Hello, I Must be Going

by Charlotte Chandler

  Norman Krasna was delighted to find Artur Rubinstein at Groucho’s one evening when he arrived. Or, at various times, one might have found Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Ring Lardner, George Gershwin, Joseph von Sternberg, Eddie Cantor, Robert Benchley, W. C. Fields, Fanny Brice, Mischa Dichter, Cary Grant, Dinah Shore, Gregory Peck, Mae West, S. J. Perelman, Mike Nichols, or Jack Nicholson. Not only did Groucho always invite the celebrated and the interesting to his house, but he did so with an eye for unusual juxtaposition, avoiding the “couples” party or the homogeneous group.

  Celebrities are interested in and enjoy meeting other celebrities. Groucho’s own position in the celebrity pantheon long enabled him to invite to his house individuals he didn’t know but would have liked to know. They were usually pleased and accepted his invitation. Frequently, they sought him out. Mutual friends brought Groucho together with celebrities he might not otherwise have known, like Alice Cooper, Elton John, and Dr. Jonas Salk.

  Some of the people Groucho said he would have liked to know were Hank Aaron, Henry Kissinger, Golda Meir, and Lee Strasberg. He would have also liked to know Einstein. Another person he wanted to meet was fighter George Foreman. Just after the Foreman-Frazier championship fight, I was with Groucho in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel when we saw George Foreman coming out of the Loggia restaurant. I walked up to him and said that I was there with Groucho Marx, who was a fan of his. Groucho and I had just watched him win over Frazier on closed-circuit television at Hugh Hefner’s house. Foreman was a man of imposing physical stature, and he and Groucho, standing together, made a striking picture.

  When I saw George Foreman again, in New York on Fifth Avenue as he was shopping at Gucci’s, he remembered our momentary meeting, and said to me, “Hi, Beverly Hills! How’s Groucho? That Groucho, he’s my man!”

  He told me that Groucho had kept in touch with him ever since we met in Beverly Hills:

  “You know, after that day when I met him and you, he called me a lotta times, and wished me luck every time I had a fight. That meant a lot to me. Yeah, he’s my man. Groucho, he’s real big!”

  Jennifer Bogart Gould, then Elliott’s wife, told me about her first meeting with Groucho:

  “It was a big party, and I didn’t know anyone. As soon as I met Groucho he seemed to like me right away, and he offered to take me around and introduce me. It was a typical Hollywood party in Beverly Hills. Groucho took me over to the first couple, and he said, ‘I want you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Smith.’ Then we went over to another couple, and Groucho said, ‘I want you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Smith.’ And to the next people, he said, ‘I’d like to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Smith,’ and so on. To Groucho they were all ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith.’”

  When he entertained, guests were encouraged to perform if they cared to. They often did, but no one was ever made to feel forced to do so, for it was recognized that when Liza Minnelli got up to sing, or Fred Astaire to dance, or George Jessel to tell stories, these were, in a way, professional appearances.

  Many of Groucho’s friends weren’t geographically close to him. They lived all over the world and traveled a great deal professionally, but Groucho kept up a tremendous correspondence over the years. He was proud of his book The Groucho Letters, a collection of some of that correspondence. This included letters from George S. Kaufman, Fred Allen, T. S. Eliot, and grandson Andy as a child in summer camp.

  Groucho derived much pleasure from the letters he continued to receive from E. B. White and Irving Berlin, as well as one from the niece of Ninety-third Street neighbor Marie Wagner. The Wagners had lived at 172 East Ninety-third, across the street from the Marx family. She wrote: “My grandmother Wagner was a wonderful cook, and the Marx Brothers had many goodies out of her kitchen.” Her aunt, tennis champion Marie Wagner, who Groucho remembered well, was still alive at the time and in her nineties.

  I suggested to Groucho that one could be judged not just by the letters he writes but by the letters he receives—perhaps even more by the letters he receives. “Or by the bills he receives,” Groucho added.

  “I don’t write so many letters now because so many of the people I communicated with are dead,” he told me sadly. As he grew older, his list of old friends kept getting shorter. It was the price of having lived so long. “I miss so many people,” he told Nunnally Johnson.

