Hello, I Must be Going

by Charlotte Chandler

  The first idea that we latched onto, they said, “Hey, let’s explore that.” If Thalberg would get tired of us, Groucho was our champion. So we had all these versions of the sanitarium. Somehow or other in one of them, there was a sequence that had to do with horse racing. And Thalberg said, “That’s it. We combine the two. It gives us the excitement of horse racing, and the sanitarium gives us the stuffy atmosphere that their wild antics will seem funny in.”

  I

  Did Groucho contribute many lines?

  ROBERT PIROSH

  Yeah, but nobody says gems all the time. But for this kind of comedy—I don’t say it’s unique, but it’s certainly different—his style is recognizable, and every once in a while at a gathering, somebody says something, and you say, “That’s a good Groucho line.” Everybody knows what a Groucho line is. And he was simply wonderful with that. And the next best, in my experience, by far, was Kaufman, who also had different kinds of lines that weren’t Groucho lines, a different kind of humor. Of course, many lines in his pictures that were wonderful Groucho lines, some gagman had dropped in, and they became Groucho lines. And he changed them around.

  He was really a perfectionist in his work. On this road tour, on the Night at the Opera road tour, we’d have a scene down pat, and he would know, everybody would know where the laugh comes and about how long it’s going to last, how long a pause to take. But he would try. He would switch them around. He’d try every possible thing, and sometimes by switching one word around or by using another word, he would get a laugh. He mispronounced a word once, and he got the laugh on it and he never would pronounce it right. It was an unpleasant word, like paraplegic or paralysis. It’s a good example of what he would do when a thing was set. Then, with all his delight in improvising and changing, he’d cling to it, because that laugh meant more to him than he knew.

  I remember one line. Harpo was playing a harp, and Groucho kept heckling him. S. A. Schearer was a well-known name then. They were pawnbrokers and they advertised a lot. So, one of his lines when he’s heckling Harpo was, “There’s a man outside. He’s from S. A. Schearer. He’s here to get the harp.” It got a laugh. Then, the next time he came in, it would be different. “S. A. Schearer is here for the harp.” And then the next time, it would be, “S. A. Schearer sent a man here for the harp.” You know, he’d keep trying everything, and one of them would get a bigger laugh than the others. Nobody knows why, but he’d stick to that.

  I

  How did you feel about his changing your lines? Did you enjoy it? Or did you mind it?

  ROBERT PIROSH

  No. I didn’t mind at all on the road tour, because then everybody could hear. They laughed more, they laughed less. He never argued with that. We had a director who was a very well-known, a very famous director, Sam Wood. If Thalberg had two on a scale of ten in sense of humor, Sam Wood had minus seven. He had no sense of humor whatever. Why he should have directed a Marx Brothers picture, I’ll never know. And yet, the Marx Brothers liked him, respected him, and it worked. He didn’t know if the joke was funny or not, but it had been broken in on the road, and he had nothing to do with that. He wasn’t with us there.

  That’s interesting to me, how a man who has no sense of humor can direct a comedy. I don’t know if that’s possible on the stage, but it’s possible in pictures, and I’ve seen it. Not very often. In my experience with comedy, like with René Clair, it’s a separate kind of comedy. I know it’s impossible for Sam Wood to have directed some of René’s pictures from exactly the same script.

  I

  That is rather an extreme comparison, though.

  ROBERT PIROSH

  The Marx Brothers begged René to direct a Marx Brothers picture. Did you know that?

  I

  He told me that.

  ROBERT PIROSH

  You know everything! Actually, René was probably right not to do it. He wanted to do a different kind of thing.

  I

  But you don’t think a René Clair picture could have been a Marx Brothers picture?

