- Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890 - August 19, 1977), was an American comedian, working both with his siblings, the Marx Brothers, and on his own. - Harpo Marx
Adolph Arthur Marx, popularly known as Harpo Marx, (November 23, 1888 - September 28, 1964) was one of the Marx Brothers, a group of Vaudeville and Broadway theatre entertainers who later achieved fame as comedians in the Motion Picture industry. He was well known by his trademarks: he played the harp; he never talked during performances, although he often blew a horn or whistled to communicate with people; and he frequently used props. - Chico Marx
Leonard Marx, known as Chico, (March 22, 1887 - October 11, 1961) was one of the Marx Brothers. He was originally nicknamed Chicko due to his reputation as a ladies man, or a "chicken chaser" in the popular slang of the day. A typesetter accidentally dropped the "k" in his name and it became Chico. It was still pronounced "Chick-o" although those who were unaware of its origin tended to pronounce it "Cheek-o". - Margaret Dumont
Margaret Dumont (October 20, 1882 - March 6, 1965) was an American comedic actress. Born Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York she adopted the stage name Margaret and/or Marguerite Dumont. She is remembered mostly for being the comic foil to Groucho Marx in seven of the Marx Brothers movies. Groucho called her practically the fifth Marx brother. - Zeppo Marx
Herbert Manfred Marx (February 25, 1901 - November 29, 1979) is best known as Zeppo Marx, the name he used when he performed with his brothers, The Marx Brothers. There are different theories to where Zeppo got his stage name: Groucho once said that the name was derived from the Zeppelin, a new invention at the time of his birth. However, it is more commonly suggested that the name derived from that of another vaudeville performer a chimpanzee, named Mr. - Gummo Marx
Milton Marx (October 23, 1893 - April 21, 1977), known as Gummo, was one of the Marx Brothers. Born in New York City, he worked with his brothers on the vaudeville circuit, but left acting when he was drafted into the army during World War I. (He was the only Marx Brother to have served in the military). By many accounts, however, Gummo had grown tired of performing anyway. - Leo McCarey
Thomas Leo McCarey (October 3, 1898 - July 5, 1969) was a film director, screenwriter and producer. During his lifetime he was involved in almost 200 movies, especially comedies, where he demonstrated his great elegance and his fine sense of humour. French director Jean Renoir once said that no other Hollywood director understood people better than Leo McCarey. Born in Los Angeles, California, he began in the movie business as an assistant director to Tod Browning in 1920, … - Arthur Marx
Arthur Marx (born July 21, 1921, New York, New York), is an author, a former outstanding amateur tennis player, and son of famed entertainer Groucho Marx. Marx spent his early years accompanying his father around vaudeville circuits in the United States and abroad. When he was 10, he moved to southern California, where the Marx Brothers began their legendary film careers. - Minnie Marx
Minnie Schönberg Marx was the mother and manager for the Marx Brothers and the sister of vaudeville star Al Shean. While managing the Marx Brothers, she also went under the name of Minnie Palmer. - Thelma Todd
Thelma Todd was a popular American actress of the late 1920s and early 1930s film. Appearing in over 40 pictures between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films like Marx Brothers' "Monkey Business" and "Horse Feathers". She also had roles in Laurel and Hardy's "Another Fine Mess", "The Devil's Brother" (aka Fra Diavolo), "Chickens Come Home". Thelma also had a brief part in The Bohemian Girl'. - Al Shean
Al Shean was the stage name for comedian Albert Schönberg. He is most remembered for being half of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean, and as the uncle of the Marx Brothers. Schönberg's father was a magician. His sister, Minnie, married Simon "Frenchie" Marx, whose children would become the Marx Brothers. After making a name for himself in vaudeville, Shean teamed up with Edward Gallagher to create the act Gallagher and Shean. - Allan Jones
Allan Jones (born October 14 1907 in Old Forge, Pennsylvania - died June 27 1992 in New York, New York) was an American actor and singer. For many years he was married to actor Irene Hervey; their son is American pop singer Jack Jones. Jones starred in many film musicals during the 1930s and 1940s. The best-known of these were "Show Boat" (1936), and "The Firefly" (1937) (in which he sang the popular "Donkey Serenade"). - Morrie Ryskind
Morrie Ryskind (born Morris Ryskind 20 October 1895 in New York City, New York, USA - 24 August 1985 in Washington, DC), was an American Hollywood and Broadway writer, lyricist, and director. He collaborated with the famous George S. Kaufman on many Broadway hits, and wrote or co-wrote many of the Marx Brothers' screenplays. - S. J. Perelman
Sidney Joseph Perelman, almost always known as S. J. Perelman (February 1 1904 - October 17 1979), was an American humorist, author, and screenwriter. He is primarily known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for "The New Yorker magazine". - Edgar Kennedy
