An Evening With Groucho Marx
Thank you, it's nice to be wanted. I...I must eh tell you, for the people in the back, it's Dick Cavett up here. I can't believe that I'm here tonight. It's not Carnegie Hall that gets to me, but I can't believe that I know Groucho Marx and he asked me to..ehm... to introduce him tonight, and I'll do that as quickly as possible.
I met Groucho Marx on a sunny sunday afternoon about twelve years ago. He was coming from the funeral of a great friend of his, a man he has often said was his God, George S. Kaufman, We met on the corner of fifty.. eightyfirst and fifth and, I couldn't believe it, but he asked me to walk down fifth avenue with him. We stopped ever so often so he could insult a doorman. We got to the Plaza where he was staying and I assumed that the dream was over and I was trying to think of a way to say goodbye and he said, with that familiar soft voice, that I knew first from the quizshow and then from the movies "Well, you certainly seem like a nice young man, and I'd like to have lunch with you." And we had lunch. It was wonderful, I went home to write it down, as much as I could remember of it. I remember for dessert... the captain and the waiter both came over to take his dessert order, and Groucho said "Do you have any fruit, you can recommend" to the waiter "and I don't mean the captain here." So...eh...it was like that.
The only sad thing about Groucho's life is that there is so many thousands of funny things that have gone unrecorded. Luckily there was someone along at the anti-semetic country club, when they told him he couldn't use the pool, and he asked "Since my daughter is only half-jewish, could she go in up to her knees?"
Thank you, for him.
There's a lot of profound things, that should be said about Groucho, like the fact that his comedy achieves the level of great art, that he has all the gifts I think that a comedian can have. Some of them have a few of them, he has them all, but that's for people to write about.
I was asked to mention one thing: please don't take any flash pictures. It makes Groucho dizzy and he could... it's true, he could fall. He wanted me to mention that, and I said "How can I say that and not alarm the audience?" And he said "Easy, tell them I'll drop dead, if they do." He's serious, but not when you want him to be.
Anyway, to get quickly to the part of the evening that you came and paid for, I would first like to introduce a few people that should be mentioned now. Among them: Rufus T. Firefly, J. Cheever Loophole - J. Cheever Loophole - hold your applause to the end, please - Dr. Hugo C. Hackenbush, Otis B. Driftwood, and Captain Jeffrey Spaulding - the one, the only, Groucho.
First I would like to take a bow for Harpo and Chico.
For my sake you must stay,
for if you go away,
you'll spoil this party
I am throwing.
I'll stay a week or two,
I'll stay the summer through,
but I am telling you,
I must be going.
I understand that some time ago Jack Benny played the violin here at Carnegie Hall, and I thought it would be a good idea to take this and break it over my knee and then jump on it. I've had quite enough of Jack Benny. And so has the violin.
Well, let's get down to cases. How I got started in showbusiness. I saw an ad in the Morning World, which doesn't exist anymore - and hardly do I. The ad said "Boy wanted to sing". I ran all the way from Ninety-third Street, where I lived then, to Thirty-third Street, and ran up five flights of stairs and knocked on the door, and a man came to the door wearing a woman's outfit. Not entirely, just lipstick. And I realized that that was the profession, that I wanted into.
I've better start talking about my family first, I guess. There was quite a group of them.
Can you hear me out there? You're not missing anything. Luckily I can't hear it either.
Well, I had a family, I had...eh. Harpo played the harp, that was pretty obvious. Chico was what they used to call a chicken chaser. In England now they call them birds, which is the equivalent of a chicken chaser in America fifty years ago. He did very well with that, too. Zeppo was born when the Zeppelin arrived at Lakehurst, New Jersey. He had nothing to do with the arrival. My other brother Gummo - it's not his real name, his real name was...eh...was Milton. It seemed like such a silly name, and we used to call him Gumshoes, because somebody had given him a pair of rubbers. In a nice way, I mean. And that's his name: Gummo Marx. My name, of course, I never did understand.
