Zeppo, p.27
Zeppo, page 27
“We started from scratch four years ago and developed 250 acres of citrus groves from raw desert land,” he proudly reports. The acreage is “double planted,” supporting twice as many grapefruit, orange, lemon and tangerine trees, according to a new method of desert fruit ranching. First crops will be harvested this year.
They built two residences on the property and Zeppo added a large machine shop. Martuc would become the largest citrus grove in the Coachella Valley with 160 acres of Marsh Seedless Grapefruit, fifty acres of Temple Oranges, and thirty acres of Valencia Oranges. Zeppo also bought a fishing boat and kept it near the ranch at the North Shore Beach Yacht Club on the Salton Sea. Many Hollywood celebrities, fascinated by the opportunities for fishing, boating and water sports in the middle of the desert had flocked to the Salton Sea from their Palm Springs retreats. Zeppo’s fellow yacht club members included Gregory Peck, Bing Crosby, Jerry Lewis, Clark Gable, and Edgar Bergen. As a resort community, the Salton Sea was short-lived, and it ultimately became an environmental disaster. Partially as a result of this, Zeppo would later become a supporter of Greenpeace and other environmental charities.
As a citrus rancher and part-time fisherman without the pressures of running Marman, Zeppo could focus his attention on women and gambling for a while. But first there was the matter of the trial in the rock throwing incident involving Tim. Tom and Tim were spending a brief summer vacation away from Mount Lowe at the Prescott Ranger Ranch in Arizona when the trial was to begin. Tim recalls being put on a plane by himself and being flown to Los Angeles during a bad storm.
The trial began on July 18, 1955. Zeppo did not attend. Marion appeared in court looking matronly in a black dress and wide hat. Tim wore his Mount Lowe uniform. The case presented by the Singer family attorneys was that “Tim was so negligently trained and supervised that he developed a belligerent and hostile nature.” The suit was clearly drafted to place the blame for the incident on Zeppo and Marion—in other words, following the money.
While Tim was also named as a defendant, the case against him had an inherent problem. The law stated that “A minor . . . is civilly liable for a wrong done by him, but not liable in exemplary damages unless at the time of the act he was capable of knowing that it was wrongful.” The defense posited that Tim could not know the act was wrongful because he was trying to hit a tree with the rock, and accidentally hit Denise Singer. Tim testified, “I was aiming at a tree and the stone slipped.”
The Singer attorneys presented as a witness another neighborhood girl they claimed was Tim’s intended target. Had Tim been trying to hit another person, rather than a tree, he would be liable to Denise Singer by the legal concept of “transferred intent.” The Singers also offered the testimony of the previous occupant of their house, who testified that she had spoken to Marion about Tim’s habit of throwing rocks a year before Tim threw the rock that hit Denise Singer. She added that Tim and Tom had ruined her front door by throwing darts at it. Marion testified that she had no recollection of any such conversation with the neighbor and denied even knowing her. Marion did testify that she had been informed that Tim had thrown dirt clods at the car of the principal at Hawthorne Elementary School, and that he had been punished for it. Asked about Tim, Denise Singer testified, “He was always throwing rocks.”
There was no disagreement on the basic fact that Tim threw a rock that hit Denise Singer near her eye. The legal questions as to Tim’s intent, his parents’ responsibility for the girl’s injury and any negligence on their part were the ones that needed to be answered for the court to decide the case. On July 21 Superior Judge Caryl M. Sheldon dismissed the case, stating that there was no evidence that Tim was improperly supervised. Denise Singer Vogel recalls her family’s attorney determining that Judge Sheldon was a fishing buddy of Zeppo’s.
The Singers appealed and got a reversal of the decision in their favor against Marion and Tim, but not Zeppo. The appeals court decision, handed down by Judge Clyde C. Triplett—apparently not a fishing buddy of Zeppo’s but still willing to give him something of a break—stated,
It is fairly inferable that Mrs. Marx had notice of Tim’s dangerous proclivities and did not administer effective discipline. . . . So far as the father, Zeppo Marx, is concerned, it does not appear that he had any personal knowledge of the rock throwing. The only evidence as to him is that he was consulted when punishment for any dereliction was due. That is not enough to make a prima facie case against him. The judgment of nonsuit is reversed as to defendants Tim Marx and Marion Marx and affirmed as to defendant Zeppo Marx.
