Zeppo Marx

"Zeppo" redirects here. For the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, seeThe Zeppo.Forzeppo-,a 1993 facetious proposal for an SI unit prefix standing for 10⁻³³,seeUnit prefix § Unofficial prefixes.

Herbert Manfred"Zeppo"Marx(February 25, 1901 – November 30, 1979) was an American comedic actor. He was the youngest, and last survivor, of the fiveMarx Brothers.He appeared in the first five Marx Brothers feature films from 1929 to 1933, and then left the act for careers as an engineer and theatrical agent.

Zeppo Marx
Zeppo in 1931
Born	Herbert Manfred Marx (1901-02-25)February 25, 1901 New York City,New York,U.S.
Died	November 30, 1979(1979-11-30)(aged 78) Rancho Mirage, California,U.S.
Other names	Herbert Marx
Occupations	Actor comedian theatrical agent engineer
Years active	1918−1978
Known for	Duck Soup,Monkey Business,Marman clamp
Spouses	Marion Benda ​ ​ (m.1927;div.1954)​ Barbara Blakeley ​ ​ (m.1959;div.1973)​
Children	2
Parent(s)	Sam "Frenchie" Marx Minnie Schönberg
Relatives	Chico Marx(older brother) Harpo Marx(older brother) Groucho Marx(older brother) Gummo Marx(older brother) Al Shean(maternal uncle)

Early life

Marx was born in Manhattan. His parents wereSam Marx(called "Frenchie" throughout his life) andMinnie Schönberg Marx,both Jewish. Minnie's brother wasAl Shean,who later gained fame as half of the vaudeville teamGallagher and Shean.His mother was fromEast Frisiain Germany and his father was a tailor fromAlsace,France.

Name

As with all of the Marx Brothers, various theories exist regarding the origin of Zeppo's stage name. His older brotherGrouchosaid in hisCarnegie Hallconcert in 1972that the name was derived from theZeppelinairship, and Zeppo's ex-wifeBarbara Sinatrarepeated this claim in her 2011 bookLady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank.In his 1961 autobiographyHarpo Speaks!,older brotherHarposaid that there was a trained chimpanzee named Mr. Zippo that Herbert would imitate, but when Herbert objected to being named after a chimp, it was altered to Zeppo. In a rare television interview years later, Zeppo said that "Zep" was Italian-American slang for "baby", and the name fit as he was the youngest of the brothers.

Career

Early career and the Marx Brothers

Zeppo replaced brother Gummo in the Marx Brothers' stage act when Gummo was drafted into the army in 1918. Zeppo had been employed as a mechanic for theFord Motor Company.He had no desire for a show business career, but Minnie Marx insisted that he replace Gummo because she wanted to maintain the act as a foursome. Zeppo remained with the team invaudeville,Broadwayand the first five Marx Brothers films as thestraight manand romantic lead until leaving the act followingDuck Soupin 1933. He also appeared without his brothers in a minor role theAdolphe MenjoucomedyA Kiss in the Dark(1925), billed as Herbert Marx. His performance was praised by theNew York Sun.

Barbara Sinatra said that he was considered too young to perform with his brothers, but when Gummo joined the army, Zeppo was asked to join the act as a last-minute replacement at a show in Texas. He and a Jewish friend were supposed to have a date with two Irish girls, but Zeppo canceled in order to board the train to Texas. His friend was shot several hours later by a gang that disapproved of Jews dating Irish girls.

Having watched his brothers for many years, Zeppo could imitate and replace any of the others when illness kept them from performing live on stage.

Zeppo (far right) with three of his brothers on the cover ofTimein 1932

Groucho said: "He was so good as Captain Spaulding inAnimal Crackersthat I would have let him play the part indefinitely if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience. "However, Zeppo did not develop his own comic persona to play against those of his brothers. Critic Percy Hammond wrote in 1928:

One of the handicaps to the thorough enjoyment of the Marx Brothers in their merry escapades is the plight of poor Zeppo Marx. While Groucho, Harpo, and Chico are hogging the show, as the phrase has it, their brother hides in an insignificant role, peeping out now and then to listen to plaudits in which he has no share.

Zeppo did impersonate one of his brothers -- only once -- in a movie. There was a day during the filming ofAnimal Crackerswhen Groucho couldn't appear. The scene being filmed was Groucho and Margaret Dumont discussing strange noises during the theft of a painting. Zeppo stepped in, wearing Groucho's costume and makeup, and the scene was rigged so there was a power failure. Thus the action could be filmed almost in darkness, hiding the deception. The giveaway is when "Groucho" turns his head to investigate the noises, the light catches Zeppo's distinctive profile.

