Marx brothers

Top to bottom: Chico, Harpo, Groucho and Zeppo (1931)

The Marx Brothers were a team of sibling comedians that played in vaudeville, stage plays, film and television. The brothers were Chico (Leonard, 1887-1961), Harpo (Adolph Arthur, 1888-1964), Groucho (Julius Henry, 1890-1977), Gummo (Milton, 1892-1977), and Zeppo, (Herbert, 1901-1979). Another brother, Manfred, was born in 1885 but died in infancy.

Stage beginnings

The Marx Brothers were all born in New York City, the sons of Jewish immigrants. Their mother, Minnie Schoenberg, originally came from Germany, while their father, Samuel "Frenchie" Marx (born Simon Marrix), had come from French-speaking Alsace. The brothers had been talented musically from an early age. Harpo, especially, could play nearly any instrument, including the harp, which he often played on film. Chico was an excellent and histrionic pianist, and Groucho played the guitar.

They got their start in vaudeville where their uncle Al Shean was already performing, as half of Gallagher and Shean. Groucho's debut was in 1905, mostly as a singer. By 1907 he and Gummo were singing together as two-thirds of The Three Nightingales, with Mabel O'Donnell. The next year Harpo became the fourth Nightingale. By 1910 the group was expanded to include their mother and their Aunt Hannah, and renamed The Six Mascots. One evening, a performance at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas was interrupted by shouts from outside about a runaway mule. The audience hurried outside to see what was happening, and when they returned, Groucho, infuriated by the interruption, announced "Nacogdoches is full of roaches," and "The jackass is the flower of Tex-ass." Instead of becoming angry in return, the audience laughed, and afterward the family began to consider the possibility that they had potential as a comic troupe.

Slowly, the act evolved from singing with some incidental comedy to a comedy sketch set in a schoolroom, featuring Groucho as the teacher presiding over a classroom which included students Harpo, Gummo and, by 1912, Chico. The last version of the school act, entitled Home Again, was written by Al Shean. Around this time, Gummo left the group to fight in World War I ("Anything is better than being an actor!"); Zeppo would replace him for their final vaudeville years, through their leap to Broadway, and the subsequent Paramount pictures.

An early photo of all five Marx Brothers with their parents Minnie and Frenchie.

By this time the brothers, now The Four Marx Brothers, had begun to incorporate their unique brand of comedy into their act and to develop their characters. Groucho began to wear his trademark greasepaint moustache and to use a stooped walk; Harpo began to wear a red fright wig, carried a small bicycle horn and never spoke; Chico started to talk in a fake Italian accent, developed off-stage to deal with neighbourhood toughs. The on-stage personalities of Groucho, Chico and Harpo were said to have been based on their actual traits, although in real life Harpo could talk. Their stage names were coined by monologist Art Fisher during a poker game on the road, based both on the brothers' personalities and Knocko the Monk, a popular comic strip of the day which included a supporting character named "Groucho." Julius Marx was named Groucho for his saturnine disposition, for the fact that he carried his money in a "grouch-bag" for safe keeping, and/or after the comic strip's character, depending on which Marx Brother or associate one asks; Arthur was named Harpo because he played the harp, and Leonard named Chico (pronounced "Chick-o") after his affinity for the ladies ("chicks"). In his autobiography Harpo Speaks! (Limelight Editions, 1985, ISBN 0879100362), Harpo explains that Milton became Gummo because he crept about the theater like a gumshoe detective, and Herbert was dubbed Zeppo for his athletic prowess and ability to do chin-ups like "Zippo the Chimpanzee." However, in the 1993 documentary, The Unknown Marx Brothers, Groucho remarks in a taped interview that Zeppo was named after the first zeppelins, while Chico's daughter, Maxine, insists that Zeppo was named after "Zeke and Zeb" jokes, which were popular in the midwest when the Marx Brothers lived in Chicago.

In the 1920s the Marx Brothers became one of America's favorite theatrical acts. With their sharp and bizarre sense of humour, they satirized institutions like high society, and human hypocrisy. In addition, they became famous for their improvisational comedy in their free form scenarios. A famous early example occured when Harpo instructed a chorus girl to run across the stage in front of Groucho during his act, with him chasing to see if Groucho would be thrown off. However to the audience's delight, Groucho merely reacted with an improvised joke of calmly checking his watch and commenting "First time I ever saw a taxi hail a passenger," and, when Harpo chased the girl back the other direction, "You can always set your watch by the 9:20."

