THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GROUCHO

Dedicated to my friend,

the incredibly talented Frank Ferrante,

who brings Groucho back to life in his performances

For as long as I can remember I have loved the comedian, humorist and writer Groucho Marx [pictured] and his movies, TV shows, and writings.

Groucho, who was Jewish, was not into formal, institutional religion---'organized religion is hogwash,' he was heard to say more than once---but he did start attending services at a Reform synagogue, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, in the final years of his life. It seems, however, that his attendances at the temple were largely to please his then secretary and companion, the controversial Erin Fleming, who had converted to Judaism. None of Groucho's three wives were Jewish, nor was he ever married by a rabbi. And he sent none of his three children to schul or, to my knowledge, Jewish schools. But he was certainly not anti-Semitic or a self-loathing Jew of whom there are more than a few these days.

Groucho would occasionally attend or even hold a Pesach [Passover] Seder but his attitude toward the matter was largely indifferent. For example, when asked to attend one such Seder he said, 'I went to a Seder last year, and it's the same material.' That was Groucho. As Groucho saw it, being an observant Jew meant being a conformist, and that was something Groucho simply couldn't, or rather wouldn't, be.

The truth is Groucho hated institutions of all kinds. For example, the thrice married Groucho, forever the satirist, had this to say about marriage: ‘Marriage is a fine, upstanding institution, but who wants to live in an institution?’ That is what he thought of institutions. As for his three marriages and three divorces, he quipped, 'Take the wives out of marriage and there wouldn't be any divorces ... In union there is alimony.'

Groucho was a realist and cynic---the 'high priest of rationalism' in the words of famed humorist, academic and writer Leo Rosten. ‘I’m the brash, realistic type,’ he once said. 'Whatever it is, I'm against it.' Of that there was no doubt.

A number of persons, including his son Arthur and the actor Stanley Holloway (with whom Groucho starred in a 1960 Bell Telephone Hour television production of The Mikado), have written that Groucho was an agnostic. On one occasion, when speaking about his father Sam, Groucho said, ‘Sam was a great cook. He could convert leftovers into something fit for the gods, assuming there are any left.’ And he had this to say about the last film in which he appeared [see image below]: ‘In my last film [Skidoo] I played God. Jesus, I hope God doesn’t look like that.’ (By the way, lest there be any confusion on the matter, the character 'God' that Groucho played in that 1968 film---a film which at the time it was released was a bomb but which has since acquired quite a cult following---was a top mobster who lives on a yacht in international waters and gives orders to have people liquidated.)

If there's any doubt about what Groucho thought of organized religion, there's this priceless gem:

I was in Montreal and a priest came up to me, put out his hand, and said, 'I want to thank you for all the joy you've put into this world.' And I shook his hand, and said, 'And I want to thank you for all the joy you've taken out of this world.' He said, 'Could I use that next Sunday in my sermon?' I said, 'Yes you can, but you'll have to pay the William Morris office ten per cent.'

Although not formally religious Groucho did identify very closely with the Jewish people and during his long lifetime he donated generously to a number of Jewish charities and causes. He was also the victim of anti-Semitism. He would often recall the time when a country club manager told him he couldn't use the swimming pool. His reply has made it into countless books of quotations. ‘Since my daughter is only half-Jewish, could she go in up to her knees?’ He would also tell this one:

Two Jewish men in Israel are in adjoining urinals. One says to the other, ‘Are you Jewish?’ He says, ‘Yes.’ So the first man says, ‘How is it you’re not circumcised?’ ‘Well,’ says the other guy, ‘I’m not sure I’m going to stay.’

Groucho would tell a lot of jokes about being Jewish. Here's another one:

Two men--one a hunchback--were passing a synagogue. One of them turns to the other and says, ‘You know, I used to be a Jew.’ And the other says, ‘Really? I used to be a hunchback.’

Groucho certainly did not believe in an afterlife. ‘You only live once, despite what Jesus or somebody said … Go out to the garden and tear a flower in four. It won’t be a flower again.’ He said that in a 1969 New York Times interview. A few years later he was asked by Bill Cosby whether he believed in life after death---this was in 1973 when Groucho appeared on Bill’s TV show---and this was Groucho’s reply: ‘I’m beginning to have serious doubts about life before death.’ Love it. Then there’s this whimsical quip: ‘Someday we’ll meet in Heaven. New York. Or Philadelphia.’ 

Occasionally Groucho would undisparagingly use religious language, more so in his later years. For example, in his book The GrouchoPhile, published in 1976, Groucho had this to say about his brother Chico:

Chico was a rogue and a scamp. Had the Lord spared him and allowed him a few more years, he wouldn’t have changed. I can imagine that after being rescued from death’s door, he would look God straight in the eye and ask, ‘What odds will You give me on another ten years?’

