Zeppo, p.10
Zeppo, page 10
Various accounts credit Chico with brokering the deal with studio head Adolph Zukor while William Morris Jr. observed quietly, but Paramount executive Walter Wanger provided a vivid account of the negotiation between Zukor and Zeppo when he was interviewed for the 1970 book The Real Tinsel. According to Wanger, Zeppo displayed the skills of an experienced agent. In getting Zukor to raise the Marxes’ fee from $75,000 to $100,000 Zeppo first flattered the narcissistic mogul, who hadn’t even agreed to the $75,000.
Zeppo walked over to Mr. Zukor. “Mr. Zukor,” he said, “this is one of the greatest moments of my life. I’ve always wanted to meet you. You are the one showman in the world. When I think of what you did for Mary Pickford, of what you’ve done for pictures, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to meet you.” He went on like that for ten minutes, and the old man started to melt. When he got all through, Zukor wanted to know, “So what’s the trouble between Walter and you?” “Mr. Zukor,” Zeppo answered, “all our lives we’ve worked to perfect this one show. This is our first show on Broadway. It’s a big hit. All our jokes are in it, everything we’ve ever done. We’re willing to make a picture for you, give you all our material, all our services, and all those marvelous gags—the whole thing for one hundred thousand dollars.” One hundred thousand dollars was never mentioned. I sat there and gasped. Zukor turned to me. “Walter, what’s wrong with that?” And that’s how the deal was made.
As for William Morris Jr., Frank Rose wrote, “The incident at Paramount, where he sat mute while Zeppo Marx sold Adolph Zukor on The Cocoanuts, was hardly out of character. Morris hated agenting. He was shy. He was lousy at making chitchat. Nothing about him suggested a showman.” Zeppo was the opposite of Morris in almost every way and the Zukor incident demonstrated his business acumen and all the skills needed to be a good agent. With little to do on stage in the new show, Zeppo had proven to be more valuable to his brothers off stage with his deft handling of Adolph Zukor.
Animal Crackers opened to the expected rave reviews and the usual press celebrations of the Marx family. New York Herald Tribune theater critic Percy Hammond offered an odd tribute to Zeppo on November 11, 1928:
One of the handicaps to thorough enjoyment of the Marx Brothers in their merry escapades is the plight of poor Zeppo Marx. While Groucho, Harpo, and Chico are hogging the show, as the phrase has it, their brother hides in an insignificant role, peeping out now and then to listen to plaudits in which he has no share. Among the Animal Crackers of the title Zeppo is but a goat. A handsome fellow of the “juvenile” type, he is able in song, dance, and elocution, yet he cuts a small figure in the family revels. When, if ever, he is noticed by the press it is with disdain. Reviewers have said of him that he makes the Marx quartet a trio, and that he is an appendage to a fraternity already overladen. I seldom read criticism of the drama for the reason that dull reviewers bore me, and bright ones make me envious. Therefore, I may be wrong in suspecting that this is the first good notice Zeppo ever got in a newspaper.
Sometimes as I watch him tiptoeing around the outskirts, unobtrusive, though not diffident, I admire him for the proud humility with which he performs his inglorious office. In Animal Crackers, for instance, he sings his little song and dances his little dance as if he were a useful if not important atom in the proceedings. Subdued, and I fear a trifle forlorn, he shows no evidence of forgetting his lot in self-pity. The silence that greets his own conscientious efforts seems to be as sweet to him as the uproar that welcomes the accomplishments of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. He asks his brilliant brothers foolish questions in order that they may answer with clever retorts and then he retires backstage until they need him again. Although he is a Marx as much as any of them, he never allows that distinction to interfere with the privileges of his more aggressive kinsmen.
