Make 'Em Laugh, page 18
Why, outside the necessity of sheer survival did we do this? We all wanted to be the best, the most perfect, the most flawless, the funniest that we could possibly be. Nobody else could be funny for you. It takes many years on the stage, in front of a live audience, to learn this art, to learn how to deliver those carefully chosen words in the most casual, artless way. –Groucho Marx
By 1922, with the “boys” nearing forty, playing the Palace, and breaking every record in vaudeville, it was time for the next step. Typical of their anarchic (or exhausted) spirit, they had Chico, an inveterate gambler, take over the managerial reins from their mother. He bet their money on a vehicle for Broadway, assembling a second-rate revue from bits and pieces of rejected shows, but I’ll Say She Is took the town by storm when it opened in New York in 1924. It also allowed Groucho to break out of the pack. Alexander Woollcott cooed in the New York Sun: “Not since sin laid its heavy hand on our spirit have we laughed so loud and so offensively. One might note, too, how fluent and fresh is the humor of Mr. Julius Marx, who rewrites his part every night and essentially is as much a topical commentator as Will Rogers.”
On your Marx, get set, go! A pensive Groucho; success on Broadway in The Cocoanuts (1925); Animal Crackers on film (1930).
Even Ziegfeld offered them a spot in his Follies, but Chico, no longer content to rely on borrowed goods, held out for a first-class Broadway musical vehicle. In 1925, they got it—from two of the best, songwriter Irving Berlin and “the gloomy dean of American comedy,” playwright George S. Kaufman. For The Cocoanuts, Kaufman structured the Marx Brothers’ routines into something with an unobtrusive narrative, refined their personas, and tailored Groucho’s antic dialogue to fit his anarchic spirit perfectly:
Florida, folks—sunshine, perpetual sunshine, all the year around. Let’s get the auction started before we get a tornado. … This is the heart of the residential district. Every lot is a stone’s throw from the station. As soon as they throw enough stones, we’re going to build a station. … You can get any kind of home you want to. You can even get stucco—oh, how you can get stucco.
Kaufman’s collaboration brought the team to a new level. According to Dick Cavett, “Kaufman was Groucho’s god. The only thing he ever repeated in the old folks sense to me was, ‘You know the greatest compliment I ever had? George Kaufman said, “Groucho, you’re the only actor I’d allow to ad-ib in something I wrote.” ’ And he’d get a little teary when he said that thing.”
A second Broadway vehicle, Animal Crackers, written by Kaufman with Morrie Ryskind in 1928, also became a hit and introduced Groucho’s most indelible character, Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, the African explorer. While the Marxes were performing Animal Crackers at night, they were committing The Cocoanuts to film in Astoria, Queens, during the day. It would be Groucho’s first encounter with the absurdity of the Hollywood studios:
In the film of Cocoanuts, I was called into conference and informed I would have to discard the black painted moustache. When I asked why, they explained, “Well, nobody’s ever worn a black painted moustache on the screen. The audience isn’t accustomed to anything as phony as that and just won’t believe it.” “The audience doesn’t believe us anyhow,” I answered. “All they do is laugh at us, and after all, isn’t that what we’re getting paid for?”
When October of 1929 began, Groucho Marx, a deeply pessimistic human being, was at his happiest. He was married, the father of two children, a star of stage and now the screen, living in an expansive house in Long Island, and with a substantial life savings—nearly a quarter of a million dollars—in the bank. Or, more accurately, invested in the stock market. By the end of the month, he was wiped out. The prodigal brother, Chico, remarked that Groucho had saved every nickel “and look what happened. I had fun, and he didn’t, and now he’s starting from scratch with me.” To repair their fortunes, the Marx Brothers had no choice but to “Go West,” as it were, and they arrived at the same studio as their old vaudeville colleague W. C. Fields, Paramount, at the same time, the spring of 1931. “It was very easy to become acclimated to California, we all felt five years younger,” wrote Groucho. “That’s how many years the studio took off our ages in publicity stories.”
The brothers made three films for Paramount, the first two written by, among others, S. J. Perelman. They did much to cement the image of Groucho as a conniving anarchist; Horse Feathers cast him as a college president without a shred of academic discipline, even gave him his own anthem:
Dismay for Hollywood: On the backlot with his brothers (including Gummo, left of Groucho); at MGM in A Night at the Opera (1935); A Night in Casablanca (1946)—too much work.
