Zeppo, p.3
Zeppo, page 3
The correlation of a bar mitzvah and a vaudeville debut is not farfetched in the Marx family. Both Julius and Milton were working on stage at the age of fourteen—fresh from their bar mitzvahs. They were now considered men under Jewish law, so in Minnie’s mind they could ride railroad trains across the country and earn livings as singers. (Of course, Minnie was not averse to claiming her boys were young enough to ride the rails for the children’s fare as they advanced into their teen years.) Exactly what Leonard was up to at the age of fourteen is conjecture, but by all accounts, he was far from a boy in his behavior. Adolph simply roamed the streets of upper Manhattan and worked odd jobs throughout his teen years. Once Minnie had established Julius and Milton in an act that she controlled, she was inspired to get work in vaudeville for someone with even less interest than talent. Adolph was in her sights.
Minnie used the early success Julius had in small-time vaudeville to get him a better job with Gus Edwards, an important impresario and songwriter. As Julius was on the cusp of his own success, Minnie made a deal. She enrolled Milton in Ned Wayburn’s Training School for the Stage with courses in vaudeville and created an act with Wayburn starring her successful son Julius and the novice Milton. With another Wayburn pupil, Mabel O’Donnell, they formed Ned Wayburn’s Nightingales in May 1907. By the end of the year Minnie was able to force Wayburn out and take control of the act, which she renamed the Three Nightingales. Minnie was now in charge, and in June of 1908 she plucked the aimless nineteen-year-old Adolph from his latest odd job and put him in the act—whether he wanted to be in it or not. She also replaced Mabel O’Donnell with Lou Levy. The Four Nightingales were born and so was a family business. Her sons learned that it was nearly impossible to stand in the way of Minnie’s dream. Adolph didn’t put up much of a fight. He recognized immediately that there was no point. He had been drafted.
The Four Nightingales debuted a few months after Herbert’s seventh birthday, leaving him as the last brother in the no-longer-crowded apartment when the act hit the road. Suddenly Herbert didn’t have to share a bed with any number of his brothers. When Minnie occasionally went on the road with the act, Herbert was left with Frenchy, his grandfather and the occasional aunts, uncles, and cousins who would often stay at the apartment. Structure and discipline were in short supply for the youngest member of the family during this period. There were enough relatives hitting the road in vaudeville that it seemed completely natural to Herbert. At home, Herbert enjoyed learning magic tricks from his show business veteran grandfather. Hannah’s son Lou Shean—another namesake of Al Shean—had already started his own vaudeville career. Hannah’s daughter Polly managed to resist the show business bug as did Sara’s entire family, but now Herbert could see two uncles, a cousin and three brothers out on the road performing. In the next few years, he would see his mother, Aunt Hannah and his seldom seen brother Leonard take to the vaudeville stage. It couldn’t have been that much of a surprise when his time finally came.
While much of Herbert’s childhood was like that of his older brothers, enough of it wasn’t to give him a decidedly different start in life. For one thing, he never developed a close relationship with a sibling like the one enjoyed by Adolph and Leonard that remained for the rest of their lives as Harpo and Chico. Similarly, Julius and Milton were extremely close and remained so as Groucho and Gummo into their eighties. Herbert was a lone wolf in many respects, and this remained a core trait of the adult Zeppo. But Herbert did see one of his older brothers as a role model.
All the boys considered Frenchy to be practically another brother, as opposed to a father figure or role model. He was sweet and easygoing and struggled with the notion of disciplining his sons. Minnie was clearly the boss, although Frenchy could at least claim autonomy in the kitchen. When Leonard would make an appearance at the 93rd Street apartment, Herbert was awestruck. Leonard began leaving home for extended periods shortly after Herbert was born, so they never really spent a lot of time together. But Leonard’s stories of his adventurous life of gambling and womanizing on the road struck a chord in young Herbert. If he understood that Leonard’s travels at this point were usually the result of outrunning his bookies and finding piano-playing jobs in whore-houses, Herbert didn’t care. Leonard was practically a god to him.
