Memoirs of a Mangy Cigar Lover—Groucho Marx

“A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.”Groucho Marx

The cigar and Groucho were synonymous. Except for possibly George Burns, no entertainer is more identified with the cigar than Julius Henry Marx (Groucho), a comic genius and front-man for the originally vaudeville-based The Marx Brothers, which included brothers Leonard (Chico), Adolph (Harpo), and for a little while, Herbert Manfred (Zeppo). Taking the popular cheroot as part of his stage persona, unlike Burns, throughout his career, which included great success on Broadway with his brothers, 13 films with them, 13 more on his own, and the popular TV game show You Bet Your Life, Groucho did more than use the cigar as a mere prop, but infused it with character and personality. The mere act of hunching over, raising your eyebrows up and down, and holding your hand up to your mouth as if grasping a cigar, immediately evokes memories of Groucho and has been used by countless comedians invoking his image, right down to Bugs Bunny.

Identified with the cigar, it is important to note that it was more than just a prop to the quick-witted comedian, but a life-long passion that had his son Arthur Marx once joking that he was probably the only man alive who was weaned on Groucho Marx’s cigar smoke.

The first known sighting of the cigar and Groucho occurred when the performer was a mere 17 years old and embarking on a career in vaudeville, where his Uncle Al Shean, who was one half of the popular vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean pointed out to the brothers that in this profession men were the predators and chorus girls the prey. Advice that prompted Groucho in later years to caption a photo of himself at 17 in his book Groucho and Me: ‘A hot spot in New Orleans. Notice the 10 cent cheroot. Cigar and me both burning furiously, on the prowl for the not-so-elusive female.’

Even at that young an age, Groucho had discovered the beauty of even a sub-par cigar, although with his success, that ten cent cheroot was replaced by the Dunhill 410, a Havana cigar that he enjoyed because of its intense aroma and taste. As he pointed out, “Eventually I smoked Havana’s. A cigar makers’ organization once said that I was the most famous cigar smoker in the world. I don’t know if that’s true, but once while visiting Havana, I went to a cigar factory. There were four hundred people there rolling cigars, and when they saw me, they all stood up and applauded.”

As a character prop, the cigar served an important purpose for the performer. As Groucho explained in The Marx Brothers Scrapbook, on stage the cigar gave him time to think. “You could tell a joke and if the audience didn’t laugh you could take some puffs on the cigar. Sometimes that would give the audience a chance to think about the joke and give them time to laugh before you went on to the next joke. So, it had a kind of value.”

But, “what if the joke wasn’t that funny?” asked the book’s co-author Richard J. Anobile.

“Then we used a different cigar?” explained Groucho.

Throughout his long career, Groucho’s love affair with the cigar has not been without its controversies. During the late 1940’s, at a point where his film career had slowed down, he was approached to host the radio-based quiz show, You Bet Your Life, which was eventually picked up for TV and ran until 1961. The show debuted in 1947 on radio, and involved Groucho quizzing contestants for cash, with a ‘secret word’ for each show that if the contestant said it, would earn them a bonus $100.00. The beauty of both the radio and TV show was Groucho’s quick wit and his banter with the guests as he interviewed them before launching into the trivia questions.

During the show’s first season, Groucho was interviewing Mrs. Story, the wife of a sign painter from Bakersfield, California. The couple was unique in that they had 22 children (although three had died), which lead to this conversation between Groucho and Mrs. Story.

Groucho: How many children do you have?
Mrs. Story: Nineteen, Groucho.
Groucho: Nineteen?! Why do you have so many children? It must be a terrible responsibility and a burden.
Mrs. Story: Well, because I love children—and I think that’s our purpose here on earth—and I love my husband.
Groucho: I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while!

Many people claim to remember this exchange between Groucho and Mrs. Story, that in 1947 was remarkably too racy for broadcast or broadcast standards. Did Groucho utter it or didn’t he?

In a 1972 interview with Roger Ebert for Esquire magazine, Groucho claimed he’d never said it.

“I got $25.00 from Reader’s Digest last week for something I never said. I get credit all the time for things I never said. 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.”

In his book, The Secret Word is Groucho, written with Hector Arce, Groucho wrote: “Wherever I go, people ask me about a remark I purportedly made to Mrs. Story. Folklore about the encounter has been so broadly disseminated that it has been variously described as occurring with a mother having any number from ten to thirty children. The story however, is not apocryphal. It did happen.”

He went on to explain, “That kind of remark can have one of two reactions. It will either cause a sharp intake of breath at having crossed from forbidden frontier or it will bring the house down. The studio audience loved it, but the people out there in Radio land never got a chance to react. The exchange was clipped out by [Robert] Dwan, the house censor.”

As this book was primarily written by Arce, as Groucho was in the later years of his life and his health and memory dwindling, the controversy still raged, although in his book Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho’s House by Steve Stoliar, he wrote that Bernie Smith who worked on the show and meticulously kept track of the names of contestants and the ‘secret word’, stated Groucho did say it and that it was in fact edited out of the program, deemed too offensive for audiences at that time.

Robert Dwan, who was also a producer on the show, wrote: “For a long time, I, too, believed it was a figment of the mass libido. But, after discussions with my late partner, Bernie Smith, I am convinced that it did happen. I now believe that Groucho said it, but that he didn’t mean what the dirty joke collectors think he meant. That remark, taken at its burlesque show level, was simply not his style.”

The controversy remains. What we do know is that Groucho loved his cigars—a life-long love affair that served both of them well. So the next time you light up a cheroot take a moment, raise your eyebrows, wiggle your cigar, and with a sly smile pay tribute to a cigar-smoking legend.