The early performing lives of the brothers owed much to their mother, Minnie Marx (the sister of vaudeville comic Al Shean), who acted as their manager until her death in 1929.

Some members of the Marx family wondered whether he was real, but Manfred's death certificate from the Borough of Manhattan reveals that he died, aged seven months, on July 17, 1886, of enterocolitis, with "asthenia" contributing, i.e., probably a victim of influenza.

[6][7][8] During the early 20th century, Minnie helped her younger brother Abraham Elieser Adolf Schönberg (stage name Al Shean) to enter show business; he became highly successful in vaudeville and on Broadway as half of the musical comedy double act Gallagher and Shean, and this gave the brothers an entrée to musical comedy, vaudeville and Broadway at Minnie's instigation.

All the brothers confirmed that Minnie Marx had been the head of the family and the driving force in getting the troupe launched, the only person who could keep them in order; she was said to be a hard bargainer with theater management.

Groucho was angered by the interruption and, when the audience returned, he made snide comments at their expense, including "Nacogdoches is full of roaches" and "the jackass is the flower of Tex-ass".

The brothers' sketch "Fun in Hi Skule" featured Groucho as a German-accented teacher presiding over a classroom that included students Harpo, Gummo, and Chico.

Upon Minnie Marx learning that farmers were excluded from the draft, she purchased a 27-acre (11 ha) poultry farm near Countryside, Illinois; Stefan Kanfer wrote that "Each night, rats made off with the day's eggs.

Chico spoke with a fake Italian accent, developed off-stage to deal with neighborhood toughs, while Zeppo adopted the role of the romantic (and "peerlessly cheesy", according to James Agee)[22] straight man.

Groucho was unavailable to film the scene in which the Beaugard painting is stolen, so the script was contrived to include a power failure, which allowed Zeppo to play the Spaulding part in near-darkness.

based both on the brothers' personalities and Gus Mager's Sherlocko the Monk, a popular comic strip of the day that included a supporting character named "Groucho".

[28] Other sources reported that Gummo was the family's hypochondriac, having been the sickliest of the brothers in childhood, and therefore wore rubber overshoes, called gumshoes, in all kinds of weather.

Production then shifted to Hollywood, beginning with a short film that was included in Paramount's twentieth anniversary documentary, The House That Shadows Built (1931), in which they adapted a scene from I'll Say She Is.

Horse Feathers (1932), in which the brothers satirized the American college system and Prohibition, was their most popular film yet, and won them the cover of Time magazine.

[34] It included a running gag from their stage work, in which Harpo produces a ludicrous array of props from inside his coat, including a wooden mallet, a fish, a coiled rope, a tie, a poster of a woman in her underwear, a cup of hot coffee, a sword and (just after Groucho warns him that he "can't burn the candle at both ends") a candle burning at both ends.

[38] Unlike the free-for-all scripts at Paramount, Thalberg insisted on a strong story structure that made the brothers more sympathetic characters, interweaving their comedy with romantic plots and non-comic musical numbers, and targeting their mischief-making at obvious villains.

After a short experience at RKO (Room Service, 1938), the Marx Brothers returned to MGM and made three more films: At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940) and The Big Store (1941).

Four years later, however, Chico persuaded his brothers to make two additional films, A Night in Casablanca (1946) and Love Happy (1949), to alleviate his severe gambling debts.

On March 8 of that year, Chico and Harpo starred as bumbling thieves in The Incredible Jewel Robbery, a half-hour pantomimed episode of the General Electric Theater on CBS.

Groucho made a cameo appearance (uncredited, because of constraints in his NBC contract) in the last scene, and delivered the only line of dialogue ("We won't talk until we see our lawyer!").

According to a September 1947 article in Newsweek, Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo all signed to appear as themselves in a biographical film entitled The Life and Times of the Marx Brothers.

Five years later (October 1, 1962) after Jack Paar's tenure, Groucho made a guest appearance to introduce the Tonight Show's new host, Johnny Carson.

Wilder had discussions with Groucho and Gummo, but the project was put on hold because of Harpo's ill health, and abandoned when Chico died on October 11, 1961, from arteriosclerosis,[41] at the age of 74.

[42][43] In 1969, audio excerpts of dialogue from all five of the Marx Brothers' Paramount films were collected and released on an LP album, The Original Voice Tracks from Their Greatest Movies, by Decca Records.

[44] The album was praised by Billboard as "a program of zany antics"; the magazine highlighted the excerpts of Groucho, who was "way ahead of his time in spoofing the 'establishment', [and] at his hilarious biting best with his film soundtrack one-line zingers on his love life, his son, politics, big business, society, etc.".

[45] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, however, grading the LP a C-plus and recommending it only to fanatics of the comedy group, also expressing displeasure with the interspersing of small portions of "annoying music" and Owens's commentary.

[52] Other celebrity fans of the comedy ensemble have been Antonin Artaud,[56] The Beatles,[47] Anthony Burgess,[57] Alice Cooper,[48] Robert Crumb,[58] Salvador Dalí,[59] Eugene Ionesco,[56][49] George Gershwin[60] (who dressed up as Groucho once), René Goscinny,[61] Cédric Klapisch,[62] J. D. Salinger[63] and Kurt Vonnegut.

The film starred John Turturro, Mel Smith, and comedian Bob Nelson as loosely imitating Groucho, Chico, and Harpo.

Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) on M*A*S*H occasionally put on a fake nose and glasses, and, holding a cigar, did a Groucho impersonation to amuse patients recovering from surgery.

Wodehouse, during "The Hallo Song", Gussie Fink-Nottle suggests "You're either Pablo Picasso", to which Cyrus Budge III replies "or maybe Harpo Marx!"

[70] English punk band The Damned named their single "There Ain't No Sanity Clause" (1980), in reference to a famous quote from A Night at the Opera.