More Groucho Marx Quotes

 

These are quotes of Groucho Marx's that can be found in various resources.  Enjoy them on April Fool's or any other day.  

• The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing.  If you can fake that, you've got it made.
• I must confess, I was born at a very early age.
• I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.
• Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
• I intend to live forever or die trying.
• A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running. 
• All people are born alike-- except Republicans and Democrats.
• Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
• A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. 
• She got her looks from her father.  He's a plastic surgeon.
• Either he's dead, or my watch has stopped. 
• Why, a four-year-old child could understand this.  Run out and find me a four-year-old child:  I can't make head nor tail out of it.
• Before I speak, I have something to say. 
• Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you. 
• Humor is reason gone mad.   --Groucho Marx 

     The silly and the serious live side by side on this blog.  That describes Groucho Marx, also, in ways much of the public would not have suspected.  Groucho was born Julius Henry Marx on 2 October 1890 in New York City.  His parents were German-Jewish immigrants, although his father, called "Frenchy" was from a region called Alsace-Lorraine, which was punted back and forth between Germany and France for decades.

      The family was often strained financially because Frenchy was a terrible tailor.  Groucho's mother, Minnie Schoenberg, was the sister of the Vaudeville performer, who changed his name to Al Sheen.  Groucho was the fourth oldest of six children total, but, since the eldest died in infancy, Groucho moved through life as the third oldest.  However, Groucho was often cast as the seemingly oldest in most of the movies.  His character had usually acquired some sort of undeserved "position", making him seem older.  Chico and Harpo were cast repeatedly as the slapstick ne'er-do-wells.  Zeppo, in the movies he was in, was usually the young love interest. But all this would come much later.

     Groucho had a seemingly high intelligence.  He read voraciously and had ambitions of becoming a doctor.  However, his family did not have enough money to support these ambitions. Additionally, their mother had ambitions to be a stage mother.

     Minnie paid for Chico (Leonard) to get piano lessons. But he often skipped lessons and gambled the money away.  He was an inveterate gambler his whole life. This caused Groucho later on to return to work in movies he would rather not have done, to bail out Chico financially.

     Harpo was a self-taught harp player.  Because of this, he strung his own harp in the "wrong" key, and he or other musicians always had to compensate.  

     Groucho was the first to enter semi-professional music.  Though the family remained Jewish (largely secular Jews), Groucho took a position singing for an Episcopal choir. He was noted to have a lovely tenor voice.  He went on the road, touring.  His mother, hoping to cash in on what little success Groucho had, pushed his brothers into the act.  It was initially a serious musical act.  (This is a very compressed version of this. Groucho had many other trials and travails along the way.)  The group struggled, as many travelling groups did in that era.  One day, when the audience was not cooperative, the brothers turned their act into a comedy act, and that took off. Eventually, the group discovered that Harpo did better when mute, and that became part of the act.

     Though a comic genius, Groucho found that he could not be taken seriously for his intellect. This was very difficult for him.  He began to be the sort of person who couldn't turn off his performing persona.  Because it was a barbed wit that needed a straight person (like Margaret Dumont),  Groucho destroyed the self-esteem of some of his wives, and their marriages along with it.

     Groucho also developed worries about money and had insomnia.  He died in 1977, the same day Elvis Presley died. Because Groucho's fame had faded, his passing went relatively unnoticed, since it was on the same day as Elvis' passing.