60 Fun Facts About Marx Brothers

What was Groucho Marx's famous moustache made of in the brothers' films?

Greasepaint. By the usual story he arrived late at a theatre with no time to glue on his false moustache, smeared one on instead, and found it so much easier that he never went back.

In a Duck Soup routine, a disguised intruder pretends to be Groucho's what?

Reflection. The routine looks like pure Marx invention, but it was an old one: Charlie Chaplin and Max Linder had both filmed gags like it years earlier.

Which instrument was Chico Marx's solo speciality in the brothers' films?

Piano. Chico had earned his keep at the keyboard in nickelodeons and saloons before he joined his brothers, and his trick playing became a fixture of their films.

What was Groucho Marx's real first name?

Julius. He said he was named after an Uncle Julius, and the stage name took years to stick: reviewers were still calling him Julius when the act reached Broadway in 1924.

Harpo Marx was born Adolph but changed his first name to what?

Arthur. He made the switch by the First World War at the latest, so it had nothing to do with Hitler, who was still unknown when Adolph Marx dropped the name.

Who gave the brothers their stage names during a poker game?

Monologist Art Fisher dealt out the names with the cards in Galesburg, Illinois. He was borrowing a comic-strip fad for names ending in -o, and one strip already had a character called Groucho.

According to the usual story, why was Leonard Marx nicknamed 'Chico'?

He chased women, or 'chicks', so the nickname was first spelled Chicko. A typesetter is said to have dropped the k by mistake, and the shorter spelling stuck.

Milton Marx's nickname 'Gummo' supposedly came from his habit of wearing what?

Rubber-soled shoes, or gumshoes, though the brothers never agreed on why. Groucho said Gummo simply liked them; Harpo said he prowled around backstage like a gumshoe detective.

Which country's accent did Chico Marx put on for his stage and screen character?

Italy. By legend he borrowed the accent from his barber, and it stuck for life: in the films he answers to names like Ravelli, Chicolini and Fiorello.

Groucho Marx's first family singing act toured vaudeville as the Three, then the Four, what?

Nightingales. Harpo was pulled in at the last minute to make the fourth for a Coney Island booking, and by his own account wet his pants on stage at his debut.

In which Texas town, by Marx Brothers legend, did a runaway mule interrupt the show and turn the act to comedy?

Nacogdoches. As the brothers told it, the crowd drifted back from watching the mule, a furious Groucho rhymed the town's name with 'roaches', and the audience roared with laughter instead of walking out.

Which famous comedian reportedly faked an injury rather than follow the Marx Brothers on a vaudeville bill?

W.C. Fields was then a juggler and, by Groucho's account, found nobody wanted to watch juggling after the brothers, so he told the manager his hand had 'noxis on the conoxis' and left for New York.

In a famous Marx Brothers scene from 1932, what password gets Groucho past Chico into a speakeasy?

Swordfish. Chico hints that the password is a fish, Groucho keeps guessing wrong, and Chico then gives it away himself by snapping that nobody gets in without saying it.

Which Marx brother left the act for the army in 1918?

Gummo. The family had bought an Illinois farm in the hope that farming would keep the brothers out of the draft, but the army took him anyway, and the war ended within weeks.

What was the title of the Marx Brothers' unreleased 1921 silent film, of which no copies survive?

Humor Risk cast against type: Groucho played the villain and Harpo, depending on the account, a detective or a romantic lead named Watson. By most accounts it was shown once, to an unimpressed matinee crowd in the Bronx, and shelved.

In A Day at the Races, what is Chico pretending to sell when he cons Groucho into buying racing tips?

Ice cream. Crying 'tootsie-frootsie ice cream', Chico sells Groucho one tip in code, then book after book that he needs to decode it.

What was the Marx Brothers' first Broadway hit, which opened in May 1924?

I'll Say She Is was built on leftovers: a producer wanted an act to put in front of scenery from earlier flops, and Groucho claimed not one piece of it really belonged to the show.

Which critic of the Algonquin Round Table became Harpo Marx's lifelong friend after raving about the brothers in 1924?

Alexander Woollcott. The friendship ended up on stage: the comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner caricatured the critic as its overbearing house guest and Harpo as his madcap friend Banjo.

Who wrote the music for the Marx Brothers' Broadway show The Cocoanuts?

Irving Berlin wrote the songs and George S. Kaufman the script, though Kaufman is said to have protested first that he would rather write a show for the Barbary apes than for the Marx Brothers.

In The Cocoanuts' map routine, which word does Chico keep mistaking for a question?