The popular assumption that Zeppo's character was superfluous was fueled in part by Groucho. According to Groucho's own story, when the group became the Three Marx Brothers, the studio wanted to trim their collective salary, and Groucho replied, "We're twice as funny without Zeppo!"

Zeppo was mechanically adept and largely responsible for keeping the Marx family car running. He later owned Marman Products Co., which machined parts for the war effort duringWorld War II.The company produced a motorcycle called theMarman Twinas well as theMarman clampsused to hold theatomic bombsinside theB-29 bombersEnola GayandBockscar.He obtained patents for a wristwatch that monitored pulse rate and sounded an alarm if the heartbeat became irregular,and a therapeutic pad for delivering moist heat to a patient.

The 2024 book by Robert S BaderZeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brothersaid that Zeppo was deeply associated with gangsters, and was called to testify before agrand juryin 1958 about missing funds in a gambling syndicate. According to Bader his brothers were so worried about his associates and high-stakes gambling that they considered disowning him; but they were always personally close.

After retiring from the screen, Zeppo founded a large theatrical agency with his brother Gummo and they represented numerous screenwriters and actors, including their brothers.

Personal life

Zeppo introducedMary LivingstonetoJack Bennyduring aPassover seder;they married in 1926.

On April 12, 1927, Zeppo married Marion Benda (née Bimberg).They adopted two children, Timothy and Thomas, in 1944 and 1945, and divorced on May 12, 1954. On September 18, 1959, Zeppo marriedBarbara Blakeley.He wanted to adopt and give his surname to her son Bobby Oliver, but Bobby's father would not allow it. However, Bobby did later use the last name of Marx.

Barbara, aMethodist,wrote in her bookLady Blue Eyesthat Zeppo never forced her to convert to Judaism, but that he told her that she became Jewish by "injection."Barbara also wrote that Zeppo wanted to keep her son at a distance and added a guest house separated from the main residence for him. Zeppo was reportedly pleased when the boy was sent to military school.

Zeppo owned a house on Halper Lake Drive inRancho Mirage, California,near the residence ofFrank Sinatra.Along with his brothers Groucho and Harpo, Zeppo was a member of theHillcrest Country Clubwith friends such as Sinatra,George Burns,Jack Benny,Danny Kaye,Sid CaesarandMilton Berle.

Barbara became involved withCedars-Sinai Medical Centerand had arranged to showSpartacus(1960) for charity, selling tickets and organizing a post-screening ball. At the last minute, Barbara was told that she could not show the film, so Zeppo spoke to Sinatra, who gave them an early release of the recently completedCome Blow Your Horn.Sinatra also flew everyone involved toPalm Springsfor the event.

Sinatra began to invite Barbara and Zeppo to his house two or three times per week, and often sent champagne and wine to their home. Barbara and Sinatra began a love affair without Zeppo's knowledge, and the tabloid newspapers published photos showing them together. Barbara and Sinatra denied the affair until after she and Zeppo divorced in 1973.

In the divorce settlement, Zeppo allowed Barbara to keep a 1969Jaguar car,and agreed to pay herUS$1,500 (equivalent to $10,625 in 2024) per month for 10 years. Barbara and Frank Sinatra continued to date and were hounded by the press until her divorce became final; they married in 1976.

In 1973, 37-year old Jean Bodul, the future wife of mobsterJimmy Fratianno,accused Zeppo of assaulting her; she sued and a jury awarded her $20,690 in 1978 (equivalent to $99,745 in 2024).

Zeppo became ill with cancer in 1978. The disease went intoremissionbut returned. An ailing Zeppo turned to his former wife Barbara for support and she accompanied him to medical appointments and treatment sessions. He spent his last days with her family.

Death

Zeppo died oflung cancerat theEisenhower Medical Centerin Rancho Mirage on November 30, 1979, at the age of 78. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered into thePacific Ocean.

In his will, Zeppo left stepson Bobby Marx a few possessions and enough money to finish law school. Frank and Barbara Sinatra attended his funeral.

Legacy

Several critics have challenged the notion that Zeppo did not develop a comic persona in his films.James Ageeconsidered Zeppo "a peerlessly cheesy improvement on the traditional straight man."Along similar lines,Gerald Mast,in his bookThe Comic Mind: Comedy and Movies,noted that Zeppo's comedic persona, while certainly more subtle than his brothers', was undeniably present:

[He] added a fourth dimension as the cliché of the [romantic] juvenile, the bland wooden espouser of sentiments that seem to exist only in the world of the sound stage.... [He is] too schleppy, too nasal, and too wooden to be taken seriously.

