Groucho would probably still have done almost anything for the right chocolate bar, except get fat. Even though he was quite slim, when his weight went up a couple of pounds, he became displeased with himself. One of the things he liked was to stop during his morning walk for an ice-cream cone. But if he was gaining weight, he didn’t do that, and our walk would then assiduously avoid the sites of temptation. We walked on the other side of the street.
Apart from pleasure and sustenance, food was always an important measure of the quality of life for Groucho, and meals offered a prime occasion for social contacts. He liked to eat well, and he liked to share the experience with his friends, who often joined him as mealtime guests. What was really important to him were people, and meals offered some of the best social opportunities.
“The best food in the world isn’t worth eating unless you have someone you like to eat it with you, and someone to complain to if the toast is burnt. But it’s got to be the right someone.
“I remember in New York when I was young, eating at Horn & Hardart. You’d sit at a table with six strangers. I didn’t like that particularly.”
Groucho’s interest in eating well was also a reaction against the ptomaine-touring days of his early career in vaudeville. Nevertheless, he preferred relatively simple food and was far from preoccupied with eating per se. One of his great favorites was ice cream and saltines, together. “Cuisine,” he would say to me when we ate in an elaborate restaurant, “we used to call it grub.”
At Groucho’s home everything was served on a separate dish. As a result of those vaudeville boardinghouses where the food was all thrown together on one plate, Groucho insisted on the preservation of the separate identity of each thing eaten. “I’m very rich, and I can afford to eat everything on a separate dish,” he announced. Gravies and sauces were served apart. The vegetable was on one plate, the salad on another. Generally, Groucho didn’t even like one-pot cooking, although for clam chowder he made an exception.
Groucho still remembered “as if it was today” the day he and his brothers had fish for Thanksgiving dinner at a New Jersey boardinghouse because they were behind in their rent. Undaunted (Groucho would say “undented”), the Marx Brothers waited until the proprietress was asleep. Then they wended their way to the kitchen and consumed all that was left of the turkey. At his home on Thanksgiving, Groucho served turkey with all of the trimmings imaginable, but never fish for Thanksgiving.
He remembered those days when he spelled heartburn with a capital H “as if it was only a hundred years ago, which it was.”
GROUCHO
I want to tell you about Max’s Busy Bee, where I worked. A sandwich was three cents. They used to take it and dip it in some kind of greasy sauce or gravy. Coulda killed ya.
I
Did you eat any of the sandwiches, or did you just serve them?
GROUCHO
I used to eat ’em. I was hungry. I used to have fifteen cents every day for lunch. It was ten cents carfare, and fifteen cents for lunch. That was a quarter. I used to buy cream puffs. They were six for a quarter. One day I ate six of ’em. They weren’t cream puffs, they were charlotte russes. I don’t know if you know them. I don’t see ’em anymore. I don’t think they make ’em. Shaped like this, got cardboard on the outside. On the inside, some kind of dough, and then whipped cream. I ate six of them, and I vomited that day. I used to vomit from Max’s Busy Bee sandwich. I did a lot of vomiting in those days.
Although Groucho never ate alone, he was particular about who sat at his table. If you were there, it was because Groucho meant for you to be there. He didn’t like to be “stuck” for such a long period at a meal, or to be put in the position of having to perform for strangers who might have expected one-liners for the appetizer, one-liners for the entree, and one-liners for dessert.
After almost seventy years as a performer—most of these as a highly visible public person—Groucho still felt the tension of being “on” for any kind of performance or public appearance, ranging from a major television appearance to lunch with a few relative strangers.
I
Is it only my imagination? I know you don’t like eating with strangers but I can actually feel the tension. And what we’re going to do today isn’t really very important…
GROUCHO
Lunch is a performance. I don’t like eating with strangers. You can’t ever let up, except with a few people.