  ROBERT PIROSH

  Yeah, a René Clair picture could have been a Marx Brothers picture, but he could not have directed it if they said, “Here is our script.” They’d say, “This got a six-second laugh in Minneapolis,” and he’d say, “I don’t care about Minneapolis. I do not like zee line.” But Harpo would have been superb with René. Groucho would have, too. But René wouldn’t have been interested in the block comedy routines. It would have been a question of control. It would have started out nicely, and they would have accepted his authority, and then one or more would have questioned it. There would have been chaos, because René doesn’t like to have his authority challenged.

  I

  Do you think they would have challenged it? Because I know Groucho has tremendous respect for him.

  ROBERT PIROSH

  Yeah, I guess he would have accepted it. I honestly don’t know. I think in the end their approach to humor is such a different kind of humor…I don’t know. I don’t think it would have worked out.

  I

  Did you ever go to see the early films before you wrote A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races?

  ROBERT PIROSH

  Oh yeah. I had seen two or three, and loved them. But forgetting the story, I don’t think their comedy changed an awful lot. I said Kaufman had an effect on it; I think that’s very early in the game. I seem to remember that Kaufman wrote Cocoanuts. I think their first play was I’ll Say She Is. Do you know the name of the man who wrote that?

  I

  Will Johnstone.

  ROBERT PIROSH

  He was a newspaperman. When we were stuck for a while, they brought him out. He was not a Hollywood man, and he stayed here three or four weeks. He worked in one corner and we worked in another. He did a treatment, and he left. Al Boasberg was on Day at the Races, too. Everybody was on Day at the Races!

  I

  It’s extraordinary!

  ROBERT PIROSH

  They probably kept us on because we were cheap. They’d bring in the high-priced ones, and it didn’t work out somehow, so they’d drop them. Looking back, it’s pretty ridiculous to spend that much time on one picture, but that’s the way it worked out. It was at a time in their career when it was very, very important, because the industry thought they were about washed up in pictures. Thalberg took the gamble, and they were tense, because they had had some commercial flops, and they were worried.

  I

  You didn’t mention Zeppo.

  ROBERT PIROSH

  No. Well, I didn’t know Zeppo very well, because he wasn’t in any of those I worked on. When I knew them, I knew the other brother, Gummo, better. He was nice. I very much liked him—sort of a combination of all three of them. He was sweet, like Harpo. He had a better sense of humor than Chico, and not as nearly as good a one as Groucho’s.

  Zeppo I knew as an aggressive, successful agent who I would see whizzing past in the lot, or I had lunch with him in a group, so I didn’t know him. In the older pictures, though, he didn’t add anything to them, in my opinion, because it really was ludicrous with him playing the romantic leads. Probably he could have done Chico’s part. Chico wasn’t that much of an actor. He just happened to be there, and he could play the piano funny, he could do his odd little Italian accent. But he wasn’t creative. Harpo was.

  His own pantomimic stuff was very hard to get material for. Really, the only thing that I can remember that George and I wrote for him—and I believe this was in A Night at the Opera—was when he played a piano. He sat down and started playing a piano, banging on it, hitting it, and it was a breakaway piano—a grand piano. It started coming apart, and fell all apart, and he reached in and took the strings out. They were shaped something like a harp, and then he started playing the harp. That was ours. Outside of that, almost all the little pantomimic things that he did were his. He was very good at that. He was wonderful at that!

  I

  What about Chico?
Did he add anything?

  ROBERT PIROSH

  Once in a while. He wasn’t that interested. He was more interested in girls, in races, and cards. Chico and Harpo were great card players, as you no doubt know. Real whizzes, and they played for big stakes. They would play with all of the movie money men, but for huge stakes. Chico would win at that and lose at the races. He just threw his money away. He was a very undisciplined man. Very kind, very nice. But completely undisciplined.

  They were very, very different, and not really close. Except for cards and things like that, their social lives were different. Harpo had his friends, Groucho had his; Chico loved the racy crowd, the sporting crowd. Groucho had, you know, cultural aspirations. He was bound and determined to write, and he did. He listened to music. At one period in his life, I remember, he became very interested in good music. I think he felt very much, as I’m sure you got from him, that he wished that he’d had more education. I think he very much regretted that he hadn’t had more education.