Reviewing the 1924 playI'll Say She Is,The New York Daily Newscalled Zeppo "the obliging audience of the family – the feeder who helps his brothers be funny by playing straight himself."WhenThe New York Timesreviewed the brothers' debut filmThe Cocoanutsin 1929, it ranked all four Marx Brothers equally: "When the four Marx brothers are on the screen, it's a riot." The review also described each brother's unique style of comedy and praised Zeppo as "the handsome but dogged straight man with the charisma of an enamel washstand."

In his essay "The Marx Brothers: From Vaudeville to Hollywood,"Robert S. Bader observed that the Marx Brothers as a trio without Zeppo should be considered a different comedy team. He noted that "changes in the Marx Brothers' screen personas [were] immediate and apparent" with fewervaudevillianelements, more in tune with standard Hollywood comedies in which "love stories [were] injected in the plots [to] make their films more palatable to female moviegoers." He noted Zeppo's absence in the brothers' new act:

Their zaniness and anarchy would be heavily diluted at M-G-M as the studio found them a wider audience.… These are not vaudeville's Marx Brothers. But in the Paramount films they certainly are the Marx Brothers of the stage – the FOUR Marx Brothers, as Minnie intended them to be. While Zeppo may not be as busy as his brothers, they function best as a quartet. Groucho may have had other capable straight men, but when Zeppo takes a letter to the honorable Charles H. Hoongerdoonger, Marx Brothers fans know he's the best man for the job.… Those five films are one of the last links to the era when vaudeville was the primary form of entertainment in America – and the Four Marx Brothers were packing vaudeville theaters across the country. Of course they were still great as a trio in their later films, but if you want to know what it was like to see them on stage, you need to start with four of them – and their first five films.

In her bookHello, I Must Be Going: Groucho & His Friends,Charlotte Chandlerdefended Zeppo as "the Marx Brothers' interpreter in the worlds they invaded. He was neither totally a straight man nor totally a comedian, but combined elements of both, as didMargaret Dumont.Zeppo's importance to the Marx Brothers' initial success was as a Marx Brother who could 'pass' as a normal person. None of Zeppo's replacements (Allan Jones,Tony Martinand others) could assume this character as convincingly as Zeppo, because they were actors, and Zeppo was the real thing, cast to type. "Chandler's appraisal of Zeppo's role in the films—as an" interpreter "for his older brothers to the audience—was essentially confirmed by Groucho, who once noted that Zeppo's role was" handsome, obtuse, slightly wooden "and that he" brought logic to a basically illogical story, "acting as" an intrusion "to their otherwise complete anarchy.

Zeppo's comic persona was further highlighted in the dictation scene ofAnimal Crackers.In his bookGroucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo,Joe Adamsonanalyzed the scene, detailing how it revealed Zeppo's ability to best Groucho with simple rebuttals. In the scene, Groucho dictates a letter to his lawyer, which Zeppo writes. Adamson noted:

There is a common assumption that Zeppo = Zero, which this scene does its best to contradict. Groucho dictating a letter to anybody else would hardly be cause for rejoicing. We have to believe that someone will be there to accept all his absurdities and even respond somewhat in kind before things can progress free from conflict into this genial mishmash. Groucho clears his throat in the midst of his dictation, and Zeppo asks him if he wants that in the letter. Groucho says, 'No, put it in the envelope.' Zeppo nods. And only Zeppo could even try such a thing as taking down the heading and the salutation and leaving out the letter because it didn't sound important to him. It takes a Marx Brother to pull something like that on a Marx Brother and get away with it.

In the same book, Adamson noted Zeppo's position as the campy parody of the juvenile romantic inHorse Feathers:

Each Marx Brother has his own form of comedy. Zeppo is at his funniest when he opens his mouth and sings. It has taken forty years, of course, for the full humor to come across. For a normal comedian this may be bad timing, but for a Marx Brother it's immortality. Almost every crooner of 1932 looks stilted and awkward now, but with Zeppo, who was never very convincing in the first place, the effect crosses the threshold into lovable comedy. "I think you're wonderful!" he oozes charmingly toThelma Todd,and weknowhe never met her before shooting started.

Critic Danél Griffin, who praised Zeppo as "that great comic parody of the schleppy juvenile role of the 1920s/30s musicals," believed that the onscreen dynamic between Groucho and Zeppo was one of the "key relationships between the individual Marx Brothers [that] shape their comedic strategy, not counting when the four of them are onstage together." Griffin wrote that Zeppo would often offer ideas that Groucho would cultivate into comedic routines:

Zeppo's onscreen relationship with Groucho has always been tricky to ascertain; Zeppo is generally Groucho's aloof secretary in their films, but he is seemingly capable of reducing Groucho to stunned silence with simple, plain-English rebuttals (seeAnimal Crackers) when Chico's snappy comebacks only fuel Groucho’s insults all the more.… Zeppo's parts are usually small, but he performs exactly what is required of him as an outwardly wooden fellow who is incapable of being rattled by a man whose business is to rattle.

