The Books: “The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx”

Daily Book Excerpt: Entertainment Biography/Memoir:

The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx

When I was a senior in high school, I dated a guy who was an insane Marx Brothers fan, and still is today.

And so it is ironic that Groucho Marx would come up on ye olde bookshelf today: Yesterday I posted about Steve Martin. My boyfriend back then reminded me of Steve Martin, even down to what he looked like. He had the same long lean angular body, the same thick hair, the same serious face that could look, when he was performing, completely surreal. But it was more than that. His sense of humor was very similar – absurd yet traditional – surreal yet goofy – and he, too, was an ambitious actor and stand-up, who was already pursuing his dream when he was in high school. He wore hi-top sneakers when he was my date to the Prom, he would take me to old-movie nights at the campus theatre – where I was introduced to the glory of black-and-white films … and he also made it his business to school me in all things Marx Brothers.

I had a free period in the middle of the day, and my boyfriend lived right down the street from the high school, so I would go over to his house, and he would put in a VHS tape of Marx Brothers movies. Occasionally he would pause the tape and rewind so I could watch a bit again, and he could say to me, “Watch the timing here – watch how perfect it is …” It was so much fun.

Miraculously, he came out with a book a couple of years ago on the history of vaudeville. It is called No Applause–Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. (The book is terrific. I highly recommend it – indispensable addition to any theatrical-history library.) It got fantastic reviews, including one in The New York Times.

One of the most beautiful things for me, about the success he has now achieved, is that it is not at all a surprise, remembering the boy he was. The boy who, at 19, made me watch all the Marx Brothers movies, because he was horrified I hadn’t seen them. Who didn’t just watch the Marx Brothers … he STUDIED the Marx Brothers. The boy who was, even then, encyclopedic on vaudeville, knew all the names, all the anecdotes … and I remember the feeling, back then, that to him – WC Fields, and the Marx Brothers, and Mae West, etc. etc. were as vital and important to him as modern-day movie stars. Even more important, because they were the pioneers.

So it seems apt that the day after I write about Steve Martin I would come to this wonderful collection of letters from AND TO Groucho Marx. The best thing about this book is that it is a two-sided replication of his lifelong correspondence with people. So we don’t just get his letters TO E.B. White or Howard Hughes, we see what these luminaries wrote back to him.

Not surprisingly, the letters are hysterical. They rollick along, and you just feel like you are in the presence of one of the wittiest men who ever lived.

Groucho Marx was not formally educated, and he realized that this was a lack, something he needed to rectify, so he set about to make up for it by becoming extremely well-read. I love the following letter he wrote to Peter Lorre, of all people, in 1961, but look at the topic!

Dear Peter:
It was very thoughtful of you to send me a book explaining James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. All I need now is another book explaining this study by Stuart Gilbert who, if memory serves, painted the celebrated picture of George Washington which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum. I realize that there is some two hundred years’ difference in their ages, but any man who can explain Joyce must be very old and very wise.

You disappeared rather mysteriously the other night, but I attribute this to your life of crime in the movies.

Best to you both.

Regards,
Groucho

It is a lovely book and has recently been re-released in a nice new volume, a paperback, that you can find at Barnes & Noble. It was originally published in 1967 and I have a second-hand hard copy, but thanks be – someone decided to put it out again.

Groucho is an elegant and humorous companion. No huge revelations here, just joy and wit. I also like the book because it is not arranged chronologically, with letters flying hither and thither to various correspondents.

The excerpt I chose today is his correspondence with T.S. Eliot.

EXCERPT FROM The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx

FROM T.S. ELIOT

26th April, 1961

Dear Groucho Marx,

This is to let you know that your portrait has arrived and has given me great joy and will soon appear in its frame on my wall with other famous friends such as W.B. Yeats and Paul Valery. Whether you really want a photograph of me or whether you merely asked for it out of politeness, you are going to get one anyway. I am ordering a copy of one of my better ones and I shall certainly inscribe it with my gratitude and assurance and admiration. You will have learned that you are my most coveted pin-up. I shall be happy to occupy a much humbler place in your collection.

And incidentally, if and when you and Mrs. Marx are in London, my wife and I hope that you will dine with us.

Yours very sincerely,
T.S. Eliot

P.S. I like cigars too but there isn’t any cigar in my portrait either.

June 19, 1961

Dear T.S.:

Your photograph arrived in good shape, and I hope this note of thanks finds you in the same condition.

