Photograph: Cine Text/Sportsphoto/Allstar
Groucho was the cigar-chomping wit with the improbable moustache, Chico was the piano-playing rustic grifter and Zeppo played the straight man and the lover. But as any Marx Brothers fan knows, Harpo was the pantomime, who cracked up the audience without saying a word, dressed in his tattered raincoat and curly wig. His persona was childlike and mischievous but also musical – he let his harp and his taxi horn do the talking. But now we get to see, or rather hear, a new side to Harpo Marx. A very special recording has been unearthed of Harpo in 1964 speaking to an audience, in character.
Arthur “Harpo” Marx was born Adolph Marx in New York in 1888. He started performing with his brothers in 1908, and his nickname probably came about because of his instrument of choice – he was an entirely self-taught musician. By 1915, due to his nerves around speaking on stage, Harpo reinvented himself as a mute clown, and stayed that way, even when he was offered $50,000 to speak a single word (“Murder!”) in the Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca (1946).
