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Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890-August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer.
He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit and one of America's greatest comedians.
He made 13 feature films as a team with his siblings the Marx Brothers; he was the third-born of the brothers. He also had a successful solo career primarily on radio and television, most notably as the host of the game show You Bet Your Life.
His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as an exaggerated stooped posture, spectacles, cigar, and a thick greasepaint mustache and eyebrows. These exaggerated features resulted in the creation of one of the most recognizable and ubiquitous novelty disguises, known as Groucho glasses: a one-piece mask consisting of horn-rimmed glasses, a large plastic nose, bushy eyebrows and mustache.
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Julius Henry Marx was born on October 2, 1890, in Manhattan, New York. Marx stated that he was born in a room above a butcher's shop on East 78th Street, Between Lexington & 3rd, as he told Dick Cavett in a 1969 television interview.
The Marx children grew up in a turn-of-the-century building on East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue in a neighbourhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side of the borough of Manhattan. His brother Harpo, in his memoir Harpo Speaks, called the building the first real home they ever knew.
It was populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans. Just across the street were the oldest brownstones in the area, owned by people including the well-connected Loew Brothers and William Orth. The Marx family lived there for about 14 years, Groucho also told Cavett.
Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was Miene "Minnie" Schoenberg, whose family came from Dornum in northern Germany when she was 16 years old.
Marx started his career in vaudeville in 1905 when he joined up with an act called The Leroy Trio. He answered a newspaper want ad by a man named Robin Leroy who was looking for a boy to join his group as a singer.
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Marx was hired along with fellow vaudeville actor Johnny Morris. Through this act, Marx got his first taste of life as a vaudeville performer.
In 1909, Marx and his brothers had become a group act, at first called The Three Nightingales and later The Four Nightingales. The brothers' mother, Minnie Marx, was the group's manager, putting them together and booking their shows. The group had a rocky start, performing in less than adequate venues and rarely, if ever, being paid for their performances. Eventually brother Milton (Gummo) would leave the act to serve in World War I and was replaced by Herbert (Zeppo), and the group became known as the Marx Brothers. Their first successful show was Fun In Hi Skule (1910).
In public and off-camera, Harpo and Chico were hard to recognize without their wigs and costumes, and it was almost impossible for fans to recognize Groucho without his trademark eyeglasses, fake eyebrows, and moustache.
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. Media coverage of Groucho's death and legacy was somewhat overshadowed by the sudden death of Elvis Presley three days previously.
His body was cremated and the ashes are interred in the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. He was survived by his three children and younger brother Zeppo, who outlived him by two years. His gravestone bears no epitaph, but in one of his last interviews he suggested one: Excuse me, I can't stand up.
More information: Marx Brothers
accepts people like me as members.
Groucho Marx
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