Maxine Marx, Chico's Daughter, 91
Brad Ferguson
acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September). She
was 91.
Maxine wrote the well-received book Growing Up with Chico, which was
published by Prentice-Hall in 1980.
Thanks to Mark Evanier for the heads-up:
Hoodoo
GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), spoke thusly:
> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
> She was 91.
I'm surprised she was that old.
--
"Think with your dipstick, Jimmy."
Louis Epstein
: Brad Ferguson <thir...@frXOXed.net>, on Mon Sep 21 2009 09:54:43
: GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), spoke thusly:
:
:> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
:> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
:> She was 91.
:
: I'm surprised she was that old.
Why so?...her father was the oldest Marx Brother.
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
Kris Baker
news:h98f18$330$2...@reader1.panix.com...
> Hoodoo <hoo...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> : Brad Ferguson <thir...@frXOXed.net>, on Mon Sep 21 2009 09:54:43
> : GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), spoke thusly:
> :
> :> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
> :> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
> :> She was 91.
> :
> : I'm surprised she was that old.
> :
>
> Why so?...her father was the oldest Marx Brother.
Because we remember when he died....so that makes his children
not so old when he died in 1961. ;)
Let's see. He was born in 1887.
His daughter, 91, would have been born in 1918...when he was 31.
For a guy who supposedly fooled around a lot, that's pretty old
for a first child. Unless there's others out there, and the mores of
the day meant it was shameful and hidden.
Kris
Corby Gilmore
> Hoodoo <hoo...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> : Brad Ferguson <thir...@frXOXed.net>, on Mon Sep 21 2009 09:54:43
> : GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), spoke thusly:
> :
> :> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
> :> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
> :> She was 91.
> :
> : I'm surprised she was that old.
> :
>
> Why so?...her father was the oldest Marx Brother.
Actually, Groucho was older than Chico by a few months. Groucho was born
on October 2, 1990; Chico was born in 1891. He would have been about 27
years old when his daughter was born.
Corby Gilmore
>
> Because we remember when he died....so that makes his children
> not so old when he died in 1961. ;)
>
> Let's see. He was born in 1887.
He was born in 1891.
Corby Gilmore
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> "Louis Epstein" <l...@main.put.com> wrote in message
> news:h98f18$330$2...@reader1.panix.com...
>> : Brad Ferguson <thir...@frXOXed.net>, on Mon Sep 21 2009 09:54:43
>> : GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), spoke thusly:
>> :
>> :> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
>> :> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
>> :> She was 91.
>> :
>> : I'm surprised she was that old.
>> :
>>
>> Why so?...her father was the oldest Marx Brother.
>
> on.
Chico Marx (1891-1961) was 70 when hwe died.
La N
"Corby Gilmore" <ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:h98o5t$1j1$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
> Louis Epstein (l...@main.put.com) writes:
>
> Actually, Groucho was older than Chico by a few months. Groucho was born
> on October 2, 1990;
Typo?
Corby Gilmore
Definately. That should read "October 2, 1891".
Charlene
> Louis Epstein (l...@main.put.com) writes:
> > Hoodoo <hoo...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> > : GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), spoke thusly:
> > :
> > :> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
> > :> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
> > :> She was 91.
> > :
> > : I'm surprised she was that old.
> > :
>
> > Why so?...her father was the oldest Marx Brother.
>
> Actually, Groucho was older than Chico by a few months. Groucho was born
> on October 2, 1990; Chico was born in 1891. He would have been about 27
> years old when his daughter was born.
"A few" months? Less than ten and you have to wonder...
wd45
wboenig
1961.
Groucho's real birthday was October 2, 1890.
Harpo was born between them, on November 23, 1888.
Several sources exist with different (read: incorrect) information,
such as Harpo's biography "Harpo Speaks!" which says he was born in
1893, and a circulating copy of a birthday tribute to Groucho
broadcast on NBC Monitor on October 6, 1963 which claims he was just
turning 68.
Ed Varner
> "Kris Baker" (parallelcoo...@ggmail.com) writes:
>
> > Because we remember when he died....so that makes his children
> > not so old when he died in 1961. ;)
>
> > Let's see. He was born in 1887.