  Although Charlie Chaplin was one of Groucho’s oldest friends, they saw each other only briefly after Chaplin left California to live in Europe. When I went to Switzerland, Groucho gave me a copy of The Groucho Letters to give to Chaplin in Vevey. In the book Groucho wrote, “Dear Charlie, I knew you when.”

  Groucho liked to talk about his friends, but he never gossiped. His emphasis was always on what they were doing professionally. For him, a really basic question was, “Are you working?” rather than, “How are you?” The “working” referred only to show business. Whenever he visited an old friend who was ill and it seemed the friend would never get better, Groucho would say with sad resignation, “He’ll never work again.”

  Groucho was not a meddler. As his grandson Andy said, “He’s pretty much live and let live.” Living in his house, I noticed that he tended to avoid personal or intimate questions and to respect others’ privacy. When there was trauma, Groucho didn’t verbalize his grief or depression. When we heard the news that Jack Benny had died, Groucho spent the rest of the afternoon far more quietly than usual, sitting and reading in his bedroom. Andy recalled a Groucho who always reacted that way to sad news about friends. “He just goes to his room and closes the door.”

  The conversation at Groucho’s wasn’t always light, but when it did take a turn toward weightier subjects, he would usually end the conversation on a humorous note characteristically his:

  ERIN

  Don’t you think a woman has a right to expect fidelity in marriage?

  GROUCHO

  Yes.

  ERIN

  What else do you think a woman ought to expect in marriage?

  GROUCHO

  Infidelity.

  Because so many of his friends were show business personalities, it became essential to have alternating or rotating friends. Making Hollywood films requires people to be up at dawn, and after an exhausting day of performing and even more exhausting waiting, only the super-energetic are prepared to do anything but collapse at night. They are, therefore, often absent from any evening affairs while working. Or, many of his friends would be appearing on the New York stage or working abroad. Groucho deliberately tried to space invitations, so that his guests remained interesting to him and to each other. He liked to maintain some interval between their visits. Even about his favorite friends, he would say, “They’ve just been here.”

  The property value of Groucho Marx as a supercelebrity was well recognized by Groucho:

  I

  You are often used, even exploited by people. Your very appearance at a party can make it a success. People say, “We went to a party and Groucho Marx was there.” The hosts will get acceptances from other celebrities who only come because you are going to be there. Being seen with you is a kind of status symbol, and you are sort of a celebrity-in-residence even for your good friends. Do you agree with all that?

  GROUCHO

  Yeah.

  I

  Do you mind being used like this by close friends, acquaintances, and even virtual strangers?

  GROUCHO

  No. I think what it would be like the other way.

  Groucho shared all of his friends with me. In his long lifetime he enjoyed many cherished and enduring friendships, and through him some of these became mine.

  Any interviewer, even an unobtrusive one, influences the interview. His or her personality affects what the subject says and how he says it, evoking responses that reveal only certain aspects of the person being interviewed. Having a range of people with whom to speak allows us to speak in a range of ways. Groucho, talking with his friends, displayed the multifaceted private person as well as
the familiar public figure.

  It was important not only to see him with his friends, but through the eyes of his friends, to share the images his friends had of him. We find out who we are through knowing other people. Each of us is someone different for every person we know.

  GODDARD LIEBERSON

  Goddard Lieberson was himself a witty man, specializing in recondite puns and esoteric non sequiturs. His friendship with Groucho went back about thirty years, during which time Groucho always considered Goddard his ideal intellectual. It was one of Groucho’s most cherished relationships. Goddard’s photograph hung on Groucho’s wall, as did Groucho’s on the wall in Goddard’s office. The inscription on the photo Groucho gave Goddard read, “To the only man I ever loved.” As he was for the late Igor Stravinsky, Goddard was Groucho’s first choice to be the executor of his estate. But it did not happen that way; at the age of sixty-six in May 1977, Goddard Lieberson died.

