| Julius "GROUCHO" Marx - 1890-1977 (86) did 14
movies with his brothers, Leonard "CHICO" Marx - 1887-1961
(74) and Adolph "HARPO" Marx - 1888-1964 (75). He was the
leader of Hollywood's most famous comedy trio. Two other brothers, Milton
"GUMMO" Marx - 1897-1977 (80) and Herbert "ZEPPO"
Marx - 1901-1979 (78) worked at various times with their more famous brothers.
The Marx Brothers were the wildest and wackiest lunatics in film history.
They were extraordinary anarchists attacking everything from authority figures,
the system and education, to politics, sex, war and the police, to the upper
classes and culture in general. They combined their own brand of slapstick
physical comedy with quick witted one-liners and puns and proceeded to wreak
havoc everywhere they went, mostly uninvited. Their films subject matter
came from their own personal life experiences thus their films are semi-autobiographical.
Sam and Minnie Marx were a source of inspiration and motivation in their
sons early career in Vaudeville and on Broadway. The Marx Brothers finally
made the big-time on May 19th, 1924 when they appeared on Broadway in an
insanity filled play they had written called "I'll Say She Is".
The boys went on to two more highly successful runs on Broadway, "The
Cocoanuts" in 1925 and "Animal Crackers" in 1928. Their first
film was a silent movie made in 1925 called "Humor Risk". The
film was never released and is now lost. It is said that "Humor Risk"
was so bad that Groucho set fire to it so that it would not tarnish the
Marx's promising young movie career. |