>
> He was born in 1891.
>
All the online sources i checked show he was born in 1887, including:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=676
Ed
piks11
October 2, 1890 to be exact according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_Brothers
Kris Baker
Where are you getting that birth date? I see only 1887 on several
sources.
Kris Baker
news:7ec1752f-9b3a-462e...@g23g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
Thank you. 1887. It seems most sources ARE correct.
Kris
Brad Ferguson
<558a254d-1968-411c...@p10g2000prm.googlegroups.com>, Ed
Varner <ed.v...@gmail.com> wrote:
Obviously a typo. I can't believe they had the brass. 8#!
Anyway, can we now all agree that Louis was right, and that when he
said Chico was the "oldest" that all the sane people here knew he meant
"eldest"?
Hoodoo
> :> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
> :> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
> :> She was 91.
> : I'm surprised she was that old.
> Why so?...her father was the oldest Marx Brother.
I was thinking that her father was born quite close to 1900 rather than
10 or so years earlier.
Although, even if he were born ten years later he could have fathered a
child that would now be around 90 years of age.
Her age at death simply seemed inappropriate to me.
La N
"Hoodoo" <hoo...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:4AB8563...@spamcop.net...
Well, Chico will always remain young and hip to many of us:
Matthew Kruk
news:KRYtm.46057$PH1.39330@edtnps82...
Great photo - thanks.
Matthew Kruk
Matthew Kruk
news:RWYtm.54575$IG7....@en-nntp-01.dc1.easynews.com...
Okay one more ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOJrmTF3TCs&feature=related
Sigh ... gonna be on youtube for awhile :-)
Corby Gilmore
> On Sep 21, 2:39=A0pm, ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Corby Gilmore) wrote:
>> "Kris Baker" (parallelcoo...@ggmail.com) writes:
>>
>> > Because we remember when he died....so that makes his children
>>
>> > Let's see. =A0 He was born in 1887.
>>
>> =A0 He was born in 1891.
>>
>
> All the online sources i checked show he was born in 1887, including:
>
My source (which I hope is accurate, because its their job to be so) was
Chico's obituary in the New York Times.
Corby Gilmore
> On Sep 21, 3:52=A0pm, ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Corby Gilmore) wrote:
>> "La N" (nilita2004NOS...@yahoo.com) writes:
>> > "Corby Gilmore" <ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
>> >news:h98o5t$1j1$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
>> >> Louis Epstein (l...@main.put.com) writes:
>>
> born
>> >> on October 2, 1990;
>>
>> > Typo?
>>
>
> October 2, 1890 to be exact according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar=
> x_Brothers
Wikipedia is not known to be the most reliable of sources, but you are
correct. It should read "October 2, 1890". Typo number 2!!!
Corby Gilmore
>>
>>
>> Chico Marx (1891-1961) was 70 when hwe died.
>
> Where are you getting that birth date? I see only 1887 on several
> sources.
My source is Chico Marxes NY Times obituary; newspaper obits tend to be
more reliable than most, but I suppose it could be wrong.
R H Draney
>>
>> http://www.mninter.net/~babaloo/wallp/marx1024.bmp
>
>One of my favorites from the Marx Brothers:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5lU52aWTJo
Of course, Chico's only in about five seconds of that one....
Notice that after the glass breaks there's essentially no sound at all for the
remainder of the scene....
Since we're essentially talking about Chico here, here's one of my favorite
scenes of his:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkCiRSDPIzk
....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Corby Gilmore
>
> Of course, there is the funniest movie line of all time from Bob
> Hope's "The Ghost Breakers" (1940) --
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkzV5AIK8iM [esp. for Magnus]
The last line of "Some Like it Hot", spoken by Joe E. Brown, was funnier.
Jim Beaver
It is.
