Zeppo, p.11
Zeppo, page 11
Zeppo Marx, youngest of the Marx boys, at the Alvin in Animal Crackers, has a sideline. He sells real estate during the off months, when not employed at the theater as one of the quartet that has put the cracker in Animal Crackers. Zeppo Marx two seasons ago fell in love and married. As the head of a family, he developed the age-old urge to own a home. At the present time he holds title to six different apartment houses in the Bronx. That he has what is called the salesman instinct can be attested from the fact that he sold his manager, Sam H. Harris, a piece of property.”
Being in the theater kept Zeppo around people who had money after the crash. Apart from The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, producer Sam Harris had several other successful shows touring and on Broadway. He had also owned the Sam H. Harris Theatre, which housed a few other Broadway hits during the period, so he was able to buy some property from Zeppo—even if it was just a polite gesture.1 Throughout the Animal Crackers tour local newspapers regularly ran feature stories about Zeppo, usually pointing out his importance to the act. It was almost as if his brothers were responding to Zeppo’s unburdening in Theatre Magazine. On November 24, the Detroit Free Press headlined their Zeppo piece “Although He Does Least, Zeppo Has Hardest Job of All.” The challenges of Zeppo’s job are detailed:
A “straight man,” for the benefit of those who should know but may not, is the actor who makes straight the way for a comedian’s wise-cracks. It is he who bats out fungoes for the funny man to catch, snaps back the ball for the funny man to carry and is then buried under the heap of laughter which follows. Ordinarily he goes through a routine as standardized and nowhere near as energetic as a chorus girl’s. But when you are playing straight for the Marx Brothers, those avid devotees of ad libbing, no two nights’ performances are the same. Trying to figure out what Will Rogers is going to say next would be reasonably simple compared with trying to anticipate Groucho’s and Chico’s remarks on all topics and Harpo’s eloquent and ever-changing pantomime.
If the brothers were trying to make Zeppo feel better about his position in the act it probably had less effect on his decision to stay than the economic conditions as the Great Depression began. The tour continued until the first week of April 1930, so Zeppo was paid roughly $14,000 over the twenty-eight weeks that Animal Crackers was on tour. As the holiday season approached in 1929 and the show headed into the Midwest, the New Republic described “a winter of unemployment and suffering.” In New York men broke police station windows just to get a warm bed and a meal with their night in jail. On March 7, 1930, President Herbert Hoover assured the nation that, “all the evidences indicate that the worst effects of the crash upon unemployment will have passed within the next sixty days.” He was wrong. That same day Communists rallied in major cities across the country with speakers denouncing the capitalists who had taken away the jobs of working people. In New York’s Union Square, a crowd of thirty-five thousand protesters met police brandishing nightsticks as they marched to City Hall to confront Mayor Jimmy Walker, a living symbol of the Roaring Twenties excess that ushered in the crash. On this day of turmoil, the Four Marx Brothers went on stage at the Shubert-Rialto Theatre in St. Louis, probably unaware of the riot in New York City. March 7 was a Friday, so Zeppo visited the box office and collected his $500. He would remain quiet on the topic of leaving the act for the foreseeable future.
Had Zeppo entered the job market in early 1930, he would have found that show business was still his best bet. A single man with a vaudeville act could make several thousand dollars a week, but that would be for the rarest of stars. The bottom end of the scale was $50 a week. A retail salesclerk was pulling in between $17 and $25 a week. A cashier could earn between $25 and $40. In Hollywood the General Casting Bureau, which had been established in 1926 and sent actors to work at all the studios, had twelve thousand actors registered. They were all looking for one of the roughly seven hundred jobs per day that were available. If a lucky actor got one of the jobs, the pay ranged from $40 to $150 a week. An experienced leading man, who would not need to go through the General Casting Bureau, commanded a salary between $75 and $350. At $500 a week Zeppo Marx may have felt underutilized, but he was in no way underpaid. If he had indeed tried his hand at working without his brothers in light comedy, he would not have automatically been at the top of the pay scale. He may have thought his brothers should have cut him in for a full share in the Four Marx Brothers, or maybe given him a chance to be worth a full share, but from their perspective they were being quite generous with their youngest brother. This situation plagued Zeppo for years.