Edgar Livingston Kennedy (b. April 26, 1890 in Monterey County, California; d. November 9, 1948) was an American comedic film actor, known as "the king of the slow burn". A former singer and boxer, Kennedy worked in hundreds of films beginning as a Keystone Kop in 1914. He would go on to work with the biggest film comedians in the United States, including Fatty Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and Our Gang. - Sig Ruman
Sig Ruman (born Siegfried Albon Rumann was a German-American actor known for his comic portrayals of pompous villains. Born in Hamburg, he studied electrical engineering before serving with the Imperial German army during the First World War. After moving to the United States in 1924, his acting career blossomed. Befriending playwright George S. Kaufman and theater critic Alexander Woollcott, he enjoyed success in many Broadway productions. - Erin Fleming
Erin Fleming was a minor actress who was best known as the companion and care-giver to Groucho Marx in his final years. Fleming appeared in minor roles in five films from 1965 through 1976, during which time she became acquainted with Groucho Marx and moved into his house. - Walter Woolf King
Walter Woolf King was a singer, performer, and film actor born in San Francisco, California. King began singing for a living at a young age and sang mostly in churches. He made his Broadway theatre debut in 1919, and developed a reputation as a baritone in musical comedies and other musical performances. King advertised himself as Walter Woolf and Walter King in his early career, eventually settling on a combination of all three names, … - Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 - January 23, 1943) was a critic and commentator for "The New Yorker magazine", and a member of the Algonquin Round Table. He was the inspiration for Sheridan Whiteside, the main character in the play "The Man Who Came to Dinner" by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, … - Lillian Roth
Lillian Roth (December 13, 1910 - May 12, 1980) was an American singer and actress. Born Lillian Rutstein in Boston, Massachusetts, she was merely six-years-old when her mother took her to Educational Pictures, where she became the company's trademark, symbolized by a living statue holding a lamp of knowledge. The following year she made her Broadway debut in "The Inner Man". Her motion picture debut came in 1918 in "Pershing's Crusaders". - Robert Florey
Robert Florey was a French screenwriter, director of short films, and actor who moved to Hollywood in 1921. In 1950, Florey was made a knight in the French Légion d'honneur. Florey worked as assistant director to Josef von Sternberg, Frank Borzage, and Victor Fleming before making his feature directing debut in 1926. He directed more than 50 movies over the next 23 years, from the first Marx Brothers movie "The Cocoanuts" (1929), … - Raquel Torres
Raquel Torres (1908-1987) was a Mexican film actress born in Hermosillo, Mexico. She grew up in Hollywood. She starred in early sound films like "White Shadows of the South Seas" (1928) and "Duck Soup" (1933). The former was the first sound feature fully synchronized for dialogue, music, and effects. The latter was a famous 1933 Marx Brothers comedy, in which she played a would-be Mata Hari type. Torres was a dark-haired beauty. - Vera-Ellen
Vera-Ellen (February 16, 1921 - August 30, 1981) was an American actress and stage and film dancer, principally celebrated for her filmed dance partnerships with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor. She was born Vera Ellen Westmeier Rohe in Norwood, Ohio to Martin Rohe and Alma Catherine Westmeier, both descended from German immigrants. She began dancing at the age of 9 and quickly became very proficient. - Edward Buzzell
Edward Buzzell (13 November 1900, Brooklyn, New York - 11 January 1985, Los Angeles, California) was a director for MGM who directed many of their films in the late 1930s, including "Honolulu" (1939), the Marx Brothers films "At the Circus" (1939) and "Go West" (1940), the musicals "Best Foot Forward" (1943) with Lucille Ball, and "Neptune's Daughter" (1949) with Esther Williams. - Arthur Sheekman
Arthur Sheekman (February 5 1901, Chicago - January 12 1978), a graduate from the University of Minnesota, started his career as columnist and drama critic during the 1920s and the early 1930s for the Manhattan Newspaper. He then entered the film industry in 1931 when he became a scenarist for the Marx Brothers' movie "Monkey Business" where he befriended Groucho Marx. - David Miller
David Miller (November 28, 1909 -- April 14, 1992) was an American movie director who directed such varied films as "Billy the Kid (1941 film)" with Robert Taylor and Brian Donlevy, "Flying Tigers" (1943) with John Wayne, and "Love Happy" (1949) with the Marx Brothers. - Robert B. Weide
Robert B. Weide (born June 20, 1959) is a Jewish American writer, producer, and director, perhaps best known for his documentaries and his work on "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Weide's career began with an early passion for the Marx Brothers. In 1978, while taking film production courses at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, he announced his intention to produce a documentary film on the Marx Brothers. - Nat Perrin
