Breaking Harpo Marx's Silence

Harpo is best known as the Mark's brother who never talks but few people know the disturbing reason for his [Music] silence if grouo was the witty Mark's brother Harpo was without a doubt the wild one his Persona of the silent lunatic who runs around wreaking havoc is one of the most instantly recognizable characters in movie history but who was The Man Behind the character Harpo was born Adolf Marx eventually changing his name to Arthur by 1911 which was probably just as well he and His Four Brothers grew up dirt poor in turn of the century New York indeed his domineering mother Minnie forced them to start scraping money together from almost the moment they could talk she was the driving force in molding her boys into a performing troop whether they liked it or not Harpo was so nervous the first time he took to the stage that he peed himself and that was one of the highlights of his young life at school he faced Relentless bullying due to his Jewish ethnicity and his bullies would regularly throw him out of the window of their second story classroom whenever their teacher left one day after being thrown out the window the young Harpo simply walked home and never returned with no education past the second grade Harpo became a delinquent roaming the streets of New York swiping stuff and making friends and enemies with members of various street gangs he even played piano in a brothel during this time okay things are looking up around this time the Marx brothers act started to evolve into what we know it as today their mother was still obsessed with making them a Vaudeville singing group and whenever the brother started kidding around she chastised them and insisted that they stick strictly to music of course this only helped create the prankish Anarchy the comedy group became famous for and they were about to become very very famous the markx brothers began developing their stage act in Earnest and this led to their first collaborative film 1929's the Coconuts early on Harpo developed one distinguishing feature in The Sibling act he never talked for the most part his film career relied on sight gags especially Harpo pulling extremely unlikely objects from his everpresent Overcoat being the silent guy in the ACT can be fun but Harpo once got cheated out of a huge deal because his character didn't speak NBC snubbed him when they gave the Marx Brothers their own radio sitcom in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression grouo and Chico each got paid more than $3,000 a week for just half an hour's work all while poor old Harpo couldn't participate today it's extremely hard to associate Harpo marks with anything other than his silent clown-like curly-haired character but this almost wasn't the case initially the brothers had considered having Harpo's character be a stereotypical freckled Irishman named paty Branigan so how exactly did he get the name Harpo although some of the deta dets are a little fuzzy he almost certainly got the moniker at a card game from his friend art Fisher who referred to him as Harpo because he played the harp for what it's worth Fischer also gave all the Marx Brothers their stage names minus zepo but nobody cares about zepo when it came to harp playing because this is Harpo marks he obviously had to do it with a Twist he only took up playing the instrument on a whim and had to learn everything by himself top to bottom including tuning it 3 years later he discovered that he'd actually tuned it wrong and had done practically everything else wrong too he did eventually take professional lessons but instead of teaching him his instructors would often simply Marvel at his unorthodox but brilliant technique back when he could only dream of someday learning the harp Harpo's family had a piano but they could only afford lessons for one child some somewhat insultingly they chose Chico for this privilege but Harpo didn't let that stop him practically everything Harpo learned about music he got from secretly listening in on his brother's piano lessons on the subject of music for a long time Marx lived next to the legendary classical composer Sergei Rak manov as a fellow music lover you'd think that Harpo would feel lucky to get to listen to Rak manov H his craft but no Harpo got annoyed at the noise day in and day out so in classic Harpo fashion he began repeatedly blasting one of rachmaninov's own compositions out the window as loud as he possibly could it got to the point where the poor composer could no longer stand it and he moved to a new house just to get away from Harpo's nonsense with the Marx Brothers comedy routine taking off Harpo became one of the most notorious bachelors in 1930s Hollywood one story from this time is legendary he ended up busting into a costume party at Mar and Davy's house while the Starlet was still the Mistress of Tycoon William Randolph Hurst dressed as Kaiser vilhelm the former German Emperor and one of the most hated villains of World War One nobody at the party was impressed Harpo had to hitchhike home and after taking a wrong turn the police detained him for being a vagrant even today few people know that Harpo remained single for so long long in Hollywood because of one incredibly heartbreaking and traumatic experience in his youth shortly after arriving in Tinsel Town he got into a relationship with a woman whom he planned on proposing to the day before Harpo was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him she died in a plane crash the loss affected him for years to come keeping him distant from any serious relationships one evening Harpo was attending a class CL Hollywood party at producer Samuel goldwins house with Fanny Bryce on his arm little did he know his life was about to change sitting next to him was the Starlet Susan Fleming in an eerie turn of events Susan Fleming shared the same last name as Harpo's long lost love who perished in a plane crash Fleming was absolutely obsessed with Harpo and she wasn't shy about showing it Harpo for his part wasn't going to say no to to a face like Fleming's and he ditched Bryce that very night Fleming was so certain Harpo Marx was the man for her she was actually the one to propose to him an action that polite Society considered Near Unthinkable for a woman at the time but she was in for a cruel surprise although Harpo still wanted to keep up his relationship with her the wounded man turned Fleming