The U.S. Census for 1900 New York > New York > Manhattan > District 879 >
Page 17 shows the children of Samuel and Minnie Marx as follows:
Pauline, born January, 1885
Leonard, born March 1887
Adolph, born November 1888
Julius, born October 1890
Milton, born October 1892
Jim Beaver
R H Draney
>
>"Jim Beaver" <jumb...@prodigy.spam> wrote in message
>news:h9a0et$c9m$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>
>> The U.S. Census for 1900 New York > New York > Manhattan > District 879 >
>> Page 17 shows the children of Samuel and Minnie Marx as follows:
>>
>> Pauline, born January, 1885
>
> I don't see her mentioned in any bio about Minnie ("Miene Sch�nberg")
>and Sam.
> http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/marxes.htm
>
> Do you know how long she lived, Jim? A specific death date?
I vaguely remember hearing of a sixth brother as well, one who died in
infancy....r
wboenig
> I vaguely remember hearing of a sixth brother as well, one who died in
> infancy....r
You remember correctly. Manfred Marx was born in January 1886 (before
Chico) and died on July 17 of the same year.
That claim of a sister named Pauline, however, needs a lot more
explaining. (Translation: she never existed, unless she was a cousin
living under the same roof.)
Brad Ferguson
<dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> A filted:
> >
> >"Jim Beaver" <jumb...@prodigy.spam> wrote in message
> >news:h9a0et$c9m$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> >>
> >> The U.S. Census for 1900 New York > New York > Manhattan > District 879 >
> >> Page 17 shows the children of Samuel and Minnie Marx as follows:
> >>
> >> Pauline, born January, 1885
> >
> > I've never seen a reference previously about Pauline.
> > I don't see her mentioned in any bio about Minnie ("Miene Sch�nberg")
> >and Sam.
> > http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/marxes.htm
> >
> > Do you know how long she lived, Jim? A specific death date?
>
> I vaguely remember hearing of a sixth brother as well, one who died in
> infancy....r
That was Manny. He died on 17 July 1886 at the age of seven months, or
eight months before Chico was born. The cause of Manny's death was
most likely influenza.
Louis Epstein
: Chico's real birthday was March 22, 1887. He died on October 11,
: 1961.
:
: Groucho's real birthday was October 2, 1890.
:
: Harpo was born between them, on November 23, 1888.
:
: Several sources exist with different (read: incorrect) information,
: such as Harpo's biography "Harpo Speaks!" which says he was born in
: 1893, and a circulating copy of a birthday tribute to Groucho
: broadcast on NBC Monitor on October 6, 1963 which claims he was just
: turning 68.
Yes,in Groucho's lifetime the 1891-1893-1895 birthdates were used,
but subsequent corrections in the World Almanac lists have them at
1886-1888-1890.
Using a corrected birthdate (even when the WA used 1895 Groucho was
"81" on the cover of Esquire well before 1976) for Groucho but a
vanity birthdate for his oldest brother screws things up.
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
Louis Epstein
:
: "Louis Epstein" <l...@main.put.com> wrote in message
: news:h98f18$330$2...@reader1.panix.com...
:> Hoodoo <hoo...@spamcop.net> wrote:
:> : Brad Ferguson <thir...@frXOXed.net>, on Mon Sep 21 2009 09:54:43
:> : GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), spoke thusly:
:> :
:> :> Maxine Marx, the daughter and only child of Chico Marx, and a famed
:> :> acting teacher in her own right, died this morning (21 September).
:> :> She was 91.
:> :
:> : I'm surprised she was that old.
:> :
:>
:> Why so?...her father was the oldest Marx Brother.
: No, Groucho lived to be 86. Chico was only 74 when he passed
: on.
: I presume you meant to say "her father was the eldest" (as in
: first born) of the Brothers.
:
Yes.
I did not say "longest-lived" Marx Brother.
Louis Epstein
:
: "Corby Gilmore" <ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
:> "Kris Baker" (paralle...@ggmail.com) writes:
:>>>
:>>>
:>>> Chico Marx (1891-1961) was 70 when hwe died.
:>>
:>> Where are you getting that birth date? I see only 1887 on several
:>> sources.
:>
:>
:> My source is Chico Marxes NY Times obituary; newspaper obits tend to be
:> more reliable than most, but I suppose it could be wrong.
:
: It is.