Marion and Tim’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court of California was denied on November 21, 1956. The $300,000 damage suit was ultimately settled for $22,500 on May 3, 1957, ending nearly four years of litigation in the matter.3
The extent of Denise Singer’s injury notwithstanding, Zeppo felt that $300,000 was excessive—especially considering that Mortimer Singer was a compulsive gambler who was in Las Vegas almost as frequently as Zeppo was. The settlement amount was a relief to Zeppo and a huge disappointment to Mortimer Singer, who had a somewhat sketchy history and was always in need of money.
Singer was a used car salesman and a music publisher in the years before he filed the lawsuit against Zeppo. He acquired some oil leases in Osage, Oklahoma in 1953 and began putting equipment for oil exploration on the property. Presumably this is what made him an oil company executive. Within a couple of years Singer was on the receiving end of several lawsuits brought by the companies he purchased equipment from. He never paid for any of it. There was also a foreclosure on his oil leases.
Singer would get into further trouble. In March 1961 he was indicted by a federal grand jury on twenty-nine counts of mail fraud. He bilked would-be songwriters out of $159,713 in a scheme that promised he would set their poetry to music, get it recorded, and place the songs in movies to get them royalties. Singer ran advertisements in music trade publications using the alias Ralph Hastings and involved his son Stephen, who operated a recording company in Hollywood. The Federal Trade Commission also came after Singer’s son for this scheme.
While awaiting trial, Mortimer Singer got back into the oil business, taking money from investors who all eventually sued him for non-payment. After a two-week trial, he was convicted on the mail fraud charges and sentenced to eighteen months in prison, followed by three years’ probation and payment of a $4,500 fine. It isn’t hard to believe that while his daughter’s injury infuriated him, Mortimer Singer also saw Zeppo’s wealth as an opportunity for a substantial payday in court.
By the time the Singer v. Marx case reached a final resolution, Marion, Tom, and Tim had left California, as had the Singer family. In December 1955 Marion abruptly took the boys out of Mount Lowe and moved to New York with them. According to Tim, “She wanted to be as far away from Zeppo as she could be.” She rented an apartment at 933 Park Avenue, near East 84th Street. Tom and Tim were enrolled in New York City public schools. They were both thrilled to be out of Mount Lowe, even if it meant relocating to New York against their will. Construction on Zeppo’s new house at Tamarisk was completed, and he moved in as Tom and Tim began the school year in September 1956.
The March 1959 Palm Springs Villager piece on Zeppo described the new house in unusually extreme detail.
Zeppo himself designed the new home, with the help of architect Wallace Neff. The theme is absolute symmetry.
The large hexametrical living room is perfectly balanced, both architecturally and in interior decor. Identical bedroom suites extend from opposite ends of its length. A long kitchen flanks the living room, servants’ quarters adjacent. There is a wide-roofed patio overlooking the swimming pool.
By entering the living room well to the right of center, one is spared the impression of walking into a mirror and is only gradually conscious of the exact symmetry of the room’s furnishings.
“Actually, it was the only sensible way to capitalize on both fire-place and view,” Zeppo explained [of] the two-faced central unit, which he designed himself.
From a long-shelved centerpiece, red cushioned sofas arc widely on either side, edged with low tabletops and cupboard areas. The island’s perimeter describes an interesting abstract shape, a pleasing combination of abstracts and curves. In front of each sofa-side stretches a long marble-topped coffee table.
Poolside, two giant white hassocks, each five feet in diameter, wing the view. Fireside, two organs—one a small black chord organ, the other a new electric console—are paired with a great curving fireplace in between.
Above the organs hang a pair of colorful Indian figures, copies of Far Eastern temple virgins. Lamps and a grinning brass lion repeat the Indian motif. Wall tones are white and shades of gray and are repeated together in the reed-and-cotton draperies which extend along the west wall of glass.
The western view seems to extend the house about three miles into the setting sun. The expansive patio, shady under a wide eave, is inviting and comfortable with cushioned wrought iron lounge chairs and ash trays bucket-size.
