Leonard Marx, better known to the world as Chico Marx, was born on March 22, 1887, to Samuel "Frenchie" Marx and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Chico (pronounced Chick-o, due to his chasing young ladies) was the oldest Marx Brother.
They were poor, with numerous family members liable to drop in for dinner, taxing Frenchie's creativity with his cooking to the limit -- but the family was loving, and everyone was loved and accepted.
Chico grew up on the streets of New York City, learning to live by his wits. He was very intelligent, and quickly learned numerous small cons and swindles.
As a young Jewish man growing up in the inner city, he learned to imitate accents of other ethnic groups in order to stay out of trouble when crossing "territories" controlled by those groups -- which is the origin of his "Italian" accent that he used so successfully on the stage and screen.
He applied his mathematical abilities to quickly calculating odds, which he used in gambling at an early age. However, he often lost, and was not beyond stealing money from his brothers, or pawning his father's tailor shears.
One thing that was part of all of the young Marx brothers' lives was Minnie's plan. Daughter of a magician and a musician, she was adamant that her sons would find success on the stage. In Chico's case, that involved Minnie and Frenchie scraping together enough money to buy a used piano and even to pay for piano lessons for the young Chico.
Chico, however, was not a diligent student, and only practised the minimum that he could get away with. In addition, he was supposed to pass what he learned on to his brother Harpo.
Groucho Marx one time said that Chico never practiced the pieces he played in the movies, but instead Chico would just soak his fingers in hot water before going on.
Chico eventually joined his brothers on stage in a singing group. Their natural talents for comedy eventually surfaced, however, and after one performance away from Minnie's watchful eye, the Marx Brothers broke out into some of the madcap comedy for which they would later become famous.
In response to a request for a different act for a second week's engagement, they started performing a comedy sketch titled "Fun in Hi Skule" (1912) which they had seen performed many times in vaudeville. A later sequel, "Mr. Green's Reception" (1913), followed afterwards, as did "Home Again" (1914), "The Cinderella Girl" (1918), "On the Mezzanine Floor" (1921).
It was during this time that Chico met & married his first wife, Betty Carp, on March 22, 1917. The birth of their daughter, Maxine, followed in January of 1918.
With their change from a musical group to a comedy act, their fortunes had improved, to playing the highest venues, culminating in performing at the Palace.
Next came an English tour, where the Marx Brothers were extremely successful, including command performances for royalty. When they returned to America, their success had gone to their head, leading to their alienating E. F. Albee, the most influential man in vaudeville. Chico and the other Marx Brothers were blacklisted.
With vaudeville closed to them, there was only one legitimate venue left to them -- Broadway.
The Marx Brothers opened a new stage show, "I'll Say She Is," and after 18 months of testing and fine-tuning they opened in New York to great reviews. This led to a series of successful stage shows, such as "The Cocoanuts" and "Animal Crackers."
1929 should have been a wonderful year for Chico. He and his brothers had completed their first film, "The Cocoanuts," a filmed version of their stage show. However, two cataclysmic events occurred that year. In a personal tragedy, Chico's mother, Minnie, died after suffering a severe stroke. Also in 1929, Harpo and his brothers lost virtually everything in the stock market crash that signalled the beginning of the Great Depression.
After Minnie's death, Chico became manager of the Marx Brothers. As manager he cut a deal to get the Marx Brothers a percentage of a film's gross receipts - the first of its kind in Hollywood.
He was also responsible for finding Irving Thalberg, who revitalized the Marx Brothers' film careers with "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races."
For a while in the 1930s and 1940s, in addition to his film career, Chico led a band; young Mel Torme began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra.
He also co-starred on radio with his brother Groucho, "Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel" in 1934, and "The Kellog's Show" in 1939. Neither show, however, was very successful.
Although Chico had earned a fortune, he had very little to show for it, due to his lifelong gambling addiction. His wife refused to own a house, due to her fear of his losing the house in a card game. In part owing to the stress of Chico's gambling, Betty and Chico divorced in the 1940's.
The last two Marx Brothers movies, "A Night in Casablanca" and "Love Happy" were made for Chico's benefit; the other brothers twice returned to the screen to bail Chico out of debt. He remained a performer for all his life, often working the same small circuits as an old man that he had worked as a boy. Once, when asked how much money he had lost, he replied "Ask Harpo how much he's made and that's how much I've lost."
Chico died in 1961, after a long battle with heart disease. At his funeral a man stood up and began eulogizing him. He painted a totally inaccurate picture of who Chico Marx had been. It got so bad at one point during the service Harpo leaned over to Maxine and whispered "When I go, do me a favour and hire a mime."
On January 16, 1977, the Marxes were inducted to the Motion Picture Hall of Fame. Chico is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California.
Chico Marx is the only piano player to put his hands in concrete at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Here's-a me witta my favorite gal - Marilyn Monroe!
