167-399: Julius Henry " Groucho " Marx ( / ˈ ɡ r aʊ tʃ oʊ / ; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer who performed in films and vaudeville on television, radio, and the stage. He was a master of quick wit and is considered one of America's greatest comedians. Marx made 13 feature films as a team with his brothers, who performed under the name
334-517: A BBC interview in 1975, Marx called his greatest achievement having a book selected for cultural preservation in the Library of Congress. In a Cavett interview in 1971, Marx said being published in The New Yorker under his own name, Julius Henry Marx, meant more than all the plays he appeared in. As a man who never had formal schooling, to have his writings declared culturally important was
501-476: A MacArthur Fellow and Tony Award -winning actor, are frequently lauded as "New Vaudevillians". References to vaudeville and the use of its distinctive argot continue throughout North American popular culture. Words such as "flop" and "gag" were terms created from the vaudeville era and have entered the American idiom. Vaudevillian techniques can commonly be witnessed on television and in movies, remarkably in
668-468: A saloon town. When Cossitt began his development, the area was served by a post office known as Kensington. But upon learning of another community already with that name in Illinois, Cossitt decided to name his town in honor of La Grange, Tennessee , where he had been raised as a youth on an uncle's slave plantation. To this day, Kensington remains the name of one of the village's major avenues. After
835-477: A 1969 television interview. The Marx children grew up in a turn-of-the-century building at 179 East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side of the borough of Manhattan. His older brother Harpo , in his memoir Harpo Speaks , called the building "the first real home I knew". It was populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans. Just across
1002-584: A Broadway show. This is when she began experimenting with improvisational comedy and quickly found her unique success, even taking her performances global with acts in the U.K. Sophie Tucker , a Russian Jewish immigrant, was told by promoter Chris Brown that she was not attractive enough to succeed in show business without doing Blackface, so she performed that way for the first two years onstage, until one day she decided to go without it, and achieved much greater success being herself from that point on, especially with her song "Some of These Days." Moms Mabley
1169-467: A comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain , a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on
1336-463: A commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos (e.g., those that used words such as "hell") were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the week's remaining performances or were canceled altogether. In spite of such threats, performers routinely flouted this censorship , often to the delight of the very audience members whose sensibilities were supposedly endangered. He eventually instituted
1503-459: A common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals , magicians, ventriloquists , strongmen , female and male impersonators , acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs , jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels , and films. A vaudeville performer is often referred to as a "vaudevillian". Vaudeville developed from many sources, including
1670-757: A consolation prize). Throughout his career Marx introduced a number of memorable songs in films, including " Hooray for Captain Spaulding " and " Hello, I Must Be Going ", in Animal Crackers , " Whatever It Is, I'm Against It ", " Everyone Says I Love You " and " Lydia the Tattooed Lady ". Frank Sinatra , who once quipped that the only thing he could do better than Marx was sing, made a film with Marx and Jane Russell in 1951 entitled Double Dynamite . In public and off-camera, Harpo and Chico were hard to recognize without their wigs and costumes, and it
1837-469: A curly red wig and became "Patsy Brannigan", a stereotypical Irish character. His discomfort when speaking on stage led to his uncle Al Shean's suggestion that he stop speaking altogether and play the role in mime. Julius Marx's character from "Fun In Hi Skule" was an ethnic German, so Julius played him with a German accent. After the sinking of the RMS ; Lusitania in 1915, public anti-German sentiment
SECTION 10
#17327809810152004-468: A female householder with no husband present, and 27.02% were non-families. 25.18% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.69% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.35 and the average family size was 2.76. The village's age distribution consisted of 29.5% under the age of 18, 5.4% from 18 to 24, 18.7% from 25 to 44, 30.2% from 45 to 64, and 16.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
2171-480: A form of entertainment. He incorporated them in his shows as early as 1902. Later, he entered into a partnership with the Famous Players–Lasky , a major Hollywood production company and an affiliate of Paramount Pictures . By the late 1920s, most vaudeville shows included a healthy selection of cinema. Earlier in the century, many vaudevillians, cognizant of the threat represented by cinema, held out hope that
2338-465: A huge hit as The Life of Riley with William Bendix in the title role. By that time, the Marx Brothers as film performers had officially retired. Marx was scheduled to appear on a radio show with Bob Hope . Annoyed that he was made to wait in the green room for 40 minutes, he went on the air in a foul mood. Hope started by saying "Why, Groucho Marx! Groucho, what are you doing out here in
2505-410: A large family, Mrs. Story is said to have replied, "I love my husband," to which Marx responded, "I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while." The remark was judged too risqué to be aired, according to the anecdote, and was edited out before broadcast. Charlotte Story and her husband Marion, indeed parents of 20 children, were real people who appeared on the program. Audio recordings of
2672-409: A large section of the village and includes over 1,000 buildings representing several popular architectural styles of late 19th century and early 20th century. A few homes in district were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright . There is even a "bootleg" house, one he designed on the side, contrary to his employment agreement, when he was supposed to be working exclusively for architect Louis Sullivan . Wright
2839-415: A launching pad for later careers. They left live performance before achieving the national celebrity of earlier vaudeville stars, and found fame in new venues. The line between live and filmed performances was blurred by the number of vaudeville entrepreneurs who made more or less successful forays into the movie business. For example, Alexander Pantages quickly realized the importance of motion pictures as
3006-527: A lifelong devotee of the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan , appeared as Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, in a televised production of The Mikado on NBC 's The Bell Telephone Hour . A clip of this is in rotation on Classic Arts Showcase . Another TV show, Tell It to Groucho , premiered January 11, 1962, on CBS, but only lasted five months. On October 1, 1962, Marx, after acting as occasional guest host of The Tonight Show during
3173-526: A major shipping corridor, connecting Chicago and the Great Lakes with the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Cossitt set out to build the ideal suburban village – laying out streets, planting trees, donating property for churches and schools, and building quality homes for sale between $ 2,000–$ 8000 USD. He also placed liquor restrictions in the land deeds he sold to prevent the village from becoming
3340-535: A marketing strategy to attract many different audiences. As stated in Andrew Erdman 's book Blue Vaudeville , the Vaudeville stage was "a highly sexualized space ... where unclad bodies, provocative dancers, and singers of 'blue' lyrics all vied for attention." Such performances highlighted and objectified the female body as a "sexual delight", but more than that, historians think that Vaudeville marked
3507-530: A method of understanding different groups and their societal positions within their cities. The use of the greenhorn immigrant for comedic effect showcased how immigrants were viewed as new arrivals, but also what they could aspire to be. In addition to interpreting visual ethnic caricatures, the Irish American ideal of transitioning from the shanty to the lace curtain became a model of economic upward mobility for immigrant groups. The continued growth of
SECTION 20
#17327809810153674-421: A moment's notice. Growing to 52 lines in 1894, it increased twofold to 120 by the next year, and surged to 2,346 by 1921 (36 percent of the population at the time). There was a large spike in population is the 1880s and 1890s as the village grew from just over 500 to nearly 4,000 residents, over 600% growth in twenty years. The population continued to grow steadily through the 1960s, peaking at 17,814 according to
3841-464: A newspaper want ad by a man named Robin Leroy who was looking for a boy to join his group as a singer. Marx was hired along with fellow vaudeville actor Johnny Morris. Through this act, Marx got his first taste of life as a vaudeville performer. In 1909, Marx and his brothers had become a group act, at first called The Three Nightingales and later The Four Nightingales. The brothers' mother, Minnie Marx ,
