Enter Groucho — and Gummo

Regardless of its consolidation with the other boroughs to form New York City in 1898, Brooklyn maintained its own brash identity. For the brothers, Brooklyn was an independent city and was among the first places they would play. Groucho, born Julius in 1890, was the first of the brothers to enter show business and the first to perform in Brooklyn. He started out as a singer. After he was stranded twice on the road at fifteen, Minnie, the ultimate stage mother, got her son a job where he would perform, mostly in the New York area, as one of seven Gus Edwards’ Messenger Boys. Edwards was a well-known impresario who specialized in showcasing child performers. They played in June, 1906, at Coney Island’s Dreamland. This was Groucho’s first known appearance in the borough.

Minnie realized an opportunity to advance Groucho and her son Gummo, born Milton in 1892, once she met Ned Wayburn, who ran a school for aspiring vaudevillians. Gummo enrolled and Groucho landed a job in Ned Wayburn’s Sideshow which appeared in April, 1907 at Hyde and Behman’s Theater in Brooklyn at 365 Fulton Street. A review in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of April 9, 1907 exclaimed, “Ned Wayburn’s Side Show” is the leading feature of a most attractive bill at Hyde and Behman’s this week. It was one of the funniest vaudeville sketches that has come to Brooklyn.”

Soon, Groucho and Gummo teamed with another Wayburn student, Mabel O’Donnell, forming The Three Nightingales. They performed two shows in Brooklyn in October, 1907 at the Dewey Theater at 2384 Coney Island Avenue in a Sunday concert, a vaudeville attraction consisting of disparate acts which happened to be in town on Sundays either arriving for a local engagement or before catching trains for their following week’s bookings. 

Harpo Makes a Splash

After humming along as The Three Nightingales, Minnie expanded the act into The Four Nightingales by dismissing O’Donnell, since she couldn’t share rooms with her boys while on tour, and including Harpo, born Adolph in 1888, who couldn’t sing and Brooklynite Lou Levy, who could. Minnie could now keep the money mostly in the family. This new aggregation made its debut singing quartet numbers in June, 1908 at Henderson’s Music Hall at 1230 Surf Avenue. Groucho was the lead singer and the only comic. According to Robert, “The first night didn’t go too smoothly for Harpo. Groucho recalled that he was so nervous that when the curtain opened and Harpo saw the audience, he had an accident in his pants. As Harpo’s wife Susan liked to say, ‘He saw the audience and let fly.’”

School of Hard Yuks

Humor, of course, was the Marx Brothers forte and they gradually began to include it in the act. During one routine Groucho – dressed as a butcher – sang while delivering a basket of frankfurters on a string while Harpo cut them off and ate them behind his back. They soon moved to Chicago where they could work both sides of the split that resulted from the Keith vaudeville circuit’s dominion over the eastern half of the country and the Orpheum circuit’s dominion over the western half. 

Ever the enterprising mom, Minnie decided to expand the act into The Six Mascots by adding herself and her sister Hannah. Lou Levy did not go to Chicago so they hired Fred Klute to replace him. They developed a twelve to fifteen minute classroom sketch, a popular vaudeville concept made famous by Gus Edwards’ School Days. As they attracted more attention, the brothers emphasized comedy and minimized singing in the act/ They were now billed as The Three Marx Brothers and company in “Fun in Hi Skule.”  With the addition of a few other kids, they gained recognition touring the Midwest. In 1912 the company performed what was known as a split-week engagement in Brooklyn. Sometimes in a particular area a theater owner might have multiple theaters in different neighborhoods too small to support the same acts staying for the typical Monday through Saturday vaudeville week. In this case, “Fun in High Skule” appeared in Brooklyn from February 26 to 28 at Loew’s Fulton Street at 1283 Fulton Street and from February 29 to March 2 at Loew’s Liberty Theater at 61 Liberty Avenue by Crossbay Boulevard, near the border of Brooklyn and Queens. A few days later the brothers took the show to Loew’s Bijou at 25 Smith Street.

And Then There Were Four

As the brothers matured, they recognized an inescapable truth. While Groucho was believable at 22 playing the German school teacher, Harpo, at 24 and Gummo at 20 were a little long in the tooth to play school children. They overcame this dilemma by devising Mr. Green’s Reception in which they would celebrate their 10th anniversary reunion after graduation. In the fall of 1912 dialect comedian and piano player Chico, born Leonard in 1887, joined Mr. Green’s Reception, marking the debut of the Four Marx Brothers.

While still based in Chicago as World War I began, the brothers decided to drop Mr. Green’s Reception. Their uncle Al Shean, of the famous act Gallagher and Shean, wrote Home Again, which become their signature show and hurled them into the big time.

The premise of this breakthrough is a reception Groucho holds at his house to which he invites passengers he met during a boat excursion, principally the young girl with whom he has been flirting. The antics kick up once he gets suckered into inviting musicians Harpo and Chico. Gummo played Groucho’s son. Starting in the fall of1914 they performed this show for seven solid vaudeville seasons. Home Again came to Brooklyn in early March, 1915 at the Bushwick Theater at 1396 Broadway.  They performed it a couple of weeks later at the Orpheum at 578 Fulton Street and in April at the Prospect at 520 8th Avenue.

Robert asserts that this three-theater run underscores the notion that for the foursome Brooklyn was a separate city and market. “There was no impediment to playing Brooklyn because they had just played The Palace, the pinnacle of vaudeville, as well The Alhambra and The Colonial in Manhattan. Brooklyn and Manhattan’s accessibility to one another gave them a break, allowing them to avoid getting on trains and to stay in one place for quite a run.” 