I had no idea you were so handsome. Why you haven’t been offered the lead in some sexy movies I can only attribute to the stupidity of the casting directors.

Should I come to London I will certainly take advantage of your kind invitation and if you come to California I hope you will allow me to do the same.

Cordially,
Groucho Marx

January 25, 1963

Dear Mr. Eliot:

I read in the current Time Magazine that you are ill. I just want you to know that I am rooting for your quick recovery. First because of your contributions to literature and, then, the fact that under the most trying conditions you never stopped smoking cigars.

Hurry up and get well.

Regards,
Groucho Marx

23rd February, 1963

Dear Groucho Marx,

It seems more of an impertinence to address Groucho Marx as “Dear Mr. Marx” than it would be to address any other celebrity by his first name. It is out of respect, my dear Groucho, that I address you as I do. I should only be too happy to have a letter from Groucho Marx beginning “Dear T.S.E.” However, this is to thank you for your letter and to say that I am convalescing as fast as the awful winter weather permits, that my wife and I hope to get to Bermuda later next month for warmth and fresh air and to be back in London in time to greet you in the spring. So come, let us say, about the beginning of May.

Will Mrs. Groucho be with you? (We think we saw you both in Jamaica early in 1961, about to embark in that glass-bottomed boat from which we had just escaped.) You ought to bring a secretary, a public relations official and a couple of private detectives, to protect you from the London press; but however numerous your engagements, we hope you will give us the honor of taking a meal with us.

Yours very sincerely,
T.S. Eliot

P.S. Your portrait is framed on my office mantelpiece, but I have to point you out to my visitors as nobody recognises you without the cigar and rolling eyes. I shall try to provide a cigar worthy of you.

16th May, 1963

Dear Groucho,

I ought to have written at once on my return from Bermuda to thank you for the second beautiful photograph of Groucho, but after being in hospital for five weeks at the end of the year, and then at home for as many under my wife’s care, I was shipped off to Bermuda in the hope of getting warmer weather and have only just returned. Still not quite normal activity, but hope to be about when you and Mrs. Groucho turn up. Is there any date known? We shall be away in Yorkshire at the end of June and the early part of July, but are here all the rest of the summer.

Meanwhile, your splendid new portrait is at the framers. I like them both very much and I cannot make up my mind which one to take home and which one to put on my office wall. The new one would impress visitors more, especially those I want to impress, as it is unmistakably Groucho. The only solution may be to carry them both with me every day.

Whether I can produce as good a cigar for you as the one in the portrait appears to be, I do not know, but I will do my best.

Gratefully,
Your admirer,
T.S.

June 11, 1963

Dear Mr. Eliot:

I am a pretty shabby correspondent. I have your letter of May 16th in front of me and I am just getting around to it.

The fact is, the best laid plans of mice and men, etc. Soon after your letter arrived I was struck down by a mild infection. I’m still not over it, but all plans of getting away this summer have gone by the board.

My plan now is to visit Israel the first part of October when all the tourists are back from their various journeys. Then, on my way back from Israel, I will stop off in London to see you.

I hope you have fully recovered from your illness, and don’t let anything else happen to you. In October, remember you and I will get drunk together.

Cordially,
Groucho

24th June, 1963

Dear Groucho,

That is not altogether bad news because I shall be in better condition for drinking in October than I am now. I envy you going to Israel and I wish I could go there too if the winter climate is good as I have a keen admiration for the country. I hope to hear about your visit when I see you and I hope that, meanwhile, we shall both be in the best of health.

One of your portraits is on the wall of my office room and the other one on my desk at home.

Salutations,
T.S.

October 1, 1963

Dear Tom,

If this isn’t your first name, I’m in a hell of a fix! But I think I read somewhere that your first name is the same as Tom Gibbons’, a prizefighter who once lived in St. Paul.

I had no idea you were seventy-five. There’s a magnificent tribute to you in the New York Times Book Review Section of the September 29th issue. If you don’t get the New York Times let me know and I’ll send you my copy. There is an excellent photograph of you by a Mr. Gerard Kelly. I would say, judging from this picture, that you are about sixty and two weeks.

There was also a paragraph mentioning the many portraits that are housed in your study. One name was conspicuous by its absence. I trust this was an oversight on the part of Stephen Spender.

My illness which, three months ago, my three doctors described as trivial, is having quite a run in my system. The three medics, I regret to say, are living on the fat of the land. So far, they’ve hooked me for eight thousand bucks. I only mention this to explain why I can’t get over there in October. However, by next May or thereabouts, I hope to be well enough to eat that free meal you’ve been promising me for the past two years.