down undeterred Fleming got down on one one knee again sometime later and received yet another brutal rebuff finally she asked him an incredible third time and perhaps worn down at last Harpo finally accepted maybe Harpo was still a little uncertain about Fleming because he married her in complete secrecy as it happened people found out about Harpo's top secret nups almost right after they happened none other than President Franklin Roosevelt heard about the event from a mutual friend and inadvertently leaked the secret by publicly sending Marx a congratulatory telegram the beginnings of Harpo's marriage to Fleming seemed idolic she quit acting in films and they began raising a brood of adopted children despite being a Hollywood marriage Marx and Susan Fleming shared a long happy life together more than that he and Fleming adored raising their large family Harpo once quipped that when it came to Children he wanted so many many that whenever we go out there can be one in every window waving to us in 1933 Harpo's friend Franklin Roosevelt made him one of the first Goodwill ambassadors to Soviet Russia on his way to Moscow he passed through Hamburg and witnessed the early stages of Nazi Germany and ended up literally vomiting at the harsh realities he witnessed firsthand to his Jewish people ever suspicious Joseph Stalin assigned a government spy to accompany Harpo at all times during his stay monitoring all of his phone calls and mail and making sure he didn't get out of line or carry any important information back to the United States with him for the president's eyes it sounds like paranoia but the truth is the Soviets did need to worry about Harpo Harpo had one unsupervised moment in the Soviet Union his visit to the American Embassy behind its closed doors mark kept a huge secret while there a government official asked him to smuggle a document back to the States though he never found out what the document was Marx taped the envelope to his leg and successfully brought it with him on his way out of the country Harpo was Infamous for some eccentric habits during his single life especially picking up semi vagrant artists he actually spent over a year living with piano virtuoso and severe insomnia Oscar Levant one of old Hollywood's most bizarre characters and least stable people who you may know from the film An American in Paris when Levant showed up on Harpo's doorstep and never left Harpo simply accepted it the comedian befriended the troubled musician until Levant finally left on a whim 13 months later markx also became obsessed with croquet to the point where he couldn't live without the summer game even in the winter in one of his most ridiculous real life Antics Marx bribed the landlords of a Manhattan parking garage to let him turn their roof into a makeshift croquet field they initially obliged but then quickly regretted it Marx and his crew placed such a high priority on their croquet hobby that they once intentionally kept New York governor and future presidential candidate Al Smith waiting on the phone for a whopping 20 minutes just so they could watch as one of the club's members attempted a difficult shot Harpo spent his entire career going to Great Lengths to never speak in public but one night all that changed it was the evening he publicly announced his retirement during a 1963 live show when the audience learned they were witnessing a Legend's final appearance the entire mood of the room altered then for the first time in his adult life har agreed to give a public speech in the end Harpo spent several minutes reflecting on his career and his feelings about moving on while the stunned crowd took in every word if you've ever used the expression in the hot seat you might be surprised to learn that Harpo Marx originally coined it during his social escapades he attended parties at the famous Mansion of William Randolph Hurst and noticed that whenever someone became less welcome heurst would seat them at the far end of the table near the fireplace being seated in the hot seat usually meant that you would soon stop receiving invitations when the Marx Brothers made their final film love happy they ended up despising the result and almost never talked about it afterward predictably it was a flop but this very last film has a very big claim to fame it launched the career of the one and only Marilyn Monroe the then unknown Starlet had a brief cameo in the film her first big onscreen appearance the rest as they say is history despite spending his whole life as a comedian Marx eventually got the chance to play a serious dramatic role in a 1960 Christmas themed television play called a silent Panic he portrayed a deaf mute character who inadvertently Witnesses a murder and struggles to decide how to react so how come silence ended up being Harpo's trademark well according to some it's because when they were first starting out in Vaudeville the brothers had a realization Harpo was rubbish at memorizing Lanes rather than try to fix this shortcoming they decided to Simply make his character mute and have his comedy focus on pantomine however there may be another explanation another story suggests that Harpo may have lapsed into silence in his film career not so much out of a shrewd choice but rather because of a scathing review that he took to heart after seeing him in one performance a Critic noted that Harpo was only funny until he spoke it must have cut deep because the comedian fell silent from then on on September 28th 1964 Harpo passed at the rip old age of 75 leaving behind his wife Susan Fleming his four children and his beloved Brothers however there was something special about this day always good with timing comedic or otherwise Harpo actually died on the very day of his 28th wedding anniversary to Fleming which must have been a Bittersweet event for the Widow but when his funeral came around it was a full on tear [Music] jerker as one of the Elder Mark's Brothers Harpo was also one of the first of his siblings to go and the News particularly devastated his brother grouo later on Groucho's son Arthur Marx recalled that Harpo's funeral was one of the first and only times he had ever seen his father [Music] cry if you enjoyed this video please give it a like And subscribe for more videos oh

Channel: Factinate

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Id: dtNP3bhyB4I

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024