Most Hollywood legends never lived to see their work become fully appreciated by new generations. Groucho Marx, however, lived to see the resurgence in popularity that he and his brothers’ work had in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. Rather than view the adulation from afar, Groucho decided to bask in it, accepting the invitations of any talk show or interviewer who would have him.
“Old Groucho” became a fixture of daytime and night time television, appearing as a rambling, somewhat bitter presence who seemed to really enjoy hearing himself speak. Hilariously, most of his appearances featured him patronizing the audience and explaining away his appearances in lackluster project as being the fault of his brother Chico, whose gambling apparently forced the Marx Brothers to take lesser projects because he needed the money.
He would often patronize the audience by speaking about common things as though he had to explain them. For example, he might describe a soundstage as a building where films were produced or that a motion picture camera was used to make a film. He basked in the adulation of the audience and their fondness for his more successful projects and badmouthed the lesser ones by insisting that he only made them “because Chico needed the money.” That Chico had been dead for seven years when Groucho made what was arguably the worst film he was ever in- 1968’s Skidoo - either shows Groucho as exaggerating Chico’s plight or that perhaps by then Groucho needed the money.
While Groucho couldn’t fully tarnish his reputation by merely appearing on television in rambling interviews, it is probably for the best that his late in life interviews are mostly forgotten these days. The same goes for his appearance in Skidoo.