Your proposition may be good,
But let’s have one thing understood:
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
But for Groucho, the on-screen larks took a lot of effort; as he commented about his own publicity photos, “Groucho didn’t have as good a time working on films as he seemed to be having.” His dissatisfaction, which was a deep personality trait, largely came out of arguments with producers, directors, and scriptwriters who presented him with inferior material. That would all change—briefly—when Chico played bridge one day with MGM’s boy wonder, Irving Thalberg, and the producer put them under contract for the prestige studio in 1935.
Thalberg was probably the only film producer that Groucho ever respected. He thought the Marx Brothers needed to create sympathy for their characters, rather than simply create anarchy, and brought in George S. Kaufman to create some first-class material for them. A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races were their biggest commercial successes and featured some of their choicest bits. A Night at the Opera, Groucho’s personal favorite, contained the legendary stateroom scene, the “sanity clause” contract scene, and the best repartee between Groucho and his favorite paramour, the imperious (and often clueless) dowager Margaret Dumont:
MRS. CLAYPOOL: Otis, do you have everything?
GROUCHO: I’ve never had any complaints yet.
“That line,” recalled Groucho, “was cut by censors in thirty-seven states.” Although, as in his earlier films, Groucho frequently tried to flimflam other characters, most often Dumont, he could always be beaten at his own game by his older brother Chico. It was a reflection of their real-life “tootsie-frootsying.” Stadlen recalled, “When Chico died, they said, ‘How much money did Chico make in his life?’ and Groucho, who paid for the funeral, said, ‘Well, find out how much I have, and that’s how much Chico lost.’”
When Thalberg died before A Day at the Races was completed, Groucho lost most of his interest in the brothers’ MGM contract. He would have been happy to give up the studio grind and stop acting in inferior movies, but throughout the 1940s he was forced to slap on the greasepaint again, usually to help Chico pay off his gambling debts. A Night in Casablanca (1946) was the last film to be fully built around all three brothers and it had its moments, but for Groucho, a fifty-six-year-old man forced to twist himself into some tedious slapstick pretzel while hanging from an airplane, the handwriting was on the wall. “As I hung there like a plucked turkey, I said to myself, ‘Groucho, old boy—and believe me, you are an old boy—don’t you think this is rather a ridiculous way for you to be spending your few remaining years?’” His offscreen skepticism was beginning to overwhelm the magic of his on-screen skepticism. Stadlen observed, “He was a man who was pretty much always looking up to God and saying, ‘Why is life so inequitable?’ Groucho would say all the things that all the rest of us would like to say. So the inability to dissemble in a world in which everybody is lying about everything has a lot to do with the appreciation that people feel about him.”
A little-a snoop more: Once Groucho gave up pictures in the late 1940s and grew his real mustache, he became a media star all over again.
I MIGHT AS WELL COMPETE WITH REFRIGERATORS.
After the Casablanca picture, Groucho vowed, “I’m never going to get behind that phony mustache again. I’m through with the whole racket.” He tried to go into retirement and even tried his hand at playwriting, but an episode of spontaneous ad-libbing with Bob Hope on a radio show in 1947 proved the beginning of a whole new career. Groucho was soon offered a spot hosting his own radio quiz show. “I’ve flopped four times on radio before,” he responded, “I’m interested in anything. I might as well compete with refrigerators. I’ll give it a try.” After a slow start, You Bet Your Life became a hit, and when the show made its transition to television in 1950, Groucho, who was now supporting two ex-wives, leapt at the chance. “I must say I find television very educational,” he wrote in a magazine article. “The minute somebody turns it on, I go into the library and read a good book.”
For his appearance on television, network executives, in a complete reversal of The Cocoanuts days, insisted that Groucho put on his old greasepaint mustache. Once again, Groucho told the executives where to go and simply grew his own. He also changed his personality, becoming more generous, more accessible; he seemed to do his best to insure the contestants would walk home with a few hundred dollars. The program was taped in advance and edited down, providing the best showcase for Groucho’s witticisms. It also gave the producers a way to temper Groucho’s more provocative lines:
CONTESTANT: My husband works a twenty-four-hour shift.
