The last few years of his life, Groucho Marx was "involved" with a woman named Erin Fleming. I chose the word "involved" because it's still a difficult relationship to describe. A TV producer named Jerry Davis sent her over because his friend Groucho needed someone to run errands and help manage his home and life. I knew Jerry. He helped Dennis Palumbo and me get some of our first writing jobs and he once told me that referring Fleming to Marx was "the worst thing I ever did in my life." But even he acknowledged that it was not as cut and dried as that. She took over Groucho's life to the point where there was talk of her either marrying him or being adopted by him as a daughter. There are tales of her abusing him verbally and even physically, and after his death she lost a half-million dollar lawsuit that asserted she'd looted the Marx bank accounts. On the other hand, he did say on several occasions that he loved her and couldn't imagine his life without her…and even her detractors acknowledge some ways in which she kept him as "alive" as a man his age could be.
My own view is based on a lot of reading and on two brief glimpses of them in person and in action. It's that she was a failed actress who seized on proximity to Groucho as means of access to a part of Hollywood to which she'd otherwise never have been admitted. She devoted much of her life for several years to him and obviously thought she was therefore entitled to every reward she could reap from their association. Was she good for him? That one's hard to answer. She did good and bad things for and to him but life is often a question of alternatives. I would have a hard time arguing that Groucho would have been better off if he'd never met her; not unless there was evidence that a saner, benevolent person would have come along who would have done the good things for him without the bad.
(I stuck in "saner" because there's no doubt she was seriously deficient in that area…and I don't mean she was ha-ha wacky. I mean she was mentally ill…and getting iller.)
My "take" on it all is largely from afar. Last night, I went up to the Hollywood Heritage Museum and heard a talk by my buddy Steve Stoliar, whose vantage point was from anear. Steve was hired by Erin to handle Groucho's fan mail and other archival duties. He was in that house, right there at Ground Zero for several years and his opinion from Erin doesn't differ a whole lot from mine. This is because I got a lot of mine from his fine book on his years with Groucho. He certainly agrees with the "crazy" part, having been subjected to many a screaming fit from Erin and to involvement in some of the attempts to "save" Groucho from her. Steve was 18-20 in those years and there wasn't much he or anyone could do but Groucho was fortunate to have him on the premises.
Last night, Steve talked about the experience and about Erin and he showed some rare video of which he apparently has the only copies. We saw some of Groucho's appearance at an event at U.C.L.A. in the early seventies. Steve spearheaded a drive to get the Marx Brothers movie Animal Crackers released again after legal complications had made it unavailable. Groucho and Erin went up to U.C.L.A., where Steve's campaign was based, and there's this amazing footage of Marx surrounded by and answering questions from college students, Steve included. There was also video Steve and a friend shot in the Marx home, including Groucho singing. What attendees saw last night may have been Groucho's last performance of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" in front of any camera.
And there were other historical treasures, including a Ted Koppel interview of Fleming the night of the day she lost that lawsuit. If anyone ever doubted she was out of her mind, this video settles it. She babbles on with disconnected answers, all the time having a stare on her face that…well, this is not a nice way to put it but it's accurate. You know that glazed stare some female politicians get when on TV? If Nancy Pelosi's rates a 6 on the crazed scale and Michele Bachmann is a 9, Erin Fleming's on this tape is about a 23.
The hall last evening was packed with Marx Brothers fans and historians. If you want to know about Groucho — and especially about that end of his life — Steve's the guy. He's also pretty funny, which is not always the case with folks who write or talk about great comedians.
Now, before you write to ask: Steve has one more talk scheduled — April 5 over at U.S.C. — and I suggest that film societies, universities and other venues that book such speakers start inviting this guy. He can be reached via his website (where you can also order his book and get it autographed) and that may be your best bet to hear him and maybe see some of this video footage he has. Some of it is very personal and needs to be seen in the context of his presentation so he has no plans to make it available anywhere. It is not and never will be on YouTube.
I'm swamped with work before I flee to WonderCon but I'm glad I made time last night to hear Steve talk. I hope you someday have the opportunity.
