The only known photo of the entire Marx family, c. 1915. From left: Groucho, Gummo, Minnie (mother), Zeppo, Sam (father), Chico, and Harpo.
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1917
Sheet music (1917) for one of the songs from Home Again; from left: Harpo, Groucho, Chico, Gummo
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1930
Zeppo Marx
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1930
The Marx Brothers
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1930
The Marx Brothers, top Zeppo Marx, Groucho Marx, bottom Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, ca. early 1930s
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1930
The Marx Brothers
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1930
The Marx Brothers
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1930
The Marx Brothers
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1931
Four of the five Marx Brothers in 1931 (top to bottom: Chico, Harpo, Groucho and Zeppo)
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1957
The five brothers, just prior to their only television appearance together, on the Tonight! America After Dark, hosted by Jack Lescoulie, February 18, 1957; from left: Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, Groucho and Gummo
Gallery of Zeppo Marx
1975
from left: Zeppo Marx, Groucho Marx, Gummo Marx c.1975
The five brothers, just prior to their only television appearance together, on the Tonight! America After Dark, hosted by Jack Lescoulie, February 18, 1957; from left: Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, Groucho and Gummo
He founded a company called Marman Products Co. of Inglewood and designed the ‘Marman Clamp’ that has plenty of applications in the aerospace and aircraft industry.
He founded a company called Marman Products Co. of Inglewood and designed the ‘Marman Clamp’ that has plenty of applications in the aerospace and aircraft industry.
Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Marx was an American actor, comedian, theatrical agent, and engineer. He was the youngest of the five Marx Brothers.
Background
The youngest of the Marx Brothers, Zeppo Marx was born Herbert Manfred Marx on February 25, 1901, in New York City. Like his brothers, he was a first-generation American, born to Sam "Frenchie" and Minnie (Schoenberg) Marx, of French and German Jewish extraction, who both came from Europe but met in New York. The first of their six sons, Manfred, died in infancy; Zeppo's middle name honored him.
The origin of his nickname varies depending on the source: Both Groucho and Zeppo's second ex-wife said it was derived from the zeppelins of the time. One story is simply that their father called him "Zep" when he came home one day, and the moniker stuck. Another is that the name was adapted from Mr. Zippo, a trained chimpanzee, according to brother Harpo's autobiography. According to the book, Herbie's athletic prowess and acrobatics echoed the chimp's act, but his objection morphed the nickname into Zeppo.
Minnie Marx, a former dance teacher, was a fervent stage mother, getting the boys on the vaudeville circuit to make money. She added Herbie, who had a tendency toward pugilism, to the brother act in an effort to keep him from fighting. The Marx patriarch "was a very bad tailor," according to Zeppo, "but he found some people who were so stupid that they would buy his clothes, and so he'd make a few dollars that way for food."
The four elder Marx brothers formed the popular family comedy act The Marx Brothers. As Zeppo was the youngest, he grew up watching his brothers’ works. When one of them couldn’t perform due to illness or any other unavoidable issue, Zeppo easily understudied them and kept the show running.
Education
There is no information about his education.
Career
Zeppo Marx started appearing as a romantic lead and as a straight man after one of his brothers, Gummo, left the family act in 1919. He traveled with his elder brothers Groucho, Chico, and Harpo in vaudeville in the early 1920s.The Marx Brothers gained national attention with ‘I’ll Say She Is’, a musical comedy in 1924. This was followed by the long running hit show, ‘The Cocoanuts’ (1925-28). The shows earned them stardom and massive popularity.
In 1925, Zeppo was featured in a minor solo role in a comedy named ‘A Kiss in the Dark’. The brothers also made ‘Humorisk,’ a comedy that was never released and is now considered a lost film. Some people did not find Zeppo funny enough. While some of his brothers felt that he was the funniest of all, Groucho felt the team was funnier without Zeppo.
Zeppo mostly played the straight man in ‘The Marx Brothers’ movies for Paramount Pictures and got involved in classic comedy roles occasionally. He replaced his elder brother Groucho in the movie ‘Animal Crackers’ that was released in 1930. Groucho couldn’t perform in that show as he had to have a surgery at that time and Zeppo saved the show. Zeppo was also part of films like ‘Monkey Business’ and ‘Dark Soup’. Zeppo played a vital role as Ruth Hall’s love interest in ‘Monkey Business’ which was released in 1931. In the year, 1932, he starred in the film, ‘Horse Feathers’ with Thelma Todd and the other Marx Brothers.
After playing small parts in the first five movies featuring the Marx Brothers, Zeppo realized that his talent and time were getting wasted in the entertainment field. To utilize his potential to its full extent, Zeppo left the group in 1933 in order to explore other venues. Zeppo joined his elder brother Gummo in running a talent agency as an agent. Zeppo founded Marman Products in 1941, which made clamping devices that were used in WWII to secure the atomic bombs transported on the Enola Gay. He also held three patents, two of which pertained to his invention of a watch that monitored the pulse of heart patients. It was this business that helped make Zeppo a multimillionaire.
The last of the Marx Brothers to pass away, Zeppo Marx died of lung cancer on November 30, 1979, in Rancho Mirage, California. His ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.