GROUCHO: He works a twenty-four-hour shift and you have ten children? Imagine if he worked at home. He’s probably scared to come home. He’d walk in the door and ask what’s new and you’d tell him.
For many viewers in the 1950s, especially the younger generation without access to revival houses or VCRs, the Groucho of You Bet Your Life was the one they knew—not so much the frenetic huckster of the Hollywood days but a witty compere who was more concerned with putting money into people’s pockets. David Steinberg observed that the show “gave him a whole other life; America got to see this guy—not with the fake mustache, not walking the Groucho walk and all of that—just being calm and witty, and sort of charming. And of course his timing was impeccable.”
Say the secret word: Game show host extraordinaire; with Marilyn Monroe in Love Happy (1949).
The quiz show ran for eleven years, but by the mid-sixties, Groucho had outlived Chico and Harpo and a third marriage had run aground. Although in his eighties, he kept his career alive by attending screenings and appearing in concerts and television, particularly a triumph at Carnegie Hall in 1972. He didn’t exactly mellow with age; he missed his brothers, he missed simpler times, he missed the sedate life of letters he never got to enjoy. “Times have changed,” he told his great acolyte and friend, Dick Cavett. “I’m an incongruity.” According to Lewis Stadlen, “He realized at this time in his life that he was a social icon, and he knew that people felt gratified when he insulted them, so that was his means of communication.” Cavett recounted that
I always was afraid I was never going to see him again. When we’d say good-bye at the hotel and the door would shut, I would think that last glimpse might be it. And happily it wasn’t for a long time. I called him once after a trip back east and he sounded like a dead man over the phone. “Hello.” I said, “Groucho?” “Yeah.” “Are you okay?” “No.” He then went on to describe a nightmare airport trip he’d had from New York—an eleven-hour flight: “And I went over to the luggage area and there’s an old Jewish woman standing there. And she says, ‘You’re Groucho Marx, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And she said, ‘You know, you weren’t very funny on the plane.’ And I said, ‘Go fuck yourself.’”
Groucho’s last years were not peaceful; he was in ill health and embroiled in legal wrangling over his family’s objections to a young woman named Erin Fleming who had become his companion. He never got the epitaph he craved: “Here lies Groucho Marx. And lies. And Lies. PS: He never kissed an ugly girl,” but when he died, in 1977, the world mourned a comedy legend recognized around the world. Even his glasses and mustache—the mustache that had been such a cross to bear—could be bought by any kid at a five-and-dime store, creating an instant connection to comedic immorality.
GROUCHO: I met a priest in Montreal and he told me his mother loved me. I didn’t know those fellows had mothers. And he said, “I just want to thank you for all the joy you brought to the world.” And I said, “And I want to thank you for all the joy you’ve taken out of it.”
The Cocoanuts (1925)
(In this scene, written for the Broadway production by George S. Kaufman, Groucho, as Mr. Schlemmer, tries to sell Willie—Chico—some Florida property.)
SCHLEMMER: You wired me about some property. I’ve thought it over. Now I can let you have three lots watering the front, or I can let you have three lots fronting the water. Now these lots cost me nine thousand dollars and I’m going to let you have them for fifteen because I like you.
WILLIE: I no buy nothing. I gotta no money.
SCHLEMMER: You got no money?
WILLIE: I no gotta one cent.
SCHLEMMER: How’re you going to pay for your room?
WILLIE: Thatsa your lookout.
SCHLEMMER: Oh, so you’re just an idle rumor.
WILLIE: Well, you see, we come-a here to make-a money. I read-a in de paper, and it say “Big Boom in Florida.” So we come. We’re a coupla of big booms, too.
SCHLEMMER: Well. I’ll show you how you can make some real money. I’m going to hold an auction in a little while in Cocoanut Manor. You—you know what an auction is, eh?
WILLIE: I come-a from Italy on the Atlantic Auction.
SCHLEMMER: Well, let’s go ahead as if nothing happened. I say, I’m holding an auction at Cocoanut Manor. And when the crowd gathers around, I want you to mingle with them. Don’t pick their pockets, just mingle with them, and—
WILLIE: I’ll find time for both.
