Groucho’s birthday
Posted by Richard on October 2, 2011
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was born on October 2, 1890. He was, IMHO, one of the 3 or 4 funniest men of the 20th century. If you've never seen him as Rufus T. Firefly in Duck Soup, you don't know what you're missing. Check out A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, too. Here are some of my favorite Groucho quotes.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
I have nothing but respect for you — and not much of that.
Marriage is a wonderful institution. But who wants to live in an institution?
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
A man is only as old as the woman he feels.
She got her good looks from her father–he's a plastic surgeon.
I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.
I intend to live forever, or die trying.
Groucho died on August 19, 1977. Three days after Elvis. So almost no one noticed.
Here's an interesting bit of Groucho trivia from IMDB:
In 1989, the Republic of Abkhazia (in the former Soviet Georgia) proclaimed independence. To show the world they were rejecting their Communist past, they issued two postage stamps of Groucho Marx and John Lennon (as opposed to Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin).
That gloriously revolutionary act also paid homage to the greatest comedy recording troupe of all time, Firesign Theater, and their marvelous 1969 album, How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All and its "All Hail Marx Lennon" cover featuring pictures of Groucho and John.
Rick Shultz said
Groucho Marx will forever be my hero and I, for one, would bump him up to No. 1 on the funniest men of the twentieth century list. He was one the few geuine practicing revolutionary anarchists to inhabit this dirt ball we live on and he made it a much better place, for me at least, than it otherwise would have been. Groucho said and did pretty much whatever the hell he wanted to his whole life. He had the conjones to do what others thought of doing but didn’t, and say what others thought of saying but didn’t. One of my most treasured recordings is a vinyl
pressing of “An Evening With Groucho” which was pretty much the last concert he did. Dick Cavett introduced Groucho and told the audience of the first time met Groucho coming from
the funneral of George S. Kaufmann, a man Groucho often said was his God, and how Groucho invited him to walk down 5th Ave with to the Plaza hotel where Groucho was staying stopping every block or so, as Cavett said “so Groucho could insult a doorman” and when they arrived
at the Plaza Groucho invited Cavett to have lunch and Cavett, who of course wrote down as much of it as he could remember, said that when the meal was over, the waiter and the bell captain both came over to take Groucho’s dessert order and Groucho said to the waiter “Do
you have any fruit you could recommend? And I don’t mean the Captain here!” It just doesn’t get any better than this folks! :=)
Rick Shultz said
I thought after I wrote this, and I decided there are a few other people in Groucho’s life who deserve as least an honorable mention. Among them: Otis B. Driftwood, J. Cheever Loophole,
Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbusch, and, always, Captain Jeffrey Spaulding.
John McPherson said
Really Richard, Groucho was indeed 3 or 4 of the funniest men that ever lived. Give credit where credit is due, and oh, can I borrow a hundred?”