4008-419: A one-man, 90-minute interview. When Elton John was visiting California in 1972, he and Marx became friendly. Marx insisted on calling him "John Elton". According to writer Philip Norman , when Elton John was playing the piano at Marx's home, Marx jokingly pointed his index fingers as if holding a pair of six-shooters; John put up his hands and said, "Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player," thereby giving him
4175-503: A point of great satisfaction. As he passed his 81st birthday in 1971, Marx became increasingly frail, physically and mentally, as a result of a succession of minor strokes and other health issues. In 1972, largely at the behest of his companion Erin Fleming , Marx staged a live one-man show at Carnegie Hall that was later released as a double album, An Evening with Groucho , on A&M Records . He also made an appearance in 1973 on
4342-549: A quiz show!" Undeterred, Guedel proposed that the quiz would be only a backdrop for Marx's interviews of people, and the storm of ad-libbing that they would elicit. Marx replied, "Well, I've had no success in radio, and I can't hold on to a sponsor. At this point, I'll try anything!" You Bet Your Life debuted in October 1947 on ABC radio (which aired it from 1947 to 1949), sponsored by costume jewelry manufacturer Allen Gellman ; and then on CBS (1949–50), and finally NBC. The show
4509-425: A routine as a wisecracking hustler with a distinctive chicken-walking lope, an exaggerated greasepaint mustache and eyebrows and an ever-present cigar, improvising insults to stuffy dowagers (frequently played by Margaret Dumont ) and anyone else who stood in his way. As the Marx Brothers, he and his brothers starred in a series of popular stage shows and movies. Their first movie was a silent film made in 1921 that
4676-528: A serious actress but was advised to remain in comedy. She went on to star in a few films but again returned to vaudeville, her original career. Another famous vaudevillian actress was Trixie Friganza , originally born Delia O'Callaghan. She had a famous catchphrase: "You know Trixie with her bag of tricks." She began her career in opera, performing to help provide for her family. The oldest of three daughters, she wanted to help her family financially but had to do it secretly, as female performers were frowned on at
4843-572: A set of guidelines to be an audience member at his show, and these were reinforced by the ushers working in the theatre. This "polite entertainment" also extended to Keith's company members. He went to extreme measures to maintain this level of modesty. Keith even went as far as posting warnings backstage such as this: "Don't say 'slob' or 'son of a gun' or 'hully gee' on the stage unless you want to be canceled peremptorily... if you are guilty of uttering anything sacrilegious or even suggestive you will be immediately closed and will never again be allowed in
5010-413: A short-lived variety show hosted by Bill Cosby . Fleming's influence on Marx was controversial. Some close to Marx believed that she did much to revive his popularity, and the relationship with a younger woman boosted his ego and vitality. Others described her as a Svengali , exploiting an increasingly frail Marx in pursuit of her own stardom. Marx's children, particularly Arthur, felt strongly that Fleming
5177-459: A single (an individual male or female performer); next would be an alley-oop (an acrobatic act); then another single, followed by yet another sketch such as a blackface comedy. The acts that followed these for the rest of the show would vary from musicals to jugglers to song-and-dance singles and end with a final extravaganza – either musical or drama – with the full company. These shows would feature such stars as ragtime and jazz pianist Eubie Blake ,
Groucho Marx - Misplaced Pages Continue
5344-402: A single host introducing a series of acts became a popular television style and can be seen consistently in the development of television, from The Milton Berle Show in 1948 to Late Night with David Letterman in the 1980s. The multi-act format had renewed success in shows such as Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and The Ed Sullivan Show . Today, performers such as Bill Irwin ,
5511-415: A snarl, had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl." In his book The Groucho Phile , Marx says "I've been a liberal Democrat all my life", and "I frankly find Democrats a better, more sympathetic crowd.... I'll continue to believe that Democrats have a greater regard for the common man than Republicans do". However, during an episode of Firing Line on July 7, 1967, Marx admitted to voting for Wendell Willkie ,
5678-493: A stage prop. He debuted this new, and now much-older, appearance in Love Happy , the Marx Brothers's last film as a comedy team. Marx did paint the old character mustache over his real one on a few rare occasions, including a TV sketch with Jackie Gleason on the latter's variety show in the 1960s (in which they performed a variation on the song " Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean ", co-written by Marx's uncle Al Shean ) and
5845-613: A story in the February 1981 issue of High Times , relating how Marx prepared for the LSD-themed movie by taking a dose of the drug in Krassner's company, and had a moving, largely pleasant experience. Marx developed friendships with rock star Alice Cooper —the two were photographed together for Rolling Stone magazine—and television host Dick Cavett , becoming a frequent guest on Cavett's late-night talk show, even appearing in
6012-659: A surprise to audience members when such beautiful women actually possessed talent in addition to their appealing looks. This element of surprise colored much of the reaction to the female entertainment of this time. In the 1920s, announcements seeking all-girl bands for vaudeville performances appeared in industry publications like Billboard , Variety and in newspapers. Bands like The Ingenues and The Dixie Sweethearts were well-publicized, while other groups were simply described as "all-girl Revue". According to Feminist Theory, similar trends in theater and film objectified women, an example of male gaze , as women's role in public life
6179-411: A taste for the risqué . In the 1840s, the minstrel show , another type of variety performance, and "the first emanation of a pervasive and purely American mass culture", grew to enormous popularity and formed what Nick Tosches called "the heart of 19th-century show business". A significant influence also came from "Dutch" (i.e., German or faux-German) minstrels and comedians. Medicine shows traveled
6346-496: A theatre where Mr. Keith is in authority." Along these same lines of discipline, Keith's theatre managers would occasionally send out blue envelopes with orders to omit certain suggestive lines of songs and possible substitutions for those words. If actors chose to ignore these orders or quit, they would get "a black mark" on their name and would never again be allowed to work on the Keith Circuit. Thus, actors learned to follow
6513-628: A time in which the female body became its own "sexual spectacle". This sexual image began sprouting everywhere an American went: the shops, a restaurant, the grocery store, etc. The more this image brought in the highest revenue, the more Vaudeville focused on acts involving women. Even acts that were as innocent as a sister act were higher sellers than a good brother act. Consequently, Erdman adds that female Vaudeville performers such as Julie Mackey and Gibson's Bathing Girls began to focus less on talent and more on physical appeal through their figure, tight gowns, and other revealing attire. It eventually came as
6680-521: A trained mule) shared a stage with acts more usually regarded as "highbrow" or classical entertainment (opera vocalists, classical musicians). B. F. Keith took the next step, starting in Boston , where he built an empire of theatres and brought vaudeville to the United States and Canada. Later, E. F. Albee , adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright Edward Albee , managed
6847-559: A truncated form of chanson du Vau de Vire ' song of the Valley of the Vire ' . Around 1610, Jean le Houx collected these works as Le Livre des Chants nouveaux de Vaudevire , which is probably the direct origin of the word. With its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from the concert saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout
Groucho Marx - Misplaced Pages Continue
7014-401: A unique ethnic interplay between Irish American use of self-deprecation as humor and their diverse inner city surroundings. The interactions between newly arrived immigrants and settled immigrants within the backdrop of the unknown American urban landscape allowed vaudeville to be utilized as an avenue for expression and understanding. The often hostile immigrant experience in their new country
7181-505: A wide range of clientele. Many small towns had purpose-built theatres. A small yet interesting example might include what is called Grange Halls in northern New England, still being used. These are old-fashioned, wooden buildings with creaky, dimly-lit, wooden stages, which were meant to offset the isolation of a farming lifestyle. These stages could offer anything from child performers to contra-dances to visits by Santa to local, musical talent, to homemade foods such as whoopee pies. Some of
