55 Facts About Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer who performed in films and vaudeville on television, radio, and the stage.

Groucho Marx had a successful solo career, primarily on radio and television, most notably as the host of the game show You Bet Your Life.

Groucho was born Julius Henry Marx was born on October 2,1890, in Manhattan, New York City.

The Groucho Marx children grew up in a turn-of-the-century building at 179 East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side of the borough of Manhattan.

Father Simon "Sam" Groucho Marx, changed his name from Marrix, was called "Frenchie" by his sons throughout his life, because he and his family came from Alsace in France.

Groucho Marx reputedly claimed that he was "hopelessly average" as a vaudevillian, but this was typical Groucho Marx, wisecracking in his true form.

The Groucho Marx Brothers performed variations on this routine for the next seven years.

The Groucho Marx Brothers became the biggest comedic stars of the Palace Theatre in New York, which billed itself as the "Valhalla of Vaudeville".

Groucho Marx started his career in vaudeville in 1905 when he joined up with an act called The Leroy Trio.

Groucho Marx answered a newspaper want ad by a man named Robin Leroy who was looking for a boy to join his group as a singer.

Groucho Marx was hired along with fellow vaudeville actor Johnny Morris.

The brothers' mother, Minnie Groucho Marx, was the group's manager, putting them together and booking their shows.

Groucho Marx made 26 movies, including 13 with his brothers Chico and Harpo.

Groucho Marx developed a routine as a wisecracking hustler with a distinctive chicken-walking lope, an exaggerated greasepaint mustache and eyebrows and an ever-present cigar, improvising insults to stuffy dowagers and anyone else who stood in his way.

In 1947, Groucho Marx was asked to host a radio quiz program You Bet Your Life.

Frank Sinatra, who once quipped that the only thing he could do better than Groucho Marx was sing, made a film with Groucho Marx and Jane Russell in 1951 entitled Double Dynamite.

The absurdity of the greasepaint was never discussed on-screen, but in a famous scene in Duck Soup, where both Chicolini and Pinky disguise themselves as Groucho Marx, they are briefly seen applying the greasepaint, implicitly answering any question a viewer might have had about where he got his mustache and eyebrows.

Groucho Marx was asked to apply the greasepaint mustache once more for You Bet Your Life when it came to television, but he refused, opting instead to grow a real one, which he wore for the rest of his life.

Groucho Marx debuted this new, and now much-older, appearance in the 1949 film Love Happy, the Marx Brothers's last film as a comedy team.

Groucho Marx did paint the old character mustache over his real one on a few rare occasions, including a TV sketch with Jackie Gleason on the latter's variety show in the 1960s and the 1968 Otto Preminger film Skidoo.

Groucho Marx was 29 and she was 19 at the time of their wedding.

Groucho Marx was 54 and Kay was 21 at the time of their marriage.

Groucho Marx was 64 and she was 24 at the time of their wedding.

Groucho Marx was denied membership in an informal symphonietta of friends organized by Ben Hecht, because he could play only the mandolin.

Later in life, Marx would sometimes note to talk show hosts, not entirely jokingly, that he was unable to actually insult anyone, because the target of his comment would assume that it was a Groucho-esque joke, and would laugh.

Groucho Marx was a friend of such literary figures as Booth Tarkington, T S Eliot, and Carl Sandburg.

In Life with Groucho: A Son's Eye View, Arthur Marx relates that in his latter years, Groucho increasingly referred to himself by the name Hackenbush, referring to the character of that name he played in A Day at the Races.

Groucho Marx made serious efforts to learn to play the guitar.

Groucho Marx asked Chaplin what was in his, with Chaplin responding he didn't have one.

However, during an episode of Firing Line on July 7,1967, Marx admitted to voting for Wendell Willkie, the Republican candidate for president in 1940, over Franklin D Roosevelt, stating that he did not believe that any man should run for more than two terms.

Groucho Marx mentioned in a television interview that he disliked the women's liberation movement.

Groucho Marx's radio show Blue Ribbon Town had failed; Irving Brecher was unable to find a sponsor for his proposed radio sitcom The Flotsam Family created for Marx, only to see it become a huge hit revamped as The Life of Riley starring William Bendix in the title role.

Groucho Marx was scheduled to appear on a radio show with Bob Hope.

Groucho Marx continued to ignore the script, ad-libbing at length, and took it well beyond its allotted time slot.

One of Groucho Marx's most oft-quoted remarks may have occurred during a 1947 radio episode.

Groucho Marx was interviewing Charlotte Story, who had borne 20 children.

On October 1,1962, Groucho Marx, after acting as occasional guest host of The Tonight Show during the six-month interval between Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, introduced Carson as the new host.

In 1964, Groucho Marx starred in the "Time for Elizabeth" episode of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, a truncated version of a play that he and Norman Krasna wrote in 1948.

In 1965, Marx starred in a weekly show for British TV titled Groucho, broadcast on ITV.

Groucho Marx appeared as a gangster named God in the comedy movie Skidoo, directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Jackie Gleason and Carol Channing.

Writer Paul Krassner published a story in the February 1981 issue of High Times, relating how Groucho Marx prepared for the LSD-themed movie by taking a dose of the drug in Krassner's company, and had a moving, largely pleasant experience.

Groucho Marx made an appearance in 1973 on a short-lived variety show hosted by Bill Cosby.

Some close to Groucho Marx believed that she did much to revive his popularity, and the relationship with a younger woman boosted his ego and vitality.

Groucho Marx praised the late Margaret Dumont as a great straight woman who never understood any of his jokes.

Groucho Marx's final appearance was a brief sketch with George Burns in the Bob Hope television special Joys in March 1976.

Groucho Marx maintained his irrepressible sense of humor to the very end, however.

Groucho Marx played the tubes for me, which brings me to tears.

Groucho Marx was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with pneumonia on June 22,1977, and died there nearly two months later at the age of 86 on August 19, four months after Gummo's death.

Groucho Marx's body was cremated and the ashes are interred in the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Groucho Marx was survived by his three children and younger brother Zeppo, who outlived him by two years.

Groucho Marx was considered the most recognizable of the Marx Brothers.

An added Groucho Marx homage was that a poster for the Groucho Marx Brothers' movie Go West was included on the cover art.

In March 1977, Groucho Marx invited Queen to visit him in his Los Angeles home; there they performed "'39" a cappella.

Groucho Marx continues to tour under rights granted by the Marx family in a show entitled An Evening with Groucho in theaters throughout the United States and Canada with supporting actors and piano accompanist Jim Furmston.

The reason was that in communist Hungary, the name 'Groucho Marx' was associated with Karl Groucho Marx, and the name was not allowed to be used in such a light, humorous context.