  They were all very loyal people. Groucho, as I’m sure you know, had a sentimental streak, and a loyalty to people who he felt had helped him. I remember that he wrote to me, “Dear Bob, thanks for A Day at the Races.” Well, I didn’t give him A Day at the Races. I was just one of the people who worked on it, but it was nice. He didn’t say, “with fond memories of the fun we shared,” or anything like that. It was just a nice thing. I think if I’d ever gone to him for any help, I’m sure he would have given it to me. If I’d said, “Look, if you talk with So-and-So, that could help me,” I’m sure that he would have made a big effort.

  He had great warmth for those he liked, and I think, in my experience, except for Thalberg and one or two others, it always had something to do with their sense of humor. Except with some of the girls he’s got attached to. I don’t think he could value a person highly unless they could give him a laugh. Because he loved it. If he made one of his withering cracks to one of us, if we could top it, which didn’t happen often, he would laugh uproariously. He would love it. Then, while he was laughing, he’d be thinking of a way to top us. But he didn’t seem to have the petty jealousy that most comics have. If eight of us were in a room trying to think of a line that didn’t get a laugh, he would try very hard to be the one that got it. And very often he would. But if somebody else got it, he wasn’t eating his heart out because he didn’t get it, as many people would.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Morrie Ryskind was a young newspaperman with an interest in writing theatrical comedy when George S. Kaufman invited him to collaborate on The Cocoanuts in 1925. That was the beginning of a long and successful association with both Kaufman and the Marx Brothers, especially Groucho. With Kaufman, and Ira and George Gershwin, he won a Pulitzer prize for Of Thee I Sing in 1931. For the Marx Brothers, he co-authored Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera with Kaufman, and adapted Room Service for the screen. Other credits include Louisiana Purchase, and the screenplays for My Man Godfrey, Penny Serenade, and Claudia.

  Shortly after Groucho received his Oscar, Morrie Ryskind and his wife, Mary, joined Groucho, Erin, and me for dinner at Groucho’s home. “When Morrie and Mary got married,” Groucho told me, “I was best man, including him.”

  GROUCHO

  I’ll bet I’m the oldest guy who’s ever gotten an Academy Award. When we went to the Academy Awards, the crowd went wild when they saw me—I was wearing a frock coat like I used to wear, except that this was a good one…

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  The comedy frock coat like you used to wear?

  GROUCHO

  Oh no. This one was expensive. It cost $300. But that’s got nothing to do with it.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Grouch, I don’t remember you in the old days caring about a frock coat or even thinking of spending $300 for one.

  GROUCHO

  No. But I became a rich man. My pants cost $150!

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  I’ll never forget George S. Kaufman…

  GROUCHO

  I’ll never forget him either. I went to his funeral when he died.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  The last time I saw George, we were in New York, and I called George up and said to come on down and have lunch with us. He said, “Morrie, I can’t go anyplace. Do me a favor: come up here, will you?” Now, it’s impossible to tell you of the respect, and the admiration and the awe that he had. Here Kaufman was so happy we’d come up to see him!

  MARY RYSKIND

  He called me up the next day to thank us for coming up.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  He had trouble with his eyes and all the other problems of old age, and nobody knew who he was. Toward the end, some people wouldn’t talk to him. As I get older, I wish to God people had a little respect for old age. I was brought up to have it, but now there isn’t any.

  The other night I went to see The Cocoanuts at a college. They asked me to talk, so I went over there. You would have thought it was the funniest picture in the world. Never in my life have I heard such laughter. I wrote the dialogue, but nobody heard it. First Groucho came on the screen, and they got up and cheered for fifteen minutes. Then Harpo came on, and they got up and cheered for fifteen minutes. At the end they applauded. Then they hailed me as the great God. I was very lucky that day.