7348-536: A wild variety of animal pets like dogs, cats, hamsters, birds, and farm animals. There is a long history of Grand Marshals for the parade including Elephants and Donkeys from the Brookfield Zoo (1948), Luci Baines Johnson – Daughter of the President Lyndon B. Johnson (1964), and Susan Dey and Danny Bonaduce of " The Partridge Family " (1971). The La Grange Village Historic District makes up
7515-461: Is appointed by the board. A Citizens' Council has existed in La Grange for over 75 years. As all such organizations under the village manager form of government, it is non-partisan. The council in particular seeks, evaluates, and recommends candidates for the village, library and park district boards. Other non-partisan slating organizations form periodically to seek and support candidates for
7682-524: Is appointed by the board. The village has six operating departments: administration, finance, police, fire, community development and public works. The village is in Illinois's 4th congressional district , and is represented by Jesús G. "Chuy" García . The village is served by the Park District of La Grange with a five-member board of commissioners , elected as provided by state law, which serves four-year overlapping terms. An executive director
7849-564: Is named after William Butler Ogden , first mayor of Chicago). Kindergarten students in District 102 may also attend Barnsdale Road School in La Grange Park, Illinois . Some elementary students attend Forest Road School in neighboring La Grange Park, Illinois , and Congress Park School in neighboring Brookfield, Illinois . Middle school students in District 102 attend Park Junior High , located in La Grange Park. The southern half of
8016-494: Is often considered to have been the death knell of vaudeville. Though talk of its resurrection was heard during the 1930s and later, the demise of the supporting apparatus of the circuits and the higher cost of live performance made any large-scale renewal of vaudeville unrealistic. The most striking examples of Gilded Age theatre architecture were commissioned by the big time vaudeville magnates and stood as monuments of their wealth and ambition. Examples of such architecture are
8183-590: Is surrounded by incorporated places of similar sizes on all sides except to the South West, where the generously named La Grange Highlands are. As of 2020, La Grange has a total area of 2.52 square miles (6.53 km ), all land. Two major railroad tracks run through the village, including the Burlington Northern Santa Fe , and the CSX /Indiana Harbor Belt lines. Some 14,000 years ago,
8350-475: Is that it comes from the 15th-century songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin , "Vau de Vire". In his Connections television series, science historian James Burke argues that the term is a corruption of the French Vau de Vire ' Vire River Valley ' , an area known for its bawdy drinking songs and where Basselin lived. The Oxford English Dictionary also endorses the vau de vire origin,
8517-435: The 1970 census . The population declined slightly in the '70s & '80s and has been relatively stable since then. La Grange is located at 41°48′29″N 87°52′24″W / 41.80806°N 87.87333°W / 41.80806; -87.87333 (41.807938, −87.873455), about 13 miles (21 km) west of Chicago. The village is roughly flat, only deviating from the elevation of 645 feet by at most ten feet. La Grange
SECTION 50
#17327809810158684-591: The BNSF Railway that run through the north end of the village, with passenger rail service provided by Metra and Amtrak . Metra's BNSF Line provides frequent commuter service between Aurora and Chicago, with two stations in La Grange. Express service to Downtown Chicago ( Union Station ) from La Grange Road takes approx. 23 minutes. Amtrak's Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg (both destined for Quincy, Illinois ) run twice daily trains through La Grange stopping at La Grange Road . Freight rail traffic on
8851-492: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed much of that city, thousands of its citizens sought new homes and opportunities far from the city's ills but within a convenient commute. La Grange was ideally situated to accommodate them. Telephones were first set up by Dr. George Fox in the 1880s for quick communication between his home office and a drug store, enabling him to order prescriptions to be delivered by buggy in
9018-685: The Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, California, to mediocre reviews. Penned by Groucho Marx and Norman Krasna, the play was rewritten and retitled Time for Elizabeth , and opened at the Fulton Theatre in New York City on September 27, 1948, where it closed after only eight performances. By the time You Bet Your Life debuted on TV on October 5, 1950, Marx had grown a real mustache (which he had already sported earlier in
9185-734: The Marx Brothers , Jimmy Durante , Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Edgar Bergen , Fanny Brice , Burns and Allen , and Eddie Cantor , used the prominence gained in live variety performance to vault into the new medium of cinema. In doing so, such performers often exhausted in a few moments of screen time the novelty of an act that might have kept them on tour for several years. Other performers who entered in vaudeville's later years, including Jack Benny , Abbott and Costello , Kate Smith , Cary Grant , Bob Hope , Milton Berle , Judy Garland , Rose Marie , Sammy Davis Jr. , Red Skelton , Larry Storch and The Three Stooges , used vaudeville only as
9352-448: The Marx Brothers , of whom he was the third born. He also had a successful solo career, primarily on radio and television, most notably as the host of the game show You Bet Your Life . His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as an exaggerated stooped posture, spectacles, cigar, and a thick greasepaint mustache (later a real mustache) and eyebrows. These exaggerated features resulted in
9519-671: The Tivoli Theatre are housed at the State Library of Victoria , Melbourne , Australia , with additional personal papers of vaudevillian performers from the Tivoli Theatre, including extensive costume and set design holdings, held by the Performing Arts Collection , Arts Centre Melbourne . The American Vaudeville Museum, one of the largest collections of vaudeville memorabilia, is located at
9686-528: The concert saloon , minstrelsy , freak shows , dime museums , and literary American burlesque . Called "the heart of American show business", vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades. The origin of the term is obscure but often explained as being derived from the French expression voix de ville ' voice of the city ' . A second hypothesis
9853-441: The poverty line , including 1.3% of those under age 18 and 3.9% of those age 65 or over. La Grange is the mailing address for the headquarters of Electro-Motive Diesel , formerly General Motors ' Electro-Motive Division, a major manufacturer of railroad locomotives and diesel engines . The headquarters, engineering facilities and parts-manufacturing operations actually are located in the adjacent village of McCook . Originally,
10020-457: The "Irwin Sisters". Many years later, their act had taken off and with performances in both vaudeville and burlesque at famous music halls, until Irwin decided to continue her career on her own. She then changed her approach to vaudeville, performing African-American-influenced songs, even later writing her songs. She introduced her signature in vaudeville, "The Bully Song", which was performed in
10187-425: The "big time" (possible remuneration of several thousand dollars per week in large, urban theatres largely patronized by the middle and upper-middle classes). As performers rose in renown and established regional and national followings, they worked their way into the less arduous working conditions and better pay of the big time. The capital of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre (or just "The Palace" in
SECTION 60
#173278098101510354-539: The "lousy amateurs". The musicians discovered him conducting the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the overture to Tannhäuser in Hecht's living room. Marx was allowed to join the symphonietta. Later in life, Marx would sometimes note to talk show hosts, not entirely jokingly, that he was unable to actually insult anyone, because the target of his comment would assume that it
10521-589: The 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as "Polite Vaudeville". In the years before the American Civil War , entertainment existed on a different scale. Similar variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere. In the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatergoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As
10688-432: The 1968 Otto Preminger film Skidoo . In his late 70s at the time, Marx remarked on his appearance: "I looked like I was embalmed." He played a mob boss called "God" and, according to Marx, "both my performance and the film were God-awful!" The exaggerated walk, with one hand on the small of his back and his torso bent almost 90 degrees at the waist, was a parody of a fad from the 1880s and 1890s. Fashionable young men of
