Product Description

Monkey Business is the first comprehensive biography of all five Marx brothers—Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo. It features the first authentic account of their origins, their comedy roots, and their twenty-four years on stage prior to their first movie, The Cocoanuts, in 1929. Monkey Business brings to life the vanished world of America's variety circuits, leading to the Marx Brothers' Broadway success and their alliance with New York's theatrical lions, George S. Kaufman and the Algonquin Round Table.

Louvish showcases well-minted Marxian dialogue, and much madness and mayhem in this tale of the Brothers' Hollywood battles, their films, their loves and marriages, and the story of the forgotten brother Gummo, who never appeared on screen. Salvador Dali's "missing" script for Harpo, the true identity of the long-suffering Margaret Dumont, and the politics of "Marxism-à-la-Groucho" all contribute to this definitive biography of these beloved brothers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #492886 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.com Review
A serious book hiding behind a goofy title, Monkey Business captures a tremendous amount of detail in its pages, enough to satisfy the most hard-core Marx Brothers aficionado. Author Simon Louvish has a talent for showcasing contrasts, and it's these contrasts--along with a few surprises--that make the brothers such fascinating characters. Among all the scripts, photos, and quotes are some unexpected discoveries, especially the real story of Margaret Dumont. While lamenting the tall tales that have circulated around this actress's life so far, Louvish applauds her image as the ultimate "straight" lady when she was really pulling a lifelong practical joke. And while the one-liners are as entertaining as always, it's refreshing to see glimpses of Groucho's serious side. One chapter begins with an earnest letter to his daughter's boyfriend about the young man's struggles with anti-Semitism, advising him to "comport yourself in such a manner that you will ultimately gain their respect." Of course, he immediately follows up with "Tomorrow we're having tea at the White House. I hope they have pumpernickel": this is Groucho we're talking about, after all. Louvish takes the same one-two narrative punch with the other brothers, interspersing real-life slapstick with tales of gambling debts, relationship difficulties, and professional disappointments and triumphs. Complete with a chronological list of life events and films, a complete reference list, and a thorough index, Monkey Business is the biography serious Marx Brothers fans have been waiting for. --Jill Lightner