  Besides having distinguished himself as an executive in the recording and broadcasting fields, Goddard Lieberson was the author of Three for Bedroom C. He was a noted composer. Among his friends and professional colleagues were Bartók, Ives, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. His catalogue of compositions includes works for symphony orchestra, chamber music, instrumental music, and works for the theatre, ranging from a symphony to Piano Pieces for Advanced Children or Retarded Adults. As senior vice president of CBS and president of Columbia Records, he was responsible for many historic firsts, including the production of Stravinsky’s first American recordings, the first recordings of complete dramas on LP (he won a Grammy Award for the Columbia release of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), and numerous original cast recordings of hit Broadway musicals, such as South Pacific, Kiss Me, Kate, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and A Chorus Line. He also signed a little-known singer named Bob Dylan to his first recording contract in 1961, and followed this by signing Simon and Garfunkel when, as he said, “Everybody thought it was the name of a Baltimore store.” Just before his death he had prepared a television special celebrating the hundredth anniversary of recording, a tribute to American music.

  When Groucho, Erin, and I joined Goddard for lunch in a private dining room at CBS, Groucho’s greeting to Goddard was, “You look like my father.” Reminiscing about mutual friend George S. Kaufman, Groucho told us this story:

  “He took this woman to lunch, and he ordered tomato soup. The waiter brings the tomato soup and puts it down in front of him, and the woman reached over, picked up his spoon, and tasted his soup. Kaufman called the waiter and said, ‘Waiter, bring me another spoon. No, bring me another bowl of soup.’ Then, after lunch, in the taxi he had both arms and legs wrapped around her, and he was trying to kiss her. And she said, ‘What do you mean trying to kiss me when you had to get a new bowl of soup because I tasted it?’ And he said, ‘Tomato soup is one thing, and this is another.’”

  Goddard was one of the few people not inhibited by Groucho. On occasion, he would say to Groucho, “You already told me that one,” a reaction which never seemed to disturb Groucho—when it came from Goddard.

  Goddard was with us in New York when we searched in vain for Groucho’s lost lighter, treasured souvenir of the SRO performance at Carnegie Hall, the loss of which had precipitated a mild stroke.

  Goddard was in the car with us when we were trapped there by the riot that was occasioned by Groucho’s personal appearance at the New York re-premiere of Animal Crackers. Just as I can, Goddard told me that he could still close his eyes and vividly see “those faces with noses squashed against the car windows, shutting out all else.”

  In his own office, filled with autographed photographs of the Sitwells, George Gershwin, Stravinsky, Albert Schweitzer, and the cultural and intellectual elite of the past few decades, Goddard talked with me about Groucho:

  GODDARD LIEBERSON

  We met just when Melinda was born. I knew Harpo before, but it was Oscar Levant who introduced us. Oscar was one of my oldest friends until his death. Groucho was married to Kay, a very sweet girl and a little froufrou. Our common bond was always music, because, I must say, Groucho always loved music. And Harry Ruby, whom I loved, was always around. He was, I think, closer to Groucho than almost any other person. I think Groucho misses him more than anybody else, except perhaps Harpo. I asked Groucho one time, “Were you really closer to Harpo than anybody else?” He said, “I guess so.” Harpo was a very sensitive person. Of course, you know the Gilbert and Sullivan side of Groucho. He could quote reams of it. He knew the music as well. He did The Mikado with Helen Traubel on television. He really loved Gilbert and Sullivan, and show music. He greatly admired composers like Irving Berlin. You know how he admires Irving. You remember that day when you came to CBS with Groucho, and we had lunch, when we talked with Irving?

  I

  Groucho was so pleased speaking with him again. After that day at lunch with you, they started corresponding again. Groucho told me that he always thought that the Berlin story would make a great play. He tells everyone that Irving and Ellin Berlin had one of the few great marriages he’s ever known.

  GODDARD LIEBERSON

  Groucho always asks me to play “Stay Down Here Where You Belong.” He says Irving offered to pay him for every time Groucho didn’t sing it. I wonder why Groucho never learned to play the piano himself? He loved it. You know how much he likes to sing. Every time I go there, I have to play the piano for him. He always wanted me to play the piano for him, though, I must say, the repertoire is limited. I’d play some of the early songs, and then maybe some Jerome Kern. I’d play songs like “Love Walked In.” Oscar Levant used to play for him. (The telephone rings; coincidentally, it is a call from Irving Berlin) Hello. Hello, Irving. (Pause) Thank you, dear fellow. I did indeed. I got the lyrics you sent me in California. And I also went to see Groucho, and I gave him your love. By the way, I just got back a letter today that I sent you. They didn’t know you there. I’ll tell you, you’d better start paying your bills! (Pause) You didn’t tell me you wrote a song called “How Do You Do It, Mabel, on $20 a Week?” It’s very funny. It’s a marvelous song. (Pause) “Stay Down Here Where You Belong”? Groucho never sang that, did he? (Pause) He kids about it. (Pause) There was a funny song in the Yiddish theatre about a girl getting married, and her father sings to her, “Don’t pay any attention to the family tree; look at the business plant.” (Pause) Go ahead, sing it…(Laughing) “Cohen Owes Me $97.” (Pause) Yes, I remember that. (Pause) Okay, Irving, I’ll call you as soon as I get back from Barbados. Bye. (Hangs up) Irving’s incredible. He sang the whole lyric for me to “Cohen Owes Me $97.” Do you know that song?

  I

  No. I never heard it.

  GODDARD LIEBERSON

  An old Jewish man is dying, and before he dies he says to his son: “Cohen owes me $97; please collect—I don’t give credit.” Then he gets paid before he dies, and he says, “This is no time for a businessman to die.” That other song, “How Do You Do It, Mabel, on $20 a Week?” This guy comes in, and he looks at her hats, her fur coats, her dresses, and he says to her, “How do you do it, Mabel, on $20 a week?” Obviously, she’s a hooker. In the tribute to American music I’m producing, I’m doing it by professions, and this is one of the professions.

  I

  If asked to do so, how would you characterize Groucho?

  GODDARD LIEBERSON

  Groucho is actually a literary man who in his jokes shares his privacy with the abandon of a painfully truthful autobiographer. But he never reveals everything, for at a certain point, there is epistemic privacy. If I had a headache and tell you about it, you can’t really feel it. Groucho is always reaching. He has always been a person of serious aspirations and intellectual searching.

  EDEN MARX

  Once when I was staying at Groucho’s house during a visit to California, Eden dropped by with a festively wrapped Christmas gift for Groucho. Though divorced for a number of years, Groucho and Eden had remained friends. After dinner, we all sat in Gro
ucho’s bar/den, surrounded by Marxabilia, and I asked Eden to tell me about how she and Groucho met.

  EDEN

  Groucho was making a picture with my sister Dee at RKO…(To Groucho) Will you correct me if I’m wrong?

  GROUCHO

  Yeah. But who’ll correct me?

  EDEN

  After we do this, we may marry again, right?

  GROUCHO

  Orville or Wilbur?

  EDEN

  You were doing a picture with my sister Dee at RKO, and Irwin Allen was the producer. It was A Girl in Every Port with Marie Wilson.

  GROUCHO

  We were sailors.

  EDEN

  Right. I remember ’cause that’s where I met you. And I fainted. (Laughs)

  GROUCHO

  And the first I knew I was married.

  EDEN

  (Laughs) I hadn’t had anything to eat, and it got to be three o’clock, and I said, “Hey, I feel faint!” So you took me to the dressing room. You were so adorable. You gave me cushions and everything, and I thought how marvelous a man you were.

  GROUCHO

  Did I give you food?

  EDEN

  No, that’s all. And you said, “I’ll call you in about six weeks when I’m through with the picture.” I said, “Okay,” never expecting to hear from you. But I did.

  GROUCHO

  It cost me a pretty penny. Tell her (Indicating me) about our trip to Europe.

  EDEN

  That’s four years later. We went on many trips to Europe. Paris, London…

  GROUCHO

  We had a De Soto car. Dodge Risotta, that’s an Italian De Soto.

  EDEN

  …Gee, Vienna, everything. We made commercials over there. Every time I see you now, you say, “Didn’t we have fun in Holland!” You said it to me the other night when we were at some dinner party. We went to many countries. Why do you say Holland? I’m curious.