1890: Groucho Marx is Born

It was on this day in 1890 in Manhattan that Julius “Groucho” Marx was born, the middle child of five brothers. Julius had wanted to become a doctor, but he had to drop out of school at the age of 12 to help the family earn money. However, he was strong reader which helped make up his lack of formal education. In 1905, he became part of the Gene Leroy Trio performing at the Ramona Theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan and four years later, his mother grouped Julius and his brothers Milton and Arthur along with Lou Levy to form The Four Nightingales. The group traveled across the U.S., but after a rather poor performance in Nacogdoches, Texas, they began to share a few jokes which to their surprise got a great response from the audience. They changed their name to the Marx Brothers focusing on comedy rather than singing. Groucho’s first movie was a silent film created in 1921. It was never released, and it took another ten years before his next film (The Cocoanuts) was released. Later in 1947, Groucho hosted the game show, You Bet Your Life for ABC radio. Though the show was successful, it jumped from ABC to CBS to NBC. By 1950, the show appeared on both radio and TV. The radio show ended in 1960 and the TV show followed the next year. Groucho married three times (all of them ending in divorce) and had three children. He passed away on June 22, 1977, at the age of 86.