Monkey business : the lives and legends of the Marx Brothers : Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, with added Gummo / Simon Louvish.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Louvish, Simon.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Marx Brothers.

Comedians--United States--Biography.

Comedians.

United States.

Motion picture actors and actresses--United States--Biography.

Motion picture actors and actresses.

Marx, Chico, 1887-1961.

Marx, Chico.

Marx, Groucho, 1890-1977.

Marx, Groucho.

Marx, Harpo, 1888-1964.

Marx, Harpo.

Marx, Zeppo, 1901-1979.

Marx, Zeppo.

Marx, Gummo, 1892-1977.

Marx, Gummo.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

vii, 471 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 22 cm

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Other Title:

Lives and legends of the Marx Brothers

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Summary:

Strange but true: this is the first comprehensive and fully researched biography of all five Marx Brothers -- Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo. It features the first authentic account of their origins, of the roots of their comedy, and their twenty-four years on the stage prior to the shooting of their first movie, The Cocoanuts, in 1929.

First and foremost, this is the saga of a family whose theatrical roots stretch back to mid-nineteenth-century Germany, and whose American debut was prefigured by their maternal uncle, vaudeville pioneer Al Shean. From Julius "Groucho" Marx's first warblings with the singing Leroy Trio, this book brings to life the vanished world of America's wild and boisterous variety circuits, leading to the Marx Brothers' Broadway successes, and their alliance with New York's theatrical lions, George S. Kaufman and the Algonquin Round Table.

Well-minted Marxian dialogue and much madness and mayhem are showcased in this tale of the Brothers' battles with Hollywood, their films, their loves and marriages, and the story of the forgotten brother Gummo, who never appeared on screen. Spicing up the anarchic brew are accounts of Salvador Dali's "missing" script for Harpo, the true identity of the long-suffering Margaret Dumont, and the politics of "Marxism a la Groucho."

Louvish's definitive biography of these beloved brothers will make Marxists of us all.

Contents:

'Love me and the world is mine'

The road from Nagacdoches

The four horsemen of the Apoplexy

The magician's grandsons and the magical lens

The vanishing species.

Notes:

"Thomas Dunne Books."

Includes filmography: pages 426-434.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 452-455) and index.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0312252927

9780312252922

OCLC:

44183482

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description