GROUCHO
He’s too old.
ERIN
He doesn’t think so.
GROUCHO
They never do, until they’re in bed.
During the years that Erin knew Groucho, several men showed interest in her, but none came to stay. Even in his eighties, there was only one Groucho Marx.
Occasionally, Groucho and Erin playacted commedia dell’arte style just for their own amusement. For a while Groucho would act as if he were Disraeli, whom he greatly admired, and Erin would act as if she were Queen Victoria.
Or Erin played frivolous conversation games with the master of uncommon nonsense. Groucho would say, “Pfeffermint,” and Erin in mock exasperation said, “Oh, Grouch, you know it’s peppermint. Say it, say peppermint.” And Groucho knowingly responded, “Pfeffermint. There, I’ve said it.”
Erin encouraged him to tell her about the old days with the Marx Brothers. One day he had been telling us about some actors he had known in vaudeville, and she commented:
ERIN
That must have been a long time ago.
GROUCHO
Everything I did was a long time ago.
ERIN
Not me!
GROUCHO
Except you.
He relished Erin’s “Eye-talian” impression of actress Gina Lollobrigida. To encourage Erin, he would go to great lengths (“Great Lengths, Montana, that is”), even threatening not to sing “Omaha, Nebraska.” Erin was always persuaded.
“When we were in Cannes there was a huge press conference after they gave Groucho his medal. And for some mysterious reason, they did not allow the American press in. And there were huge screams and hollers from Chuck Champlin and Hollis Alpert. And so Margaret Varga, who handled the press, decided to have a huge private luncheon in a very beautiful restaurant that’s a house in the middle of the countryside. It was very elegant. And right down the whole center of the dining room, they had a huge table with all of the American press, perhaps seventy people. And the president of the Cannes Film Festival was Robert Favre Le Bret, who was very fond of Gina Lollobrigida, only we did not know this. And everyone sat where they were supposed to sit, and next to Groucho was Rex Reed, and Rex and Groucho were carving up the world together, and they were having a high old time. Opposite Groucho there was an empty space at the table. And it didn’t dawn on me that somebody important would be sitting there.
“All of a sudden, Robert Favre Le Bret ushered in Gina Lollobrigida. Well, there was no way that I could tip him off, because it was all press, and Groucho was geared for press. And I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God! What will he say, what can I do about it?’ All of a sudden, she begins to talk, and he looked up from his lunch, and he said—and there was a great hush, because everyone wanted to hear every word that he said—‘Hey, aren’t you that Eye-talian broad who was on Perry Como with me about thirty years ago, the worst dog he ever produced?’ And she said, ‘I was just a child at ze time!’ And he said, ‘Oh, I see. Now you’re all grown up, and you shave three times a day, huh?’ By this time, Rex Reed is under the table, Chuck Champlin is in his soup, and I said, ‘Oh, Miss Lollobrigida, he means you have a very lovely complexion,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, but you can’t see it under all that paint and paste.’ Silence. Everyone is dying. No one knows what to do. All of a sudden, in this void, Groucho says, ‘Hey, Gina! What do you hear from the Pope?’ And she said, ‘Ze Pope, he iss a very beeg star. And I, Gina Lollobrigida, I am a very beeg star. And two very beeg stars together, zat iss very boring.’ And at that point, Groucho went over and took her hand and took her out to all the photographers, and they had a lot of pictures taken together.”
Groucho was so pleased by Erin’s recital that he failed to keep his threat and sang “Omaha, Nebraska” twice.
The man who had the talent to amuse so many people was highly appreciative of those who had the talent to amuse him. Erin had the knack of amusing Groucho, and she worked at it. A performer herself, one of her more shining moments was at the end of Groucho’s party for his Oscar at Hillcrest. There was a relatively impromptu amateur hour by the guests who were celebrities, and the stars rose spontaneously to perform and to pay tribute to their host. The evening’s repast had been converted into bones, shells, crumbs, and dirty plates, and the orchestra members were about to pack up, when Erin took the stage and began a dance that would have put a whirling dervish to shame. The orchestra managed with effort to follow her as she built from wild to wilder. Her professional skill, combined with her zeal, produced a few minutes which were memorable for the last lingering guests, the Hillcrest Club waiters and busboys, and especially for Groucho, whose eyes never left her. It was her gift to him, and he knew it.
