Groucho Marx

Julius Henry Marx, better known as Groucho Marx (New York, October 2, 1890-Los Angeles, August 19, 1977), was an actor, American humorist and writer, known primarily for being one of the members of the Marx Brothers. He is considered the most influential comedian of all time, with his lines, despite the passage of time, being prominent in pop culture for generations, even in the present day. He passed away in Los Angeles from pneumonia. Shortly before he died, the Hollywood Academy had awarded him an honorary Oscar, in recognition of his entire film career.

Life and work

The Marx Brothers in 1931 (from above, Chico, Harpo, Groucho and Zeppo. The latter, more interested in mechanical engineering and business than in the performance, having not developed a defined comic character, left the group shortly.

Julius Henry Marx was born in New York and grew up in a modest family of Jewish German immigrants, but with a long tradition in variety shows and in the world of show business; he was the fourth of six brothers after Manfred, Harpo and Chico and before Zeppo and Gummo. His mother was Miene (Minnie) Schoenberg (1864-1929), and he immigrated to the United States from Germany with his parents (who had run a traveling theater company in Germany; he was a magician and ventriloquist, she a Tyrolean harpist) and his brothers and took care to educate his children in music (Groucho singing, Chico piano, Harpo harp).

His father was Simon (Samuel) Marx (b. Prussian in 1871, with which Samuel went from being a French citizen to a German citizen. Proud of his French past, he was known all his life as Frenchy and was, in the opinion of his family, a nice man, a good cook, but a terrible tailor. Much importance in the comic vocation of his children had his uncle, a famous comedian, Al Shean.

Groucho made his showbiz debut at age 15 as a solo singer. After some time he began to act together with his brothers in a small-time vaudeville, first in trios or musical quartets and finally in revues; together they thus toured the whole country; in 1910, while in Texas, Julius's anger at the attitude of the public in the middle of a song was amplified with crazy improvisations by his brothers and the first comic number emerged, from which "Humor en la escuela" was born;.

In 1914, Minnie Schoenberg, acting as the group's manager under the name Minnie Palmer, bought a page in Variety magazine announcing that they were either blowing up the box office, or they would work for free if they were hired; It took effect and they went to the upper circuit of the show. However, it was later the father, Simon, who became his representative. Julius married on February 4, 1920, Ruth Johnson, a "serial Christian", according to her husband, of the who had a son, the screenwriter Arthur (1921-2011), and a daughter, Miriam (1927). The play Cocoanuts, performed from 1925 to 1928, gave the Marxes their break on Broadway. It was the beginning of his great friendship with the playwright and screenwriter George S. Kaufman, misanthrope, reclusive and allergic to sentimentality, one of the few people Groucho admired.

As a result of this success, and after forgetting their unsuccessful filming of a first and lost silent film from 1921 called Humor Risk, they signed an agreement with the film production company Paramount, with which they made several films, such as the transposition of his Broadway show The Cocoanuts The Four Coconuts (1929), The Marx Conflict (1930), Horse Feathers (1932) and Goose Soup (1933), among others. In the meantime, he lost all his money for having ventured to speculate on the stock market in the crash of 1929.

After leaving Paramount, and thanks to producer Irving G. Thalberg, the Marx brothers began working with Metro Goldwyn Mayer, which produced films such as A Night at the Opera (1935), A Day at the Races (1937), The Trouble Hotel (1938), An Afternoon at the Circus (1939), The Marx Brothers in the West (1940), Crazy Shop (1941) and A Night in Casablanca (1946). Thalberg convinced the brothers to accommodate their unbridled creativity to a narratively more structured script, delimiting specific spaces to their unbridled improvisation in some sequences. The brothers would go on tour with show business polishing up their variety show and then use the best gags in the movies they made with Thalberg. Tienda de locos (1941) already meant the swan song for the brothers and their willingness to leave the cinema, but they had to shoot another penultimate comedy again to help Chico because of his endless straits Economic: A Night in Casablanca (1946), which caused them some problems with the title, since other brothers, the Warners, owners of the Warner Bros production company, believed that it usurped the title of their famous film Casablanca (1942). The event gave rise to a funny epistolary exchange between Groucho and his lawyers that was later published in the famous collection Letters from Groucho Marx . The last film in which they acted together was, however, four years later, Love preserved (1950).

