Groucho Marx
The Comedy of Existence
-
-
3.5 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $17.99
-
- $17.99
Publisher Description
Born Julius Marx in 1890, the brilliant comic actor who would later be known as Groucho was the most verbal of the famed comedy team, the Marx Brothers, his broad slapstick portrayals elevated by ingenious wordplay and double entendre. In his spirited biography of this beloved American iconoclast, Lee Siegel views the life of Groucho through the lens of his work on stage, screen, and television. The author uncovers the roots of the performer’s outrageous intellectual acuity and hilarious insolence toward convention and authority in Groucho’s early upbringing and Marx family dynamics.
The first critical biography of Groucho Marx to approach his work analytically, this fascinating study draws unique connections between Groucho’s comedy and his life, concentrating primarily on the brothers’ classic films as a means of understanding and appreciating Julius the man. Unlike previous uncritical and mostly reverential biographies, Siegel’s “bio-commentary” makes a distinctive contribution to the field of Groucho studies by attempting to tell the story of his life in terms of his work, and vice versa.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Born in October 1890, Julius Henry Marx was the third of five surviving sons, and he would grow up to become Groucho, the most famous of the Marx Brothers. Drawing heavily on previous biographies and other studies of the vaudevillian, film star, comedian, and television host, journalist Siegel (Are You Serious?) provides a captivating glimpse of how Marx turned himself into a legend. Siegel examines in detail Marx's most acclaimed films with his brothers, such as Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera, as well as his days on the stage, to highlight how Marx seamlessly blended stage persona and personal identity. For example, Siegel observes that Marx turned his anxiety about being a nobody back on itself with his famous joke about not wanting to belong to a club that would have him for a member, thereby "negat the world around him to carve out a private freedom." Siegel covers topics including Marx's misogyny, his television career as host of You Bet Your Life, and the essentially Jewish character of his humor. While Siegel offers no new information about Marx's life, he encourages readers to see the films again, for they contain "Groucho's fullest disclosure of who he really was."
