60 Fun Facts About Marx Brothers

How many Marx brothers performed in the act at various times?

Gummo and Zeppo both left over time, leaving Chico, Harpo and Groucho as the trio of the later films.

How many feature films did the Marx Brothers make together?

The American Film Institute put five of them among its top 100 comedies, two in the top fifteen.

Which Marx brother's stage persona never spoke?

Their uncle Al Shean wrote him almost no lines in Home Again; reviews kept saying he was better silent, and the wig and horn followed.

What was Groucho Marx's real first name?

He was named after an unemployed uncle who lived with the family and, Groucho claimed, owed his father $85.

Harpo was born Adolph but officially changed his first name in 1910 to what?

He had never liked Adolph; his memoir was titled Harpo Speaks!

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

The '-o' names followed a fad started by Gus Mager's comic strip Sherlocko the Monk, which had a character called Groucho.

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

It was originally spelled Chicko and is still pronounced 'Chick-o', not 'Cheek-o'.

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

Harpo said he crept round theatres like a gumshoe detective; others said he was a hypochondriac who wore overshoes whenever rain threatened.

Under what stage name did the brothers' mother manage the act so agents would not realise who she was?

Her brother Al Shean was half of the hit double act Gallagher and Shean, and her success at launching him inspired her to push her sons.

What was the name of the early singing act featuring Groucho, Gummo and Mabel O'Donnell?

Harpo was dragged out of a movie-theatre job to make it a quartet at Coney Island and famously wet his pants at his debut.

In which Texas town did a runaway mule interrupt a 1909 show, prompting Groucho insults that revealed the act's comedy?

His lines included 'Nacogdoches is full of roaches' and 'the jackass is the flower of Tex-ass'.

Which famous comedian reportedly faked a broken wrist rather than follow the Marx Brothers on stage?

By the end of 1914 their show Home Again had earned them a contract with the United Booking Office and bills alongside top acts.

Where and when did all five Marx Brothers appear on stage together, believed to be the only time?

Zeppo was 14 and sang 'four or five songs', according to the local paper.

Which brother left the act on being drafted in 1918, quipping he 'went to war to get a little peace'?

Minnie had bought a 27-acre poultry farm in Illinois hoping to win her sons draft exemptions; Zeppo left his job as a Ford mechanic to replace him.

What was the title of the brothers' unreleased 1921 silent short, of which no copies survive?

Groucho played a villain and Harpo a romantic lead named Watson; after one bad screening in the Bronx it was shelved.

Why were the Marx Brothers blacklisted from the major vaudeville circuit in 1922?

They then flopped on the smaller Shubert circuit, where sheriffs seized their show's assets, before Broadway saved them.

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

Minnie broke her ankle at a dress fitting and attended the premiere on a stretcher; the show ran 313 performances.

Which Algonquin Round Table critic became Harpo Marx's lifelong friend after reviewing I'll Say She Is?

He also talked the brothers into using their stage names in public rather than Julius, Leonard, Arthur and Herbert.

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

George S. Kaufman wrote the book, having first protested 'I'd rather write a show for the Barbary apes!'

In the 'Why a Duck?' routine, Chico keeps confusing 'why a duck' with what word?

The confusion is between 'viaduct' and 'why a duck'; the show was set during the Florida land boom.

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

Groucho liked to claim she 'never understood any of my jokes', though interviews show she understood comedy perfectly well.

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

Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby supplied it; Groucho played the explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding.

Where was The Cocoanuts filmed in 1929 while the brothers still played Broadway nightly?

Paper props had to be sprayed with water so the primitive microphones would not pick up crinkling.

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

After Duck Soup the contract lapsed, Zeppo quit to become an agent, and Irving Thalberg lured the remaining three to MGM.

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

Groucho dismissed the first draft by S.J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone with 'It stinks'; Nat Perrin got hired via a forged letter from Moss Hart.

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

It contains Harpo's running gag of pulling absurd props from his coat, including a candle burning at both ends.

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

The real village of Fredonia, New York asked Paramount to change it; Groucho told them to change their town's name because 'it's hurting our picture'.

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

He goes to war with neighbouring Sylvania; Chico and Harpo play the spies Chicolini and Pinky posing as peanut vendors.

Which Oscar-winning director made Duck Soup?

It was only the sixth-highest grosser of 1933 and earned less than Horse Feathers, but is now the highest-ranked Marx film on the AFI list.

Which MGM producer signed the Marx Brothers after discussing it with Chico over a bridge game?

He insisted on stronger stories, sympathetic characters and testing scripts in front of live audiences before filming.

Which opera do the brothers throw into chaos in A Night at the Opera?

