W.C. Fields said that The Marx Brothers was the only act he couldn't follow on the live stage. He is known to have appeared on the same bill with them only once, during an engagement at Keith's Orpheum Theatre in Columbus, OH, in January 1915. At the time the Marx Brothers were touring "Home Again," and it didn't take Fields long to realize how his quiet comedy juggling act was faring against the anarchy of the Marxes. Fields later wrote of the engagement (and the Marxes), "They sang, danced, played harp and kidded in zany style. Never saw so much nepotism or such hilarious laughter in one act in my life. The only act I could never follow . . . I told the manager I broke my wrist and quit."
Groucho Marx suffered from insomnia, which he claimed was due to a financial loss in the stock market. On those evenings that he was awake, he used to call people up in the middle of the night and insult them.
"Because of my fake mustache, eyebrows and eyeglasses, I was rarely recognized in public during the 1930s and 40s. However, one evening in 1938, I was out at a local Hollywood restaurant with my wife having dinner when this man walked up to my table and asked me, 'Are you Groucho Marx?' Annoyed, I politely said 'Yes, I am.' He then went on to say he was my biggest fan and asked me for a favor. More annoyed, I said 'Sure, what is it?' The guy pointed to a woman seated at a nearby table and told me that was his wife and he wanted me to tell an insulting joke about her. I told the guy, 'Mister, if my wife looked as ugly at THAT, I wouldn't need to think of anything to insult her with!'"
In the 1950s, Groucho was invited to take a tour of the New York Stock Exchange. While in the observation booth, he grabbed the public address system handset and began singing "Lydia the Tattooed Lady." Upon hearing silence coming from the trading floor, he walked into view, was given a loud cheer by the traders, and shouted, "Gentlemen, in 1929 I lost eight hundred thousand dollars on this floor, and I intend to get my money's worth!" For fifteen minutes, he sang, danced, told jokes, and all this time, the Wall Street stock ticker was running blank.
"The greatest compliment I ever got was from (Charlie) Chaplin. He came up to me and said, 'I wish I could talk like you on the screen'. I said, 'I think you're doing alright.' He had made $50 million by that point. He was the best comedian we ever had." (IMDb)
Happy Birthday, Groucho Marx with and without makeup above.
