Monday Afternoon Diversion: Groucho Marx Being Groucho Marx

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 2, 2012 9:00PM

One urban legend about Groucho Marx goes is about an ad-libbed line he claims to have never said. According to the legend, when he was hosting the game show You Bet Your Life he asked a woman why she had nine kids. When the woman answered, "I love my husband," Groucho supposedly said, "I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while." Groucho long denied ever saying this.

Groucho Marx is on my list of four famous people I would love to have over for dinner, simply because he could cut through the conversational bullshit with his quick wit and lack of a censor between the brain and tongue. Honed by years of working on vaudeville stages and traveling road shows before he and his brothers found fame in the movies, You Bet Your Life never ran live because producers feared Groucho's loose cannon mouth and, slightly less so, because it gave him time to probe the contestants for funny exchanges.

Groucho also made a hilarious panelist, as this 1959 clip from the game show What's My Line proves. There are a couple of amazing lines here, First, Groucho says of the guest, a female professional wrestler, "Well you can't make a living by just being a blonde, although I've heard of a few who have." The second line, again, just cuts through the bullshit and lays it bare, putting forth the assumption that the guest may be a hooker. It's tame for this day and age, but the way Groucho manages to work past network censors and slay the audience is amazing.