Groucho was never confused about Erin’s identity, but some of his old friends occasionally slipped and called her “Eden.” At such moments, Erin was definitely not amused, and there were spirited reverberations. Individual and flamboyant, more odd than even, she never bored Groucho. She was his last leading lady and first fan.
Certainly Erin was the fan Groucho cared most about pleasing.
Actress Anna Strasberg told me of meeting Groucho at Tana’s Restaurant in Beverly Hills. Burgess Meredith, who was with her and her husband, Lee Strasberg, introduced them. Anna was pleased to meet Groucho for the first time, and he was thrilled to meet Lee Strasberg. “Wait till I tell Erin,” Groucho said with gleeful jubilance.
On another occasion, Groucho returned from his daily Beverly Hills peregrination to find Erin at his house for lunch. He reported, “I met a woman I used to go out with thirty years ago, and now she’s a big, fat woman.” Erin pointed out, “You mean she got older and you didn’t get any older.” He immediately got her message and came back with, “No, I’m as young as the day is long, and this has been a very short day.”
The world looked somewhat askance at their relationship, emphasizing the half century of age difference, but Groucho and Erin shared a relationship that had more quid pro quo than is customarily assumed. They saw their relationship as complementary and complimentary.
At a charity dinner we attended in honor of Jack Benny, Jack greeted Groucho and Erin saying, “I’m glad you’re here.” Groucho responded, “If not for her, I wouldn’t be here, but then she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”
Erin was Groucho’s secretary and personal manager, confidante and companion, and girl Friday-through-Thursday. Their age difference, while fraught with serious problems, did have its lighter aspect. Erin told Groucho and me about one perceptive observation made by Bill Cosby:
“When we were in Reno last weekend, Bill told me that he went into the casino, and a girl there said to him, ‘I saw Groucho Marx, I saw Groucho Marx coming into the hotel, and he was with a very young girl.’ When Bill saw me he told me about it, and Bill said, ‘That’s what he does for you. If you walked into this hotel with me or a man my age, they wouldn’t say that. But you walk in with Groucho and they say, “There’s a very young girl.” ’”
Asked to explain their relationship by a Canadian newspaperman who was interviewing her, Erin sought Groucho’s advice in answering some of the questions:
ERIN
Can you explain our relationship?
GROUCHO
Yes. I’m madly in love with you, and you’re my secretary.
ERIN
They ask, “Why is it that you’ve never married me, Groucho?” What’s the answer to that?
GROUCHO
I’m too old. I wouldn’t marry you, because I can’t give you what you need sexually.
Later Groucho told me, “It’s a strange thing. You can still love somebody even if you’re not going to bed with them.” Erin told me many times her reason for not marrying him:
“I love Groucho, but I want to have a child.”
Sometimes, however, he treated their relationship lightly, with a flippant irreverence. When the three of us had lunch with British writer Richard Adams, Groucho and I arrived first,
then Erin dashed in for a moment and dashed right away. Adams asked, “Who was that?” Groucho answered, “That’s Erin. She’s just a simple, foolish girl. I can’t do anything for her, except physically.”
Groucho explained to me how he managed Erin: “I let her think she’s having her own way. Then…I let her have it.”
While Groucho’s own Jewishness was not something he gave much thought to, it was something to which Erin gave a great deal of thought. She attributed much of his superior adjustment to life to a security and stability which grew out of his ethnocentric, if not theological, orientation. She hoped that conversion to Judaism would bring her a contentment and feeling of peace in a troubled universe that no religion had yet successfully given her. Her respect for Judaism was enhanced not only by her relationship with Groucho but by that with others of his friends who were born Jewish. She liked the family values and the group cohesiveness as well as the mystical nature, and the precepts seemed suitable to her own needs.