:
: The U.S. Census for 1900 New York > New York > Manhattan > District 879 >
: Page 17 shows the children of Samuel and Minnie Marx as follows:
:
: Pauline, born January, 1885
: Leonard, born March 1887
World Almanac now says 1886 (retreated in stages from 1891)
: Adolph, born November 1888
: Julius, born October 1890
: Milton, born October 1892
WA says 1893
Louis Epstein
:
: "wboenig" <wbo...@aol.com> wrote in message
: news:d6833fec-7370-469f...@a6g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
:>
:>> I vaguely remember hearing of a sixth brother as well, one who died in
:>> infancy....r
:>
:> You remember correctly. Manfred Marx was born in January 1886 (before
:> Chico) and died on July 17 of the same year.
: This web site says Manfred was born in 1885, and died around 3 years
: of age, (1888?).
: Some sources say it was from an accident, this one says it was from
: tuberculosis.
No chance he was strangled after crying Doo Wah Diddy at all hours
of the night?
: http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/chrono.htm
: Timeline
:
Jim Beaver
> Jim Beaver <jumb...@prodigy.spam> wrote:
> :
> : "Corby Gilmore" <ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
> : news:h99n9e$jv1$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
> :> "Kris Baker" (paralle...@ggmail.com) writes:
> :>>>
> :>>>
> :>>> Chico Marx (1891-1961) was 70 when hwe died.
> :>>
> :>> Where are you getting that birth date? I see only 1887 on several
> :>> sources.
> :>
> :>
> :> My source is Chico Marxes NY Times obituary; newspaper obits tend to
> be
> :> more reliable than most, but I suppose it could be wrong.
> :
> : It is.
> :
> : The U.S. Census for 1900 New York > New York > Manhattan > District 879
> >
> : Page 17 shows the children of Samuel and Minnie Marx as follows:
> :
> : Pauline, born January, 1885
> : Leonard, born March 1887
>
> World Almanac now says 1886 (retreated in stages from 1891)
>
> : Adolph, born November 1888
> : Julius, born October 1890
> : Milton, born October 1892
>
> WA says 1893
The U.S. Census gives dates and ages, as provided by the head of the
household. I'm going with that.
Jim Beaver
Jim Beaver
"wboenig" <wbo...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:d6833fec-7370-469f...@a6g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
>
I'm telling you what the U.S. Census for 1900 said. I don't know anything
more. It's been forty years since I read all the various Marx
autobiographies, biographies, and surveys.
Jim Beaver
Brad Ferguson
<aa...@att.net> wrote:
> "Brad Ferguson" <thir...@frXOXed.net> wrote in message
> news:220920091225281720%thir...@frXOXed.net...
> A good guess on your part, but a little research and sources say
> Manfred died from tuberculosis, after his 1885 birth.
> http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/marxes.htm
Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't guess.
From Simon Louvich's book "Monkey Business," published in 2000: "Family
lore told privately of the firstborn son, Manny, born in 1886 but
surviving for only three months, and carried off by tuberculosis. Even
some members of the Marx family wondered if he were pure myth. But
Manfred can be verified. A death certificate of the Borough of
Manhattan reveals the he died, aged seven months, on 17 July 1886, of
'entero-colitis,' with 'asthenia' contributing, i.e. probably a victim
of influenza. He is buried at New York's Washington Cemetery, beside
his grandmother, Fanny Schoenberg, who died on 10 April, 1901." BTW,
Manny's death certificate says he was born in January 1886, according
to findagrave.com and other sources.
Your source, which seems to be pretty sloppy, says "Simon's and
Minnie's first child Manfred born in 1885, died in infancy before the
age of three. Most likely the cause of his death was tuberculosis, but
some sources say that he died in an accident." The year of birth is
wrong and the cause of death is wrong; further, fixing Manny's death at
"before the age of three" is uselessly vague information. (The fiction
about the accident is irrelevant, but it does add to the slop factor.)
Elsewhere, your source says again that "1885 Manfred born (dies in
infancy (1888?) of tubercolosis [sic])." In accusing me of guessing,
which I did not, you cited a source that in fact guessed, and guessed
poorly.