Under Chico's management and with Groucho's creative direction, the brothers' vaudeville act had become successful enough to make them stars on Broadway, first with a musical revue, "I'll Say She Is" (1924-1925), followed by two musical comedies, "The Cocoanuts" (1925-1926) and "Animal Crackers" (1928-1929). Playwright George S. Kaufman worked on the latter two shows and helped to sharpen the Brothers' characterizations.

Hollywood

The Marx brothers' stage shows became popular just as Hollywood was making the change to "talkies". The brothers struck a contract with Paramount and embarked on their career in movies. Their first two released films (they had previously made - but not released - one short silent film titled Humor Risk) were adaptations of Broadway shows: The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930). Both were written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. Following these two feature-length films, they made a short film that was included in Paramount's twentieth anniversary documentary, The House that Shadows Built (1931), in which they adapted a scene from "I'll Say She Is." Their third feature-length film, Monkey Business (1931), was their first that was not based on a stage production. Horse Feathers (1932), in which the brothers satirized the American College system, was their most popular film yet, and won them the cover of Time Magazine. It included a running gag from their films where Harpo revealed having nearly everything in his coat. At various points in Horse Feathers Harpo pulls out of his coat: a wooden mallet, a coiled rope, a tie, a poster of a woman in her underwear, a cup of hot coffee, and a candle burning at both ends.

The last Paramount film, Duck Soup (1933), directed by Leo McCarey, is now considered by many the finest: it's the only Marx Brothers film on the American Film Institute's "100 years...100 Movies" list. In 1933, however, the public was not receptive to a satire of dictators and war, and it did not do well at the box office. Its controversial themes also led to the brothers being fired by the studio. Additionally, Zeppo, tired of having to play the straight romantic lead, announced he would do no more films after Duck Soup.

The three remaining brothers moved to Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and, following the suggestion of producer Irving Thalberg, decided to alter the formula of subsequent films. In the rest of their movies, their comedy would be interwoven with romantic plots and non-comic musical numbers while the targets of their mischief was largely confined to clear villains. Only the first five films represent what is considered their genius in its pure form. The first movie that the brothers shot with Thalberg, was A Night at the Opera (1935), a witty satire of the world of opera music, where the brothers helped two young singers in love by throwing a production of Il Trovatore into silly chaos. The film was a great success, followed two years later by A Day at the Races (1937), where the brothers caused mayhem at a racecourse. However, during shooting in 1936, Thalberg died suddenly, and without him, the brothers didn't have an advocate at MGM .

File:MarxBrothers.jpg

Marx Brothers by Yousuf Karsh, 1948

After a short experience at RKO (Room Service, 1938), the Marx Brothers made three fairly good pictures before leaving MGM, At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940) and The Big Store (1941). To face up Chico's gambling debts, the Marx Brothers shot another two pictures together, A Night in Casablanca (1946) and Love Happy (1949), both of them produced by United Artists. Then they worked together, but in some different scenes, in The Story of Mankind (1957). This was followed by a television special, The Incredible Jewel Robbery in 1959.

Chico and Harpo went on to make, sometimes together, some theatrical appearances, and Groucho began a career as a radio and tv entertainer (from 1947 to the mid-1960s, he was the host of the funny quiz show You Bet Your Life). He was also an author, his writings include the autobiographical Groucho and Me (1959) (Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806665) and Memoirs of a Mangy Lover (1964) (Da Capo Press, 2002, ISBN 0306811049).

The 1957 TV talk show Tonight! America After Dark, hosted by Jack Lescoulie, may supply the only public footage in which all five brothers appeared. On January 16, 1977, The Marx Brothers were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame.