10855-614: The BNSF line is extremely heavy, with BNSF operating freight trains on all three mainline tracks through the village. During non-rush hours, a freight train may run along the line as frequently as once every ten minutes on average. The Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad , running north–south through the east end of the village, also has extremely heavy freight traffic. O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport are approx. 18 and 7 mi (29 and 11 km) away from La Grange, respectively. A proposed passenger rail line connecting
11022-554: The Beverly Hills Tennis Club. Marx appeared on court with twelve rackets and a suitcase, leaving Chaplin—who took tennis seriously—bemused, before he asked what was in it. Marx asked Chaplin what was in his, with Chaplin responding he didn't have one. Marx replied, "What kind of tennis player are you?" After playing only a few games, Marx sat on the court and unpacked an elaborate picnic lunch from his suitcase. Irving Berlin quipped: "The world would not be in such
11189-551: The Broadway circuit. All of this stage work predated their Hollywood career. By the time the Marxes made their first movie, they were already major stars with sharply honed skills; and by the time Groucho was relaunched to stardom in television on You Bet Your Life , he had been performing successfully for half a century. Marx started his career in vaudeville in 1905 when he joined up with an act called The Leroy Trio. He answered
11356-639: The Chinese, Italians, Germans and Jews utilized ethnic caricatures to understand themselves as well as the Irish. The urban diversity within the vaudeville stage and audience also reflected their societal status, with the working class constituting two-thirds of the typical vaudeville audience. The ethnic caricatures that now comprised American humor reflected the positive and negative interactions between ethnic groups in America's cities. The caricatures served as
11523-482: The Fenneman role. However, it was poorly received and lasted only 11 weeks. Marx appeared as a gangster named God in the comedy movie Skidoo (1968), directed by Otto Preminger , and starring Jackie Gleason and Carol Channing . It was released by the studio where the Marx Brothers began their film career, Paramount Pictures . The film received almost universally negative reviews. Writer Paul Krassner published
11690-467: The House Chamber for the first time in this trendy, affected gait, somewhat to the amusement of the older and more rural members. Marx exaggerated this fad to a marked degree, and the comedic effect was enhanced by how out of date the fashion was by the 1940s and 1950s. Marx's three marriages ended in divorce. His first wife was chorus girl Ruth Johnson (m. 1920–1942). He was 29 and she was 19 at
11857-423: The Irish becoming subject to discrimination due to their ethnic physical and cultural characteristics. The ethnic stereotypes of Irish through their greenhorn depiction alluded to their newly arrived status as immigrant Americans, with the stereotype portrayed in avenues of entertainment. Following the Irish immigration wave were several waves in which new immigrants from different backgrounds came in contact with
12024-453: The Irish in America's urban centers. Already settled and being native English speakers, Irish Americans took hold of these advantages and began to assert their positions in the immigrant racial hierarchy based on skin tone and assimilation status, cementing job positions that were previously unavailable to them as recently arrived immigrants. As a result, Irish Americans became prominent in vaudeville entertainment as curators and actors, creating
12191-504: The Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca , Marx created a storyline that Warner Bros. Pictures threatened to sue him, contending that that title was too similar to their 1942 film Casablanca . Groucho wrote open letters "responding" to the four Warner brothers , including one in which he questions their own use of various words, such as: wondering if "in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather,... stumbled on
12358-493: The Opera . Furious with the Marx Brothers' ad-libs and antics on the set, Wood yelled in disgust: "You can't make an actor out of clay." Marx responded, "Nor a director out of Wood." Marx also worked as a radio comedian and show host. One of his earliest stints was a short-lived series in 1932, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel , costarring Chico. Though most of the scripts and discs were thought to have been destroyed, all but one of
12525-470: The Races . Marx made serious efforts to learn to play the guitar. In the 1932 film Horse Feathers , he performs the film's love theme "Everyone Says I Love You" for costar Thelma Todd on a Gibson L-5 . In July 1937, an America-vs.-England pro-celebrity tennis doubles match was organized, featuring Marx and Ellsworth Vines playing against Charlie Chaplin and Fred Perry , to open the new clubhouse at
12692-467: The Republican candidate for president in 1940, over Franklin D. Roosevelt , stating that he did not believe that any man should run for more than two terms. Marx mentioned in a television interview that he disliked the women's liberation movement . Marx's radio career was not as successful as his work on stage and in film, though historians such as Gerald Nachman and Michael Barson suggest that, in
12859-574: The U.S. vaudeville circuits to little fanfare. After exhausting their prospects in the East, the family moved to La Grange, Illinois , to play the Midwest. After a particularly dispiriting performance in Nacogdoches, Texas , Julius, Milton, and Arthur began cracking jokes onstage for their own amusement. Much to their surprise, the audience liked them better as comedians than as singers. They modified
13026-423: The United States and Canada and a large interest in two vaudeville circuits. Another major circuit was that of Alexander Pantages . In his heyday, Pantages owned more than 30 vaudeville theatres and controlled, through management contracts, perhaps 60 more in both the United States and Canada. At its height, vaudeville played across multiple strata of economic class and auditorium size. On the vaudeville circuit, it
13193-466: The United States and Canada, first for about three months in Emil Boreo’s Mirage de Paris followed by nine months in their own Ballet Caprice . After Jack quit the act near the end of 1927, Betty continued to manage the troupe and, with a new dance partner, toured throughout the northeastern United States for the next six months as Betty Felsen and Company. The final performance of Ballet Caprice
13360-517: The University of Arizona. La Grange, Illinois La Grange ( / l ə ˈ ɡ r eɪ n dʒ / lə GRAYNJ ; often spelled LaGrange ) is a village in Cook County, Illinois , United States. It is a suburb of Chicago . The population was 16,321 at the 2020 census. The area around La Grange was first settled in the 1830s, when Chicago residents moved out to the west due to
13527-428: The ability to remain on key. Julius's early career goal was to become a doctor, but the family's need for income forced him out of school at the age of twelve. By that time Julius had become a voracious reader, particularly fond of Horatio Alger . Marx continued to overcome his lack of formal education by becoming very well-read. After a few stabs at entry-level office work and jobs suitable for adolescents, Marx took to
13694-1027: The business side of Vaudeville, like Amanda Thorpe, a white woman who founded a black theater in Virginia, and the Griffin Sisters , who managed several theaters in their efforts to create a Black Vaudeville circuit. Black performers and patrons participated in a racially segregated vaudeville circuit. Though many popular acts like Lewis and Walker, Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , and the Hyers Sisters played to both white and black audiences, early Vaudeville performances for white audiences were limited to one Black act per show, and performers faced discrimination in restaurants and lodging. Entertainers and entrepreneurs like The Whitman Sisters , Pat Chapelle and John Isham created and managed their own touring companies; others took on theater ownership and management and created Black vaudeville circuits, as
13861-404: The case of the single-season Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel (1932), the failure may have been a combination of a poor time slot and the Marx Brothers' returning to Hollywood to make another film. In the mid-1940s, he weathered a depressing lull in his career. His radio show Blue Ribbon Town had failed, and he was unable to sell his proposed sitcom The Flotsam Family only to see it become
14028-500: The chain to its greatest success. Circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudeville's greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the single-theatre booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years. Albee also gave national prominence to vaudeville's trumpeting "polite" entertainment,
14195-420: The circuit's central office weekly, follow each act's description. The bill illustrates the typical pattern of opening the show with a "dumb" act to allow patrons to find their seats, placing strong acts in second and penultimate positions, and leaving the weakest act for the end, to clear the house. In this bill, as in many vaudeville shows, acts often associated with "lowbrow" or popular entertainment (acrobats,