As Animal Crackers rolled along on Broadway, the New York newspaper columnists could always count on the Marx Brothers to fill a column with real and imagined tales of their comings and goings. The show had a publicist feeding material to the newspapermen just to make sure the public knew the Marxes were still holding court nightly at the 44th Street Theatre months after their opening. This had also been true of I’ll Say She Is and The Cocoanuts. What was different with Animal Crackers was the sudden media interest in Zeppo. New York Journal-American columnist O. O. McIntyre wrote of Zeppo in his widely syndicated “New York Day by Day” column on December 16, 1928:
Young Mr. Marx is in the billing and that is almost all. In his fleeting appearances on the stage, he seems not at all disturbed by his insignificance while his brothers merrily hog the show. It seems to me he is far more distinguished for his diffident humility than his brothers are for their highly advertised humor. And given a decent chance he would, I venture, give his brothers a run for popularity.
Critics and columnists writing about Animal Crackers seemed less inclined to beat up on Zeppo—even if his status in the act hadn’t really changed. A March 28, 1926, Jewish Daily Forward review of The Cocoanuts featured glowing descriptions of the comedic gifts of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. Rounding out the quartet, the critic could only add “And Zeppo is the fourth one—I’m sorry that that’s all I can say for him.” Perhaps the easy jokes about the fourth Marx Brother had run their course. With Animal Crackers, the sympathetic Zeppo press continued into the new year in Mark Hellinger’s New York Daily News column “Behind the News” on January 3, 1929:
Theatregoers know all about Groucho, but few of them know Zeppo, who is content to remain in the background and watch his three brothers garner the glory. Zeppo, however, is an extremely shrewd real estate operator. He doesn’t care as much for the stage as he does for the business world. Accordingly, his chief interest in life lies in the various real estate deals he has helped swing in recent years.”
There seems to have been a concerted effort to call attention to Zeppo—even if it meant calling attention to his virtual nonexistence in Animal Crackers. It could have been Marion’s influence, or perhaps Zeppo was laying the groundwork for his future away from the act. His press notices routinely included mention of his burgeoning real estate business—although no press agents or columnists wrote of Zeppo’s desire to earn more money than his wealthier brothers were paying him. Filming of The Cocoanuts began in early February, shooting during the day, with Animal Crackers still doing excellent business on Broadway at night. One can only hope that Zeppo was paid a fair bonus for getting Adolph Zukor to increase the Marx Brothers price for making the picture.
The constant specter of Minnie hung over Zeppo’s dream of leaving the act. The brothers all felt they owed a lot to their mother, and she couldn’t get enough of them. Variety columnist Nellie Revell reported a Minnie Marx sighting in her March 27, 1929, column: “Mrs. Marx, mother of the Four Marx Brothers, in a fourth-row seat, watching the performance of Animal Crackers at the 44th Street. ‘Tis said that she has missed only three performances during the engagement.” Zeppo wasn’t going anywhere while his mother was coming to see him on Broadway every night.
The task of turning a Broadway musical into a sound film was fraught with challenges in 1929. Sound recording and camera mobility were still being perfected. But the main issue was that Broadway musicals ran for well over two hours on stage. Significant portions of the show would need to be eliminated to make a ninety-minute film. The first casualty of the trimming was Irving Berlin’s music. There would simply be far fewer songs in the film. The next victim of the cutting was the already small role of Zeppo. Quick results in truncating The Cocoanuts came with the elimination of the first two musical numbers in the show. The first, “The Guests,” featured Zeppo’s hotel clerk character Jamison singing about—oh, the irony—real estate.
So, this is Florida
Where land is booming
And ev’rybody has a little to sell
The climate is delightful
The natives tell us so
But living here is frightful
We’d like to have you know
That lovely Florida,
The land of sunshine,
Is not so lovely
Stopping at a bum hotel.
Although “The Guests” wasn’t in the show on opening night, it was added soon after and hundreds of Broadway and touring performances of The Cocoanuts opened with Zeppo singing this song and the following one, “The Bellhops,” in an elaborate number featuring him and sixteen dancers set in the hotel lobby seen in the film. Zeppo’s other featured number, “Florida by the Sea” made it into the film but without Zeppo singing it. His dialogue scenes were also trimmed. If Zeppo had been marginalized on stage, he’d be barely visible on screen.