Julius, nicknamed Groucho, from grouch, "grumpy" in English, he would put on a very uncomfortable false mustache and one day he decided to take it off and paint one with bitumen, thus forming part of the iconography of his character; he also added a characteristic slouch gait that elicited laughter when he rehearsed it in the show and completed the character of him with bushy eyebrows, a cigar and wire glasses. He usually played an easy-talking, mischievous, witty lawyer who was willing to do anything for money, especially to give a "flap"; or convenience wedding with a rich old woman (usually played by Margaret Dumont). His humor was especially corrosive, imaginative, crazy and anarchistic, enhanced by the antics of the mime Harpo and the picaresque and Italianate slang of the compulsive gambler Chico.

Divorced from Ruth in 1942, in 1945 he contracted his second marriage to the dancer Kay Marvis, ex-wife of Leo Gorcey. In the 50s, each of the three brothers continued to work independently on radio, television and film, Groucho being the one who achieved the most success, thanks to his facet as a writer and above all for a television program he presented, You Bet Your Life / Bet Your Life, with which he became truly famous in the United States among a generation of people who had never seen him on stage and who barely knew him from any of his old movies. This space was broadcast from 1947 for three years on the radio and eleven and a half on television. During the anti-left Witch Hunt, he supported the First Amendment Committee to protect free speech along with other entertainment figures such as Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth. That led to him being investigated by the FBI. He still made two more solo films: the musical comedy Double Dynamite (1951) and the comedy A girl in Every Port (1952). In 1950 he divorced his second wife, and he remarried in 1954 to Eden Hartford.

He wrote two memoirs: Groucho y yo (Barcelona: Tusquets editores, 1995) and Memories of a mangy lover (Barcelona: Tusquets editores, 2000). Some of his stories have been published in Spanish: Save yourself who can! and other unheard stories (Plot editions, 2005), letters: Groucho's letters (Barcelona: Anagrama, 1998) and radio scripts: Groucho and Chico lawyers: Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel. The lost radio serial of the Marx brothers (Barcelona: Tusquets editores, 1999)

Marx died on August 19, 1977 in Los Angeles of pneumonia, leaving behind three ex-wives, Ruth, Kay and Eden, three children (Arthur, who was a successful screenwriter and biographer; Miriam and Melinda), 18 movies —14 of them with his brothers— and millions of fans. One of her famous phrases was: "I do not want to belong to any club that accepts someone like me as a member."

Groucho Marx was cremated; His ashes, after being stolen in 1982 and returned the same night at the gates of the nearby Mount Sinai Memorial Park, are still in Eden Memorial Park (Mission Hills, California), it being false that his tombstone contains the epitaph "Excuse me that I did not lift", as is popularly repeated, although it does seem true that in an interview shortly before his death he formulated that phrase as a wish, which could have given rise to the subsequent confusion.

Books

• Groucho and me. (1959)
• Memories of a Sardinian lover (1963)
• Groucho's letters (1967)
• Beds (1984)
• Groucho and Chico lawyers: Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel. The lost radio serial of the Marx brothers (Barcelona: Tusquets editors, 1999)
• Save who you can! And other unheard stories (Plot editions, 2005)

Movies

Films of the four Marx Brothers

Groucho Marx (sensed) with his brothers Chico (left) and Harpo (right) in 1948.

• Humor Risk (1921) (only a few pieces are preserved)
• The four coconuts (1929)
• The Conflict of Marxs (1930)
• Freshwater guns (1931)
• Horse feathers (1932)
• Goose soup (1933)

Movies by the three Marx Brothers (without Zeppo)

• One night at the opera (1935)
• One day in the races (1937)
• The hotel of trouble (1938)
• One afternoon at the circus (1939)
• The Marx Brothers in the West (1940)
• Crazy Shop (1941)
• One night in Casablanca (1946)
• Love in conserve (1949)
• The History of Humanity (1957) (appear separately, it is not considered a film of the Marx Brothers)

Solo Movies

Round glasses, thick eyebrows, moustache and bean. Icons of Groucho Marx.

• Copacabana Alfred E. Green (1947)
• Double Dynamite (1951)
• A woman in every port (1952)
• Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)
• The Mikado (TV) (1960)
• Skidoo (1968)