  So, Groucho, you’ve been pretty good. You had that tremendous success on Broadway. And, you know, you fellows were very lucky in that first show, I’ll Say She Is. You would have never been seen by Percy Hammond, Woollcott, and all that bunch that first night, except that a dramatic show that was supposed to come in didn’t come in. If you had received raves from the second critics, it obviously wouldn’t have had the same prestige. But the big critics raved the next day. And, boy, they never got over it. Harpo—I’ll never forget Harpo…

  GROUCHO

  That’s the one that didn’t talk.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  You remember him, don’t you?

  GROUCHO

  Yeah. He was a nice fellow.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  They were so amazed one night when Harpo finally spoke. People genuinely believed that this was a poor deaf-mute. My recollection of Harpo was one thing: one cold night in winter, we’d had dinner together and were going over to the theatre. There was a guy with one of those big hats…

  MARY RYSKIND

  A professional beggar.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  …and he was playing a violin on Forty-second Street. We passed, and Harpo went back. He said, “Would you lend me that a minute?” And he played the guy’s violin.

  GROUCHO

  I thought he played the harp.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  He would have, but this guy didn’t have a harp. He did mighty good.

  ERIN

  How long have you and Mary been married?

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Since 1929.

  GROUCHO

  That’s the year I was born.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Yeah. We did it to celebrate Groucho’s birth.

  GROUCHO

  Remember when I spoke at that school of journalism? And you were almost kicked out of Columbia.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  I was asked to give a series of lectures at Columbia—a course. They wanted an excuse to give me a degree. So what I did was I got all the people I knew—I got Groucho, I got George Jessel, I got Lindsay and Crouse to come down and talk about all that stuff.

  GROUCHO

  They were pretty good, Lindsay and Crouse.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Yes, they were, and they’re both gone now.

  GROUCHO

  Everybody’s gone!

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Not everybody has gone, Grouch. You and I are still here. Say, I saw a show the other night, and I loved it. The Sunshine Boys. I loved it because I think that’s what the theatre is all about. Everybody came out happy and gay. Nobody was stuck on drugs, and there were no lesbians in it.


  GROUCHO

  Don’t knock lesbians. Some of my favorite girls are lesbians. I wish you’d tell them about the ball game we played in Philadelphia. We played the whole game in one hotel room. And we tried to drop the piano out the window.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  You did drop the piano out the window. Only it stopped on a ledge.

  GROUCHO

  Well, we wanted it to fall all the way down.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Well, this was to celebrate. We were all feeling good because we all realized that we had a hit on our hands—Animal Crackers. Ruby said, “Let’s have a little to-do,” so we all came up, and of course the girls, and you’ve never seen anything like it. Chico and I were having a catch, which Harry Ruby loved, and the waiters were passing around among us. I’ve never seen such a riot. Hollywood has never seen such an orgy, except that it wasn’t quite sexual. Then, of all things, Harpo and Herbert…

  GROUCHO

  Herbert?

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Your brother.

  GROUCHO

  Oh, you mean Zeppo.

  MORRIE RYSKIND

  Yeah. Harpo and Zeppo lifted the piano, and they put it on the ledge outside the window. Finally, about three detectives—house men—came in, and here’s the room, all empty. All the chairs and furniture are gone, and they said, “Is there any furniture?” We said, “Never heard of any.” When this thing was over, poor Ruby and Kalmar were sick. Groucho and I were going back to our hotel, and Groucho said to the clerk, “What kind of hotel is this? I’ve got Room 802, and there’s a bunch up there yelling and screaming and carrying on all night long. It’s impossible for a man to sleep. Get ’em out of there or I’m calling the police.” With that, we walked off. I don’t know if the police came, or what. And here were Kalmar and Ruby, the two most innocent people in the world, left to face the hotel executives.

  GROUCHO

  What about Harpo? Tell ’em about Harpo knocking on every door, and then rushing down to complain that he can’t sleep because people are knocking on his door.