The Marx Brothers would perform variations on this routine for the next seven years.įor a time in vaudeville, all the brothers performed using ethnic accents. They modified the then-popular Gus Edwards comedy skit "School Days" and renamed it "Fun In Hi Skule". Much to their surprise, the audience liked them better as comedians than as singers. After exhausting their prospects in the East, the family moved to La Grange, Illinois, to play the Midwest.Īfter a particularly dispiriting performance in Nacogdoches, Texas Julius, Milton, and Arthur began cracking jokes onstage for their own amusement.
The brothers Julius, Milton ( Gummo Marx) and Arthur (originally Adolph, but Harpo Marx from 1911) and another boy singer, Lou Levy, traveled the U.S. By 1909, Minnie Marx had assembled her sons into an undistinguished vaudeville singing group billed as "The Four Nightingales". Marx reputedly claimed that he was "hopelessly average" as a vaudevillian, but this was typical Marx, wisecracking in his true form. Marx would continue to overcome his lack of formal education by becoming very well-read.Īfter a few stabs at entry-level office work and jobs suitable for adolescents, Julius took to the stage as a boy singer with the Gene Leroy Trio, debuting at the Ramona Theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 16, 1905. By that time young Julius had become a voracious reader, particularly fond of Horatio Alger. Julius's early career goal was to become a doctor, but the family's need for income forced him out of school at the age of twelve.
While pushing her second son Leonard ( Chico Marx) in piano lessons, she found that Julius had a pleasant soprano voice and the ability to remain on key. Minnie Marx did not have an entertainment industry career but had intense ambition for her sons to go on the stage like their uncle. Marx and his brothers respected his opinions and asked him on several occasions to write some material for them. According to Marx, when Shean visited, he would throw the local waifs a few coins so that when he knocked at the door he would be surrounded by adoring fans. Minnie's brother was Al Schoenberg, who shortened his name to Al Shean when he went into show business as half of Gallagher and Shean, a noted vaudeville act of the early 20th century. His father was Simon "Sam" Marx, who changed his name from Marrix, and was called "Frenchie" by his sons throughout his life, because he and his family came from Alsace in France. His mother was Miene "Minnie" Schoenberg, whose family came from Dornum in northern Germany when she was 16 years old. The only known photo of all five Marx brothers with their parents in New York City, 1915 from left: Groucho (aged 25), Gummo (aged 22), Minnie (mother), Zeppo (aged 14), Frenchie (father), Chico (aged 28), and Harpo (aged 27) The Marx family lived there "for about 14 years," Groucho also told Cavett. Just across the street were the oldest brownstones in the area, owned by people including the well-connected Loew Brothers and William Orth. It was populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans. His brother Harpo, in his memoir Harpo Speaks, called the building "the first real home they ever knew". The Marx children grew up in a turn-of-the-century building on East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side of the borough of Manhattan. Marx stated that he was born in a room above a butcher's shop on East 78th Street, "Between Lexington & 3rd", as he told Dick Cavett in a 1969 television interview.
Julius Henry Marx was born on October 2, 1890, in Manhattan, New York. These exaggerated features resulted in the creation of one of the most recognizable and ubiquitous novelty disguises, known as Groucho glasses: a one-piece mask consisting of horn-rimmed glasses, a large plastic nose, bushy eyebrows and mustache. His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as an exaggerated stooped posture, spectacles, cigar, and a thick greasepaint mustache and eyebrows. He also had a successful solo career primarily on radio and television, most notably as the host of the game show You Bet Your Life. He made 13 feature films as a team with his siblings the Marx Brothers he was the third-born of the brothers. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit and one of America's greatest comedians. Julius Henry " Groucho" Marx ( / ˈ ɡ r aʊ tʃ oʊ/ Octo– August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer.
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