I had an uncle named Julius, he was well over four feet. And I was named after him, 'cause we were under some peculiar impression that he had money. As a matter of fact, my father wanted to throw him out of the house, but my mother said "No, no, I remember, I read a story once in which a man was supposed to be broke, and when he died, he left a lot of money". So they named me Julius. He never worked anyhow, he was just in the house, sitting there. He finally died, and he left a will. His will consisted of a celluloid dickie, an eightball, and three razorblades. And besides he owed my father eighty-five dollars, which he never did get from him.
Then we had a sister. She wasn't really our sister, she was an adopted sister. The father of that sister had gotten a look at this girl and fled to Canada, and we never saw him again. But the girl stayed with us, and her name was Polly. Polly didn't.. she wasn't a bad looking girl, but her rear end stuck way out. You could play pinochle on her rear end.
And Chico was the gambler of the family. He pawned everything. My father was a tailor, and a very bad one, and Chico was always short of money, and he used to hock my fathers shears, so whenever my father made a suit, of course it didn't fit, and the shears would be hanging up in the pawnshop on Ninety-first Street. Chico got a job at Klauber Horn and Co. They used to manufacture paper, different kinds of paper. And Chico never brought home a salary, 'cause he was always in the poolroom, or he was some place, and he never brought a salary. And my father told him, "Next week, if you come home without your salary, I'll kill you." They had a very close relationship.
Chico didn't know what to do. His fahter was laying for him - in a nice way, I mean. And Chico entered, apprehensively, and there was my father waiting for him. Chico said "Dad, I got a great surprise for you. They had a sale today, on paper, and I took the three dollars, that I was suposed to bring home, and I bought this paper". And my father opened it, and it was toilet paper. It was the first time we had ever seen toilet paper in our house. We had always used either the Morning World or the Herald Tribune. When I was really young, before that, I used to smoke it. Roll it up into a small ball and I would light it, and it was very good.
It was a very peculiar family. I had an uncle who was a chiropodist. He would come to your house, and he had a small suitcase, and he would cut your toenails for twenty-five cents. Then he got a job, 'cause there is not much money in cutting toenails for twenty-five cents. And it was cold, it was winter, so he got a job setting fire to hotels in the Catskills.
Then he was so good at this, that they finally transferred him, and they gave him a job in the Adirondacks, where they had much bigger hotels to burn down. He finally wound up in Sing-Sing.
Marvin Hamlisch. That must be you, eh? Oh, this is Marvin Hamlisch. I'm gonna sing you a song written by my good friend Harry Ruby. It's called Timbuctoo. Are you ready to play this song.
Hamlisch: Always ready!
Soon they had a lot of little Bucks,
and you know how fast they grow.
There was one Buck, two Bucks, three Bucks, four Bucks,
no one knows how many more Bucks.
Mrs. Buck would play the ukulele every morn till two,
and while old man Buck was singing,
all the little Bucks were buck-and-winging.
When they had eggs for breakfast, Buck was out of luck,
each Buck would eat a dozen eggs, and a dozen cost a buck.
The landlord came to raise Buck's rent,
but he couldn't raise a sou.
So he backed up the motor truck,
and he said goodbye, said goodbye, he said goodnight, he said goodbye, and he s..
...to Timbuctoo!.
Thank you.
I muffed a few words in there, but it's such a crazy song, it doesn't make any difference.
I use to live in a street called Ninety-third Street. And there was a girl there that I was stuck on. She was almost fifteen years old. And I used to go out every morning and buy bread for my mother. I used to get the stale bread, because it was four cents, and the regular bread was five cents. So in no time at all, about four months, I'd saved seventy cents. I was stuck on Annie Berger, she had a great pair of legs, and I used to watch her walk up the stairs - she lived on the floor above us. One day after I had the seventy cents, I said "Why don't I take you to the theater?". I had it all figured out. Ten cent car fare for two, ten cents for car fare coming back and fifty cents for two seats in the third gallery.