My best to you and your lovely wife, whoever she may be.

I hope you are well again.

Kindest regards,
Groucho

16th October, 1963

Dear Groucho,

Yours of October 1st to hand. I cannot recall the name of Tom Gibbons at present, but if he helps you to remember my name that is all right with me.

I think that Stephen Spender was only attempting to enumerate oil and water colour pictures and not photographs – I trust so. But, there are a good many photographs of relatives and friends in my study, although I do not recall Stephen going in there. He sent me what he wrote for the New York Times and I helped him a bit and reminded him that I had a good many books, as he might have seen if he had looked about him.

There is also a conspicuous and important portrait in my office room which has been identified by many of my visitors together with other friends of both sexes.

I am sorry that you are not coming over here this year, and still sorrier for the reason for it. I hope, however, that you will turn up in the spring if your doctors leave you a few nickels to pay your way. If you do not turn up, I am afraid all the people to whom I have boasted of knowing you (and on being on first name terms at that) will take me for a four flusher. There will be a free meal and free drinks for you by next May. Meanwhile, we shall be in New York for the month of December and if you should happen to be passing through there at that time of year, I hope you will take a free meal there on me. I would be delighted to see you wherever we are and proud to be seen in your company. My lovely wife joins me in sending you our best, but she didn’t add ‘whoever he may be’ – she knows. It was I who introduced her in the first place to the Marx Brothers films and she is now as keen a fan as I am. Not long ago we went to see a revival of “The Marx Brothers Go West”, which I had never seen before. It was certainly worth it.

Ever yours,
Tom

P.S. The photograph is an oil portrait, done 2 years ago, not a photograph direct from life. It is very good-looking and my wife thinks it is a very accurate representation of me.

November 1, 1963

Dear Tom:

Since you are actually an early American, (I don’t mean that you are an old piece of furniture, but you are a fugitive from St. Louis), you should have heard of Tom Gibbons. For your edification, Tom Gibbons was a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, which is only a stone’s throw from Missouri. That is, if the stone is encased in a missile. Tom was, at one time, the light-heavyweight champion of the world, and, although outweighed by twenty pounds by Jack Dempsey, he fought him to a standstill in Shelby, Montana.

The name Tom fits many things. There was once a famous Jewish actor named Thomashevsky. All male cats are named Tom – unless they have been fixed. In that case they are just neutral and, as the upheaval in Saigon has just proved, there is no place any more for neutrals.

There is an old nursery rhyme that begins “Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,” etc. The third President of the United States first name was Tom … in case you’ve forgotten Jefferson.

So, when I call you Tom, this means you are a mixture of heavyweight prizefighter, a male alley cat and the third President of the United States.

I have just finished my latest opus, “Memoirs of a Mangy Lover”. Most of it is autobiographical and very little of it is fiction. I doubt whether it will live through the ages, but if you are in a sexy mood the night you read it, it may stimulate you beyond recognition and rekindle memories that you haven’t recalled in years.

Sex, as an industry, is big business in this country, as it is in England. It’s something everyone is deeply interested in even if only theoretically. I suppose it’s always been this way, but I believe that in the old days it was discussed and practiced in a more surreptitious manner. However, the new school of writers have finally brought the bedroom and the lavatory out into the open for everyone to see. You can blame the whole thing on Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebing and Brill, Jung and Freud. (Now there’s a trio for you!) Plus, of course, the late Mr. Kinsey who, not satisfied with hearsay, trundled from house to house, sticking his nose in where angels have always feared to tread.

However I would be interested in reading your views on sex, so don’t hesitate. Confide in me. Though admittedly unreliable, I can be trusted with matters as important as that.

If there is a possibility of my being in New York in December, I will certainly try to make it and will let you know in time.

My best to you and Mrs. Tom.

Yours,
Groucho

3rd June, 1964

Dear Groucho,

This is to let you know that we have arranged for a car from International Car Hire (a firm of whom we make a good deal of use) to collect you and Mrs. Groucho at 6:40 p.m. on Saturday from the Savoy, and to bring you to us for dinner and take you home again at the end of the evening. You are, of course, our guests entirely, and we look forward to seeing you both with great pleasure.

The picture of you in the newspapers saying that, amongst other reasons, you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit in the neighbourhood, and particularly with the greengrocer across the street. Obviously I am now someone of importance.

Ever yours,
Tom