The lives of the Marx Brothers weren't all just
chuckles and pratfalls. From their hardscrabble upbringing to their legendary legal troubles,
they faced more than their share of heartache. This is their tragic true-life story.
The Marx Brothers were famously a group of five, but there was actually a sixth Marx brother.
Manfred Marx, nicknamed "Mannie," was the firstborn son of Sam and Minnie Marx.
But he lived for only seven months, passing away on July 17,
1886. Complications that probably arose from influenza are cited as his cause
of death. He's buried beside his maternal grandmother in New York's Washington Cemetery.
Manfred's death had a profound effect on Sam and Minnie. That translated into them
lavishing love and attention onto their eldest surviving son Leonard,
better known by his stage name Chico. Baby Manfred's sickness also instilled a heightened
sense of parental vigilance in the Marxes. Groucho Marx once recalled his mother saying,
"Sam can cough all night and I never hear him,
but if one of my boys coughs just once, I'm wide awake."
In memory of their lost child, Sam and Minnie bestowed their youngest son
Herbert, better known as Zeppo, with the middle name Manfred.
Young Groucho, born Julius Henry Marx on October 2, 1890, was an outsider in his own
family. A middle child, he yearned for the approval of his parents but found himself
overshadowed by his older brothers. Unlike his siblings, he loved school and threw himself
into his studies. Although he faded into the background at home, he could shine in school,
the praise of his teachers standing in for the parental affection he craved.
Books were his comfort, and he dreamed of one day becoming a doctor. Sadly,
Groucho's academic ambitions were crushed by his family's dire financial circumstances. At only
12 years old, he left school at the behest of his mother to help support his family.
"If I'd have gone to college, I'd have been a writer much faster than-
and probably a much better one, because I wasn't sure of grammar, or English, or anything else."
Groucho was put to work in a wig factory, though his stint in the workforce was mercifully short.
At 15, he joined the Leroy Trio, a traveling musical act, and he would go on to sing with
other acts as well. Ironically, the formerly unassuming Groucho would eventually find his
greatest success with his brothers Gummo and Harpo as a member of the Four Nightingales. During a
particularly disastrous gig in Nacogdoches, Texas in which the group was upstaged by a runaway mule,
he used his acerbic wit to put down an unreceptive audience when he quipped,
"Nacogdoches is full of roaches."
To everyone's surprise, the sparse crowd roared with laughter, and a comedy legend was on his way.
Harpo, the Marx Brothers' silent master of physical comedy, was born Adolph Marx
on November 23, 1888. One of a handful of Jewish kids growing up in a largely
Irish and Italian neighborhood, he often found himself the target of persecution.
Abuse from both bullies and a discouraging teacher who considered him slow led to his
permanent exit from school at age eight. In his autobiography, Harpo Speaks!, he wrote,
"My formal schooling ended halfway through my second crack at the second grade,
at which time I left school the most direct way possible. I was thrown out the window. There were
two causes of this. One was the big Irish kid in my class and the other was a bigger Irish kid."
Physical ejections from the classroom at the hands of his tormentors became commonplace
over the course of his abbreviated tour of second grade. As Harpo recalled,
"I was the perfect Patsy. I was small for my age.
I had a high squeaky voice. And I was the only Jewish boy in the room."
Although Harpo may have suffered minimal physical damage from his bullies,
the emotional anguish inflicted by his teacher left more lasting scars.
Chico Marx, born Leonard Joseph Marx on March 22, 1887, had a lifelong penchant for gambling,
which would cost him dearly over the course of his career. This addiction reportedly
began when he was just nine years old. His father, a tailor, discovered early on that
he couldn't trust his eldest son with deliveries, as Chico pawned the garments and blew the cash in
local pool halls and bars. He even hocked his father's shears to pay off a gambling debt.
The Marx Brothers' success allowed Chico to indulge his habit at higher stakes.
His daughter Maxine recalled the extent of her father's debts in
a 2000 interview with the Los Angeles Times. As she put it,
"When somebody asked Chico how much money he lost betting, he would say,
'$2,640,239.27' or some figure he'd make up. He would always include the cents."
"Look at Chicolini, he sits there alone, an abject figure."
"I abject!"
Toward the end of their careers, the Marx Brothers made some of their less
memorable films so as to get Chico out of trouble. Groucho 's daughter Miriam
explained how a desperate Chico would beg his brothers for assistance, as he would shout,
"They are going to kill me! They are going to kill me!"
And then, as Miriam put it,
"They made some lousy movie to save his life."
The youngest of the Marx Brothers, Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" appeared
in the comedy team's first five films. Cast as the straight man,
he never really had the opportunity to develop as a comedian. His long-simmering
frustration led to his departure from the Marx Brothers after their final film for Paramount.
He reportedly broke the news about his intentions to Groucho in a letter in which he wrote,
"I have only stayed in the act until now because I knew that you, Chico and Harpo wanted me to. But
I'm sure you understand why [...] and that you forgive my action. Wish me luck. Love, ZEPPO."
Zeppo then became a successful talent agent, first on his own and then as part of Marx,
Miller, and Marx with his brother Gummo and their partner Allan Miller. Disillusioned
with show business, the mechanically inclined Zeppo left the entertainment industry in the
40s to start an industrial engineering firm that specialized in the manufacture of aircraft parts.