14362-416: The countryside offering programs of comedy, music, jugglers , and other novelties along with displays of tonics, salves, and miracle elixirs, while " Wild West " shows provided romantic vistas of the disappearing frontier, complete with trick riding, music and drama. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in America's growing urban hubs. From
14529-499: The creation of one of the most recognizable and ubiquitous novelty disguises, known as Groucho glasses : a one-piece mask consisting of horn-rimmed glasses , a large plastic nose, bushy eyebrows and brush mustache. Julius Henry Marx was born on October 2, 1890, in Manhattan , New York City. Marx stated that he was born in a room above a butcher's shop on East 78th Street, "Between Lexington and Third ", as he told Dick Cavett in
14696-409: The daughter of a musician, she moved to the United States of America in her childhood. At just fourteen years old, she left home to begin her career, lying about her age and sending her mother half of her paycheck. Dressler found great success and was known for her comedic timing and physical comedy, like carrying her male co-stars. She eventually worked on Broadway, where she had a great desire to become
14863-505: The death of vaudeville. After all, when "small time" theatres could offer "big time" performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent? The newly-formed RKO studios took over the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit and swiftly turned it into a chain of full-time movie theatres. The half-century tradition of vaudeville was effectively wiped out within less than four years. Inevitably, managers further trimmed costs by eliminating
15030-460: The desert?" Marx retorted, "Huh, desert, I've been sitting in the dressing room for forty minutes! Some desert alright ...". Marx continued to ignore the script, ad-libbing at length, and took it well beyond its allotted time slot. Listening in on the show was producer John Guedel , who had a brainstorm. He approached Marx about doing a quiz show, to which Marx derisively retorted, "A quiz show? Only actors who are completely washed up resort to
15197-421: The door he would be surrounded by adoring fans. Marx and his brothers respected his opinions and asked him on several occasions to write some material for them. Minnie Marx did not have an entertainment industry career but had intense ambition for her sons to go on the stage like their uncle. While pushing her second son Leonard ( Chico Marx ) in piano lessons, she found that Julius had a pleasant soprano voice and
15364-439: The downtown led to increased congestion, and parking often became difficult to find, especially on weekends . A parking structure was paid for by a grant from the state for the advancement of public transportation, since increasing parking for train commuters would increase the number of people willing to use the train. The upkeep is paid for by an increase in the sales tax at restaurants and other entertainment establishments. There
15531-589: The effects of tearing an adhesive bandage off the same patch of skin every night). After applying the greasepaint mustache, a quick glance in the mirror revealed his natural hair eyebrows were too undertoned and did not match the rest of his face, so Marx added the greasepaint to his eyebrows and headed for the stage. The absurdity of the greasepaint was never discussed on-screen, but in a famous scene in Duck Soup , where both Chicolini (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo) disguise themselves as Groucho, they are briefly seen applying
15698-529: The entire village grades 9 through 12. North Campus, located in La Grange, is used by Juniors and Seniors and was the original high school. Freshmen and Sophomores go to South Campus, founded in 1956, located in neighboring Western Springs . The Campus was split due to lack of available land for expansion around the original building. Previously there also was a junior college associated with the high school but due to increasing enrollment, lack of space, and new rules that separated junior colleges from high schools, it
15865-421: The episode as fact, but co-writer Hector Arce relied mostly on sources other than Marx himself—who was by then in his mid eighties, in ill health and mentally compromised—and was probably unaware that Marx had specifically denied making the observation. Head writer Bernie Smith recalled in a 1996 interview that the remark was indeed made—but again, well after the fact. In 1946, as part of the marketing campaign for
16032-487: The famous and magical Harry Houdini , and child star Baby Rose Marie . In the New-York Tribune ' s article about Vaudeville, it is said that at any given time, Vaudeville was employing over twelve thousand different people throughout its entire industry. Each entertainer would be on the road 42 weeks at a time while working a particular "Circuit" – or an individual theatre chain of a major company. While
16199-547: The films Copacabana and Love Happy ). During a tour of Germany in 1958, accompanied by then-wife Eden, daughter Melinda, Robert Dwan and Dwan's daughter Judith, he climbed a pile of rubble that marked the site of Adolf Hitler 's bunker , the site of Hitler's death, and performed a two-minute Charleston . He later remarked to Richard J. Anobile in The Marx Brothers Scrapbook, "Not much satisfaction after he killed six million Jews!" In 1960, Marx,
16366-459: The greasepaint, implicitly answering any question a viewer might have had about where he got his mustache and eyebrows. Marx was asked to apply the greasepaint mustache once more for You Bet Your Life when it came to television, but he refused, opting instead to grow a real one, which he wore for the rest of his life. By this time, his eyesight had weakened enough for him to actually need corrective lenses; before then, his eyeglasses had merely been
16533-495: The instructions given to them by B. F. Keith for fear of losing their careers forever. By the late 1890s, vaudeville had large circuits, houses (small and large) in almost every sizable location, standardized booking, broad pools of skilled acts, and a loyal national following. One of the biggest circuits was Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit . It incorporated in 1919 and brought together 45 vaudeville theatres in 36 cities throughout
16700-517: The interview exist, and a reference to cigars is made ("With each new kid, do you go around passing out cigars?"), but there is no evidence of the claimed remark. "I get credit all the time for things I never said," Marx told Roger Ebert in 1972. "You know that line in You Bet Your Life ? The guy says he has seventeen kids and I say, 'I smoke a cigar, but I take it out of my mouth occasionally'? I never said that." Marx's 1976 memoir recounts
16867-527: The land under La Grange sat on the western shore of Lake Chicago , a predecessor to Lake Michigan . The prehistoric shoreline today is delineated by Bluff Avenue, a north–south street on the village's east side. As of the 2020 census there were 16,321 people, 5,445 households, and 3,974 families residing in the village. The population density was 6,463.76 inhabitants per square mile (2,495.67/km ). There were 6,415 housing units at an average density of 2,540.59 per square mile (980.93/km ). The racial makeup of
17034-427: The last of the live performances. Vaudeville also suffered due to the rise of broadcast radio following the greater availability of inexpensive receiver sets later in the decade. Even the hardiest in the vaudeville industry realized the form was in decline; the perceptive understood the condition to be terminal. The standardized film distribution and talking pictures of the 1930s confirmed the end of vaudeville. By 1930,
17201-454: The letters written by Marx, who donated his letters to the Library of Congress . His daughter Miriam published a collection of his letters to her in 1992 titled Love, Groucho. In Life with Groucho: A Son's Eye View , Arthur Marx relates that in his latter years, Groucho increasingly referred to himself by the name Hackenbush, referring to the character of that name he played in A Day at
17368-456: The locomotives were also built there, but in more recent years final assembly has moved to EMD's other facility in Muncie, Indiana . The downtown area, centered along and around La Grange Road ( US 45 ) and the BNSF Railway line, became somewhat run-down during the 1980s, but saw a revival in the mid-to-late 1990s, with many new businesses opening, including many restaurants. That expansion of
17535-563: The lower-priced cinema in the early 1910s dealt the heaviest blow to vaudeville. This was similar to the advent of free broadcast television 's diminishing the cultural and economic strength of the cinema. Cinema was first regularly commercially presented in the US in vaudeville halls. The first public showing of movies projected on a screen took place at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in 1896. Lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions, many performers and personalities, such as Al Jolson , W. C. Fields , Mae West , Buster Keaton ,
17702-535: The mid-1860s, impresario Tony Pastor , a former singing circus clown who had become a prominent variety theater performer and manager, capitalized on middle class sensibilities and spending power when he began to feature "polite" variety programs in his New York City theatres. Pastor opened his first "Opera House" on the Bowery in 1865, later moving his variety theater operation to Broadway and, finally, to Fourteenth Street near Union Square . He only began to use
