The “Me” in the title is a comparatively unknown Marx named Julius (1895-1977), who, under the nom de plume of Groucho, enjoyed a sensational career on Broadway and in Hollywood with such comedy classics as Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, and A Day at the Races. His solo career included work as a film actor, television game show emcee, and author of The Groucho Letters, Memoirs of a Mangy Lover, and his classic autobiography, Groucho and Me. With impeccable timing, outrageous humor, irreverent wit, and a superb sense of the ridiculous, Groucho tells the saga of the Marx Brothers: the poverty of their childhood in New York’s Upper East Side; the crooked world of small-time vaudeville (where they learned to carry blackjacks); how a pretzel magnate and the graceless dancer of his dreams led to the Marx Brothers’ first Broadway hit, I’ll Say She Is!, how the stock market crash in 1929 proved a godsend for Groucho (even though he lost nearly a quarter of a million dollars); the adventures of the Marx Brothers in Hollywood, the making of their hilarious films, and Groucho’s triumphant television series, You Bet Your Life!. Here is the life and lunatic times of the great eccentric genius, Groucho, a.k.a. Julius Henry Marx. “The book is never less than readable and its glimpses of American show business at its least glamorous are simple, true and sometimes rather touching.”—Times Literary Supplement “My advice is to ration yourself to a chapter a night—it’s that delectable.”—Chicago Sunday Tribune
Donated to the Library of Congress in the mid-1960s, Groucho Marx's correspondence was first crafted into this celebration of wit and wisdom in 1967. Reissued today with his original letters and humor intact, The Groucho Letters exposes one of the twentieth century's most beloved comedian's private insights into show biz, politics, business, and, of course, his illustrious personal life. Included are Marx's conversations with such noted personalities as E. B. White, Fred Allen, Goodman Ace, Nunnally Johnson, James Thurber, Booth Tarkington, Alistair Cooke, Harry Truman, Irving Berlin, and S. J. Perelman. To Confidential Magazine Gentlemen: If you continue to publish slanderous pieces about me, I shall feel compelled to cancel my subscription. Sincerely, Groucho Marx
"Included among these essays are his featherbedding campaign against standardization of cots, a defense of bedbugs, and a full chapter on 'The Advantages of Sleeping Alone.' Not only has Groucho made his BEDS; he lies in it. Call him bedroom radical, call him dreamer, call him collect, Groucho's BEDS is the last word on bedroom bedlam, and 'no Marx ever breaks his word-except maybe to an employer, the landlord or a lady" --
Meet Groucho Marx by a miracle of time travel. Sit back and enjoy his hilarious showbiz tales and his surreal flights of fantasy. A fictional dialogue based on biographical facts.
This is an account of the lives, early careers and final flowering of the Brothers Marx, the recollections of their co-workers and the scripts of their films. Joe Adamson interviewed the survivors of the arduous battles which making a film represented, and collected legends, anecdotes and jokes concerning the hilarious antics on the set, the sudden improvisations before the camera, and the extraordinary story conferences.
"Hourglass is an inquiry into how marriage is transformed by time--abraded, strengthened, shaped in miraculous and sometimes terrifying ways by accident and experience. With courage and relentless honesty, Dani Shapiro opens the door to her house, her marriage, and her heart, and invites us to witness her own marital reckoning--a reckoning in which she confronts both the life she dreamed of and the life she made, and struggles to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become."
Groucho Marx may be the funniest man who ever lived. Here in one volume are the classics of Marxian mayhem: excerpts from the scripts of the immortal movies, passages from his books, his articles for magazines ranging from The New Yorker to the Saturday Evening Post, the choicest ad-libs and quips from his long-running game show, You Bet Your Life, and selected letters, including his classic correspondence with T. S. Eliot. It's all here-the finest and funniest work by this century's most influential comedian, that man of whom Woody Allen said, "He is simply unique in the same way Picasso and Stravinsky are, and I believe his outrageous, unsentimental disregard for order will be equally funny a thousand years from now. In addition to all this, he makes me laugh." In the words of Groucho Marx: One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he go in my pajamas I don't know. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
The author describes his detachment from animals before meeting a cat whose failing health and winning personality shifted his scientific perspectives and brought about his understanding of the evolutionary significance of kinship.