As for Pauline, she was listed in the 1900 census as Sam and Minnie's
daughter. However, she was not. Pauline was born in 1885 to Minnie's
sister, Hannah; Pauline was Hannah's second child. The identity of
Pauline's father is not known, as Hannah's husband Max had flown the
coop years before. What *is* known is that Pauline was treated as a
Marx sibling, not a cousin, and Sam and Minnie even moved the stated
date of their wedding back a year, to 18 January 1884, so as to confer
legitimacy on Pauline. Pauline is, in a sense, the eldest Marx child.
Pauline should have been no mystery to you, since Harpo talked about
her in his autobiography, in which he said that Pauline had been
"adopted as one of us."
Pauline married a plumber named Muller in 1903, and for some reason
there was a falling-out between her and the rest of the Marxes, and
they appear to have broken contact. (The family had attended the
wedding.) The only Pauline Muller born in 1885 who's listed in the
SSDI died in December 1974.
AJM
> lore told privately of the firstborn son, Manny, born in 1886 but
> surviving for only three months, and carried off by tuberculosis.
In the 1970s Groucho was asked what caused Manny's death in infancy.
"Old age," Groucho quipped.
Back to Maxine Marx: She, along with *all* the Marx Brothers'
daughters (e.g., Groucho's daughters Miriam and Melinda), had first
names beginning with "M" in honor of their beloved mother Minnie.
-- Andrew
marcus
> On Sep 21, 2:39 pm, ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Corby Gilmore) wrote:
>
> > "Kris Baker" (parallelcoo...@ggmail.com) writes:
>
> > > Because we remember when he died....so that makes his children
>
> > > Let's see. He was born in 1887.
>
> > He was born in 1891.
>
> All the online sources i checked show he was born in 1887, including:
>
>
> Ed
Yes, Groucho was 87 when he died in 1974 ....making his birth year,
1887.
AJM
>
> - Show quoted text -
Groucho died on 8/19/1977 (three days after Elvis), making him 2
months shy of 87.
R H Draney
>
>"AJM" <ajmi...@cavtel.net> wrote in message
>news:587ce275-e787-41cd...@j9g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> In the 1970s Groucho was asked what caused Manny's death in infancy.
>> "Old age," Groucho quipped.
>
>family member.
Well, he *was* older than all the rest of the brothers....r
marcus
OMG
marcus
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> "marcus" <marcus...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:5f1d9ec4-2e3d-4d84...@d23g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...
>
> - Show quoted text -
I was/am heavily into the Marx Bros and all their movies. I started
being a fan in the ealry 70s. I remember very well when Groucho
died...it felt like more of an end to an era than when Elvis died.
What was I "supposed to" learn?
marcus
Oops, my bad, I just realized why you were stating the obvious, and
what "A" was talking about. I didn't realize that I made a typo. I
meant 1977, not 1974 in my original post.
I'll never forget Elvis and Groucho dying in the same week.
marcus
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> "marcus" <marcus...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
I wrote a letter to Groucho a few weeks before he died, and mailed it
to the hospital where he was an inpatient. Kind of a get well card.
Not sure if he ever got it, or would have been "with it" enough to
read it.
My love for the Marx Brothers came from my uncle, who had a couple of
one-liners in a couple of their movies, and later on worked in the
publicity dept of the movie company that made Groucho's solo films
after the last Marx Brothers movie. He got to know the guy, and drove
him to different locations for publicity tours.
Corby Gilmore
...and within the next 2 months Maria Callas and Bing Crosby left us as
well.
marcus
and that same year saw this meeting of the generations:
Herald7
>
> news:210920091054430122%thir...@frXOXed.net..>
>
> > Maxine wrote the well-received book Growing Up with Chico, which was
> > published by Prentice-Hall in 1980.
>
> >
> - Show quoted text -
I was lucky to find Maxine's book on Amazon.com last year. Part of the
reason I love her book so much is that, despite her father's troubles,
she also celebrates his good points. So many biographies are just out
to dish dirt. Maxine was a real friend to Marx Brothers fans. :)