After the final Broadway performance of Animal Crackers in April and a brief vaudeville run with selected scenes from the show, Zeppo looked forward to concentrating on his real estate business during the four-month break until Animal Crackers hit the road in September 1929. In April, as the Four Marx Brothers were appearing in their vaudeville turn at the Palace Theatre, for what was reported as the highest salary ever paid to a vaudeville act at the Palace, Marion briefly resuscitated her acting career only a few blocks down Broadway at the Majestic Theatre. She had not been on stage since the final performance of The Cocoanuts more than a year before. The New York Daily News reported on April 21 that “Marion Marx, wife of Zeppo, one of the Four Marx Brothers will join the cast of Pleasure Bound tomorrow night. But it’s for two weeks only. Mrs. Marx is a novelist, and she wants to absorb stage atmosphere for a book.” By this point the other Marion Benda had become marginally famous for having been with Rudolph Valentino the night he died, and there could be no inference of nepotism for her being cast in a non-Marx show, so Marion used the name Marion Marx professionally.
Pleasure Bound was a Shubert Brothers musical comedy revue that starred Jack Pearl, Phil Baker, Aileen Stanley, and the vaudeville team of Shaw and Lee. Whatever Marion contributed during her two-week engagement is a mystery. Zeppo was again unable to see Marion’s performance. The Four Marx Brothers performed at the Palace or the Riverside on each day of Marion’s two weeks at the Majestic. The whole thing seems odd, especially since Marion should have absorbed plenty of stage atmosphere during her years working on Broadway and then on the road with the Marx Brothers. If she ever started writing a novel there is no trace of it anywhere. Marion’s last performance in Pleasure Bound was on May 4, 1929—the same day the Four Marx Brothers gave their final performance of the season at the Riverside Theatre.
The filmed version of The Cocoanuts premiered during their run at the Riverside, so they all went to see it the day after they closed. Initially skeptical about the film, the brothers put aside their misgivings as it became a tremendous hit over their long summer break. They were now assured a new career in the movies. But that didn’t change Zeppo’s plan to get out of the act. It would just be a little more complicated. Although Minnie was long retired as the manager of the Four Marx Brothers, it was understood that she considered the word “Four” as essential to the act as the word “Marx.”
Zeppo and Marion had taken an apartment at 169 East 78th Street and they spent a good deal of time and money that summer turning it into a luxurious salon where they could entertain guests.1 The Animal Crackers tour was scheduled to begin on September 20 in New Haven, Connecticut, and rehearsals began in August. Sam Harris rented the run-down Casino Theatre—where I’ll Say She Is had its Broadway run five years earlier—as a rehearsal space. Early on Friday, September 13, Minnie and Frenchy were driven by their chauffeur from their home in Queens to the old theater at 39th Street and Broadway so they could attend the afternoon rehearsal before heading uptown for dinner with Zeppo and Marion. Groucho rushed home to his family in Great Neck as soon as the rehearsal was over. Chico and Betty headed to a weekend party at Adolph Zukor’s estate in Rockland County, and Harpo had plans elsewhere in Manhattan, as did Gummo. But they would all frantically scramble to Zeppo’s apartment before the night was through.
The brothers had all started to notice that Minnie was growing weaker each time they saw her. But she still retained the enthusiasm for the act that they remembered from their childhoods. At the rehearsal that day she joked with a few reporters about going on the road occasionally to make sure her boys were giving good performances. But she also made comments about her own mortality. After enjoying a hearty meal and a few vigorous games of ping-pong with Zeppo and Marion, Minnie and Frenchy called for their chauffeur and headed back to Queens. As they drove across the Queensborough Bridge, Minnie became ill. She had the presence of mind to tell Frenchy that she was having a stroke. Frenchy ordered the chauffeur to turn the car around in the middle of the bridge and head back to Zeppo’s apartment. Zeppo called a doctor and all his brothers, who each arrived at the apartment in short order. But nothing could be done. Minnie had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. The brothers laid her to rest two days later.