Despite his professional success, his personal life was turbulent. His second
wife, actress and former showgirl Barbara Blakely, left him in 1973 for Frank Sinatra.
And in 1978, Zeppo was ordered by a court to pay a former girlfriend $20,690
for physically assaulting her during an argument. On top of all that, legal
woes surrounding Groucho's estate would haunt Zeppo until his death from lung cancer in 1979.
Although critics and fans tend to agree that the Marx Brothers were at their unhinged best during
their tenure at Paramount Pictures, their time at the studio was marred by financial disputes.
Creative accounting on the part of Paramount reportedly robbed the Marx Brothers of profits.
Following the success of 1929's The Cocoanuts and 1930's Animal Crackers, the brothers negotiated a
deal that should've garnered them 50 percent of the net profits for their next two films,
1931's Monkey Business and 1932's Horse Feathers. Although both films were box office hits,
the studio cooked the books to avoid paying the brothers their share. The two sides fought the
matter in court for decades. Finally, in 1962, the Marx Brothers were awarded a $36,000 settlement.
After 1933's Duck Soup, the Marx Brothers parted ways with Paramount,
and MGM head Irving Thalberg then snatched them up with a personal contract.
The brothers successfully negotiated for 15 percent of the gross of their next film,
A Night at the Opera, which netted them the greatest financial returns of their careers.
However, that monetary success would ultimately come at the cost of their creativity.
A Night at the Opera and its follow-up, A Day at the Races, shoehorned the Brothers' mayhem
into formulaic plots that featured them as supporting players in their own films.
The Marx Brothers' fortunes appeared to be looking up in 1935. With a lucrative new contract with MGM
and an ally in Irving Thalberg, they were set for their greatest success with A Night at the Opera.
MGM was in need of a comedy hit when it nabbed the Marx Brothers, but the studio wasn't willing
to give them the free reign that they'd enjoyed at Paramount. Their new studio was instead intent on
fitting them into a structured plot rather than just letting them loose in front of the camera.
Nevertheless, A Night at the Opera was a hit for MGM and a financial windfall for the brothers.
However, MGM's smoothing of their rough edges robbed the comic trio of the anarchic
quality that was their hallmark. In a way, Thalberg's reengineering of the troupe's act was
the beginning of the end for the Marx Brothers. While their early films portrayed them as a force
of anti-authoritarian chaos, A Night at the Opera relegated them to supporting players, mischievous
but kindhearted troublemakers in the service of MGM's stable of stars. Thalberg's gambit
initially worked, but in the long run, it robbed the Marx Brothers of their unpredictable essence.
Harpo Marx performed for the last time in January 1963.
Appearing opposite comedian Allan Sherman at the Pasadena Theater, he pulled out all of the stops
with his classic bits. Then the silent comic stunned the audience with a surprise ending.
As his son Bill recalled in the PBS documentary Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America,
"At the very end, he picks up the microphone and he launches into his Bar Mitzvah speech."
"For 13 long years, I have toiled and labored for your happin- and does the whole thing."
Bill continued,
"The people are just silent as a church mouse. I mean,
you can't hear a pin drop. And he comes to the end of this and he says,
'And, in conclusion, I am so honored to know that you folks have the keenness
and the perspicacity for recognizing monumental genius. I thank you.' And walked off the stage."
"The people must have applauded for at least a good two or three minutes. That's a long
time if you're just counting seconds."
On September 28, 1964, Harpo died at the age of 75 after undergoing an open-heart procedure. Groucho
wept at the funeral. According to his son Arthur, it was the only time he ever saw his father cry.
By the end of his life, Groucho Marx was in extremely poor health.
Suffering from dementia, congestive heart failure, hypertension,
and a host of other debilitating ailments, he was no longer able to care for himself.
Estranged from his children, he fell into the care of his companion and manager, Erin Fleming.
51 years his junior, she was instrumental in engineering his comeback in the 70s.
Alas, the revival of Groucho's career was not without its dark side.
Many of his friends accused Fleming of pushing him too hard, forcing an increasingly frail Marx
to perform against his will for her financial gain. His son Arthur filed suit against Fleming,
accusing her of having a "harmful and destructive influence" on his ailing father. Groucho's nurses
testified that Fleming administered overdoses of tranquilizers to him and verbally abused him.
Groucho's daughter Melinda accused Fleming of attempting to alienate him from his family.
Fleming was eventually removed as his conservator, but his family's
legal woes with her would continue long after his death from pneumonia in 1977.
The children of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx spent many of the
years after the deaths of their famous fathers embroiled in intense litigation
related to the immortal comedy troupe. At the center of these long-standing legal
battles was the issue of the licensing of the comedians' likenesses. These legal
quarrels were just as often between the Marx children as they were with outside parties.
In 1981, the Marx heirs successfully filed suit against the producers of a Broadway play that
consisted of performers simulating the style, appearances, and mannerisms of the Marx Brothers.
But there was still more strife to come. In 2000, just as the Marx estates were coming
to an amicable agreement on a proposed biopic about the comedy team, the estates of Chico
and Harpo Marx came to legal blows with Groucho Marx Productions over a proposed Marx Brothers
animated TV show. The result is that as of 2020, a Marx Brothers biopic has never been produced.
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