But when we got to the theater - it was Hammerstein's Victoria Theater - there was a fella selling sauerkraut candy in front of the theater, and it was a nickle a bag. She said "Gee, I would love to have some of that sauerkraut candy." But I only had ten cents left by this time, so I bought her a bag of this candy. We were sitting in the gallery so high, we couldn't even see the actors, and she starts eating this sauerkraut candy, and I can hear her, but I can't hear the actors on the stage. And I could have killed her, I'd thought she'd offer me a piece, but she didn't.
So when the show was over - by this time she had consumed all the candy - and we got outside and I said "Annie..." - it was cold, it was real cold; had been snowing all that day - I said "Look, you had sauerkraut candy, didn't you, in there. You never offered me a piece of the candy, did you? Now I only have five cents left, and we gotta go all the way to Ninety-third Street. Now, look, I care a great deal about you, but I don't wanna walk all the way to Ninety-third Street, so I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'll toss the coin up" - this nickel that I had left - "and you holler heads or tails." She hollered "heads", it came down tails, and she walked home. I didn't see her again for ten years.
Soon we were in vaudeville. And I was a German comedian with a spade beard. I was dressed like my uncle Al Shean - we were Gallagher and Shean in those days - that was my mother's brother. I don't know if you remember him, but he used to sing "Oh, Mr. Gallagher, oh Mr. Gallagher, what's on your mind this morning, Mr. Shean?". So I became a German comedian. We were playing in Shea's, Toronto. The Lusitania was sunk in the First World War. I was supposed to sing a song, a german song. I was afraid that if I did they were gonna kill me, that audience. I'm gonna sign this song for you now.
That wasn't necessary, that part you did.
Hamlisch: Could I...could I try it again?
Let's keep it on a high basis.
Hamlisch: Could I try it again? Could I get another crack at it?
OK.
Hamlisch: Thank you.
Obviously, with the Lucetania laying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, I would have got killed if I had sang this song in Canada. So I put some make-up on again, and I made myself a Jew comedian, which I'd never been, I'd never been a Jew comedian, and I sang this song.
One week went by,
Klein started to cry,
It looks like the Wolfs mean to stay.
So he tells his wife one night,
that while they were sleeping tight,
let's leave them, and we'll run away.
Say, it's better to run to Toronto,
than to live in a place you don't want to.
With twenty wolves in front of me,
my house looks like a menagerie.
Imagine the cheek from the tante,
to bring all the Wolfs from Toronto,
and, oy, how they can eat,
at least a pound of meat.
Say, they take what they want, when they want to.
Just think what the bills will amount to.
Every day they are growing more and more.
They eat one meal a day, that's right,
they start in the morning and finish at night.
It's going to be a cold cold winter, and I can't keep the Wolfs from the door.
Thank you.
When I was over in London, some years ago - I did a quizshow over there for a while. It wasn't too succesful, but the...eh...the American ambassador, he liked me, because I used to be funny and crack jokes. Jackie Onassis' sister, Radziwill, you may have seen her, she's been on TV a few times. She's a very pretty girl, and she had a husband, who was Polish. He was well over four feet, and I told him a story. This is the story:
It's about a hooker. You all know what that is, I guess. I'm sure that sometime in your life, somebody has seen one. It was a story about a girl who picks up a Pole, and takes him home, and feeds him, gets him dinner. They go to bed that night, have a great time. Next morning she helps him get dressed, puts on his uniform with his big epaulets hanging on, and he starts to leave. Then she says "Just a monment, what about money?", and he says "A Polish officer doesn't accept money."
I don't know if you remember the 2nd World War, because there's so many now, it's hard to keep track of them. Well, during the 2nd World War, Hess had been sent by Hitler to try to negotiate peace with Churchill. Churchill at that time was in the projection room at 10 Downing Street running "Monkey Business". He sent an orderly to the door, and said "Tell him to come back after I've seen Monkey Business, and we'll discuss business."