None of the Brothers was religious in a strict sense. Although from a Jewish family, there is no evidence of them observing a kosher diet or, some of their weddings apart, observing any festivals after their own bar mitzvahs. They celebrated Christmas in the same secular way as do many non-Christians. The Marxes were proud of their heritage but refused to play on it.
His wife, Blakeley, wrote in her book, Lady Blue Eyes, that Zeppo never made her convert to Judaism. Blakeley was of Methodist faith and said that Zeppo told her she became Jewish by "injection".
Views
Quotations:
"The hardest shot in golf is a mashie at 90 yards from the green, where the ball has to be played against an oak tree, bounces back into a sandtrap, hits a stone, bounces on the green and then rolls into the cup. That shot is so difficult I have made it only once."
Membership
Zeppo owned a house on Halper Lake Drive in Rancho Mirage, California, which was built off the fairway of the Tamarisk Country Club. The Tamarisk Club had been set up by the Jewish community, which rivaled the gentile club called "The Thunderbird". His neighbor happened to be Frank Sinatra. Zeppo later attended the Hillcrest Country Club with friends like Sinatra, George Burns, Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, Sid Caesar and Milton Berle.
Tamarisk Country Club
Hillcrest Country Club
Personality
In real life, he was supposedly the funniest of his brothers despite always playing the straight man in their films.
Zeppo was a very jealous and possessive husband, and hated for Blakeley, his wife, to talk to other men.
Physical Characteristics:
He was the most handsome of all the Marx brothers.
Zeppo became ill with cancer in 1978. The doctors thought the cancer had gone into remission, but it returned.
Quotes from others about the person
Several critics have challenged the notion that Zeppo did not develop a comic persona in his films. James Agee considered Zeppo "a peerlessly cheesy improvement on the traditional straight man". Along similar lines, Gerald Mast, in his book The Comic Mind: Comedy and Movies, noted that Zeppo's comedic persona, while certainly more subtle than his brothers', was undeniably present:
"He added a fourth dimension as the cliché of the (romantic) juvenile, the bland wooden espouser of sentiments that seem to exist only in the world of the sound stage. (... He is) too schleppy, too nasal, and too wooden to be taken seriously."
In her book Hello, I Must be Going: Groucho & His Friends, Charlotte Chandler defended Zeppo as being "the Marx Brothers' interpreter in the worlds they invaded. He was neither totally a straight man nor totally a comedian, but combined elements of both, as did Margaret Dumont. Zeppo's importance to the Marx Brothers' initial success was as a Marx Brother who could 'pass' as a normal person. None of Zeppo's replacements (Allan Jones, Kenny Baker and others) could assume this character as convincingly as Zeppo, because they were actors, and Zeppo was the real thing, cast to type" .
Interests
Sport & Clubs
golf
Connections
On April 12, 1927, Zeppo married Marion Bimberg Benda. The couple adopted two children, Timothy and Thomas, in 1944 and 1945, and later divorced on May 12, 1954. On September 18, 1959, Marx married Barbara Blakeley, whose son, Bobby Oliver, he wanted to adopt and give his surname, but Bobby's father would not allow it. Bobby simply started using the last name "Marx".
Blakeley wrote in her book that Zeppo wanted to keep her son out of the picture, adding a room for him onto his estate, which was more of a guest house as it was separated from the main residence. It was also decided that Blakeley's son would go to military school which, according to Blakeley, pleased Zeppo.
Blakeley became involved with the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and had arranged to show Spartacus (featuring Kirk Douglas) for charity, selling tickets, and organizing a post-screening ball. At the last minute, Blakeley was told she could not have the film, so Zeppo went to the country club and spoke to Sinatra, who agreed to let him have an early release of a film he had just finished named Come Blow Your Horn. Sinatra also flew everyone involved to Palm Springs for the event.
Zeppo was a very jealous and possessive husband, and hated for Blakeley to talk to other men. Blakeley claimed that Zeppo grabbed Victor Rothschild by the throat at a country club because she was talking to him. Blakeley had caught Zeppo on many occasions with other women; the biggest incident was a party Zeppo had thrown on his yacht. After the incident, Zeppo took Blakeley to Europe, and accepted more invitations to parties when they arrived back in the States. Some of these parties were at Sinatra's compound; he often invited Blakeley and Zeppo to his house two or three times a week. Sinatra would also send champagne or wine to their home, as a nice gesture.
Blakeley and Sinatra started to see each other behind Zeppo's back. The press eventually caught up with Blakeley, snapping photos of her and Sinatra together, or asking Blakeley questions whenever they spotted her.
Zeppo and Blakeley divorced in 1973. Zeppo let Blakeley keep the 1969 Jaguar he had bought her, and agreed to pay her $1,500 a month for ten years. Sinatra upgraded Blakeley's Jaguar to the latest model. Sinatra also gave her a house to live in. The house had belonged to Eden Hartford, Groucho Marx's third wife. Blakeley and Sinatra continued to date, and were constantly hounded by the press until the divorce between Zeppo and Blakeley became final. Blakeley and Sinatra were married in 1976.
Zeppo became ill with cancer in 1978. He sold his home, and moved to a house on the fairway off Frank Sinatra Drive. Zeppo called Blakeley, who accompanied him to doctor's appointments. Zeppo spent his last days with Blakeley's family.