Groucho regularly had guests at his house for lunch and for dinner, or else he was a guest at someone’s house. Often he went out to a restaurant, usually with a guest or two. In restaurants the party frequently consisted not only of those Groucho had brought, but also included the captains, waiters, and busboys as well. On occasion, the diners at neighboring tables also joined the entourage, though peripheral involvements were only for brief intervals. His appearances in restaurants were as likely to disorder the established protocol and leave everyone amused and confused as in A Night at the Opera.
Sidney Sheldon, George Seaton, and other friends of Groucho’s recalled his asking waiters and waitresses, “Do you have frogs’ legs?” George Seaton remembered a tearful waitress who broke down over the question. When I was with Groucho at “21,” he asked owners Jerry Berns and Sheldon Tannen that question. They responded by raising their trouser legs. I asked Groucho what he would do if it turned out that someone he asked really had frogs’ legs. Unhesitatingly he answered, “I’d go to another restaurant.”
Once as we entered the Beverly Hills Hotel restaurant, he handed his coat to the checkroom girl and said, “Have this cleaned and ready by Thursday.”
The maître d’ approached, and Groucho said, “I’d like a cheap table for two.”
Indicating the best table in the house, the maître d’ asked, “Will that table be satisfactory?”
“It’s a lousy table,” Groucho answered.
“But, Mr. Marx, it’s the table you always request.”
“Is that table big enough for four?” Groucho asked.
“Yes, Mr. Marx.”
“Good. We’ll be two.”
“The fish is very good today, Mr. Marx.”
“We won’t have time to eat. Just bring the check.”
On another occasion, as we passed through the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Groucho ambled along, picking up a thin slice of pumpernickel from the first table he passed, much to the amusement of the table’s occupants. At the next table he stopped to butter his bread amid surprised and delighted giggles. Farther along he pilfered a radish from another table. At the next table, he buttered his radish. By the time he was seated, the whole mood of the room was one of merriment following his impromptu floor show.
After we were seated, the waiter asked Groucho if he would like an aperitif.
“Vitriol,” Groucho answered.
“I’m sorry, we don’t have any vitriol, Mr. Marx.”
“You don’t have any vitriol? What kind of a restaurant is this?”
After a glass of tomato juice, the clam chowder arrived. One of Groucho’s all-time favorites was clam chowder, which the Beverly Hills Hotel chef would make for him even on days other than Friday, and without salt.
The restaurant was very crowded when Groucho finished and was ready for the main course. He said loudly:
“If I’m not waited on right away, I’ll leave in a huff. Will someone please call me a huff?”
“Look, I only have two hands,” the overwrought waiter said.
“Do you know anybody who has three?” was Groucho’s reply.
“That’s like ‘laughing your head off,’” he explained to me afterward. “What does ‘laugh your head off’ mean? You can’t laugh your head off.”
Following our clam chowder, Groucho ordered a big German-style apple pancake with sour cream. As we finished, the captain returned and asked us what we would like for dessert.
“Do you have any fruit in the kitchen besides the chef?” Groucho said.
Before the
nonplussed captain could respond, Groucho continued:
“Have you got any stewed prunes?”
“Yes, Mr. Marx.”
“Well, let ’em go home and sleep it off.”
Knowing that Groucho was a member of “Nescafé society,” having given up coffee, the waiter asked:
“Sanka, Mr. Marx?”
“You’re welcome,” Groucho responded.
After the meal, the captain asked how everything was.
“Everything was all right,” Groucho said, “but tell the chef the food was lousy.”
Then Groucho exited singing “Singin’ in the Rain.”
When leaving restaurants, Groucho frequently stopped and talked to people at the other tables, even if he didn’t know them—especially if he didn’t know them. He understood that he was part of their lives even if they weren’t part of his, and he usually treated each person with courtesy even when he was insulting them. Most of them cherished being insulted by Groucho.
It was rare that Groucho was on the receiving end of an insult. People were reverently respectful toward him. Everywhere, even in Beverly Hills, where he lived and was a familiar figure, he was treated as a supercelebrity, a living myth, the cynosure of all eyes. Wherever he went, there was the ubiquitous “Hi, Groucho!” The room echoed with appreciative recognition; there were whispers of “That’s Groucho Marx.”