I’m sure Groucho did not pray in any traditional way, despite once having asked, somewhat facetiously it seems, his eldest daughter Miriam to pray for the success of a certain Broadway show written by some friends of his. However, he did write this in his 1976 book The Secret Word is Groucho:

There’s a prayer of sorts I recite to myself every night. I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s me: ‘Unborn tomorrow, and dead yesterday, why fret about them if today be sweet?’

Well, I do know where that ‘prayer of sorts’ comes from. It’s from the The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. (I've written a post on that one.)

On another occasion Groucho expressed it this way. ‘Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, and I’m going to be happy in it.’ On yet another occasion he expanded on the same theme:

Each morning, when I open my eyes, I say to myself 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.

As for the past, it was a case of letting the past stay in the past, which is very wise. So many people can't do that. Anyway, Groucho expressed it this way in a letter that he wrote to his daughter Miriam in 1954:

There’s an old saying, ‘Let the dead past bury its dead,’ and I am a firm believer in never looking backward. There are too many horrifying things lurking there.

But here's a paradox. Groucho once penned a magazine article---one of many---entitled 'Bad Days are Good Memories,' in which he wrote that the memory of a dreadful, miserable experience can be a happy one. Yes, a happy one. The memory in question---his 'happiest memory,' he said---was when he was a boy actor, stranded in Colorado, hungry and broke. Not only that, but ...

For me, a happy experience does not necessarily mean a happy memory. On the contrary, I am sometimes jealous of my past.

If you think about that for a while it kinda makes sense. 

The 'secret' of life, said Groucho elsewhere, is to stay happy ... and have fun. As Groucho put it, ‘If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong.’ So, if you are not having fun, look within to find out what needs changing ... in you. Ditto me. (It was only during Groucho's last hospitalization in mid-1977, having already endured several strokes, a major heart attack, a broken hip, respiratory problems, and various other maladies, that he was heard to say plaintively to his literary collaborator and biographer Hector Arce, 'This is no way to live.')

Groucho once told the veteran showbiz writer and celebrity interviewer Pete Martin that he got the advice about choosing to be happy one day at a time from a 100-year old man who appeared on Groucho’s TV show You Bet Your Life. It’s damn good advice. No matter what happens to us in life, we all have choices. We can always choose how to respond to what happens. As Groucho expressed it:

When we get up in the morning we have two choices. We can either be happy or unhappy. We make our own choice. The more times we choose happiness the longer we’ll live.

But is that easy to sustain? No, it's not, said Groucho:

It’s hard to choose happiness when you get up in the morning with a hangover or the market has dropped down a hole and taken your lifetime savings with it.

The latter actually happened to Groucho in the stockmarket crash of 1929, so he was talking from personal experience.

You know, each of us is in the manufacturing business. We manufacture our own happiness or unhappiness every moment of every day. You determine whether you're happy, and I determine whether I'm happy. It's as simple as that. Not easy, but simple.

Groucho may not have believed in religion or the hereafter but he did believe in life---and in living fully and deeply. ‘I intend to live forever, or die trying,’ he once quipped.

He died trying. But his legacy will live on forever.

Material owned and controlled by the Estate of Groucho Marx
or other rightsholders is copyright. Fair use permitted. All rights reserved.

RELATED POST

AM I CRANKY, GROUCHO? YOU BET YOUR LIFE!

AM I CRANKY, GROUCHO? YOU BET YOUR LIFE!

Dedicated to the memory of

Julius Henry Marx

(1890-1977)



For someone who advocates the regular practice of mindfulness and other spiritual practices I have to admit---with all self-honesty and with a little (but not too much) guilt---that I have become a most cranky ‘old’ man.

I remember the day so very well. It was April 13, 1969. (I still have the newspaper---well, the relevant page---to prove it.) It was early on a Sunday morning, and I went outside my parents’ house to collect the newspaper, which would have been somewhere on the nature strip or driveway. The paper was The Sun-Herald. On page 58 there was an article about my all-time favourite comedian Groucho Marx [pictured right and below]. The article (with a byline by Don Riseborough 'in New York') was headed ‘Groucho Gets the Grouches,’ but it was a reworking of a widely syndicated article that I’ve traced to an article entitled ‘Is Groucho Serious? You Bet Your Life!’ published in The New York Times on April 8, 1969 (on page 40) with a byline by Israel Shenker.

I read the article with great interest and gusto, but I was devastated. Yes, devastated---totally. My hero Groucho had turned into a cranky---indeed very angry---and bitter old man. So sad, I thought, that this funny man could say that he was tired of being funny. Now, he was deadly serious, and it seemed to me that he would remain that way. No more funny stuff would issue from his mouth. Fortunately, I was wrong on all that. (I was aged 14 at the time.) Mr Marx would have a couple more showbiz and literary hurrahs before he joined his brothers Chico, Harpo and Gummo in death on August 19, 1977. Regrettably, that did not stop The New Republic---a liberal periodical Groucho liked---writing, not long before his death, that Groucho 'has made more than an old man's share of cranky and bigoted remarks in the past few years' (May 21, 1977, p 61).