The Four Nightingales did well without reaching the level of success enjoyed by Al Shean, but Minnie remained optimistic. She was convinced that her act being stuck in the grind of small-time vaudeville circuits couldn’t have had anything to do with the quality of a singing quartet in which only two of the members—Julius and hired hand Lou Levy—could sing. It must have been something else. Minnie concluded that having the act based in New York was the problem. The act and the family would move to Chicago to be at the center of vaudeville. This would open the western half of the country for the Four Nightingales.
Minnie, Frenchy, Adolph, Julius, Milton, and Herbert arrived in Chicago in late 1909 along with Hannah and her husband, Julius Schickler. They rented an apartment at 4649 Calumet Avenue. Harry and Marie and their children, and Sara and her husband Gustave Heyman and their children, all remained in New York.8 These aunts, uncles and cousins had been an important part of eight-year-old Herbert’s life—in some cases more important than his own mother and brothers. But that was not considered when Minnie decided that the family had to leave New York to help the Four Nightingales. This was the likely point at which Herbert’s lone wolf tendencies blossomed. He embarked on a path that would make him a far more dangerous juvenile delinquent than any of his brothers had ever been.
CHAPTER TWO
The Fifth Son Also Rises
HERBERT WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD WHEN THE MARX FAMILY ARRIVED IN Chicago. They had traveled slowly while the Four Nightingales played a string of dates in the fall of 1909 that would get them from New York to Chicago by the end of the year. Rather than spending several months on the road with the Four Nightingales, eighty-six-year-old Lafe Schoenberg moved into Al Shean’s home in Mount Vernon. He took a comparatively luxurious train ride to Chicago with Al’s wife Johanna in December. Al was booked with his partner Charles Warren at the Marlowe Theatre at 63rd Street and Stewart Avenue—just a few miles from the new Marx home. Lafe soon rejoined the Marxes in their new Chicago address.
Shortly after the family arrived in Chicago, Adolph changed his name to Arthur and Minnie made another decision.1 Why should the act only be paid as a quartet when the family had two additional singers? Minnie and her sister Hannah joined the act, which was rechristened the Six Mascots. A local boy named Fred Klute rounded out the sextet that also included Julius, Adolph, and Milton.2 Klute had no stage experience, but Minnie had never let that stop her before. Klute’s father operated a tavern in their new Chicago neighborhood, so it’s possible that Minnie saw some advantage in having a saloonkeeper as a friend. If Herbert was keeping score, his mother, two uncles, a cousin, and an aunt had now been on vaudeville stages as had three of his brothers. Sara Heyman was Minnie’s only surviving sibling to never set foot on a stage. Minnie probably wondered about the talents never displayed by her five dead sisters.
In their first few months in Chicago, the Six Mascots were able to play locally for weeks at a time, taking advantage of the unusually large number of vaudeville houses in and around the city. The reduction in travel expenses immediately made the Chicago move seem like a great idea. Continuous Performance, a biography of theater owner A. J. Balaban, quoted him about Minnie as manager of her sons’ act in the family’s early days in Chicago. “Whenever there was an open split-week in their bookings, she’d slip them to me at a ‘cut,’ sharing with me the benefit of a home-town booking that eliminated traveling expense.” Chicago was a land of opportunity for the act, but eventually the Six Mascots had to hit the road. Aunt Hannah’s husband, Julius Schickler, traveled with them as an advance man—and occasionally a seventh member of the act—so Herbert was left at home under the lax supervision of Minnie’s now eighty-seven-year-old father, and Frenchy. It didn’t take long for Herbert to figure out that roaming the streets of Chicago was a lot more fun than showing up at school. Being the youngest of five boys certainly toughened up Herbert and he became pretty good with his fists. Boys his own age were no match for him. At home he was little Herbie, easy to pick on. On the street he was known as Buster Marx. He was the first Marx brother to pick up a nickname and was respected by his peers because, if provoked, he could knock a kid on his backside quickly.