“We saw You Bet Your Life last night,” Groucho was told, but he didn’t look overly impressed. “They say it as if they were the only ones who saw me.”
Wherever he was, people came up to him. Groucho was annoyed when they didn’t tell him their names. If he had met them before but only briefly, he preferred that they say “I’m So-and-So, and we met in such-and-such a place.” “I can’t remember everyone,” he explained. Frequently, they introduced themselves and anyone who might be with them.
“I’m Emil Sloop from Danksville, and this is my wife, Gilda. I have a pet shop, and she’s a dental assistant. [He takes out his wallet and shows Groucho a photograph.] This is our son, Rupert. He was only eight when this picture was taken, but he’s fourteen now, and second in his class. When Gilda—that’s Gilda, my wife, here—and I were first married, we used to watch you…” And so on. Needless to say, Groucho could not take just a short walk, because people not only wanted to recognize him, but to be recognized by him.
Everyone knew Groucho but he knew relatively few people. Occasionally, he was approached by someone from the past whom he really did remember, or someone who was associated with one of his films or with You Bet Your Life, who did stir a pleasant memory. And he was always pleased to see an old face—especially if she was a young one.
There was no anonymity and very little privacy for Groucho, but he enjoyed his supercelebrity status. “The time to start worrying is when they stop recognizing you.” He was, therefore, always in character, never disappointing his fans. In one of his more frivolous moods, we strolled through Beverly Hills with Groucho wearing a Harpo wig.
Asked, “How was your day?” Groucho would frequently respond, “I had a good walk.” His feeling was that most of life is “a lot of little things.” The big things you can’t do much about anyway.
“At my age you can’t expect things to get better. You hope they’ll stay the same.”
Groucho’s pace was slower than it once was, his daily walk through Beverly Hills less jaunty, but no less prized. His appreciation of physical well-being had been enhanced by the negative blow of seeing about him so many of his friends becoming much less physically fit than he was.
Groucho’s walk was a social experience, and almost a professional appearance, during which he greeted and was greeted by his public. This produced a constant reaffirmation of the recognition which had been his reward for being Groucho Marx. “I can’t walk as fast as you can,” he told me, “but you can’t walk as slow as I can.”
I told Groucho that I was impressed by the response of construction workers calling down to him from their lofty steel precipice, by teenage girls rushing up to him, by the garbage truck that screeched to a stop so the driver could salute Groucho, and by the waitress who spilled the soup (fortunately not on us) in her glee at serving him. Just as I was speaking, a gardener who was watering the lawn we were passing hosed our feet. Groucho looked down at our soaked shoes and the immense puddle we suddenly found ourselves standing in, and said, “Yeah.” Meanwhile the gardener had fled.
Talking later that day with Goddard Lieberson about the incidents of our walk, Groucho referred to the Southern California emphasis on the automobile: “Anyone who walks in Beverly Hills is a celebrity.”
When he went to places like Chasen’s and the Beverly Hills Hotel, Groucho was treated with restrained affection and somewhat shielded from mass adulation. Sometimes, though, his food did get cold while he signed autographs or greeted those who came over to say, “Hi, Groucho. Stay well!” After they had passed he would say, “Yeah, I’ll try.”
There was one kind of autograph hunter who would present a little scrap of paper for a signature. Groucho wouldn’t really feel like stopping, but he would be prevailed upon to sign it. He would start to write “Groucho.” Then the person would say, “To Billy. Could you please make that ‘To Billy.’” So he would start to write “To Billy.” “No, with an ie,” the person would say. Groucho would make an ie over the y. “To Billie Jo. Could you please make that ‘To Billie Jo.’ That’s ‘Jo’ without an e.” He would start to write again, and the person would say, “Kempner. ‘To Billie Jo Kempner.’ That’s spelled K-E-M-P-N-E-R.” And so on. They usually would have some other ideas about what they wanted on the little scrap of paper, but by this time they would be lucky if they even got Groucho to sign his name. When the next person said, “Would you please write ‘To Harold,’” Groucho would sign his name and say, “You write ‘To Harold.’” After several such encounters, Groucho told me, “It’s no wonder they usually say the autograph is for someone else.”