17869-486: The mid-1970s, episodes of the show were syndicated and rebroadcast as The Best of Groucho . The program's theme music was an instrumental version of " Hooray for Captain Spaulding ," which became increasingly identified as Marx's personal theme song. A recording of the song with Marx and the Ken Lane singers with an orchestra directed by Victor Young was released in 1952. Another recording made by Marx during this period
18036-485: The most prominent vaudevillians successfully made the transition to cinema, though others were not as successful. Some performers such as Bert Lahr fashioned careers out of combining live performance with radio and film roles. Many others later appeared in the Catskill resorts that constituted the " Borscht Belt ". Vaudeville was instrumental in the success of the newer media of film, radio, and television. Comedies of
18203-636: The neighborhood character of vaudeville attendance had always promoted a tendency to tailor fare to specific audiences, mature vaudeville grew to feature houses and circuits specifically aimed at certain demographic groups. Black patrons, often segregated into the rear of the second gallery in white-oriented theatres, had their own smaller circuits, as did speakers of Italian and Yiddish (see below). This foreign addition combined with comedy produced such acts as "minstrel shows of antebellum America" and Yiddish theatre. Many ethnic families joined in on this entertainment business, and for them, this traveling lifestyle
18370-479: The network from what was considered risqué, since Marx was a notorious loose cannon and known to say almost anything. The television show ran for 11 seasons until it was canceled in 1961. Ironically longtime major sponsor, automobile marque DeSoto went out of business for declining sales that same year. For the DeSoto ads, Marx would sometimes say: "Tell 'em Groucho sent you", or "Try a DeSoto before you decide." In
18537-547: The new era adopted many of the dramatic and musical tropes of classic vaudeville acts. Film comedies of the 1920s through the 1940s used talent from the vaudeville stage and followed a vaudeville aesthetic of variety entertainment, both in Hollywood and in Asia, including China. The rich repertoire of the vaudeville tradition was mined for prominent prime-time radio variety shows such as The Rudy Vallée Show . The structure of
18704-765: The newspapers of La Grange is The Doings , a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune . Lyons Township High School by far provides the most media outlets. The first one established, LION Newspaper , was founded over a century ago and distributes news to all over the district. The second form of media, WLTL , first aired in 1968 and has been broadcasting music for fifty years. LTHS also hosts Lyons Township Television (LTTV), which transmits sports or programs created by students of Lyons Township. Two major highways traverse La Grange: The village's main street, La Grange Road (U.S. Routes 12 / 20 / 45 ), runs north–south and intersects Interstate 55 (Stevenson Expressway) south of
18871-404: The promotion of black-face minstrelsy on the stage, purposefully used to place African Americans beneath the Irish in the racial and social urban hierarchy. Although the Irish had a strong Celtic presence in vaudeville and in the promotion of ethnic stereotypes, the ethnic groups that they were characterizing also utilized the same humor. As the Irish donned their ethnic costumes, groups such as
19038-578: The rapid population increase in the city in the decade since its incorporation. The first settler, Robert Leitch, came to the area in 1830, seven years before the City of Chicago was incorporated. La Grange's location, at approximately 13 miles (21 km) from the Chicago Loop , is not considered far from the city by today's standards, but in that time the residents enjoyed the peace of rural life without much communication with urban residents. The village
19205-540: The recent, worldwide phenomenon of TV shows such as America's Got Talent . In professional wrestling , there was a noted tag team, based in WWE , called The Vaudevillains . In 2018, noted film director Christopher Annino, maker of a new silent feature film, Silent Times , founded Vaudeville Con, a gathering to celebrate the history of vaudeville. The first meeting was held in Pawcatuck, Connecticut . The records of
19372-399: The scripts were found in 1988 in the Library of Congress . In 1947, Marx was asked to host a radio quiz program You Bet Your Life . It was broadcast by ABC and then CBS before moving to NBC. It moved from radio to television on October 5, 1950, and ran for eleven years. It was largely sponsored by DeSoto automobiles and Marx sometimes appeared in the commercials. Filmed before an audience,
19539-429: The shores of Africa and... named it Casablanca"; suggesting that " [David] Burbank 's survivors aren't too happy with the fact that" Warner Bros. Burbank, California studios are called their "Burbank studios"; and even suggesting a Marx Brothers legal action addressing "What about 'Warner Brothers'? ... Professionally, we were brothers long before you were." On August 5, 1948, Marx's comedy play April Fool premiered at
19706-510: The show consisted of Marx bantering with the contestants and ad-libbing jokes before briefly quizzing them. The announcer for the show was George Fenneman . The show was responsible for popularizing the phrases "Say the secret word and the duck will come down and give you fifty dollars," "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb ?" and "What color is the White House ?" (asked to reward a losing contestant
19873-451: The silent nature of the "flickering shadow sweethearts" would preclude their usurpation of the paramount place in the public's affection. With the introduction of talking pictures in 1926, the burgeoning film studios removed what had remained the chief difference in favor of live theatrical performance: spoken dialogue. Historian John Kenrick wrote: Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed
20040-472: The site of a defunct Native American trail, was also referred to as the "Old Plank Road". Planks were often stolen by settlers to be used as building material, which made traveling very bumpy. When the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad came to town, La Grange was a milk stop called Hazel Glen. A few miles to the south, through present-day Willow Springs , the Illinois and Michigan Canal had emerged as
20207-530: The six-month interval between Jack Paar and Johnny Carson , introduced Carson as the new host. In 1964, Marx starred in the "Time for Elizabeth" episode of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre , a truncated version of a play that he and Norman Krasna wrote in 1948. In 1965, Marx starred in a weekly show for British TV titled Groucho , broadcast on ITV . The program was along similar lines to You Bet Your Life , with Keith Fordyce taking on
20374-468: The slang of vaudevillians), built by Martin Beck in 1913 and operated by Keith. Featuring a bill stocked with inventive novelty acts, national celebrities, and acknowledged masters of vaudeville performance (such as comedian and trick roper Will Rogers ), the Palace provided what many vaudevillians considered the apotheosis of remarkable careers. A standard show bill would begin with a sketch, follow with
20541-448: The songs that were popularized onstage by white singers, and paved the way for African-American musical theater . In addition to vaudeville's prominence as a form of American entertainment, it reflected the newly evolving urban inner-city culture and interaction of its operators and audience. Making up a large portion of immigration to the United States in the mid-19th century, Irish Americans interacted with established Americans, with
20708-725: The stage as a boy singer with the Gene Leroy Trio, debuting at the Ramona Theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan , on July 16, 1905. Marx reputedly claimed that he was "hopelessly average" as a vaudevillian, but this was typical Marx, wisecracking in his true form. By 1909, Minnie Marx had assembled her sons into an undistinguished vaudeville singing group billed as "The Four Nightingales". The brothers Julius, Milton ( Gummo Marx ) and Arthur (originally Adolph, but Harpo Marx from 1911) and another boy singer, Lou Levy, traveled
20875-430: The street were the oldest brownstones in the area, owned by people including the well-connected Loew Brothers and William Orth. The Marx family lived there "for about 14 years", Groucho also told Cavett. Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was Miene "Minnie" Schoenberg , whose family came from Dornum in northern Germany when she was 16 years old. His father was Simon "Sam" Marx , who changed his name from Marrix, and
21042-410: The term "vaudeville" in place of "variety" in early 1876. Hoping to draw a potential audience from female and family-based shopping traffic uptown , Pastor barred the sale of liquor in his theatres, eliminated bawdy material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to attendees. Pastor's experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. The manager's comments, sent back to