Deciding to convert to Judaism, to commemorate the event, Erin wrote a song entitled “Jewish in June” and set forth to be not only Jewish but more Jewish than Groucho ever was. She adhered not only to the cultural traditions which he and his Jewish friends took for granted, but she strove for the more formalized procedures. Her attendance at temple with Groucho, who hadn’t gone to a temple for many years, was a regular Friday night occurrence. She studied Hebrew and the religious tenets. On Friday nights she lit the candles in the silver menorah, following a tradition that had not been practiced in a home of Groucho’s for more than half a century, saying, “Bo-ruch at-taw a-do-noy elo-hay-nu meh…” She was sponsored by an adopted Jewish mother, Eve Lazarus, and supported by the ten Jewish men who formed the requisite minyan, among them Elliott Gould and George Segal. Erin wore a long white suit and described the experience as “like being a bride.” Her Jewish name became “Chayah.”
Erin told me about her experience:
“They were preparing me all winter. Elliott and I went through the Talmud together.
“At my mitzvah, it was like a spaceship. The designs were brought from Israel, and they’re all spaceship, outer space. It was incredible, like a five-thousand-year-old mosaic design. It’s a tiny round chapel. It was as if we were floating in space, quite a sensation. Elliott Gould organized the minyan, ten men all dressed in white suits. Eve Lazarus arranged for a song that the choir girl sang. I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t know what the service would be like. There were two cantors and the rabbi. In the middle of the service, there were all the tears. He grabbed both my hands, and everybody in the audience cried.”
Groucho took the whole experience less reverently than Erin. He called me to tell me that Erin had become Jewish, and he added, “Now I’m converting. I’m becoming a Catholic, and I’m changing my name to O’Hoolihan. Pat O’Hoolihan.” He added, “The Reverend Patrick O’Hoolihan.”
In relationships of any consequence between a man and a woman, from time to time there may be some variation in roles. Regardless of age, the man may at times be the woman’s father, and at times her child, as well as her brother and her friend. “If I adopt Erin, she’ll be my only Jewish daughter,” Groucho noted, Miriam and Melinda each being only half Jewish. (Erin’s own father had died when she was quite young, and her mother died a number of years ago after a long illness.) But Groucho felt he always had to encourage Erin to find a young husband for “love, marriage, and baby carriage.”
Erin was sometimes criticized for leading a superannuated Groucho back to stage center. It was Groucho, however, who did the leading. He was never pushed except in the direction he wanted to go. Erin was accused of overexposing the legendary Groucho Marx through too much enthusiasm and too little discretion, but Groucho was not among those critics. His love of performing had not diminished with the years. If anything, it had increased.
This was most evident in his social life. Any party at his or anyone else’s home where he didn’t sing about Lydia the Tattooed Lady or Peasie Weasie was not a party in Groucho’s book. “I leave early, even if I’m at home.” Erin, understanding Groucho’s love of performing, often joined him in the song and dance for “Peasie Weasie” and always made certain that a capable piano player was high on the list of guests invited to every party at Groucho’s house. Erin was the girl in Groucho’s act, whether onstage at Carnegie Hall, or in Elliott Gould’s living room. And the audiences, paying or invitation only, were still SRO.
Sometimes Erin envisioned some exceedingly ambitious plans for a future that would have required decades. Once, as she enthusiastically reeled off a dizzying array of future possibilities, Groucho commented dryly, “In the meantime I plan on dying.”
Groucho had absolute faith in Erin’s business sense, but she was less than perfectly confident. She felt the necessity to present a façade of total competence in order not to be patronized as a woman.
At one office meeting between several sets of lawyers and agents, Erin tried to represent the personification of sophisticated composure. She looked intensely absorbed while Groucho, leaving it all to her, flipped casually through a magazine.
Voices were raised in a climax of dissension. Everyone turned toward Groucho, who wasn’t paying any attention. Then they turned to Erin. With aloof disdain, she rose and excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. She excused me, too.
Just outside in the hall, Erin turned to me and said, “How’d I do? Was I good?” Then she asked, “What was that last part all about?” Groucho joined us at that moment and filled in the answer:
“About forty minutes.”