The tour ended in Cleveland on April 5 and the brothers were back at the Paramount studio in Astoria to start filming Animal Crackers a few weeks later. Zeppo remained on salary as Paramount paid $150,000 for the Four Marx Brothers to appear in their second film, which would premiere at the Rialto Theatre in New York on August 28. After filming was completed in early July, Zeppo returned to his other life as a Manhattan real estate broker. His combined income from real estate and the Marx Brothers put Zeppo in a financial position that would be enviable to most people, but he lived in the shadow of his much richer brothers. When the compulsive gambler Chico needed money, he was not above preying on Zeppo when Groucho and Harpo reached their limit with him. Zeppo was becoming as much of a gambler as Chico—although with generally better results. Harpo’s son Bill compared the gambling acumen of his uncles in his book Son of Harpo Speaks!:
I remember my Uncle Chico being competitive through his astounding grasp of mathematics. His satisfaction from gambling came from his ego-driven desire to show off his God-given abilities in front of any kibitzers on hand. He could remember every hand of cards he was ever dealt, and he would tell you the serial number from a dollar bill you gave him to memorize twenty years ago. On the other hand, my Uncle Zeppo wasn’t into the action to “win” the contest. He just wanted to beat the crap out of you.
Rehearsals for the Marx Brothers’ return to vaudeville put an end to their extended summer vacation as they prepared for an October opening. Their new show, The Schweinerei, consisted of highlights from I’ll Say She Is, The Cocoanuts, and Animal Crackers. It was probably not an accident that the show was structured to feature Zeppo in a more substantial way than the Broadway shows had. They used the concept of Groucho hosting a wedding reception—an idea borrowed from The Cocoanuts—with Zeppo as the groom, as he had been in On the Mezzanine Floor. The inclusion of the “Theatrical Manager’s Office” sketch also assured Zeppo some duty beyond being the straight man. The tour was scheduled for ten weeks, with the Marxes reaching their highest weekly salary yet at $9,000 a week. In an unexpected turn of events, this tour would provide Zeppo with a chance to be the star of the act—albeit briefly and in disguise.
After trying out the show in Queens and Brooklyn, they opened a two-week run at the Palace on Broadway before heading out on the road. The night before their November 8 opening in Chicago, Groucho was hospitalized with severe abdominal pain. He was suffering from acute appendicitis. The following morning an operation was performed, but the opening day matinee went on as scheduled with Groucho in the hospital. Variety reported on November 12: “Zeppo Marx who usually works straight assumed his brother’s trick mustache and cutaway and gave a creditable performance Saturday matinee with the public unaware of the missing member. Seemingly it was Zeppo who was absent. Sudden switch had all three of the performing brothers doing each other’s stuff to fill the gap.” A report in Billboard on November 15 was either an obvious mistake or a late and futile attempt at a coverup. “Zeppo Marx of the Four Marx Brothers was stricken with acute appendicitis. . . . The Marx Brothers opened at the Palace Saturday with the audience ignorant of the fact that Zeppo was missing.”
Zeppo shared his perspective on the experience with Charlotte Chandler for her book, Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends.
I didn’t understudy him or anything, because who expected it? . . . I had to do Groucho five times a day at the Chicago Theatre, which I did. Actually, some of his friends didn’t even realize it was me. They thought it was Groucho. They came backstage, and they wanted to see Groucho. But, anyway, it got pretty bad after a few days, because I never smoked cigars, and I’d smoke those goddamn cigars every day. I used to vomit every day after the last show—four or five shows a day, you know, and it was very difficult. But, anyway, I knew I could do it. And this frustrated me more, because I knew I could get laughs, but I wasn’t allowed to with the Marx Brothers.