The pool is large (25' × 50') and rectangular—so that, according to Zeppo, “You can swim without bumping your head on all those abstract curves.” Beyond the beautifully landscaped gardens stretch the fairways of Tamarisk golf course.
Zeppo had built one of the finest homes at Tamarisk and he was proud of it. The two organs prominently placed in his living room were an important feature of the house. Zeppo took a weekly lesson and frequently played for guests. Marion had settled comfortably in New York and wrote Zeppo a cordial and optimistic letter, letting him know, among other things, that the boys were pleased to be in public school and had received their polio vaccines. The letter Zeppo sent back in October amused Marion so much that she saved it and passed it on to Tim:
Dear Marion,
Was happy to hear from you, and glad you’re feeling well, also very pleased about the boys doing well in school. Strange that you should write me about the polio shots. I was about to ask you if they had received them.
About the house, believe me it has been a very tough job, I never realized how much work there is to it. I can now understand the running around you had to do in furnishing our other houses. Wow! Picking the colors for the carpets and furniture is about to drive me nuts. I don’t think I will ever do it again. The decorators are all such thieves that I am doing the whole thing myself. Right now, I think the living room looks like a fruit salad and the two bedrooms look like the same fruit salad after I vomited. Anyway, I did it and am stuck with it, so if I ever wanted to sell it, I would have to get some schmuck who is completely blind, and that ain’t easy. Bing Crosby, who is color blind, is the only one I know who has enough money to buy it, but my bar isn’t big enough.
About the ranch I bought, it is raw land, and I am planting grapefruit. It will take about four years to bear fruit, and when it does, I hope to hell people will still want to eat them. If they don’t, I’ll be up to my ass in the stuff. Anyway, I will keep you posted. This will be all for now.
Love,
Zeppo
Nice letters notwithstanding, Marion was still angry at Zeppo and resentful about his not being around for Tom and Tim. In her mind, his absentee parenting even got him out of trouble in the court case, which certainly didn’t make Marion any less upset. She felt he was rewarded by the court for not knowing about the behavioral problems of his children. Zeppo had reduced being a father to writing checks. Zeppo’s attitude had always been that since Marion wanted children, she should deal with them. To him they were just a nuisance.
But in trying to start a new life in New York, Marion was not completely prepared to go it alone. She convinced her mother to move back to New York after having her move to Los Angeles twenty years earlier.4 Marion was strong-willed and took charge of things once she accepted that Zeppo would not be any help with the boys. Tim says, “Once they separated, Marion became the boss. Zeppo abdicated that and I didn’t like it. I missed him. I didn’t want to move to New York. I wanted to stay in California so I could see my father. At the time I couldn’t figure out why Marion had to go to New York.”
Had Tim stayed in California he wouldn’t have seen much of his father. Zeppo was very interested in a new hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Among the original investors in what was to be called the Casa Blanca Hotel were Harpo and Gummo. It was originally set to open in 1953, but the Nevada Tax Commission would not grant a license when they learned that Meyer Lansky and Detroit mobster Willie Bischoff were involved. When it finally opened as the Riviera on April 20, 1955, it was plagued by financial problems and went bankrupt within three months. By July a new management team led by Zeppo’s old friend Gus Greenbaum took over the operation of the Riviera with a group of partners that had been with him at the Flamingo.
Greenbaum had sold his interest in the Flamingo and retired, but he was pressured by high level organized crime figures to come out of retirement to save the Riviera. He refused at first but was convinced when his sister-in-law suddenly turned up dead in what was clearly a well-timed mob hit. Greenbaum had taken the unusual step of burying the Flamingo’s ledgers in the Nevada desert along with the names of the Flamingo’s Gold Club members, basically a list of the casino’s high rollers. Zeppo’s name was on that valuable list.
Before returning to Las Vegas from his home in Phoenix, Greenbaum stopped off in the desert to exhume the Flamingo paperwork, which would be useful in turning the Riviera around. The Nevada authorities expressed concern about the criminal past of Greenbaum and his associates but allowed them to take over the Riviera to save the new establishment. None of Greenbaum’s partners were as notorious as Meyer Lansky (who remained a silent partner) and having some of the Marx Brothers involved made for better press.