Legacy

The Marx brothers movies occupy one of the peaks of American film comedy. They were sui generis; no one else made comedy quite like theirs. One of its characteristics was that the three principals—Groucho, Harpo, and Chico—each had a unique character and comic persona. Groucho's comedy was often word-based, relying on puns and other word-play ("This morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. What he was doing in my pajamas I don't know."), although he sometimes did physical comedy, as in the famous scene from Duck Soup in which he pretends to be doing a reflection in a mirror. Harpo's act was entirely physical, since he never spoke. Chico's comedy usually had him representing an unlearned commoner who, through gumption and savvy and sometimed brute strength overcomes some adversity or situation.

One of the things that fed into the success of their film comedy was their experience with live vaudeville. They would often try things on stage, and if they worked there, then go on to incorporate them into their films; an example is the

Filmography

Films with at least four of the brothers:

Humor Risk (probably 1921), previewed once and never released; possibly lost
The Cocoanuts (1929), released by Paramount
Animal Crackers (1930), released by Paramount
The House that Shadows Built (1931), released by Paramount (short subject)
Monkey Business (1931), released by Paramount
Horse Feathers (1932), released by Paramount
Duck Soup (1933), released by Paramount

Films with only Harpo, Chico, Groucho:

A Night at the Opera (1935), released by MGM
A Day at the Races (1937), released by MGM
Room Service (1938), released by RKO
At the Circus (1939), released by MGM
Go West (1940), released by MGM
The Big Store (1941), released by MGM
A Night in Casablanca (1946), released by United Artists
Love Happy (1949), released by United Artists
The Story of Mankind (1957)

Characters

Movie	Year	Groucho	Chico	Harpo	Zeppo
Humor Risk	1921 (?)	The Villain	The Italian (?)	Watson, Detective (?)	The Love Interest (?)
The Cocoanuts	1929	Mr. Hammer	Chico	Harpo	Jamison
Animal Crackers	1930	Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding	Ravelli	The Professor	Horatio Jamison
The House that Shadows Built	1931	Caesar's Ghost	Tomalio	The Merchant of Weiners	Sammy Brown
Monkey Business	1931	Groucho	Chico	Harpo	Zeppo
Horse Feathers	1932	Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff	Baravelli	Pinky	Frank Wagstaff
Duck Soup	1933	Rufus T. Firefly	Chicolini	Pinky	Lt. Bob Roland
A Night at the Opera	1935	Otis B. Driftwood	Fiorello	Tomasso
A Day at the Races	1937	Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush	Toni	Stuffy
Room Service	1938	Gordon Miller	Harry Binelli	Faker Englund
At the Circus	1939	J. Cheever Loophole	Antonio Pirelli	Punchy
Go West	1940	S. Quentin Quale	Joe Panello	Rusty Panello
The Big Store	1941	Wolf J. Flywheel	Ravelli	Wacky
A Night in Casablanca	1946	Ronald Kornblow	Corbaccio	Rusty
Love Happy	1949	Sam Grunion	Faustino the Great	Harpo
The Story of Mankind	1957	Peter Minuit	Monk	Sir Isaac Newton

Bibliography

Adamson, Joe, Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo; A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. ISBN 0671214586
Anobile, Richard J. Ed., Introd. by Groucho Marx, Pref. by Richard F. Shepard, Why a Duck? Visual and Verbal Gems from the Marx Brothers Movies, New York: Darien House 1973. ISBN 0821203738
Charney, Maurice, The Comic World of the Marx Brothers' Movies: "Anything Further Father?", Madison NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2007. ISBN 9780838641248 ISBN 0838641245
Gehring, Wes D., The Marx Brothers: A Bio-bibliography, New York: Greenwood Press, 1987. ISBN 0313245479
Kanfer, Stefan, Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx, New York: Knopf; Distributed by Random House, 2000. ISBN 0375402187
Louvish, Simon, Monkey Business: The Lives and Legends of the Marx Brothers: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, with added Gummo, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. ISBN 0312252927
Marx, Groucho, and Richard J. Anobile, The Marx Bros. Scrapbook, New York: Darien House; distributed by Norton, 1973. ISBN 0393083713
Marx, Harpo, Harpo Speaks!, With Rowland Barber, New York: Limelight Editions, 1st Limelight edition 2004. ISBN 0879100362 ISBN 9780879100360

External links and references

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

Marx brothers ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

History of "Marx brothers"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.