Zeppo’s ability to cover for Groucho appeared to solve a difficult problem, but the power brokers of the RKO vaudeville circuit were not as grateful as they could have been. They canceled the following week’s booking in Cincinnati while they tried to get the Four Marx Brothers to accept a reduction in salary for providing only three brothers. This controversy caused the advertising for the remainder of the Chicago run to be changed from “the Four Marx Brothers” to “the Marx Brothers”—a change that Zeppo had been arguing for behind the scenes regarding his departure with little success. With the canceled week in Cincinnati left open for Groucho to recover, the tour resumed in Cleveland on November 22. The Marxes assured RKO that Groucho was fully recovered and that he would be on stage for all performances. But they got caught having Zeppo fill in at two of the four daily performances. RKO reduced their pay and canceled the scheduled second week in Cleveland.
They finished the tour in Boston and Detroit with Groucho fully recovered and Zeppo relinquishing his brief turn in the spotlight. For all the trouble caused by the substitution, the one thing everyone—including Groucho—agreed on was that Zeppo did such a fine job that most people were unable to notice Groucho’s absence. For Broadway shows, Actors’ Equity required the production to employ an understudy for each featured actor. On the rare occasions when Groucho missed Broadway or Equity tour performances—notably the week of the Stock Market Crash—Sam Goldman, an obscure vaudevillian hired by Sam Harris for his physical similarities to Groucho, filled in. Understudies not being required for vaudeville shows resulted in Zeppo filling in for each of his brothers at one time or another. But they’d been mostly working on Broadway or in Equity shows for the past six years, so there had not been many opportunities for Zeppo to demonstrate his peculiar skill in imitating his brothers. During the Broadway run of The Cocoanuts, there had been a strange item placed in Billboard—probably by the show’s publicist—stating that Gummo had “been made a general understudy for the quartet.” Apart from Gummo having been out of show business for eight years by that point, the suggestion that the admittedly least-talented member of the family possessed the skills to step in for even Zeppo—who had replaced him and made something more of the job—was ridiculous. That Zeppo could really step in for any of his brothers was remarkable. After reading about his new assignment in Billboard, Gummo probably stayed far away from the Lyric Theatre.
Six days after the final show of the RKO tour in Detroit, the Four Marx Brothers sailed for England where they would perform an abbreviated version of The Schweinerei at the Palace Theatre in London as part of Charles B. Cochran’s 1931 Varieties. It was on board the SS Paris on Christmas Eve 1930—as they were about to sail from New York for their London engagement—that three Marx Brothers made a critical career decision that would alter the lives of the Four Marx Brothers. A three-picture contract with Paramount was signed that would require them to make movies not based on their stage shows. While the contract allowed for those movies to be made in New York or Hollywood, it was generally acknowledged that they would be relocating to Hollywood upon their return from England. Preparations for the move began before they sailed.
Zeppo’s signature is on the contract alongside those of his brothers. But this was merely to assure his continued participation in the Four Marx Brothers. There is nothing in the contract specifying exactly how the “artists”—as they’re called in the agreement—will split the money, which in this case amounted to $200,000 per picture and 50 percent of the net profits. The payments by the studio, as outlined in the contract were “payable to the order of Julius H. Marx, for the account of the Marx Brothers.” Zeppo was a signatory to a contract that was expected to generate in excess of a million dollars, but by a separate agreement with his brothers, would remain their salaried employee. And forget about that New York real estate business, kid. You’re moving to Hollywood.
CHAPTER TEN
Hooray for Hollywood
THE MARX ENTOURAGE ARRIVED IN LONDON ON DECEMBER 30 AND SET up headquarters at the Savoy Hotel. After one warm-up show in a theater outside of London, they had some time to relax before the January 5 opening at the Palace. Zeppo may have still harbored mixed feelings about being in the act, but the free trip to London was certainly agreeable to him and Marion. As they strolled the London streets, they became interested in an unusual breed of dog they’d never seen before. After learning that the dogs were Afghan Hounds, Zeppo and Marion were soon talking to Phyllis Robson, who would write about the encounter in the December 1940 issue of Kennel Review:
One day a very nice young man and a pretty wife called on me in London. I did not catch their name, they wanted to talk about Afghans and that was enough for me. They told me they’d been ‘round the pet shops but could not see anything they liked. In one shop they saw a copy of the Dog World giving my address as editor so popped into a taxi and came along to ask my help. They told me they wanted a dog and a bitch that they could breed from and with good coats and light colored.