Groucho drew the line at signing Kleenex when it was occasionally presented, especially if it was used.
At Nate ’n’ Al’s Delicatessen a man came up to our table with a big smile and said, “Hi, Groucho. You remember me?”
Groucho didn’t, so the man introduced himself.
“Don’t you remember, Groucho, I was in the audience of You Bet Your Life the second year that you did it? I wasn’t on your show, but I raised my hand, and I was almost on the show. I just wanted to come over and say hello. I’m here with my wife and couple of people. I wanted to say hello.”
There was still no response.
“I wanted to say how good it is to see you, Groucho, and stay well, Groucho, and we’re all pulling for you. It’s really good to see you again, Groucho. And…I’m glad to see you, Groucho…and, well, uh…see you, Groucho…”
He backed away, as though from a royal audience.
“Nice conversation,” Groucho commented after the man had left.
At Chasen’s one night, Groucho had just been served his favorite banana shortcake, when a captain hesitantly approached to tell him that a lady at a nearby table was celebrating a birthday and desperately wanted his autograph. The banana shortcake was the pièce de résistance of the meal for Groucho, who was just about to devour it impetuously. Nonetheless, he left it, staking out his claim first: “Forks will be crossed if this shortcake is any shorter when I get back!” Then, going to the woman’s table, he sang “Happy Birthday.” The birthday lady responded ecstatically, and Groucho returned to his banana shortcake.
When Groucho entered Chasen’s, he would come face-to-face with a picture of himself on the wall inside the entrance. There was also a picture of the late Dave Chasen, himself a former vaudeville performer.
Groucho greeted Maude Chasen with, “Is the food good here?” after which he was led to the best table in the house.
“Would you prefer a larger table?” she asked.
“A larger table and smaller food,” Groucho answered.
After we were seated Groucho looked up from the menu and said, “I remember when I started coming here. I used to look first at the prices.
“Did I ever tell you when we had just started to be successful, Harpo and I went to a fancy restaurant in Oklahoma City? They gave a long menu to Harpo, and he looked at it and said, ‘Yes, and a cup of coffee.’ So we had everything on the menu. And a cup of coffee.”
Most of the people who came to Groucho’s house were in show business because these were the people toward whom he felt the greatest affinity and with whom he was happiest, most comfortable, and best entertained. The bond between them was comparable to the bond that exists between circus performers. A community of interest exists between the bareback rider, the clown, the lion tamer, and the high-wire artist, even though they all ostensibly do quite different things. There is that same bond between the fat lady, the smallest man in the world, and the snakeskin girl. At Groucho’s, the fame of the show business guests varied greatly, but that wasn’t important; what mattered was that one and all they understood the drive of the sword swallower who stands up there alone, literally and figuratively prepared to cut his throat for that moment of applause.
Marvin Hamlisch, who was Groucho’s pianist in concert appearances before he won his own three Oscars, summed it up one night at Groucho’s:
“Listen, the minute you get me onstage, it’s like I want to stay there! Forever! I’d like to do a telethon where you don’t get paid or anything—you just go on forever and forever saying ‘Thank you’ and performing.”
Morgan Ames, who also played the piano for Groucho, told this story:
“We did this benefit one time, and I was playing for Groucho. It was at the house of a Beverly Hills lady. Very hoity-toity. Much of ‘How do you do, Mr. Marx, this is my husband who used to work for…’ etc., etc. We were sitting there, and at one point Groucho got a twinkle in his eye. I could sense a minor outrage coming. He leaned over and said to me, quite audibly, ‘You know, in my whole life I’ve never been comfortable with anybody who wasn’t in show business.’ End of remark. And I think that’s quite true of him.”
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