Allen W. Ellis wrote in his article "Yes, Sir: The Legacy of Zeppo Marx":

Indeed, Zeppo is a link between the audience and Groucho, Harpo and Chico. In a sense, heisus on the screen. He knows who those guys are and what they are capable of. As he ambles out of a scene, perhaps it is to watch them do their business, to come back in as necessary to move the film along, and again to join in the celebration of the finish. Further, Zeppo is crucial to the absurdity of the Paramount films. The humor is in his incongruity. Typically he dresses like a normal person, in stark contrast to Groucho's greasepaint and 'formal' attire, Harpo's rags, and Chico's immigrant hand-me-downs. By most accounts, he is the handsomest of the brothers, yet that handsomeness is distorted by his familial resemblance to the others – sure, he's handsome, but it is a decidedly peculiar, Marxian handsomeness. By making the group four, Zeppo adds symmetry, and in the surrealistic worlds of the Paramount films, this symmetry upsets rather than confirms balance: it is chaos born of symmetry. That he is a plank in a maelstrom, along with the very concept of 'this guy' who is there for no real reason, who joins in and is accepted by these other three wildmen while the narrative offers no explanation, are wonderful in their pure absurdity. 'To string things together in a seemingly purposeless way,' saidMark Twain,'and to be seemingly unaware that they are absurd, is the mark of American humor.' The 'sense' injected into the nonsense only compounds the nonsense.

In a eulogy for Zeppo written in 1979 forThe Washington Post,columnist Tom Zito wrote:

Thank goodness for Zeppo, who never really cracked a joke on screen. At least not directly. He just took it from Groucho, in more ways than one.... If Groucho, Chico and Harpo were the funny guys, Zeppo was theEveryman,the loser who'd come running out of the grocery store only to find the meter maid sticking the parking ticket on his Hungadunga.

In Marc Eliot's 2005 biography ofCary Grant,Eliot wrote that as a teenager, Grant favored Zeppo:

While the rest of the country preferred Groucho, Zeppo, the good-looking straight man and romantic lead, was Archie's favorite, the one whose foil timing he believed was the real key to the act's success. Not long after, Archie began to augment his already well-practiced "suave" Fairbanks look and dress with a Zeppo-like fancy bowtie (called a jazz-bow, or jazzbo, during the Roaring Twenties) and copied his brilliantine hairstyle, adding Dixie Peach, a favorite pomade of American black performers and show business leads, by the palmful to his thick dark mop, to give it a molded, comb-streaked blue-black Zeppo sheen.

In his bookThe Anarchy of the Imagination: Interviews, Essays, Notes,filmmakerRainer Werner Fassbinderincluded Zeppo among the ten greatest film actors of all time.

In a June 2016 review of anOff-Broadwayrevival ofI'll Say She Is,The New Yorker'sAdam Gopnikwrote:

Matt [Walters], becoming Zeppo, is a reminder that the Marxes were never quite as good again after they lost their one straight man. The object of the Marxes' comedy is anarchy, but its subject is fraternity: they are in it together to the end. Zeppo's inclusion in the family made the others less like clowns and more like brothers.

In popular culture

In an episode of the television seriesCheers,Lilith Cranesays that Zeppo was her favorite Marx brother.

A third-season episode of the television seriesBuffy the Vampire Slayeris titled "The Zeppo"and focuses on the perspective of characterXander Harris,whose position as the least impressive or capable member of the cast is compared to the similar perception of Zeppo Marx.

TheMystery Science Theater 3000characterTV's Frankrevealed in Episode 323 featuringSax Rohmer'sThe Castle of Fu Manchuthat while he was working atArby's,he was given the nickname of Zeppo because of his supposed sense of humor.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1921	Humor Risk	The Love Interest	Short, lost
1925	A Kiss in the Dark	unknown role
1929	The Cocoanuts	Jamison
1930	Animal Crackers	Horatio Jamison
1931	The House That Shadows Built	Sammy Brown
1931	Monkey Business	Zeppo
1932	Horse Feathers	Frank Wagstaff
1933	Duck Soup	Lt. Bob Roland, Firefly's secretary	(his last role)

External links

• Zeppo MarxatIMDb
• Zeppo Marxat theTCM Movie Database
• Zeppo Marxat theInternet Broadway Database
• The Marx Brothers Council Podcastepisode devoted to Zeppo
• "Zeppo's Last Interview".Archived from the original on November 26, 2004.RetrievedJuly 3,2008.