We must have talked for half an hour, and I drew up a list of kennels I suggested I would visit with them and then somehow California was mentioned, and the young man said, “You know I only work six months in the year.” “Aren’t you lucky,” I replied, “and just what do you work at?” He said, “Films,” so I said, “Do you mind telling me your name?” He said, “Marx.” Then knowledge came to me as the Marx Brothers were fulfilling a contract in London and I said, “Don’t tell me you are one of the Marx Brothers.” To which he replied, “Yes I am, I am Zeppo.” So, I replied, “Well, don’t you mention your name when you go ‘round the kennels, we’ll ask prices and if they are too high, I will tip you the wink.”
A photo of Zeppo and Marion walking one of Phyllis Robson’s Afghan Hounds in Hyde Park appeared in the London newspapers, and through her efforts, they became the owners of a pair of show-quality Afghans—Westmill Omar and Asra of Ghazni. The dogs soon appeared on stage at the Palace. During the London, run American newspapers broke the news that the Four Marx Brothers would be relocating to Hollywood upon their return and would start shooting their new film around April 1. They gave their last London performance on February 1, and Harpo sailed for New York that night from Southampton. The rest of the family—now including Asra and Omar—enjoyed an extra week in Europe and sailed on February 8 from Cherbourg, France. They arrived in New York on February 14 and made their final preparations for the move to Hollywood.
Harpo, the first to arrive in California, rented a villa at the Garden of Allah at 8152 Sunset Boulevard. The famous Hollywood landing spot for new arrivals advertised itself as “the ultimate in luxurious modern living accommodations” and offered hotel rooms, apartments, and four-and five-room villas—all completely furnished. Zeppo and Marion liked what they saw and took a large apartment there after briefly renting a three-bedroom house on Rodeo Drive.
It was around this time that Zeppo and Marion parted company with Omar and Asra. They still owned the dogs when Omar placed second in the hound variety class at the Del Monte Kennel Club Show in June. Zeppo also brought the dogs to the set at Paramount that summer. But by the time of the Santa Barbara Kennel Club Show in July, the dogs were owned by George S. Thomas, a well-known dog judge and trader from Boston. (Omar won a best in breed ribbon at the show.) For Zeppo and Marion, it was likely a case of there not being enough space for the dogs at their new apartment, or that caring for a pair of prized show dogs—particularly Afghans with their coats needing a lot of grooming—was too much work. Both were probably factors in their decision. The dogs would also be a problem if the Marx Brothers were to go back on the road.1
Other Garden of Allah residents at the time Zeppo and Marion moved in included director Edwin H. Knopf, playwright John Howard Lawson, composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, screenwriter S. J. Perelman, and actress Lila Lee. Marion and Lee became close friends in those early days at the Garden of Allah. When gossip columnist Sheilah Graham wrote the book The Garden of Allah in 1970, she interviewed Marion. Lila Lee became more notable for the series of scandals that overshadowed her long film career, and Marion had quite a story to add to Lee’s legacy. In the book, Graham was careful about using names and in true gossip column tradition was deliberately vague.2
A wife of one of the Marx Brothers was called from the Garden at four in the morning by an actress who had been a statuesque silent-film star and was then working infrequently in the talkies. “I’m dying,” she moaned. “You’ve got to come over, I’m dying.”
Mrs. Marx hastened over. She was far from dead, but her bed, her gown, and her body were covered with blood. The sadist, who is now dead—the father of a famous current young film actress—had made little cuts all over her with razor blades. Cutting soft flesh was his particular hang-up. There was lechery at the Garden, but nothing as cruel as this. The same man was always pretending to commit suicide. They would take bets at the Garden on whether he would surprise himself one day and succeed. He died of natural causes two decades later.
Lila Lee moved into the Garden of Allah shortly before Zeppo and Marion. She had just returned to Hollywood after spending some time in an Arizona sanatorium—officially for treatment of tuberculosis, but more likely for treatment of substance abuse. Lila’s sadistic boyfriend was screenwriter John Farrow, the father of Mia Farrow. John Farrow would become more prominent in Hollywood as a director and the husband of Maureen O’Sullivan a few years later. Farrow was engaged to Lee, but she broke it off due to his rampant infidelity.