Viaduct. Groucho is talking him through a map of Florida building lots, and each time he points out the viaduct to the mainland Chico demands to know why a duck and 'why a no chicken'.

Which actress played the wealthy widow foil to Groucho in The Cocoanuts and seven of the brothers' films?

Margaret Dumont was often called the fifth Marx Brother. Groucho loved to claim she never understood a single one of his jokes, a story that later writers have filed under myth.

'Hooray for Captain Spaulding', later the theme of Groucho's quiz show, was written for which show?

Animal Crackers. Groucho's African explorer is carried into a Long Island party on a sedan chair, announces in song that he must be going, and the guests answer by singing his praises.

Where did the Marx Brothers film The Cocoanuts by day in 1929 while playing Broadway at night?

Astoria Studios, Queens. The early microphones picked up every rustle, so each sheet of paper seen on screen had to be soaked in water to stop it crackling on the soundtrack.

Which studio made the Marx Brothers' first five films, from The Cocoanuts to Duck Soup?

Paramount. The run ended with Duck Soup, now counted among the great film comedies but a box-office disappointment at the time, and the team's contract was not renewed.

Which 1931 film was the first Marx Brothers movie not based on a stage production?

Monkey Business. With no stage script to lean on, the brothers turned to new writers, and Groucho's reported verdict on their first draft was 'It stinks'.

Which Marx Brothers film satirised the American college system and put the brothers on the cover of Time?

Horse Feathers. Groucho plays a new college president who decides the way to save his school is to buy two professional football players, and hires Chico and Harpo by mistake.

What is the name of the fictional country Groucho leads in Duck Soup?

Freedonia. When the mayor of the real town of Fredonia, New York, complained that the film was tarnishing its name, Groucho wrote back: change the name of your town, it is hurting our picture.

What is the name of Groucho's character in Duck Soup?

Rufus T. Firefly gets the job only because the nearly bankrupt country's richest widow will not lend it another cent unless he is put in charge.

Which Oscar-winning director made Duck Soup?

Leo McCarey. A veteran of Laurel and Hardy comedies, he is credited with the title too: Duck Soup had already been the name of a Laurel and Hardy short in 1927.

Which MGM producer signed the Marx Brothers in the mid-1930s and gave their comedies stronger stories?

Irving Thalberg. He also sent the brothers out on stage tours to try their new scenes on live audiences before filming, so that only the jokes that got laughs reached the screen.

Which opera do the Marx Brothers throw into chaos at the climax of A Night at the Opera?

Il Trovatore. The sabotage starts in the pit: Chico and Harpo get at the orchestra, and partway through the overture the players suddenly swerve into 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game'.

In A Day at the Races, Groucho plays a horse doctor pretending to be what?

A physician. A struggling sanitarium's richest patient will pay its bills only if her favourite doctor is put in charge, and nobody there knows his patients so far have all been horses.

For which studio did the Marx Brothers make Room Service in 1938?

RKO paid $255,000 for a hit Broadway farce and dropped the brothers into it, the only time they filmed a script that had not been written for them.

Which film did the Marx Brothers announce as their farewell picture in 1941?

The Big Store. The farewell did not hold: five years after announcing their retirement from the screen, Groucho, Harpo and Chico were back making films together.

What was the Marx Brothers' final film together, released in 1949?

Love Happy began as a solo vehicle for Harpo and ended up with all three brothers in it. It is remembered now for a walk-on by a then little-known Marilyn Monroe.

What quiz show did Groucho Marx host on radio and television from 1947 to 1961?

You Bet Your Life. The quiz itself hardly mattered: what kept the show on the air for fourteen years was Groucho's banter with the contestants.

On Groucho's quiz show, what did a contestant have to say to bring down the duck?

The secret word. When a contestant happened to say it, a toy duck made up like Groucho, with glasses and a moustache, dropped from the ceiling with a cash prize.

On his goodwill tour of Moscow in the 1930s, Harpo Marx also served the American ambassador as what?

A secret courier. He carried the ambassador's dispatches out of the country strapped to his leg under his trousers, and wrote that handing them over gave the leg its first scratch in ten days.

Which rock band named two albums after Marx Brothers films?

Queen borrowed A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races for consecutive albums. Groucho sent the band a message wondering whether their success might be down to their 'sage choice of album titles'.

Which Disney dwarf was modelled partly on the silent Harpo Marx?

Dopey. The studio could not find a voice that suited him, so it left him silent, and like Harpo he gets by on pantomime.

Which pickle brand's stork mascot, introduced in 1974, mimics Groucho's mannerisms?