SCHLEMMER: Well, maybe we can cut out the auction. Here’s what I mean, if someone says a hundred dollars, you say two—if someone says two hundred dollars, you say three—
WILLIE: Speaka up?
SCHLEMMER: Now, if nobody says anything, then you start it off.
WILLIE: How am I going to know when to no say nuthin’?
SCHLEMMER: Well, they’ll probably notify you. You fool, if you don’t say anything, you’ll hear ’em, won’t you?
WILLIE: Well, mebbe I no listen.
SCHLEMMER: Well, don’t tell them. Now then, if we’re successful in disposing of these lots, I’ll see to it you get a nice commission.
WILLIE: How about some money?
SCHLEMMER: Well, you can have your choice. Now, in arranging for these lots, of course, we use blueprints. You know what a blueprint is, huh?
WILLIE: Sure, I had ’em for dinner last night. Blueprint oysters.
SCHLEMMER: Boy, give you an inch and you take a mollusk.
WILLIE: Yeah, I’m shellfish that way.
SCHLEMMER: Well, I walked right into that one. It’s going to be a cinch explaining the rest of this thing to you, I can see that.
WILLIE: I catch on quick.
SCHLEMMER: Look, Einstein, do you know what a lot is?
WILLIE: Yeah, it’s-a too much.
SCHLEMMER: I don’t mean a whole lot. Just a little lot with nothing on it.
WILLIE: Any time you gotta too much, you gotta whole lot. Look, I’ll explain it to you. Sometimes you no gotta much: sometimes you gotta whole lot. You know what, it’s a lot. Somebody else maybe thinks it’s too much: that’s a whole lot, too. Now, a whole lot is too much, too much is a whole lot: same thing.
SCHLEMMER: How is it you never got double pneumonia?
WILLIE: I go around by myself.
SCHLEMMER: Come here, Rand McNally and I’ll explain this thing to you. Now here is a map and a diagram of the entire Cocoanut section. Here’s Cocoanut Manor and over there is Cocoanut Heights. That’s the swamp. Down here, where the road forks, is Cocoanut Junction.
WILLIE: Where you got Cocoanut Custard?
SCHLEMMER: That’s on one of the forks. You probably eat with your knife, so you won’t have to worry about that. Now here’s the main road leading out of Cocoanut Manor. That’s the road I wish you were on. Now over here, on this site we’re going to build an Eye and Ear Hospital. That’s going to be a sight for sore eyes.
WILLIE: I see.
SCHLEMMER: Over here is the old coffee factory. I grew up playing on the grounds. You understand?
WILLIE: That’s where you bean.
SCHLEMMER: Here is the riverfront. All along there, those are the levees.
WILLIE: That’s the Jewish neighborhood.
SCHLEMMER: Well, we’ll pass over that. You’re a peach, boy. Now, here is a little peninsula, and here is a viaduct leading to the mainland.
WILLIE: Why a duck?
SCHLEMMER: I’m all right, how are you? I say, here is a little peninsula, and here is a viaduct leading to the mainland.
WILLIE: All right. Why a duck?
SCHLEMMER: I’m not playing Ask-Me-Another. I say, that’s a viaduct.
WILLIE: All right, all right. Why a duck? Why-a-no-chicken?
SCHLEMMER: I don’t know why-a-no-chicken. I’m a stranger here myself. All I know is that it’s a viaduct. You try to cross over there a-chicken and you’ll find out why a duck. It’s deeper water, that’s viaduct.
WILLIE: That’s-a why-a-duck?
SCHLEMMER: Look—suppose you were out horseback riding and you came to that stream and wanted to ford over there, you couldn’t make it. Too deep.
WILLIE: But what do you want with a Ford when you gotta horse?
SCHLEMMER: Well, I’m sorry the whole matter ever came up. All I know is that it’s a viaduct.
WILLIE: Now, look—I catch-a on to why-a-horse, why-a-chicken, why-a-this, why-a-that. I no catch on to why-a-duck.
SCHLEMMER: I was only fooling. I was only fooling. They’re going to build a tunnel there in the morning. Now, is that clear?
WILLIE: Yes. Everything—excepta why-a-duck.
SCHLEMMER: Well, that’s fine. Now I can go ahead. I’m going to take you down and show you our cemetery. I have a waiting list of fifty people, just dying to get in. But I like you—
