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Groucho was a cigar-chomping wit with an impossible moustache, Chico was a piano-playing rustic grifter and Zeppo played the straight-laced man. But as any fan of the Marx Brothers knows, Harpo was the pantomime, who blew the audience away without saying a word, in his tattered raincoat and curly wig. His personality was childish and wild and musical – he let his harp and taxi horn do the talking. But now we see, or rather hear, a new side of Harpo Marx. A rare recording has been uncovered of Harpo in 1964 speaking to an audience, in character.
Arthur “Harpo” Marx was born Adolph Marx in New York in 1888. He started performing with his brothers in 1910, and his nickname may have come from his instrument of choice – he was a self-taught musician. By 1915, because of his nervousness when speaking on stage, Harpo re-introduced himself as a mute, and remained so, even when he was offered $50,000 to speak one word (“Murder!”) in the Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca (1946).
Harpo sometimes spoke to his audience, says historian Robert Bader, author of Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage. “If the audience was good, or if they thought it was a great show, or how much fun they had, they would come out and talk about it.” These monologues became known as Red’s Speech, and in the 1920s, the famous artist Alexander Woollcott recorded Harpo’s famous lines, turning them into “a brilliant, crazy speech with all these words that Harpo himself would not have used”. Harpo stepped forward, unrolled a large scroll and began to speak. His son Bill Marx recalls: “He was very soft-spoken. One of his greatest joys was going back to his childhood, and it came out in the way he spoke.”
But these monologues, like the speeches he gave at the service, were not written down. “He had a sweet voice,” says Bader. “He should have done more. So when he went and did this in front of people, he did it with compassion.”
In the early 1960s, Harpo retired three times because of his health, but he couldn’t resist. Bader says he’s always looking for a way to get back on stage, saying he doesn’t see charity gigs as work. “Harpo always tries to play where he wants to go and play in front of people without calling it a job.”
The promoters of the Riverside Symphony Orchestra in southern California in March 1964, promised that the 75-year-old Harpo would speak, which should attract public attention: “Harpo Marx interprets Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf in a book he wrote alone with Groucho.” After a portion of the show’s music, including the Toy Symphony, and two songs arranged by Bill, Harpo got on the lectern and said: “Believe it or not… I’m going to talk.” That day, to an audience full of children, Harpo narrated Peter and the Wolf, which, as Bill Marx explains, was a family favorite: “It’s a throwback to childhood.”
Harpo also gave the “Red Word”, referring to his two sons, who were present that night. He included references to the Republican primaries that were then in full swing. This was his brother’s influence, says Bader: “Harpo didn’t wear his political clothes, but Groucho did.” You can also hear Harpo responding to the audience, with a bit of direction.
“What was not announced was that this time there would be a microphone to record Harpo’s voice.” And of course, one knew that it would be his last public performance. It was very special to me.
It took a lot of technical skill to make the text sound good. Harpo is not well trained in being in the microphone for one thing. But now the show can be enjoyed, just like it was in 1964. “You know, we try to keep the Marx Brothers alive in any way we can,” says Bader. “People who were longtime Marx Brothers fans will see a side of him they didn’t know.”
Bill describes the recording as “a joy to listen to… a piece of comedy and film and history that must endure”. He was not at the Riverside that night, but he remembers seeing his father perform for the first time at the London Palladium in 1950, when he was hired as a 12-year-old propman, filling the pockets of Harpo’s overcoat with all his toys and equipment. “He was my first introduction to show business and what he did and how he did it. And the fact that people love this guy.