Nat Perrin (March 15, 1905-May 9, 1998) was a comedy writer who contributed gags and story lines to several Marx Brothers films, cowrote the play "Hellzapoppin'" that became a film, and was the producer of the television series "The Addams Family." A longtime friend of Groucho Marx, he became temporary conservator of the comedian's estate in his dying days. - Irving Brecher
Irving Brecher (b. January 17 1914, in New York City, New York) enjoyed early success as a screenwriter for the Marx Brothers; he helped write "At the Circus" in 1939 and "Go West" in 1940. He was also one of the numerous uncredited writers to help out on the screenplay to 1939's "The Wizard of Oz". Some of his other screenplays were "Shadow of the Thin Man" (1941), "Ziegfeld Follies" (1946) and "Bye Bye Birdie" (1963). - Virginia O'Brien
Virginia O'Brien (born April 18, 1919 in Los Angeles, died January 16, 2001), was an American singer and actress best known for playing supporting roles in MGM musicals in the 1940s, and for her unusual singing style. O'Brien's dark good looks belied the fact that she primarily performed comedy roles during the height of her career. This was in part due to her intentionally humorous singing style, … - Heywood Broun
Heywood Campbell Broun (December 7 1888 - December 18 1939) was an American journalist, sportswriter and newspaper columnist and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, now known as The Newspaper Guild. In 1917 Broun married writer-editor Ruth Hale, a feminist and founder of the Lucy Stone League, an organization that fought for women to keep their maiden names after marriage. They had one son, Heywood Hale Broun. - Gregg Marx
Gregg Marx (born April 3, 1955 in Hollywood, CA) is an American actor known mainly for his work on two daytime soap operas. He first played the role of David Banning on "Days of Our Lives" from 1981 to 1983. He then moved to "As the World Turns" where he portrayed Tom Hughes from 1984 to 1987. Marx won the award as Outstanding Supporting Actor at the 14th Daytime Emmy Awards in 1987. - Robert Pirosh
Robert Pirosh (1 April 1910 - 25 December 1989) was an American screenwriter and director. Born in Baltimore, Pirosh began his film career in 1934 as a junior writer for MGM, working with fellow newcomer George Seaton. The two collaborated on the Marx Brothers' 1935 comedy "A Night at the Opera" and their next film, "A Day at the Races" in 1937. Pirosh and Groucho Marx remained lifelong friends. - Nat Pendleton
Nathaniel Greene Pendleton (August 9, 1895 - October 12, 1967) was an American Olympic wrestler and film actor. - Herman J. Mankiewicz
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz was a legendary Hollywood screenwriter and noted raconteur. In 1926 Mankiewicz left a job as drama editor at "The New Yorker" magazine to write for Hollywood. Shortly after his arrival on the West Coast, he sent a telegram to journalist-friend Ben Hecht in New York: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. - June Maccloy
June MacCloy (June 2, 1909 - May 5, 2005) was an American actress and singer in the 1930s and 1940s. She was a tall, slim, and strikingly pretty blond. Born in Sturgis, Michigan (official records say 1909 but MacCloy claimed they confused her with her older sister and she was actually born in 1915), MacCloy moved to Toledo, Ohio as a child. - Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed (September 9, 1894 - April 12, 1973) was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was an American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer of Jewish descent. Freed began his career in vaudeville, and he appeared with the Marx Brothers. He soon began to write songs, and was eventually hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. For years, he wrote lyrics for numerous films, many set to music by Nacio Herb Brown. - Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger was an important American film producer. Wanger was born Walter Feuchtwanger in San Francisco, California. He served with the United States Army during World War I. He produced his first motion picture in 1929 titled "The Cocoanuts" directed by Joseph Santley and starring the Marx brothers. His many significant productions include "The Sheik" (1921), "Gabriel Over the White House" (1933), "Queen Christina" (1933), … - Henry Armetta
Henry Armetta (born Enrico Armetta) (July 4, 1888 - October 21, 1945) was a movie character actor who appeared in at least 150 films, starting in silents as early as 1915 to a movie released in 1946, after his death. In 1938 he played in "Everybody Sing" with Judy Garland, Allan Jones, and Fanny Brice. In 1941, he was hilarious as the father of an Italian family shopping for beds in "The Big Store" with the Marx Brothers and Tony Martin. - Ivie Anderson
Ivie Anderson (sometimes Ivy) (January 16, 1904 - September 28, 1949) was a jazz performer and singer, best known for performing with Duke Ellington's orchestra between 1931 and 1942. Anderson was born in Gilroy, California. With a sweet clear singing voice, she was a popular attraction with Ellington's band.
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