to promote A Night at the Opera and now hang in the Smithsonian, said of them that they "started to look like the drawing, rather than the other way around." That observation captures something real: the brothers' personas became so culturally embedded that the image preceded the person.

  Their influence on animation alone was substantial. Dopey in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was inspired by Harpo's silent performances. Bugs Bunny's wise-cracking, Brooklyn-accented persona drew from Groucho Marx, and his creators had him explicitly imitate Groucho in several cartoons, including 1947's Slick Hare, in which Elmer Fudd appeared as Harpo.

  Duck Soup, which had underperformed financially on its 1933 release, found a second life in the 1960s and 1970s when its satire of war and politics resonated with college-aged protesters during the Vietnam War. The 1974 re-release of Animal Crackers, following a letter-writing campaign, drew crowds so large that when Groucho attended the New York premiere, a near-riot broke out and a police escort was summoned. That same year, Vlasic Pickles introduced a stork mascot that mimicked Groucho's mannerisms, holding a pickle the way Groucho held his cigar. That mascot remains in use today.

  Musicians absorbed them too. Rock band Queen named two albums after Marx Brothers films: A Night at the Opera in 1975 and A Day at the Races in 1976. English punk band The Damned named their 1980 single "There Ain't No Sanity Clause" after a famous line from A Night at the Opera. Belgian singer Jacques Brel's 1967 song "Le Gaz" was inspired by the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera. The band Sparks was originally named "The Sparks Brothers" as a reference to the Marx Brothers.

  In 1999, the American Film Institute included the Marx Brothers on their list of top twenty-five American male screen legends, naming them collectively as number 20. They are the only group on a list that otherwise exclusively recognized individual performers. The Library of Congress has included two of their films in the National Film Registry for their "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance": Duck Soup in 1990 and A Night at the Opera in 1993.

  At the 1974 Academy Awards telecast, Jack Lemmon presented Groucho with an honorary Academy Award to a standing ovation, an award also made on behalf of Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo. Groucho told the audience: "I wish that Harpo and Chico could be here to share with me this great honor." He also praised the late Margaret Dumont as a great straight woman who never understood any of his jokes. The radio show Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, which Groucho and Chico originally starred in, was believed lost until its scripts were discovered in the Library of Congress in the 1980s. After publication, they were performed by Marx Brothers impersonators for BBC Radio. In 2016, theater historians Noah Diamond and Amanda Sisk presented a reconstructed version of I'll Say She Is off-Broadway, the culmination of years of research to recover a musical for which no complete script had survived.