Bert Cahn, a childhood friend, spoke about Zeppo’s boyhood days in Chicago in an August 8, 1979, Palm Beach Post interview:
[W]e called him Buster because of his Buster Brown haircut. . . . We became sort of pals. He was in my room in school. He was full of mischief and did many silly things, but we were like two peas in a pod as I was no angel either. He’d get in more scraps than a junkman. He was anything but a sissy. He’d fight at the drop of a hat.
One hot August day, the two of us decided to go swimming in Lake Michigan about two miles east of where we lived. There was no beach at the location. We’d just jump off the breakwater. We swam until we got tired and started walking home. Try to imagine a very hot day, with both of us thirsty as hell and not a cent between us. Suddenly, on approaching an ice cream parlor owned by a Greek, Zeppo said, “How would you like an ice cream sundae?”
“Whaddaya mean?” Cahn said. “We got nuttin’.” “Don’t worry about it,” Zeppo said reassuringly. “The guy who owns the store is a friend of my mother’s and he’ll collect from her.” So, Bert and Zeppo went into the ice cream parlor and ordered two sundaes. “I was in heaven and enjoying it with all the gusto a ten-year-old kid could summon,” Cahn said. Cahn noticed that his friend Zeppo was eating quite rapidly but thought nothing of it. Suddenly Zeppo turned toward the door, cried, “Hello, Joe” and dashed out of the store. It took only seconds for Cahn to realize that he had been left holding the bag. He decided it would be prudent to absent himself.
“Out I dashed after him, with the Greek running along the counter trying to cut me off,” Cahn said. “Luckily, there was a cigar counter at the end, so I was out of reach. I got out the door and ran as far as I could until I thought I was safe.” Cahn went to Zeppo’s house with murderous thoughts on his young mind. Zeppo, being a clever lad, sensibly refused to come out. “Just think, I was his friend, and he left me holding the bag like that,” Cahn said.
With Buster Marx’s adventures in Chicago far from her mind, Minnie concerned herself with the flailing Six Mascots. They gradually developed a better act than the one in which two women in their mid forties played schoolgirls—the roles Minnie and her sister Hannah took in the act. The act was evolving from a singing act into the schoolroom comedy act that would soon put the Marx Brothers on their path to stardom. By the beginning of 1911 the act was known as the Three Marx Brothers and Company, and they starred in “Fun in Hi Skule,” a classroom comedy sketch. Minnie had retired from performing to focus strictly on management—and maybe getting Herbert to school occasionally. Aunt Hannah remained in the act until she finally abandoned her stage career just as the fall vaudeville season began in 1912. In the summer of 1911, Leonard arrived in Chicago with singer Aaron Gordon, the partner he’d teamed with when they met as song pluggers in Pittsburgh. Minnie struggled to get the new act vaudeville bookings and by the beginning of the fall season she had paired Leonard with Aunt Hannah’s son, Lou Shean. Minnie now had two acts based in Chicago. As it had with Aaron Gordon, Leonard’s reckless lifestyle proved too challenging for even his cousin Lou Shean, a vaudeville veteran by this point, who could do without the aggravation and the danger. Compulsive gambling and womanizing on the road could cause serious problems for Leonard’s partners.
With his third partner, Moe Lee, Leonard’s vaudeville career took the turn Minnie was hoping for. They did good business as Marx and Lee in the summer of 1912. That fall, Marx and Lee joined the family act to form the Four Marx Brothers and Company. Their new show—an immediate success—was a tabloid musical called Mr. Green’s Reception. A tabloid was essentially a truncated version of a full-length show cut down for presentation as a vaudeville show. Some of these tabloids were versions of current Broadway hits and others—like Mr. Green’s Reception—were original creations in the tab format.
