Susan Fleming,actress of the 1930's and wife of Harpo Marx Dead at 94
Richard Smits
Harpo Marx, was remembered by friends Monday as a woman who changed the
Coachella Valley from a movie star destination to a real home for families.
She died shortly before midnight Sunday at Eisenhower Medical Center after
suffering a massive heart attack. She was 94.
Her son, pianist Bill Marx, was at her bedside just hours after concluding a
talk about his father in a benefit for the Jewish Community School with a
rendition of "Sunrise Sunset."
Susan Marx’s friend and neighbor, New York-based music publisher Howie
Richmond, called her "a true Rancho Mirage pioneer."
"The people you talk about in the desert, what (Frank) Sinatra did, what Mr.
(Walter) Annenberg did, I wouldn’t make a comparison because Susan was in a
place by herself," Richmond said. "To me, Susan Marx made the magic. We all
looked at this place as a beautiful destination. We had this haven, and then
we went back to another world. She had the courage and stamina and vitality
and dedication to make this place a real place, dealing with the real,
everyday responsibilities of the family-oriented home."
He added, "She opened new boundaries for this playground. I loved her as a
friend."
Marx served off and on for 35 years on boards for the Palm Springs Unified
School District and College of the Desert. When College of the Desert
considered building a theater that had been on its original blueprint, Marx
asked the tough questions that caused it to eventually be operated as the
independent entity the McCallum Theatre is today.
"Susan said there was no one with any expertise on that board to guide the
theater, and she thought some of the ideas, such as having guest artists
stay at people’s houses, was silly," then COD President Fern Stout said
years later. "I wouldn’t disagree with that. I hadn’t thought of it in those
terms simply because that board did not claim expertise, they were just
raising money."
After Marx’s opposition, the board’s two top fund-raising leaders resigned.
Stout said the theater was "dead in the water" until a new group got
permission in the 1980s to lease the land from COD for $1 a year. That group
built a 1,200-seat theater and operated it as a separate nonprofit
organization.
Marx was active in many community endeavors. She ran unsuccessfully for a
state Assembly seat but served on the Rancho Mirage Planning Commission, the
Cathedral City Parks Committee, the Cove Communities General Planning
Committee, the League of Women Voters, the Palm Springs Desert Museum Women’
s Committee, Tri Arts and the Women’s Auxiliary of Desert Hospital.
Bill Marx said there were three phases of his mother’s life: her early show
biz life as Susan Fleming, her personal life as Mrs. Harpo Marx, and her
life of public service as Susan Marx.
Born in Brooklyn, she started her career as a stage actress, working her way
up to the top musical revue on Broadway, "The Ziegfeld Follies," in the
1920s.
She followed the opportunities to Hollywood in 1931 when she appeared as
John Wayne’s love interest in "Range Feud." As a Paramount actress, she
actually made more movies than the Marx Brothers, with her peak coming in
the 1932 comedy "Million Dollar Legs" with W.C. Fields.
Her best friend, Gloria Stuart, co-star in the blockbuster film "Titanic,"
remembered she got a big Hollywood buildup for that film.
"The publicity was, she was Susan Fleming with the million-dollar legs,"
Stuart recalled. "She starred, and her legs were insured for a million
dollars."
But Bill Marx said his mother hated the movie business. When she met Harpo
Marx at Paramount, she courted him -- even proposing to the silent Marx
Brothers comedian three times.
She and Harpo adopted four children.
She began studies to enrich her life with Stuart, whose husband wrote for
the Marx Brothers. They studied cooking, stamp collecting and Bonsai
tree-shaping.
"She was very forthright, certainly beautifully centered," Stuart said.
"When she took up one of her various interests, it was always 100 percent."
Susan and Harpo Marx became original members of Tamarisk Country Club in
Rancho Mirage in 1952.
Tamarisk attracted such stars as Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, George Burns,
Milton Berle, Danny Kaye, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Red
Skelton.
Susan Marx stepped out of her celebrity circles to advance local education.
"She was kind of a guide to us because we had the children and we didn’t
know what to do," said Richmond, who joined Tamarisk in the early 1960s.
Susan Marx is survived by her four children, Bill of Rancho Mirage,
Alexander of Vallejo, Jim of Paso Robles and Minnie Eagle of Orange. She had
five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
No funeral services are planned, and Bill Marx said a memorial service is
pending.
cugina
having known you and Harpo...
Cugina
in article 3e089aae$0$138$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl, Richard Smits at
ric...@xs4all.nl wrote on 12/24/02 11:06 AM:
DGH
AKA: Susan Fleming Marx or Susan F. Marx.