As Groucho’s business manager, Erin made a brief foray into product licensing. There were Groucho watches, which did a land office business. (Groucho said they should have opened a land office instead.) Although there was a tremendous demand for the long-awaited wristwatches, only a small number of the fans who would have liked them ever had the chance to buy them, since Groucho decided he wanted to give them to his friends—and he had a great many friends. At Groucho’s Oscar party at Hillcrest Country Club, a watch was put at each guest’s place. The temptation was too great for some culprit, who made off with half the watches. As Groucho put it, “Those watches weren’t even going, and now they’re gone.” He made good on the watches, which was more than the manufacturer had. As Groucho said, “The second hands often came in third.” Groucho bought more watches than anyone else, and the whole project proved less than a profitable venture. The last Groucho watch was worn by him to the New York re-premiere of Animal Crackers, where he took it off his wrist and gave it to me with the admonition, “It’s half-past Groucho.”
“Tell ’em Groucho sent you” sweatshirts were also part of the same business. Groucho gave the last one to Dick Cavett, who immediately stripped (to the waist, that is) and put on his gift. “How do you like it?” Groucho inquired. Dick Cavett replied with wavering enthusiasm, “I don’t know if I feel good about wearing you on my stomach.”
The profits of the licensing operation were destined for a company that combined “Groucho” and “Erin” to make “GRIN” but which, at times, seemed more “CHAGRIN.”
The business of licensing Groucho products lost out to more interesting competing projects before the “Stateroom Jam” could be spread on bread and before “Tell ’em Groucho sent you” jockstraps, facetiously suggested by Goddard Ueberson, could be marketed.
In November 1974, Groucho called me long distance and said, “Erin’s going to Paris to do a film. You have to come right now and stay with me at my house.” Later Erin called, saying, “You’ve got to come. You’re the only one I could trust.”
Just before leaving, Erin counseled me, “Now you handle Groucho just the way I do.” She might as well not have spoken.
Groucho liked to spend the morning clad in pajamas while he read until it was time for us to walk. One day we had a lunch appointment with Jack Nicholson and Mike Nichols at the Beverly Hills Hotel. As the time drew near, Groucho mad
e no move to get ready. Gently, I reminded him that we would be late unless he started right away, even if he started right away.
Nothing happened.
After a decent interval, I forced myself to mention lunch again. Still nothing happened.
I
Do you plan to go to lunch in your pajamas?
GROUCHO
I shot an elephant in my pajamas once.
I
I know.
GROUCHO
You know everything.
I
Not really.
GROUCHO
You’re too young to know that.
I
No one is too young to know that. And I know you don’t like to be late for an appointment, even less than I do.
GROUCHO
You’re the only person besides me who goes early not to be late.
I
But today I think we’re going to keep Jack and Mike waiting.
GROUCHO
Hello, I must be going.
We did go to lunch but were quite late. Groucho didn’t mention it, though, and neither did anyone else.
When Erin returned from Europe, history repeated itself. The three of us were due to have lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Jack Nicholson and Mike Nichols, who was bringing along his baby, Max.
“That baby’s going to grow up if we wait for you, Grouch,” Erin announced loudly enough so that even if the batteries in Groucho’s hearing aid had run down, he couldn’t have missed a syllable. She pulled off his pajama top, which he seemed to enjoy, and she threatened to pull off the bottom part too if he didn’t get ready.
“There’s nothing there,” he said softly.
“We’ll see about that if you don’t step on it,” she shrieked, reaching for the drawstring, and Groucho retreated to the bathroom.
We were the first to arrive at lunch.
Because Groucho’s and Erin’s relationship defied routine categorizing and didn’t fit the so-called normal niche, they, and especially she, offered a highly visible target at which many took aim. Wounded by innuendo and pained by the gold-digger gossip, Erin, who is naturally an extremely extroverted person, tended to retire from an arena where she had seen too many thumbs turned down. In her 1975 “Santa Claws” list, columnist Joyce Haber suggested as a Christmas present to Erin and Groucho “a pre-reading of the will.” Erin said emphatically, “I never want to see my name in the newspaper again.”
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