Now, back to this article which, by the way, I carried round on my person for several days thereafter, hoping as many people as possible would see it ... as if that might somehow persuade Groucho to be 'funny' again. Groucho railed against the churches, organized religion, and the folly of belief in any sort of afterlife. ‘You only live once, despite what Jesus or somebody said … Go out to the garden and tear a flower in four. It won’t be a flower again.’ He railed against the military-industrial complex, saying, ‘You know there are 1,800 retired admirals and generals hustling business for the various munitions companies. I’d have them shot.’ He railed against crime, of which there was plenty at that time. He railed against militant students---the ones for whom he was a hero, a god---saying, ‘Kids today are detestable, and thank God mine are grown up.’ He railed against the war in Vietnam, saying, ‘It would be different if we were fighting a just war, if there is any such thing. … We have no right to be in Vietnam.’ He railed against nudity in the theatre … and many other things. Most of all, he railed against his own country---the United States of America---which, he felt, had lost its way in the world. (I fear the latter is true even more so today. Lost its way---and lost the plot.) Yes, Groucho railed against almost everyone and everything. Groucho---the Groucho I had loved for years (I still do)---had turned into a cranky and embittered old man.

I, too, have become a cranky ‘old’ man of 57. (At least Groucho was 78---but generally thought to be 73---at the time of the above mentioned articles and interview.) Actually, I think I have been a cranky ‘old’ man for quite some time now. Still, I would like to think I am not quite as cranky and bigoted as Groucho---bless him---appeared to be in his later years, notwithstanding that his political views were generally leftist over a very long period of time.

So, what am I cranky about? Well, many things---far too many to mention in this one post. You see, I've got more than a little list. For starters, I am cranky about the lack of manners in society these days. When manners go, we risk returning to the law of the jungle. Manners---not so much the rule of law---hold society together. I am cranky about the crap that is on commercial television these days (has it ever been any different?), especially so-called reality television. I am cranky about the ascendancy of a most nasty and selfish form of conservatism in politics and religion---especially in the United States of America, but also in Australia and many other countries. Damn you. I am cranky that countries such as China and, yes, the US are not taking climate change seriously enough. Damn you. (At least Australia has a tax on carbon.) I am angry that American political leaders---including the current President (whose record on human rights issues has been most disappointing, indeed worse than that of his immediate predecessor)---don't have the guts to take on the powerful gun lobby in that country. Damn you.

I'm not finished by any means. I am also cranky about the lies all our politicians routinely tell us---and how they ‘stay on message’ (oh, how I hate those words) without ever answering the question nor saying anything meaningful. Damn you. I am cranky about the effects that postmodernism has had on educational and literacy standards---the dumbing down of education and all that. Terrible stuff. I saw it happen with my own eyes during the many years that I taught some 9,000 law students, but I was totally powerless to do anything about it. Damn all those responsible. I am cranky about ambulance-chasing lawyers who claim they are only interested in their injured clients. Damn them (the lawyers, that is). I am cranky about the inequitable distribution of income and wealth in this country (Australia) and elsewhere. Like Groucho, a certain thought---followed by certain words---takes form within my mind from time to time---‘I’d have them shot.’ Then, I recoil, as did Groucho, who went on to say in that 1969 interview, ‘That was facetious about having them shot. But it wouldn’t be a great loss if those pot-bellied thieves were put out of their misery.’ No, it wouldn't. Well, Groucho, the thieves in the big end of town are less pot-bellied today---many of them go to the gym and work out regularly---but they are still thieves for all that. And, in the words of W S Gilbert (whom Groucho especially admired), ‘I don't think they'd be missed, I'm sure they'd not be missed!’ Yes, damn them all. Strong stuff? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m sure we all feel that way at times.

Yes, Groucho was serious---and angry. So am I ... even though I will never be in the same league as Julius Henry Marx (his real name). Not even in the same ballpark. Nor even in the same city or county.

Well, what am I going to do about it? Well, for one thing, I will continue to watch Marx Brothers movies as well as episodes of Groucho’s long-running quiz show You Bet Your Life ...

That may not be a cure for my crankiness---indeed, it may even worsen the condition---but I don’t care. I will die laughing, no matter what.

Yes, I am serious. In Groucho's own words, 'I'm the brash, realistic type,' the guy who says the emperor has no clothes on. Shoot me if you wish.


POSTSCRIPT. Since I first wrote this post Australia has had a change of government at the federal level. The carbon tax referred to above has been abolished, and a bunch of climate change skeptics are now in power. The US is now doing better than Australia as respects action on climate chnage. Shame, Australia, shame. IEJ.


NOTE. Here's a tribute to Groucho Marx that I wrote in August 1978 when I was aged 23. IEJ.


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