One night at the embassy Winston Churchill's daughter Mary was my dinner partner. When the butler passed around the cigars, she said "Take one for me." I said "What? What do you want a cigar for? You don't smoke cigars, do you?". She said "No, but my father does, Winston, and we play a little game.". I said "What kind of a game?". "I take a cigar, and he takes a cigar, and then he bets me a pound" - I think it was around two and a half dollars - "and we bet who can hold the ash on the cigar the longest." At this time he was running the British government. Now, you never think of a man like that trying to win two bucks from his daughter.
He was a tough guy.
During the 2nd World War, years later, the Chicago Tribune correspondent had died, and they had to get a new guy to...eh...to go over and cover the war. They had a big meeting one day there, and Ring Lardner were there and they had the whole staff of the Chicago Tribune. And somebody suggested sending Percy Hammond over, this critic who had reviewed our act. And Ring Lardner said "No, no, you can't do that. Suppose he doesn't like the war."
How many of you have read the George Kaufman book? Nobody, eh? He was a close friend of mine. He was a hell of a playwright, and he was also a show doctor, and I remember one of the Bloomingdales department store family was producing a show and opening it in Philladelphia, and they invited George Kaufman to come down there and see the show, because it needed a little help. And Kaufman went down and sat in the second or third row, and when the show was over, the fellow from Bloomingdales, he came down in the audience, and he said to George, he said "How about the show, how did you like it?" And Kaufman said "Tell you what you do: close the show and keep the store open at nights."
And one day while they were doing the act, there was a scream came from Fanny's dressingroom, and Swayne ran in there. And he had a turkish towel with him, I don't know what he gonna... Fanny Brice was standing on a chair, frightened a bit, got her clothes a-way up. Swayne grabs this rat - it wasn't one of the rats from his act. This was a sewer rat that had gotten into the theater. Swayne captures this sewer rat, and the next year we played on the bill with Swayne again, and this rat was now the star of the show.
Then I used to take a chair, which the vaudeville actors used to do in those days, and I would start walking off the stage, and the last line would be:
So I sent him a picture of me, and he returned it. He said "I want a picture of you smoking the cigar." So I sent him one smoking a cigar, and we got very well acquainted. And I had read up on T.S.Eliot. 'Murder In The Cathedral' and a few things like that, and I thought I'd impress him. And all he wanted to talk about was the Marx Brothers. That's what happens when you come from St.Louis.
At any rate I finally felt my way down to the front row, and I sat down. And I'm now sitting on - I can't think of his name - it'll come to me in a couple of hours. Did I sing 'Oh, How That Woman Could Cook'? No, it was true, I was sitting...sitting on Kenneth Tynan's lap. It was dark. So he says "Take the next seat." So I took the next seat, and I'm now sitting on Laurence Olivier's lap. He says "What are you doing here, Groucho?" I said "Well, I thought.. you know I was invited by Mrs. Eliot to come over here. I thought I'd take a look at the theater." He says "Why don't you get up on the stage, and show us what you're gonna do?" I said "Well, I don't plan on doing anything here." And other than that, with all the actors you've got here. You had all the shakespearian actors in England, and I was an old vaudeville ham. So he says "Well get up and say something, you've gotta do something for Mrs. Eliot."
So I went up on the stage, and this came to me, while I was standing on the stage, with Olivier down front and Kenneth Tynan. It's a tough audience for an old vaudeville actor. It was a story about a man, who was condemned to be hanged, and the priest had said to him "Have you any last words to say, before we spring the trap?". And the man says "Yes", he says, "I don't think this damn thing is safe."
Sing it, you fool! Let's hear it.
Not for just a day.
Not for just a year.
Not for just a week, (or something)
But always.