21209-627: The theatres built by impresario Alexander Pantages . Pantages often used architect B. Marcus Priteca (1881–1971), who in turn regularly worked with muralist Anthony Heinsbergen . Priteca devised an exotic, neo-classical style that his employer called "Pantages Greek". Though classic vaudeville reached a zenith of capitalization and sophistication in urban areas dominated by national chains and commodious theatres, small-time vaudeville included countless more intimate and locally controlled houses. Small-time houses were often converted saloons, rough-hewn theatres, or multi-purpose halls, together catering to
21376-472: The then-popular Gus Edwards comedy skit "School Days" and renamed it "Fun In Hi Skule". The Marx Brothers performed variations on this routine for the next seven years. For a time in Vaudeville, all the brothers performed using ethnic accents. Leonard, the oldest, developed the Italian accent he used as Chico Marx to convince some roving bullies that he was Italian, not Jewish. Arthur, the next oldest, donned
21543-435: The time of their wedding. The couple had two children, Arthur Marx and Miriam Marx . His second wife was Kay Marvis (m. 1945–1951), née Catherine Dittig, former wife of Leo Gorcey . Marx was 54 and Kay was 21 at the time of their marriage. They had a daughter, Melinda Marx , whose daughter Jade Berti was formerly married to Dominic Ruiz, brother of Dina Eastwood . His third wife was actress Eden Hartford (m. 1954–1969). He
21710-690: The time. She worked largely in comedy and gained acclaim and success due to her willingness to step into other's roles who had fallen ill, and were otherwise unable to perform. In her acts, she often emphasized her plus-size figure, calling herself the "perfect forty-six". Friganza was also a poet and writer. She used many of her performances as ways to raise money to support the poor or disenfranchised and went on record publicly numerous times to support these social causes. Friganza also spent much of her life fighting for women's equality and pushing for self-acceptance for women, both publicly and within themselves, as well as their rights in comparison to men. Betty Felsen
21877-710: The title of the album he had just completed . A film poster for the Marx Bros. film Go West is visible on the album cover photograph as an homage to Marx. Elton John accompanied Marx to a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar . As the lights went down, Marx called out, "Does it have a happy ending?" And during the Crucifixion scene, he declared, "This is sure to offend the Jews." Marx's previous work regained popularity; new books of transcribed conversations were published by Richard J. Anobile and Charlotte Chandler . In
22044-470: The upper classes would affect a walk with their right hand held fast to the base of their spines, and with a slight lean forward at the waist and a very slight twist toward the right with the left shoulder, allowing the left hand to swing free with the gait. Edmund Morris, in his biography The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt , describes a young Roosevelt, newly elected to the State Assembly, walking into
22211-479: The various elected boards. Students in the village are served by one of three K-8 public school districts. The northern half of the village (roughly any students north of 47th Street) is part of La Grange School District 102 . District 102 elementary schools within the village include: Cossitt School (named after Franklin Cossitt) and Ogden Avenue School (named after the local name for U.S. Route 34 , which in turn
22378-600: The vast majority of formerly live theatres had been wired for sound, and none of the major studios were producing silent pictures. For a time, the most luxurious theatres continued to offer live entertainment, but most theatres were forced by the Great Depression to economize. Some in the industry blamed cinema's drain of talent from the vaudeville circuits for the medium's demise. Others argued that vaudeville had allowed its performances to become too familiar to its famously loyal, now seemingly fickle audiences. There
22545-478: The vaudeville stage, Irish Americans became interpreters of immigrant cultural images in American popular culture. New arrivals found their ethnic group status defined within the immigrant population and in their new country as a whole by the Irish on stage. Unfortunately, the same interactions between ethnic groups within the close living conditions of cities also created racial tensions which were reflected in vaudeville. Conflict between Irish and African Americans saw
22712-610: The village (roughly any students south of 47th Street) is part of La Grange School District 105 . District 105 elementary schools within the village include: Seventh Avenue School and Spring Avenue School, both located on the streets that share their names. Middle school students in District 105 attend Gurrie Middle School. A small number of students in the southwest portion of La Grange are served by LaGrange Highlands School District 106 , attending Highlands Elementary School and Highlands Middle School in nearby La Grange Highlands, Illinois . Lyons Township High School District 204 serves
22879-405: The village was 84.09% White , 3.71% African American , 0.29% Native American , 1.72% Asian , 0.01% Pacific Islander , 2.88% from other races , and 7.30% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.71% of the population. There were 5,445 households, out of which 39.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.07% were married couples living together, 10.49% had
23046-498: The village. Ogden Avenue ( U.S. Route 34 ) runs east–west and intersects Interstate 294 (Tri-State Tollway), west of the village. Commuter bus service is provided by Pace , the suburban bus division of the Regional Transportation Authority. The first rail link to Chicago dates to 1864, established by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad . La Grange currently has three tracks belonging to
23213-529: The winter of 1923 Betty began a partnership with Jack Broderick. From then until the end of 927 Broderick & Felsen performed on the B.F. Keith and Pantages vaudeville circuits throughout the U.S. and Canada. Their act evolved from a simple dance act to one with over twenty dancers, an orchestra, and elaborate costumes and sets. From 1925 to 1926 they played for 20 straight weeks at the huge Colony Theater on Broadway in New York City. In 1926 and 1927, they starred in two spectacular musical productions, touring across
23380-486: The years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found an increasing number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns. A handful of circuses regularly toured the country; dime museums appealed to the curious; amusement parks, riverboats, and town halls often featured "cleaner" presentations of variety entertainment; compared to saloons, music halls, and burlesque houses, which catered to those with
23547-529: Was "The Funniest Song in the World," released on the Young People's Records label in 1949. It was a series of five original children's songs with a connecting narrative about a monkey and his fellow zoo creatures. One of Marx's most oft-quoted remarks may have occurred during a 1947 radio episode. Marx was interviewing Charlotte Story, who had borne 20 children. When Marx asked why she had chosen to raise such
23714-417: Was 42.3 years. For every 100 females, there were 88.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.5 males. The median income for a household in the village was $ 122,629, and the median income for a family was $ 151,026. Males had a median income of $ 104,060 versus $ 43,089 for females. The per capita income for the village was $ 60,162. About 1.2% of families and 3.6% of the population were below
23881-443: Was 64 and she was 24 at the time of their wedding. During the early 1950s, Marx described his perfect woman: "Someone who looks like Marilyn Monroe and talks like George S. Kaufman ." Marx was denied membership in an informal symphonietta of friends (including Harpo) organized by Ben Hecht , because he could play only the mandolin. When the group began its first rehearsal at Hecht's home, Marx rushed in and demanded silence from
24048-453: Was a Groucho-esque joke, and would laugh. Despite his lack of formal education, he wrote many books, including his autobiography, Groucho and Me , (1959) and Memoirs of a Mangy Lover (1963). He was a friend of such literary figures as Booth Tarkington , T. S. Eliot , and Carl Sandburg . Much of his personal correspondence with those and other figures is featured in the book The Groucho Letters (1967) with an introduction and commentary on
24215-603: Was a comedienne who got her start in Vaudeville and the Chitlin circuits in the 1920s, and ended up with mainstream success in the 20th century. Other 20th century women performers who started in Vaudeville included blues singers Ma Rainey , Ida Cox and Bessie Smith . Women-led touring companies like Black Patti's Troubadours , the Whitman Sisters and the Hyers Sisters were popular acts. Other women worked
24382-623: Was accepted to be a member of the Chicago Opera’s Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet corps de ballet. From December 1920 until the fall of 1922 Betty was a ballerina soloist and performed with them throughout North America. Under the name Buddye Felsen, Betty landed a starring dancing role in a new show at Fred Mann’s Million Dollar Rainbo Room in the Rainbo Gardens . The show, Rainbo Trail , directed by Frank Westphal , opened on 15 December 1922, and ran until 1 March 1923. In