The film also contains the famous scene of a crowd packing into a tiny ship's stateroom, which inspired a Jacques Brel song.

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

The film has the 'Tootsie Frootsie Ice Cream' sketch, in which Chico sells him a wheelbarrow of useless racing tips.

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

After Thalberg died two weeks into filming A Day at the Races, the brothers had no champion at MGM and briefly left.

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

They came back anyway for A Night in Casablanca (1946), reportedly because Chico needed money for gambling debts.

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

It was meant as a solo Harpo vehicle, but financing required all three brothers, so Groucho reluctantly joined in.

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

'Say the secret word and the duck will come down and give you fifty dollars'; Groucho grew a real moustache for it rather than paint one on.

On Groucho's quiz show, what came down to reward a contestant who said the secret word?

The show also popularised the consolation questions 'Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?' and 'What color is the White House?'

During a 1933 goodwill trip to Moscow, Harpo secretly worked as what?

He smuggled sealed envelopes in and out of the Soviet Union taped to his leg beneath his trousers, at the request of Ambassador William Bullitt.

Which rock band named two albums after Marx Brothers films?

A Night at the Opera (1975) and A Day at the Races (1976); The Damned separately titled a single 'There Ain't No Sanity Clause'.

Which Disney dwarf was inspired by Harpo's silent performances?

Bugs Bunny's wisecracking persona borrowed from Groucho, and Bugs explicitly imitated him in Slick Hare (1947).

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

The stork holds a pickle the way Groucho held his cigar and is still in use today.

Which Woody Allen film opens with a Groucho Marx joke?

In Hannah and Her Sisters, Allen's character rediscovers the will to live watching a revival of Duck Soup.

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

It lost an estimated $750,000 and closed after 80 performances, though Lewis Stadlen won awards for playing Groucho.

Who presented Groucho with an honorary Academy Award, on behalf of all the brothers, in 1974?

Zeppo was in the audience; Groucho said he wished Harpo and Chico could have shared the honour.

Which two Marx Brothers films are in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry?

Duck Soup was chosen in 1990 and A Night at the Opera in 1993.

Which was the only Marx brother still alive by 1978?

Chico died in 1961 and Harpo in 1964; Gummo and Groucho both died in 1977, and Zeppo in November 1979.

After leaving the act in 1933, Zeppo and Gummo built one of Hollywood's biggest what?

Their clients included Jack Benny and Lana Turner; Zeppo later became an engineer and inventor.

Which teenage singer fronted the Chico Marx Orchestra as vocalist?

Chico had been a gambler since age nine and supported himself as a teenager playing piano in nickelodeons.

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

The brothers were delighted; residents of Fredonia, New York, also protested that the similar-sounding nation would hurt their town's reputation.

What was Groucho's Duck Soup character called in early scripts, before the final surname Firefly?

The film itself was earlier titled Firecrackers and then Cracked Ice; Harpo's Pinky was called Brownie in the pressbook.

Which comedy veteran plays the lemonade vendor tormented by Chico and Harpo in Duck Soup?

Hats get knocked off and swapped, Harpo burns his straw boater, and he ends up in a bathtub with Harpo's horn.

Which Sousa march blares from the radio Harpo mistakes for a safe in Duck Soup?

The Radio Scene comes just before the famous Mirror Scene, a routine Harold Lloyd had already used in 1919.

Where did Duck Soup rank among the highest-grossing films of 1933, despite disappointing Paramount?

Horse Feathers had been Paramount's top earner of 1932, so the follow-up felt like a flop; critics found its politics 'dated'.

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

He manages the wealthy Mrs. Claypool, played as ever by Margaret Dumont, and signs the famous 'sanity clause' contract with Chico's Fiorello.

What did eccentric gag writer Al Boasberg do with the finished stateroom scene script?

Irving Thalberg and the brothers spent hours cutting and pasting the scene back together.

What is hidden in Driftwood's apparent gibberish when he poses as one of three famous aviators?

Reversed, it says things like 'This man is accusing you of being impostors'.

About how much was cut from A Night at the Opera after its disastrous Long Beach previews?

Thalberg and George S. Kaufman spent days re-timing it to the rhythm of a stage performance, and the film became a hit.

Which two trained singers provided their own voices for the Miserere duet in A Night at the Opera?

Baritone Walter Woolf King played the tenor Lassparri but was dubbed by a Hawaiian Met tenor.

Which Oscar Levant anecdote describes the first preview of A Night at the Opera?

The second preview went no better, prompting the re-edit that shaped the brothers' MGM style of plotted comedy.

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

A cut opening title read 'Italy – Where They Sing All Day'; the stowaway plot was recycled from Monkey Business.