Five days after their mother’s funeral, the Four Marx Brothers were on stage at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven as scheduled. Minnie would never have tolerated a cancellation. The act was her life and the best way for her boys to celebrate it was to keep the act together. In the short term this would be fine, but Zeppo was conflicted. An August 31, 1926, item about the Four Marx Brothers in Wood Soanes’s Oakland Tribune column, “Curtain Calls,” referred to Zeppo’s crushed ambitions:
Zeppo, the youngest, wanted to be a businessman with a lot of people working for him and a special room to hold conferences. And he might have achieved these dizzy heights, but his brother Gummo went to war and on return refused to act any more, going into the dress business. Naturally there had to be Four Marx Brothers and Mother Marx, who rules the roost, drafted Zeppo. And that’s the story.
Efforts to present Zeppo as an equal persisted in the press during the Broadway years. A January 22, 1926, article in The American Hebrew stated, “Zeppo’s inclusion in the team was first actuated merely by a desire to keep the family together. Now he is indispensable.” Zeppo knew better but his thoughts of leaving the act could only be thoughts while Minnie was around. Her death suddenly made it at least seem possible.
CHAPTER NINE
Wall Street Lays an Egg
THE JANUARY 1929 ISSUE OF THEATRE MAGAZINE CONTAINED A PIECE called “Confessions of the Marx Brothers.” Press items of this sort were usually devoid of anything serious. But the fourth Marx Brother’s question-and-answer session is surprisingly revealing. It reads like a transcript of Zeppo talking to a therapist.
What is your function in the family? “The fifth wheel of the Marx Brothers. The spare. Pushed into show business when the fourth, Gummo, broke into the war.”
Information volunteered: “My career on the stage is practically ruined, because I am afraid of my brothers. I’m the youngest, and from the moment I first went on I would look at them, who had already been established as comedians, and if I caught them smiling, even good-naturedly, over what I was saying or doing, I would become self-conscious to the point of unhappiness. For quite a while I’ve been in the real estate business, on the side, and that’s to what I’m going to devote myself when this show closes. I won’t even go on tour. I’m not suited to the musical comedy stage; should have been in straight comedy, and not with my brothers. They make me feel so self-conscious that I suffer. It’s developed an inferiority complex in me.”
“I like to sing, but I haven’t a good enough voice to carry the juvenile lead, and the other lines were not written for me, so you can’t blame Mr. Harris for not wanting to take a chance. I can go out and sell a house as calmly as that, because I’m not self-conscious there, but the moment I step out on the stage I defeat myself.”
How did you get your name, Zeppo? “We had a farm in Illinois, and they nicknamed me Zeke—and then when I came to the stage, Zeppo. No reason for it. Just the same as me being in Animal Crackers.”
If Zeppo really believed he would be leaving the Four Marx Brothers when Animal Crackers closed on Broadway, he was mistaken. He was still controlled by a fair amount of family pressure and there was no reason to put the value of the act at any risk. Announcing his plans to a magazine reporter may have been his way of testing the idea out on his brothers, who were having none of it. At least no one cared if he didn’t want to tell the Zip the Pinhead story.
In the immediate aftermath of Minnie’s death there was a full season of Animal Crackers on the road to deal with, so any thoughts of making the Four Marx Brothers a trio would have to wait. But an additional obstacle presented itself only weeks after Minnie’s death. The stock market crash of 1929 affected the Marx Brothers in different ways. Groucho and Harpo suffered significant losses—with Groucho seeing his portfolio worth an estimated $250,000 vanish nearly overnight. (He had been buying on margin, so his investment was significantly less.) Chico, who spent his weekly salary on gambling and women before the sun set on payday simply laughed off the stock market as a sucker’s bet. But Zeppo viewed things in much the same way as many working Americans. He was lucky to even have a job. His brothers were each pulling in $2,000 a week touring in Animal Crackers, but he was on salary at $500 a week. This was a very healthy wage in 1929, but his plans of doing much better on his own now seemed less likely. His little real estate business was doing well enough before the crash, but with the entire economy in turmoil, his Animal Crackers salary kept Zeppo solvent.
A November 10 Pittsburgh Press item offered a typical post-crash summary of Zeppo’s situation:
