Hello, I Must be Going

by Charlotte Chandler

  “Incidentally, I was the one who finally made him grow a mustache. You see, he never had a mustache because he didn’t want to be spotted on the street. I said, ‘Groucho, now that you’re appearing on television, you’ve got to have a mustache.’ The one that he used in the theatre was painted on, and it was phony as hell. You could see it was just some black greasepaint. So he finally grew a natural mustache, which he still has to this day. Now when you see Groucho, you recognize him, especially if he has those funny hats.

  “Well, anyway, we were walking through the lobby of the hotel, and he’s making a play for every young girl he met, which was part of his act. When you see him on television, you presume this is the great Lothario, a sex maniac, and he is everything but. But it is part of his routine. They recognized him, and he signed autographs, and he was having the time of his life.”

  BERT GRANET

  When Bert Granet left George Pierce Baker’s acclaimed drama workshop at Yale, he went to work at the Long Island studios of Paramount as Robert Florey’s assistant director on The Cocoanuts. “It was quite an experience so early in sound films,” he told me. “We used to pray every day the cameraman wouldn’t suffocate,” referring to the airtight camera booth that was necessary in early sound films. Working on The Cocoanuts was Bert Granet’s first meeting with Groucho, whom he had earlier seen on the stage. “I admired him from vaudeville.” The association began with the filming of The Cocoanuts, but the friendship really developed later when both were working in Hollywood.

  Writer Granet became producer Granet, as well, and later was executive producer in charge of all production for Desilu Studios. He and his wife, Charlotte, remained among Groucho’s closest friends, with Groucho sometimes spending Thanksgiving and Christmas at their home, where they gave large parties on those holidays.

  The cabdriver who took me up the steep, winding road to the Granets’ house refused to go all the way, saying, “I’m not driving back down that for anything!” I had to get out and walk up the rest of the hill.

  I visited the Granets in their panoramic-view living room, high in the hills of Beverly Hills. The walls were lined with photographs taken over the years in Mexico and France by Bert Granet. Ironically, one of the most famous pictures of Groucho was taken not by Bert Granet, but by Charlotte. The photo, which appeared in Life, showed a group of Groucho’s friends dressed and made up to look like Groucho. They included Arthur Sheekman, Nat Perrin, Norman Panama, Harpo, and Bert Granet, among others. Groucho often asked guests at his home to guess which was the real Groucho. The real Groucho was the one at the top of the stairs who was dressed and made up as Harpo. Billy Wilder and I shared the distinction of having correctly identified the real Groucho.

  Charlotte explained how it happened that she, and not Bert, took the Life photograph:

  “It was practically the only picture I ever took. Bert’s the photographer, but he was going to be in the picture. Bert really set up everything for me—set the camera, arranged the lighting, told me where to stand. When Life sent me the check, I didn’t want to cash it. I kept it for years.”

  Asked to sum up Groucho, Bert Granet answered:

  “It’s hard to sum up someone you’ve known as long and as well as I’ve known Groucho. The character that Groucho seems to have created is one of a kind. You asked me what I’d call a book about him, and that’s what I’d call it—One of a Kind. He grew into the personality.

  “He was a great iconoclast. The kids in every generation recognized his ability to disrupt society. That’s why he’s more popular than ever today. Groucho liked the idea of upsetting things. In his own lifestyle, he was the most hilarious type of guy in the whole world.

  “A producer he didn’t like very much used to say, ‘What kind of show are we going to do?’ and Groucho would say, ‘I don’t know. We’ll stick four Jews up against the wall and see what happens.’

  “Someone Groucho really liked and respected was Thalberg. For Groucho, Irving was kind of a saint. Groucho loved Thalberg and Kaufman. When I first went backstage to see Groucho, I had a letter from Kaufman to introduce me to Groucho. I was young, and an eager beaver.

  “A lot of comics are really a pain because they are always trying so hard. They believe the world revolves around them. Bert Lahr would tear the buttons off your coat. Groucho is a very different type. He doesn’t appreciate the kind who press. He never had an identity problem. He always knew who he was and what he wanted to do. One thing he never did was play Las Vegas—not his thing.

  “Actors have to be pretty compulsive people. And stars have to be different from people who aren’t. It’s a strange thing to always see your name up there. So much publicity has to have its effect. It’s a strange feeling to always be reading about yourself.

  “Now, Bogart was a shy, sensitive man, but like Groucho, he would sometimes become the victim of the dialogue that had been written for him. Groucho would have to be grouchy and Bogart would superimpose toughness. On a one-to-one basis, the real person lets down his defenses. But when you’re a star, you’re expected not to let down your public.

  “There was practically no one who ever could take stage center away from Groucho, and Groucho didn’t have to try. The only person I ever knew who could come to a party and hold court even if Groucho was there was Leo Durocher, because it seems just about every actor wanted to be a ballplayer.

  “What’s unique about this community [Hollywood] is that there are very few people who are fortunate enough to come here with families. You come here, you migrate here, it’s lonely. The first thing that touches your life is the fact that your friends become your family, so you have roots.

  “Groucho preferred the company of men. For the most part, his attitude was that women were there as decoration. Women were for making passes at. They [the Marx Brothers] were real chasers. You remember Margaret Dumont, who played the dowager. It probably wasn’t beyond them to make a pass at her. On the set for Cocoanuts, they were Peck’s Bad Boy. They were real wolves with the chorus girls, though not Groucho, who was married. There were always mad antics. There was a story that they dropped their pants on the set, but I never saw that.

  “Each time, Groucho would pick a younger wife, such as Kay. Kay was a vivacious, very young, happy child. Groucho adored her. He was a father with a child. She was pretty, she was sexy, she was charming. But Kay was hurt when Groucho told people he was old enough to be her father.

  “We came over one night, and Groucho and I went to the ball game. My wife told me later how Kay was steaming. She said, ‘All he does is he goes to Hillcrest, and they sit around that round table—Jack Benny, Jessel, Cantor—and he tells a story, then Benny tells a story, Jessel tells a story, Groucho tells a story. Then he comes home!’

  “After having some affair with his wives, he threw understanding over the fence. Eden once said, ‘If he had only come home to me and said, “I love you,” I think I would still be married to him.’ But with Eden he opened up, he became more extravagant. Before, if you weren’t careful, he was up by an escalator buying a suit with two pair of pants.

  “At Groucho’s 1972 Los Angeles concert, we met Zeppo after the performance, and he said, ‘Tell him I was here.’ Then we met his former wife, Kay, and she said, ‘Take me backstage.’ As we arrived with Kay, Groucho was mobbed and being rushed out. Kay waved to him, but she didn’t know if he saw her wave.

  “At Hillcrest Country Club, people would walk up to him and say, ‘Hi, Groucho,’ whereupon his responses would be hard to determine in advance. Sometimes he would be very pleasant or sometimes very difficult. When you were with Groucho and someone walked up to him, you never knew what they were going to get. We were sitting there one night having dinner, when two boys walked up and they said, ‘Hello, Groucho.’

  “And he said, ‘Hello, who are you?’

  “They said, ‘We’re your grandchildren.’

  “They were his grandsons—Steve and Andy.”

  I told Bert Granet the
denouement of that story:

  Groucho and I were walking on Beverly Drive in downtown Beverly Hills, and we met Andy.

  ANDY

  (To Groucho) Hello, who are you?

  GROUCHO

  I’m fine. Who are you?

  Bert Granet continued:

  “I remember once when a couple of teenagers came to his door and told him they wanted to see him and the inside of his house. With that, he very politely took them in and introduced them as guests. The boys were there all evening.

  “The maids in Hollywood are proud of who they work for. Groucho told me this story:

  “He saw these two colored maids talking over the fence, and the other maid said to his maid:

  “‘Who do you work for?’

  “‘I work for the Marx Brothers.’

  “‘The Marx Brothers?’

  “The other one didn’t seem to know who they were. So Groucho’s maid said, ‘You know—they hit each other.’ Groucho figured she didn’t know the difference between them and the Ritz Brothers.

  “Groucho was doing Time for Elizabeth in San Francisco with Norman Krasna, and he asked us to go there with him, and Krasna asked Eddie Buzzell. Groucho brought Miriam. We thought we would see the show once, maybe twice, but we found out Groucho expected us to see every performance, the whole performance. We missed one matinee, and he was really hostile about it. Then we would stay up till 4 A.M. every night, going back and forth between us, about what should go out and what should stay in.

  “Groucho’s friends pick up his mannerisms. I think I sound a little bit like Groucho sometimes. This happens to people who have been associated with him without their consciously realizing it. They take on his coloration. You find yourself making puns or jokes like his.

  “It’s hard to put Groucho into specific categories. He grew into his personality. I try to think about his motivations. There’s a conflict between being a very sensitive human being and an actor’s role, especially that of a comedian. It’s a terrible thing to get up and be a star. But he’s very three-dimensional. I don’t think anybody has ever touched on his character in depth because everybody has tried to make a funny story out of it. Unpredictable—I would say he’s that.

  “To me, he is a public image, as well as a very private, complex man. I can’t really put it into some simplified statement.”

  TERRY HAMLISCH

  At Marvin’s house in Beverly Hills, Terry Hamlisch reminisced with me about Groucho:

  “I always think of the twinkle in Groucho’s eyes when he sings those songs as he stands there in his shorts with the Mickey Mouse hat on, and he knows he’s being a bit of an exhibitionist. It’s this combination of the child who’s learned a couple of songs and wants to sing them for the company and the performer, the polished performer, who’s done this and knows how to get an audience.

  “It’s like what Marvin said about thinking of him as a grandfather figure: he sits at the head of the table and he starts promptly at seven o’clock. If you’re a few minutes late, ‘You’re late’ and you try to get out of it, and you can’t get out of it; you’re definitely late. Then when he has Robin the cook come in after dinner: ‘Okay, Robin, let down your hair.’ I mean, it’s Rapunzel time, and he gets carried away in conversations.

  “One night he got into a conversation about going on a safari so he could get an elephant which he would then present to Richard Nixon as a gift he couldn’t refuse. But then, what would he do with it? It was his way of weaving a story, and once he got there he enjoyed it. He liked the whole idea of having this elephant brought up to the White House and being there…what would Nixon do with it? He didn’t like Nixon.

  “And I always remember the night of the American Film Institute dinner honoring Orson Welles, with Zeppo and Erin and Groucho. I went to the dinner with them, and after dinner while speeches were being made, Groucho got up from the table and walked to the closest exit on his way to the men’s room, and Zeppo followed him. While they were gone, the master of ceremonies introduced Orson Welles to a standing ovation, and everyone in the room rose to their feet to applaud Orson Welles.

  “The climax of the evening, and in walks Groucho back from the men’s room. His eyes lit up as he faced the room of applauding people!”

  GEORGE SEATON

  When I asked George Seaton if he had ever contemplated writing a book about his experiences in Hollywood, he replied that he had not, but that if he did he would call it George Who? His impressive record as writer-director-producer notwithstanding, George Seaton has remained a remarkably private celebrity during a conspicuously successful Hollywood career that has spanned more than four decades. Even just after the tremendous success of Airport, which he wrote and directed, he said that people still confused him with the late George Stevens. As George Seaton left George Stevens’s funeral, the minister said to him, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Stevens.” Seaton merely pointed to the casket. Whereupon the minister quickly added, “I mean Mr. Seaton.” “I suppose,” Seaton said ruefully, “that’s what I’ll have on my gravestone: ‘Here lies George Stev…I mean George Seaton.’”

  Besides Airport, his films include Miracle on 34th Street, for which he won an Oscar, Bridges at Toko-Ri, The Country Girl, for which he won another Oscar, and The Counterfeit Traitor among many others. He has also directed for the stage, and has served as a president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

  He is perhaps the only major Hollywood figure who not only doesn’t change his telephone number, but whose home number is listed in the directory, and his office is located in a motel across the street from Universal City. He chose this in preference to an office in a glittering new structure because he would have to conform to the total decorating plan and give up the well-worn furniture that has served him since his arrival in Hollywood.

  Seaton’s friendship with Groucho went back to the mid-thirties, when he and Robert Pirosh, who were junior writers at M-G-M, were called in to work on a section of Kaufman’s and Ryskind’s A Night at the Opera script that had dissatisfied producer Irving Thalberg. They had already met Groucho and impressed him with an original story that Thalberg later rejected.

  “Strangely enough, we had an idea of a producer, Groucho, who oversold a show, knowing it was going to be a failure, and then it turned out to be a big success. Years later a picture was made called The Producers with the same basic story. Thalberg didn’t care for that idea, but Groucho did.”

  After A Night at the Opera, Seaton and Pirosh were assigned the next Marx Brothers M-G-M vehicle, A Day at the Races.

  “Groucho had confidence in us, and Thalberg, I guess, did too. So he said, ‘Go ahead and give us a story on Day at the Races.’ Well, Bob and I did eighteen complete scripts! Now, I’m not talking about variations. These are complete scripts. I know, because later we had to testify in a plagiarism suit.

  “I don’t know if Groucho remembers this or not, but he received a postcard from some lady which said, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if you crazy fellows ran a hospital.’ And he threw it away. We never saw it. Well, of course, Day at the Races turned out to involve a sanitarium, and the woman sued.

  “Now, it comes to trial. The judge is there, and Groucho is called. The judge said to Groucho, ‘You know, you’re one of the funniest men I’ve ever seen in my life. I admire you so much,’ and so forth. And Groucho said, ‘You’re pretty funny, too, with that outfit on.’ The woman got $25,000 from the studio.”

  Groucho, George Seaton, and I had brunch together on a Sunday at Hillcrest Country Club.

  GEORGE SEATON

  We showed Groucho the first script of A Day at the Races. He thought some of it was all right, some of it was not so all right. Thalberg said, “Keep this character, but start again.” He was a very patient man, and we weren’t getting much money, so it didn’t cost him anything. We’d start all over again, add a scene or add a character, and he’d say, “That’s fine, but throw the rest out.” We just kept going over it and over
it again. Then Groucho suggested we get together with George Kaufman, which was a very good idea.

  GROUCHO

  He was great. You never get over the loss of one like that.

  GEORGE SEATON

  I learned an awful lot from him, and so did Bob. Kaufman was out here, but he was doing a play in New York, so he didn’t have much time. I’ll never forget it. He just sat there with his deadpan expression and turned the pages over one by one. Not a smile, and we were just bleeding inside, because here was the great master of comedy, and this dour face he had. Finally he turned up the last page and said, “That’s one of the funniest ideas I’ve ever read.” Not a smile through the whole thing. Then we would take a scene to him, and he would give us very good advice. He said, “One thing you must remember with the Marx Brothers is that not only the answers have to be funny, the questions have to be funny. Because otherwise Chico gets very mad.”

  GROUCHO

  He couldn’t remember the right questions or lines anyway.

  GEORGE SEATON

  He couldn’t even remember the horse he bet on. Speaking of horses, I remember once when we were stuck for a scene between Groucho and Chico, which was a block comedy scene. As Kaufman had it, the theory was that there were five block comedy scenes, and you would string the story in between these scenes. We were stuck for a block comedy scene, and Bob Pirosh’s father, who was a doctor in Baltimore, played horses, too. He had sent Bob a telegram saying, “Bet on this horse,” or whatever it was. I didn’t bet and neither did Bob, but we showed the telegram to Chico, and Chico ran around saying, “I’ve got a hot tip!” Here was a doctor who had never won a race in his life, but Chico bet a lot of money on it, and called all his friends and said, “I’ve just had a tip from Baltimore.” But, anyway, that gave us an idea. We went down to the corner of Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard and bought every racing form we could find. A little bit of the tootsie-fruitsie scene came out of that. We tried to figure it out—you know, the code in the tip sheets. We had to buy a code book, and that became the genesis of that scene. Al Boasberg, who was a very, very funny man, added to it on the road.