From Publishers Weekly
Told with tremendous style and sparkle, Louvish's composite portrait of the Marx Brothers offers an indispensable overview of the actors' saga. Decked out with photographs and sprinkled with excerpts from reviews, interviews, memoirs, film dialogue and hitherto unpublished skits and scripts, this biography captures the sheer exuberance of the foursome as they conquered vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood. Louvish gives equal billing to all the brothersAJulius (Groucho), Leonard (Chico), Arthur (Harpo), Herbert (Zeppo), plus Milton (Gummo), who left the act to become a Hollywood agentAand vibrantly re-creates a supporting cast of characters that includes George Kaufman, Irving Berlin, Irving Thalberg, S.J. Perelman and Margaret Dumont. Yet the biographer of W.C. Fields (The Man on the Flying Trapeze) maintains critical detachment in assessing the brothers' onstage/onscreen antics and their often messy private lives. Groucho, for one, comes off as a lot more likable than in Stefan Kanfer's Groucho (Forecasts, Mar. 20). While Louvish fully acknowledges the abusive behavior that drove Groucho's first wife to alcoholism, Julius Marx seems more forgivably human here, and Louvish depicts Groucho's relationship with daughter Miriam as loving and solicitous. His fresh research clears up all manner of myths, embellishments and omissions in previous biographies and in the brothers' autobiographies. In this invigorating reappraisal, the Marx Brothers, more than "Minnie and Sam's boys who never grew up," are timeless satirists of pretension, folly, privilege and snobbery, in the tradition of Cervantes, Rabelais and Mark Twain. The "Four Horsemen of the Apoplexy," they embody an authentic acceptance of life's absurdity as well as a desperate need to leave one's mark. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Groucho Marx mastered the worlds of vaudeville, theater, movies, radio, and television, yet he remained a moody, morose, unfulfilled man. Plagued by nagging financial insecurities, partly realized literary ambitions, and difficult, unsatisfying relations with his wives, lovers, and daughters, Groucho was a "depressive clown," notes Kanfer (The Eighth Sin). This is the show business saga of "Minnie's boys," Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and, sometimes, Gummo and Zeppo. Groucho never really had a childhood, as mother Minnie drove the boys relentlessly as they perfected their trademark antic, ad-lib style. Many books on the Marx Brothers pay homage to their innovative wisecracks, word play, and nonstop non sequiturs, but Kanfer shows the show biz realities behind the madness. The book also details Groucho's ambivalent relations with his son, Arthur; his brothers; New Deal liberals; intellectuals and collaborators like S.J. Perelman; and his custodian, Erin Fleming. Although Chico and Harpo remain shadowy figures in this portrayal, this is the first comprehensive portrait of Groucho in years. Recommended for large public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/00.] Pubbing in the same month as Kanfer's book, this work may signal the beginning of a Marx Brothers revival. The brothers' nonstop barrage of verbal and visual gags delighted average moviegoers and intellectuals alike. Kanfer focuses on Groucho, where Louvish, the author of The Man on the Flying Trapeze, a biography of W.C. Fields, expands the canvas to appraise the contributions of the other brothers, plus Margaret Dumont, a regular target of the brothers' mayhem. Chico was a compulsive gambler and risktaker. Harpo, whose comedy career was limited by his silent act, found fulfillment in family life. Dumont, Louvish shows, was more than a dimwitted comic stooge. (In fact, the Marx Brothers often failed to attract a female audience, an interesting topic covered more fully by Kanfer.) The Marx Brothers' story is now encrusted with numerous myths and dubious anecdotes, and Louvish does a solid job of separating fact from fiction and includes a family tree and a discussion of the FBI's file on the group. Like Kanfer's book, Monkey Business includes generous excerpts of classic Marx Brothers film dialog. Recommended for public library film collections.
-Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A window into their madcap world
An excellent book not only for Louvish's analysis of their films but for showing how their homelife at turn of the century New York influenced their humor. The author highlights the personality differences in each brother: Groucho was penny-pinching, cynical, and yes grouchy; Unlike his cinematic woman-chasing (literally) image, Harpo was happily-married and monogamous; and Chico was an inveterate gambler and womanizer.The author does a good job of highlighting their hilarous off-screen antics; of particular value is his recounting of their cruel but always hilarious practical jokes on the stiff and dignified Margaret Dumont.

The Best Book Yet on the Marx Brothers
Simon Louvish follows up his excellent biography of W. C. Fields with this ground-breaking study of the Marx Brothers. As with the Fields biography, Louvish demythologizes the story of the Marxes and gives us Marx fans a lot more information to digest and enjoy. Fans have tended to accept the early stories of Marx family life as carved in stone; Louvish shows how the real story differs and does it with loving respect rather than the harshness of a debunker. In addition to the Marxes, Louvish also takes a few sidebar trips into the lives of the not so well known supporting players, such as Margaret Dumont, whose life was draped in legend. Well researched and well written. As to the criticism of those who think his writing reflects too much of the Marx style of comedy, I can only reply that no one seemed to mind when Joe Adamson did the same thing in his landmark study on the Marx Brothers films, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo. I think this style of writing goes with the turf, so to speak, and in any case its annoyance factor is negligible compared to the rewards of his research. Highly recommded for any serious as well as casual Marx fan.

near-top of the marx
Louvish's comprehensive biography is intelligent, solidly researched (with careful notes, unlike the new Kanfer bio of Groucho), and written with warmth and affection. Where others have accepted mythologies about the lives of the boys, Louvish has dug for facts and unearthed all sorts of tantalizing details and contradictions: he is particularly strong on the family's European roots and their vaudeville career, and he offers the most detailed and lovingly iconoclastic biographical sketch of the implacable and heretofore mysterious Margaret Dumont.

One wishes that his analyses of Marxian comedy were sharper and deeper, and at times the British author seems to have only a slippery grasp of the American pop culture idiom; there are references he just doesn't get. Also, the chatty tone of his writing and his conversational interjections can be distracting.

Overall, though, this is the best Marx book in years--it is trustworthy and enjoyable. Buy it, and tell them AGrouchoMarxist sent you!