24549-405: Was almost impossible for fans to recognize Groucho without his trademark eyeglasses, fake eyebrows, and mustache. The greasepaint mustache and eyebrows originated spontaneously prior to a vaudeville performance in the early 1920s when he did not have time to apply the pasted-on mustache he had been using (or, according to his autobiography, simply did not enjoy the removal of the mustache because of
24716-664: Was an American ballerina, vaudeville star, and teacher. She was born on 9 June 1905, in Chicago, IL Betty began taking lessons at a local Chicago ballet school when she was eight years old, and often performed solo dances in shows presented by that school. Just before her tenth birthday in 1916, her parents enrolled her as a ballet student with the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet School within the Chicago Opera Association. Then, in 1919 Betty
24883-461: Was called "Frenchie" by his sons throughout his life, because he and his family came from Alsace in France. Minnie's brother was Al Schoenberg, who shortened his name to Al Shean when he went into show business as half of Gallagher and Shean , a noted vaudeville act of the early 20th century. According to Marx, when Shean visited, he would throw the local waifs a few coins so that when he knocked at
25050-433: Was expanding. These expectations for women in the 19th century played a big role in the compelling aspects of vaudeville. Through vaudeville, many women were allowed to join their male counterparts on the stage and found success in their acts. Leila Marie Koerber, later Marie Dressler , was a Canadian actress who specialized in vaudeville comedy, and eventually won an Academy Award for Best Actress later in her career. Being
25217-536: Was merged with College of DuPage in 1967. When it was open, Lyons Township Junior College was nicknamed Tick-Tock Tech, due to its location near the clock tower. St. Cletus and St. Francis Xavier serve as the two Roman Catholic K-8 schools in La Grange. St. John's Lutheran is the one Lutheran K-8 school within the village limits. Preschool programs are available at Kensington School of La Grange, Creative World Montessori School, Little People's Country, Grace Lutheran Church, and First United Methodist Church. One of
25384-404: Was mostly ad-libbed and unscripted — although writers did pre-interview the guests and feed Marx ready-made lines in advance — the producers insisted that the network prerecord it instead of it being broadcast live. There were three reasons for this: prerecording provided Marx with time to fish around for funny exchanges, any intervening dead spots could be edited out; and most importantly to protect
25551-516: Was no abrupt end to vaudeville, though the form was clearly sagging by the late 1920s. Joseph Kennedy Sr. in a hostile buyout, acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theatres Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theatres across the United States which had begun showing movies. The shift of New York City's Palace Theatre, vaudeville's center, to an exclusively cinema presentation on 16 November 1932,
25718-479: Was no increase in the local property taxes. La Grange holds numerous public activities and festivals. Art fairs, historic housewalks, carnivals, and farmer's markets are also common, mostly taking place in the downtown area. An annual event known as the Pet Parade has been conducted every year since 1947 and attracts thousands of people from the La Grange area. The parade marches through downtown and includes
25885-498: Was now used for comic relief on the vaudeville stage, where stereotypes of different ethnic groups were perpetuated. The crude stereotypes that emerged were easily identifiable not only by their distinct ethnic cultural attributes, but how those attributes differed from the mainstream established American culture and identity. Coupled with their historical presence on the English stage for comic relief, and as operators and actors of
26052-725: Was officially incorporated on June 11, 1879. It was founded by Franklin Dwight Cossitt, who was born in Granby, Connecticut , and raised in Tennessee , and moved to Chicago in 1862 where he built a successful wholesale grocery business. In 1870, Cossitt purchased several hundred acres of farmland in Lyons Township , along the Chicago-Dixon Road, known today as Ogden Avenue ( U.S. Highway 34 ). Ogden Avenue, on
26219-413: Was on 4 June 1928, at Broadway’s Palace Theater in New York City. Another famous comedienne, one who brought in thousands of audience members with her signature improvisational skills, was May Irwin . She worked from about 1875 to 1914. Originally born Ada Campbell, she began her life on the stage at thirteen years old following the death of her father. She and her older sister created a singing act called
26386-431: Was on radio only from 1947 to 1950; on both radio and television from 1950 to 1960; and on television only, from 1960 to 1961. The show proved a huge hit, being one of the most popular on television by the mid-1950s, garnering a number one rating in 1953. With George Fenneman as his announcer and straight man, Marx entertained his audiences with rapier wit and improvised conversation with his guests. Since You Bet Your Life
26553-457: Was only shown once, in the Bronx, and is believed to have been destroyed shortly afterward. A decade later, the team made their last two Broadway shows— The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers —into movies. Other successful films were Monkey Business , Horse Feathers , Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera . One quip from Marx concerned his response to Sam Wood , the director of A Night at
26720-418: Was pushing their weak father beyond his physical and mental limits. Writer Mark Evanier concurred. Vaudeville Vaudeville ( / ˈ v ɔː d ( ə ) v ɪ l , ˈ v oʊ -/ ; French: [vodvil] ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on
26887-539: Was reportedly fired over this and similar employment agreement infractions. The Park District of La Grange maintains 78.5 acres of parkland at 11 locations, and offers over 1,500 recreation programs annually for its more than 16,000 residents. Parks within the village limits include: The Village of La Grange is a non- home rule municipal corporation and operates under a board-manager form of government. A seven-member board of trustees , elected as provided by state law, serves four-year overlapping terms. A village manager
27054-440: Was rivaled only by churches and public schools among the nation's premiere public gathering places. Another slightly different aspect of Vaudeville was an increasing interest in the female figure. The previously mentioned ominous idea of "the blue envelopes" led to the phrase "blue" material, which described the provocative subject matter present in many Vaudeville acts of the time. Many managers even saw this scandalous material as
27221-565: Was said that if an act would succeed in Peoria, Illinois , it would work anywhere. The question "Will it play in Peoria?" has now become a metaphor for whether something appeals to the American mainstream public. The three most common levels were the "small time" (lower-paying contracts for more frequent performances in rougher, often converted theatres), the "medium time" (moderate wages for two performances each day in purpose-built theatres), and
27388-460: Was simply a continuation of the circumstances that brought them to America. Through these acts, they were able to assimilate themselves into their new home while also bringing bits of their own culture into this new world. White-oriented regional circuits, such as New England 's "Peanut Circuit", also provided essential training grounds for new artists while allowing established acts to experiment with and polish new material. At its height, vaudeville
27555-984: Was the case for Sherman H. Dudley and the Griffin Sisters Later, in the 1920s, many bookings were managed by the Theatre Owners Booking Association . African-Americans challenged the prevailing Blackface stereotypes played by white performers by bringing their own authenticity and style to the stage, composing music, comedy and dance routines and laying the groundwork for distinctly American cultural phenomena like blues , jazz , ragtime and tap dance . Notable Black entertainers in Vaudeville included comedians Bert Williams , and George Walker , dancer/choreographer Ada Overton Walker , and many others. Black songwriters and composers like Bob Cole , Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , Rosamond Johnson , George Johnson , Tom Lemonier , Gussie L. Davis , and Chris Smith , wrote many of
27722-560: Was the group's manager, putting them together and booking their shows. The group had a rocky start, performing in less than adequate venues and rarely, if ever, being paid for their performances. Eventually brother Milton (Gummo) left the act to serve in World War I and was replaced by Herbert (Zeppo) , and the group became known as the Marx Brothers . Their first successful show was Fun In Hi Skule (1910). Marx made 26 movies, including 13 with his brothers Chico and Harpo. Marx developed
27889-541: Was widespread, and Marx's German character was booed, so he dropped the accent and developed the fast-talking wise-guy character that became his trademark. The Marx Brothers became the biggest comedic stars of the Palace Theatre in New York, which billed itself as the "Valhalla of Vaudeville". Brother Chico's deal-making skills resulted in three hit plays on Broadway . No other comedy routine had ever so infected
#14985