Among the more colorful characters running the Riviera with Greenbaum would be Israel Alderman, alias “Icepick Willie,” a name he picked up as a mob enforcer and hit man in Minneapolis. Gummo and Harpo were the Riviera’s most—and probably only—respectable investors. Greenbaum’s ownership stake was well known, but Nevada officials simply feigned ignorance on the matter. It was much nicer to say a couple of the Marx Brothers were part of the ownership group.
Gus Greenbaum invited Zeppo to be his guest for the opening of a new Spike Jones revue, Musical Insanities of 1956, which opened on August 3, 1955, in the Riviera’s nightclub, the Clover Room.
Zeppo saw the show several times while it was at the Riviera. He also used his connection to the hotel management to watch the showgirls rehearse in the afternoon. One of the girls was Barbara Ann Blakeley, Zeppo’s future second wife and Frank Sinatra’s future fourth wife. In her 2011 autobiography, Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank, she wrote about her first encounter with Zeppo:
He was a well-tailored, middle-aged man who’d sit alone at the back of the theater to watch our rehearsals. He was a friend of the director Sammy Lewis, and I could tell he was important by the way the bosses reacted to him. Sammy came over to me one day and asked, “What have you done to Zeppo Marx? He’s been asking questions all around the hotel about you.’”
The four-week engagement of the Spike Jones revue at the Clover Room was followed by nine weeks of Harpo and Chico Marx—booked by Riviera investor Gummo Marx. Zeppo caught the act so frequently his brothers may have thought he was reconsidering his disdain for show business. But he was more focused on one showgirl than anything else.
When Groucho came to Las Vegas to see Harpo and Chico’s show, there was a rare public gathering of all five Marx Brothers. There would be another reunion of the five Marx Brothers on February 18, 1957, when the brothers all attended Chico’s opening at the Hollywood Civic Playhouse in a touring production of The Fifth Season. On this occasion the reunion was filmed for broadcast on the NBC television show Tonight: America after Dark. Zeppo’s ambivalence about making these appearances would probably have made it satisfying for him that the footage of this historic event is not known to survive. Zeppo’s interest in show business at this point was limited to pretty chorus girls.
Barbara was a twenty-eight-year-old divorcée and former model with a nearly five-year-old son when she met Zeppo. She’d been pursued by numerous men during her time as a Las Vegas showgirl and had pursued a few wealthy older men in her search for a husband. But she had reached the point where she wanted to leave the city and find a better life for her young son. Zeppo complicated matters for her. She knew he was dating other women and would occasionally see him in Las Vegas with Joyce Niven. She’d no doubt seen the newspaper items suggesting Zeppo would soon marry Niven.
But Zeppo continued to pursue Barbara and told friends that the rumors about marrying Joyce Niven were nonsense. Zeppo’s relationship with Niven would best be described as rocky. On May 29, 1957, Zeppo went to the Mocambo on Sunset Boulevard to see Connee Boswell perform at the legendary Hollywood nightclub. He was on his first date with Lillian Sherlock, a former model occasionally identified in gossip columns as a “Hollywood starlet” even though she never made it in the movies. One of the twice-divorced Sherlock’s former husbands was a wealthy greeting card tycoon, so she may have seen more in Zeppo than his money. She was often described as an Ava Gardner lookalike, and Frank Sinatra had dated her during a break in his tumultuous marriage to Gardner.
When Zeppo and Lillian Sherlock arrived at the Mocambo that night, they were greeted by an incensed Joyce Niven, who accused Sherlock of stealing her boyfriend. Zeppo escorted Niven back to her table where her date for the evening grabbed Zeppo. A brief fistfight was broken up by some Mocambo waiters, and Zeppo yet again made headlines for getting into a public brawl. He was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, “I got in a couple of good clouts. I’m glad no one was hurt.” Niven’s date was a former boxer, and Zeppo asked Variety’s Army Archerd, “Why is it your pals always hold YOUR hands when they want to stop a fight? And the other guy’s always way over six-foot?”