The Devil said 'Listen lad,
Listen to your dear old dad'.
'You stay down here where you belong.
The folks above you, they don't know right from wrong.
To please their kings they've all gone off to war,
But not a one of them knows what they're fighting for.
Way up above they say, that I'm a devil and I'm bad,
But the kings up there are bigger devils than your dad.
They're breaking the hearts of mothers,
They're making butchers out of brothers.
You'll find more hell up there,
Than there is down here below.
We were sitting at a table, and Ruby was at the piano and Berlin called me over. He says "If you ever have an urge to sing that song again, if you'll get in touch with me, I'll give you a hundred dollars not to sing it." But I still sing it, because I think it has four wonderful lines in there. And that it applies today just as much as it did forty years ago.
Have you got a key, you're not using?
They're breaking the hearts of mothers,
They're making butchers out of brothers.
You'll find more hell up there,
Than there is down here below.
She did quite some business with that anklet.
You want me to leave the stage?
Hamlisch: I think we'll both go, yeah.
Then I'll go off.
That was a big hit, that song. They even sang it in Europe, in Germany.
You say that it was nice of us to bother.
But it really was a pleasure to fuss,
For according to our mother,
You're our father,
And that's good enough for us.
Yes, that's good enough for us.
Then we were on a boat, and I had two suitcases, and Mrs Rittenhouse was in the back of me. And she said "Otis, have you got everything?" And I said "I haven't had any complaints yet."
They never asked me at the Paramount again.
I was in the Plaza Hotel, and there was a priest standing there, and he recognizes me, and he says "Aren't you Groucho Marx?" and I said "Yeah". He says "My mother is crazy about that quizshow you used to do." and I said "I didn't know you fellas had mothers." and I continued, I said "I always thought it was immaculate conception."
Show me a rose,
And I'll show you a girl who cares.
Show me a rose,
Or leave me alone.
Show me a rose,
And I'll show you a storm at sea.
Show me a rose,
Or leave me alone.
She taught me how to do the tango,
Down where the palm trees sway.
I called her Rose-a-mir,
And she called a spade a spade.
Show me a rose,
And I'll show you a stag at bay.
Show me a rose,
Or leave me alone.
One night in Bixby, Mississippi,
We watched the clouds roll by.
I said "My dear, how are you?"
And she wispered "So am I"
Show me a rose,
And I'll show you a girl named Sam.
Show me a rose,
Or leave me alone.
Show me a rose,
A fragrant rose.
Make believe that you don't know me,
Until you show me
A rose.
Music by Harold Arlen. Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg.
La-la-la...la-la-la.
Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia The Tattooed Lady.
She has eyes that men adore so,
and a torso even more so.
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia.
Lydia The Queen of Tattoo.
On her back is The Battle of Waterloo.
Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus too.
And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
La-la-la...la-la-la.
La-la-la...la-la-la.
When her robe is unfurled she will show you the world,
if you step up and tell her where.
For a dime you can see Kankakee or Paree,
or Washington crossing The Delaware.
La-la-la...la-la-la.
La-la-la...la-la-la.
Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia The Tattooed Lady.
When her muscles start relaxin',
up the hill comes Andrew Jackson.
... that encyclopedia.
Lydia The Queen of Tattoo.
For two bits she will do a mazurka in jazz,
with a view of Niagara that nobody has.
And on a clear day you can see Alcatraz.
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
La-la-la...la-la-la.
La-la-la...la-la-la.
Come along and see Buffalo Bill with his lasso.
Just a little classic by Mendel Picasso.
Here is Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon.
Here's Godiva, but with her pajamas on.
La-la-la...la-la-la.
La-la-la...la-la-la.
Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia The Queen of them all.
She once swept an Admiral clear off his feet.
The ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat.
And now the old boy's in command of the fleet,
for he went and married Lydia!
I said Lydia...
He said Lydia...
I said Lydia...
He said Lydia...
Olé!
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