With Leonard now based in Chicago, and more relatives passing through town, the Marx family moved out of their rental apartment on Calumet Avenue and bought a three-story brownstone at 4512 Grand Boulevard.3 The house was only a short walk from the Calumet apartment, so Herbert’s adventures on the neighborhood streets were unaffected. The new house had a basement large enough for a pool table, so Herbert would have the advantage of not having to hang around the local poolrooms as his brothers had to in New York. The family was now successful enough to have their own poolroom. And with Leonard and Arthur in the house, they even had their own pool hustlers.
The success of the Four Marx Brothers inspired Minnie, now a successful producer, to branch out with additional acts. The most obvious source of talent was her own family. Having already proven with Milton and Arthur that desire and skill were not essential for vaudeville success, Minnie decided to give her brother Harry another chance to emulate the great Al Shean. After a few unsuccessful show business ventures on his own Harry shut down his lunch wagon in Queens and moved his family to Chicago. Minnie created an act for Harry called the Orange Blossoms and, in the spring of 1913, this terrible act hit the road and made a bit of money. Minnie did even better with her nephew, Lou Shean—partly feeling as though she owed him another chance because of his brief and dangerous partnership with Leonard. He toured the country in a show called The Duke of Bull Durham, which did good business for a while.
The only problem with Minnie’s new successes was that she was offering theater managers package deals. If a manager booked the Orange Blossoms or The Duke of Bull Durham, they could also have the Four Marx Brothers. Booking fees were adjusted accordingly, so if a theater projected losses on the act with Harry Shean or Lou Shean, they would make up for it by paying a little less for the guaranteed box office success of the Four Marx Brothers. Naturally, this did not sit well with the Four Marx Brothers. Leonard, the only brother who could get any consideration out of Minnie, gradually took control of the act away from her. The failure of the Orange Blossoms and The Duke of Bull Durham followed almost immediately.
Minnie had rechristened herself Minnie Palmer around this time and remained active as a vaudeville producer and manager while the Marx Brothers mostly managed themselves—always being careful enough to promote the notion that Minnie was in charge.4 Regardless of the Palmer name, Minnie made sure everyone in vaudeville knew who her sons were. With the success of the Four Marx Brothers, Minnie saw strength in numbers with acts like the Six American Beauties and the Seven Parisian Violets. She even renamed Harry’s act the Eight Orange Blossoms. And where was she getting these American Beauties, Parisian Violets, and Orange Blossoms? One of the advantages of the new house was that it had plenty of space. Minnie advertised for aspiring chorus girls to come to Chicago and learn the trade at her home during the summer break in the vaudeville season. With a flock of pretty, young girls in a house with its own poolroom, there was little chance of her sons ever leaving the premises. For Herbert it was his first real chance to spend a significant amount of time with Leonard. And Herbert liked what he saw. He was quickly turning into a pint-sized version of his oldest brother.
The family also bought a car around this time. Herbert developed an affinity for all things mechanical and learned how the engine worked. He learned so well that he even figured out how to start a car without the key—in the era of the newly invented car key, which locked the ignition even though cranking the engine was still required. Stealing cars was a two-man job and Herbert and his schoolmate Joey Bass were a team. Joey had been getting into trouble long before he teamed up with Herbert. He made the local papers when he was twelve and nearly died because of his mischief. Joey had climbed a telephone pole on a dare and touched a live electrical wire. The shock threw him to the ground, but he survived. (Joey was briefly paralyzed, which resulted in his younger brother Ernie beating him in the hospital in retaliation for prior bullying.) The streets of Chicago were an automotive showroom for Herbert. He and Joey took their neighborhood friends on joyrides, abandoning the cars they borrowed wherever they tired of them. The question for Minnie was whether Herbert was better off being around Leonard or cruising the streets of Chicago in stolen cars. In a BBC interview near the end of his life, Zeppo recalled his Chicago boyhood. “I was a real bad boy. I carried a gun and stole automobiles.” He came under the influence of Joey’s brother, Louis Bass, who was two years older. “This boy was an older boy. . . . I loved to be with him because he was so tough, and I sort of felt that if I got in any trouble, he’d protect me.”