In March 1917, they brought Home Again back to both the Orpheum and the Bushwick. Since they were frequently doing the same show, they changed the title to N’Everything. Robert elaborates upon this necessity. “The Marx Brothers were huge at this point. If they came back to your city and did Home Again five or six months after you’ve just seen it, you’d go again, bringing your friends saying, ‘This is the funniest show I ever saw. You’ve got to come and see it.’ Since they did a lot of repeat business, they would change songs, add gags and change characterizations. For instance, Harpo and Chico would now be stowaways.”

Proving how beloved the show was, between June, 1919 and November 1920 Brooklynites flocked to successive stints of N’ Everything at Henderson’s Music Hall, the Orpheum (twice), the Bushwick (twice), the Prospect (twice), the Brighton Coney Island Theater at 3101 Ocean Parkway and Sea Breeze Avenue and Moss’ Flatbush Theater at 2207 Church Avenue. N’ Everything also appeared at Rockaway Beach. In addition, in September, 1920 they performed a Sunday Concert at the Orpheum. 

The Chico Affair 

During the March 19 to 24, 1917 run of Home Again at the Bushwick, Chico confronted a delicate situation. Robert’s research has unearthed the details, which at the time would have been scandalous. Chico asked Betty Karp, a young Brooklyn girl he’d met in Pittsburgh years earlier, for a date. In Pittsburg, she was intimidated because he was an older man so she stood him up. Nevertheless, having bragged to her friend in New York that she knew one of The Marx Brothers, they went to the show. Thinking that Chico would remember her, she sent a note backstage. Chico played along and they started dating that week. Subsequently, Chico got her pregnant. Chico and Betty conceived their only child, Maxine, during that Bushwick engagement. Later, to make the baby seem legitimate, they claimed to have been married on March 22, 1917, which would have meant that they got married in Brooklyn. They did not. They were married on August 3rd in Chicago. Robert says, “Several years ago, I uncovered their real marriage date in the Cook County Hall of Records in Chicago. When I discovered it, I told Maxine. She cracked up. She spent her last years at an assisted living facility.  When I would visit her, she would say, ‘What terrible thing did my father do this time?’” 

Stepping Out with Zeppo

The brothers’ composition changed in 1918 when Gummo joined the army and seventeen-year old Zeppo replaced him, becoming the new fourth Marx Brother in the last few rounds of N’ Everything. Zeppo’s first Brooklyn appearance with the brothers was the June, 1919 stay at Henderson’s Music Hall. 

The brothers decided after seven years of Home Again and N’ Everything that they needed a fresh idea. Herman Tinberg, a vaudevillian who had performed with Gus Edwards, wrote them a revue, On the Mezzanine Floor. It also went under the name On the Balcony to make it seem different when touring different circuits. The concept entailed Groucho trying to marry off his son, Zeppo with Harpo and Chico again playing musicians. The novelty of the show was a two-tiered set where Groucho could climb a ladder, open a shutter and pop out of wooden windows to make wisecracks. This was a forerunner of the wall on Laugh In. Between May 2, 1921 and December 31, 1922, the brothers played On The Mezzanine Floor at Moss’ Flatbush Theater (two engagements), Keith’s Bushwick Theater, Keith’s Orpheum Theater, the Brighton Coney Island Theater at 3101 Ocean Parkway and Sea Breeze Avenue, the Boro Park (two engagements) and the Schubert Crescent Theater.

A Pivotal Three Day Stretch in Brooklyn 

In the summer of 1922, a trip The Marx Brothers made to London resulted in the Keith and Orpheum circuits blacklisting them from American vaudeville. They had violated their contract by not receiving permission to work for someone else. For lack of any other employment, the brothers went to work for the Schubert organization, whose mainstay was legitimate theater. In early December, 1922, On the Mezzanine Floor played at the Schubert Crescent at the Flatbush Extension. A couple of weeks later, The 20th Century Revue, the same show with different title and specialties, appeared at the Boro Park at 5102 New Utrecht Avenue. Both were considered Broadway-type venues.

The Schubert run closed in Indianapolis on March 3, 1923 with the sheriff confiscating the scenery because the shows was in debt. Soon after returning to New York, they received an offer to appear in I’ll Say She Is, a summer revue in Philadelphia. Since they remained blacklisted, they needed of an out-of-the-way place unaffiliated with either circuit where the writer and producer could see them play in front of a live audience and work them into the new show. There were in a bind, worthy of one of their bizarre plots, having already dismissed their company and with no venue available.

Eventually, Brooklyn came to the rescue. The brothers got a three-day booking, April 15 to 18, 1923 at the remote Premier Theater at 509 Sutter Avenue near Hinsdale Street where they showcased an abbreviated performance without the chorus of their 20th Century Revue/On the Mezzanine Floor act. Robert emphasizes the oddness of those three days in East New York. “It must have been a shock to the people who managed the Premier Theater that the four Marx Brothers wanted to come and play. This was probably not even publicized anywhere. I’ve never found an advertisement for The Marx Brothers at the premiere.”

Those crucial three days led to one of the biggest successes of their career, a watershed moment that reinvented The Marx Brothers. I’ll Say She Is, with its zany Duck Soup-like scenario and sets and costumes derived from previous flopped shows, had a successful summer in Philadelphia and then toured for a year. Once it opened on Broadway the brothers become the toast of the town. Right before the debut, they returned to the Schubert Crescent Theater in April, 1924 with the new show.