Vlasic. The company's own joke was that a falling birth rate had left the stork short of babies to deliver, so it took up pickles instead, wisecracking in Groucho's voice with a pickle for a cigar.

Which Woody Allen film opens with its hero quoting a Groucho Marx joke to the camera?

Annie Hall. Allen's character says the line about never wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member is the key joke of his adult life, at least where women are concerned.

Which 1970 Broadway musical by Groucho's son told of the brothers' vaudeville years?

Minnie's Boys starred Shelley Winters as Minnie Marx, the tireless stage mother who booked the act, dreamed up its sketches and pushed her five sons into show business.

Which award did Groucho accept in 1974 on behalf of all the Marx Brothers?

An honorary Oscar. The Academy cited the unequalled achievements of the Marx Brothers in film comedy, and Groucho told the audience he wished Harpo and Chico could be there to share it.

Which celebrated poet kept up a correspondence with Groucho Marx for years?

T. S. Eliot traded letters with Groucho for years, and when Groucho spoke at the poet's memorial in 1965 he remarked that Eliot had been a great admirer of his, 'and I don't blame him'.

In 1972 Groucho Marx, by then in his eighties, sold out which New York venue with a one-man show?

Carnegie Hall. With Marvin Hamlisch as his accompanist, Groucho reminisced and sang his way through his career, and recordings of the show became the live album An Evening with Groucho.

After leaving the act, Zeppo Marx built a new Hollywood career in which business?

Talent agencies. The brother who walked away from the act ended up representing it: a few years later Zeppo, by then an agent, brokered the deal for one of his own brothers' films.

Which future star sang with the Chico Marx Orchestra as a teenager in the early 1940s?

Mel Torme joined Chico's dance band in 1942, around his 17th birthday, as singer and vocal arranger, and before long he had taken over as its drummer as well.

Which dictator took Duck Soup as a personal insult and banned it in his country?

Mussolini. Groucho waved away any talk of a political message, saying 'We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh', but the Italian dictator was not so relaxed about it.

In a 1931 Marx Brothers comedy, the four stowaways try to bluff past customs by impersonating which French star?

Maurice Chevalier. Armed with the star's stolen passport, each brother in turn tries to convince the customs men by singing one of his songs, and none of them fools anybody.

In Duck Soup, Chico and Harpo torment a rival street vendor who sells what?

Lemonade. The vendor is Edgar Kennedy, a comedy veteran famous for his slow burn, and the feud becomes a three-way hat-swapping routine that he never once gets the better of.

Which Sousa march blares out when Harpo tries to crack a safe in Duck Soup?

The Stars and Stripes Forever. Harpo is supposed to be stealing war plans without a sound, so he spends the scene frantically trying to muffle the march before it wakes the whole house.

Which studio got mocking letters from Groucho over the title A Night in Casablanca?

Warner Bros., makers of Casablanca, had reportedly objected. Groucho wrote that he had no idea the city belonged exclusively to the studio, and that the Marxes had been brothers long before the Warners.

What is the name of Groucho's character in A Night at the Opera?

Otis B. Driftwood is a business manager who has promised to get a rich widow into high society by way of the opera, a plan he cheerfully admits will cost her $200,000.

In the most famous scene of A Night at the Opera, a crowd of people squeezes into Groucho's tiny what?

Ship's stateroom. Maids, a manicurist, an engineer and waiters carrying trays of hard-boiled eggs all pile in on top of Groucho and three stowaways, and the lot tumble out when the door is opened.

In A Night at the Opera, what is hidden in the gibberish Groucho exchanges with the three fake aviators?

English played backwards: the soundtrack was reversed, and run the right way Groucho is telling the three stowaways they have just been called impostors.

Which painter wrote an unmade film for the Marx Brothers and sent Harpo a harp strung with barbed wire?

Salvador Dalí, a friend and admirer of Harpo, wrote Giraffes on Horseback Salad for the brothers, flaming giraffes and all. MGM turned it down, and the film was never made.

Which two trained singers performed the Miserere duet themselves in A Night at the Opera?

Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones were both opera-trained and did their own singing. Jones also took over the romantic straight-man slot left empty when Zeppo quit the act.

What went wrong at the first preview of A Night at the Opera in Long Beach?

There was hardly a laugh, Oscar Levant recalled, and Groucho agreed the Long Beach preview 'didn't go well at all'. The film still became one of MGM's biggest hits of 1935.

In which city does A Night at the Opera open, before the characters sail for New York?

Milan. The film once began with locals singing in the street under a title card promising a land 'Where They Sing All Day and Go to the Opera at Night', but that opening was cut, so it now starts in a restaurant.