" Oh, all right ," said Groucho.

Once, at a restaurant ( the most common location of Groucho's antics ), a fan came up to him and said, " Excuse me, but aren't you Groucho Marx?

" According to writer Philip Norman, when Groucho jokingly pointed his index fingers as if holding a pair of six-shooters, Elton John put up his hands and said, " Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player ," thereby naming the album he had just completed.

According to Dick Cavett's New York Times blog, when the elderly Groucho visited an old friend in the hospital, he said to the elevator attendant, as if in a department store, " Men's tonsils, please.

Zeppo gets to one-up Groucho: When asked to read the letter back, Zeppo informs him, " You said a lot of things I didn't think were very important, so I just omitted them!

When asked the significance of the film's politics, Groucho only shrugged and said: " What significance?

His brother Groucho jokingly said he named himself in honour of Harpocrates, as a god of both silence and childhood, or childish joy.

Groucho Marx once said that Chico never practiced the pieces he played.

His brother Groucho said Chico would throw away good cards ( with the knowledge of spectators ) to make the play " more interesting.

Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, said, " after Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned.

There are different theories to where Zeppo got his stage name: Groucho said in his Carnegie Hall concert in 1972 that the name was derived from the Zeppelin airship.

Groucho once said that many people believed they were married in real life, even though they were not.

Groucho, who usually displayed little tolerance for extremists, admired Bootzin's rugged individualism and said so, on camera.

If a contestant said the word, a toy duck resembling Groucho with a mustache and eyeglasses, and with a cigar in its bill, descended from the ceiling to bring a $ 100 bill.

Allegedly, Wood in frustration said to Groucho, " You can't make an actor out of clay ", to which Groucho replied with his lightning wit, " ... and you can't make a director out of Wood!

Groucho Marx has said that an early draft named his character " Humphrey Bogus ", a reference to the leading actor in Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart.

Love Happy was originally conceived as a solo vehicle for Harpo under the title Diamonds in the Sidewalk, but Groucho often said the brothers did the film to help Chico pay off gambling debts.

In response to Wills's ad, claiming that all the voters were his " Alamo Cousins ," Groucho Marx took out a small ad which simply said, " Dear Mr. Wills, I am delighted to be your cousin, but I voted for Sal Mineo ," ( Wills's rival nominee for Exodus ).

" Normally when the secret word is said, Groucho immediately hands over cash.

Hallenback said, " With a quip for every situation, a put-down for everyone who deserves it and an ability to rise above it all, Venkman is a lot like Groucho.

: Groucho: " You just said you didn't have a handicap.

< Blockquote > Driftwood ( Groucho ): " Well, things certainly seem to be getting better around the country.

: Groucho: Well, that covers a lot of ground.

: Groucho: " Well congratulations.

Irving Berlin quipped, " The world would not be in such a snarl, had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl ", In his book The Groucho Phile, Marx says " I've been a liberal Democrat all my life ", and " I frankly find Democrats a better, more sympathetic crowd ....

" Groucho retorted, " Hot desert my foot, I've been standing in the cold waiting room for forty minutes!

* In the 1932 Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers, Groucho Marx, riding in a boat with a woman, remarks, " You know, this is the first time I've been in a canoe since I saw the American Tragedy.

" " I've never been to Canada ," Groucho replies.

: Groucho: I've never had any complaints yet!

Allen's talents as a mimic were showcased in October 1963 when he appeared alongside Groucho Marx on the CBS-TV game show I've Got A Secret.

Among those receiving such special treatment ( some more than once ) were Groucho Marx, Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn ( without an audience ), Bette Davis, Orson Welles, Noël Coward ( who appeared on the same show along with Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Tammy Grimes, and Brian Bedford ), John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, Woody Allen, Gloria Swanson, Jerry Lewis, Lucille Ball, Zero Mostel (" on some shows I've had just one guest, but tonight I have Zero ") and David Bowie.

By the time the Marxes made their first movie, they were major stars with sharply honed skills, and when Groucho was relaunched to stardom on You Bet Your Life, he had already been performing successfully for half a century.

Groucho was the subject of an urban legend about a supposed response to a contestant who had nine children which supposedly brought down the house.

The absurdity of the greasepaint was never discussed on-screen, but in a famous scene in Duck Soup, where both Chicolini ( Chico ) and Pinky ( Harpo ) disguise themselves as Groucho, they are briefly seen applying the greasepaint, implicitly answering any question a viewer might have had about where he got his mustache and eyebrows.

In the mid-1940s, during a depressing lull in his career ( his radio show Blue Ribbon Town had failed, and the Marx Brothers as film performers were well past their prime ), Groucho was scheduled to appear on a radio show with Bob Hope.

By the time You Bet Your Life debuted on TV on October 5, 1950, Groucho had grown a real mustache ( which he had already sported earlier in the films Copacabana and Love Happy ).

As a side note, writer Paul Krassner published a story in the February 1981 issue of High Times, relating how Groucho prepared for the LSD-themed movie by taking a dose of the drug in Krassner's company, and had a moving, largely pleasant experience.

In the early 1970s, largely at the behest of companion Erin Fleming, Groucho had a live one-man show, including one recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1972 and released as a double album, An Evening with Groucho, on A & M Records.

" When Groucho himself was on his deathbed, and a nurse came around with a thermometer, explaining that she wanted to see if he had a temperature, he responded, " Don't be silly — everybody has a temperature.

Incidentally, Groucho had heavy investments in Anaconda Copper and after the stock market crash of 1929 experienced a bout of depression as well as insomnia.

) In private, Harpo actually had a much deeper and more resonant speaking voice than Groucho, which some suspect may be the real reason he was dissuaded from ever speaking in the act.

" He was so good as Captain Spaulding Animal Crackers ( theatre ) | Animal Crackers that I would have let him play the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience ," Groucho recalled.

In 2006, it was alleged that Gallagher had a drunken fight with Paul Gascoigne at the Groucho Club which ended with Gallagher setting off a fire extinguisher in Gascoigne's face.

His death was never reported to Groucho, who by that time had become so ill and weak that it was thought the news would be of further detriment to his health.

The idea was to allow Allen to ad-lib with guests à la Groucho Marx, but the complicated format had to be revamped in the middle of the run.

* Three of The Marx Brothers, Groucho, Chico and Harpo, all had well-honed shticks by the time they started making movies.

He had begun writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, " In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and

By 1993 he had become involved with Deborah Bosley, a former head waitress at the Groucho Club and an author, who is his junior by several decades.

By the time the U. S. troops returned from Europe, the German community had ceased to be a major force in American culture, or was no longer perceived as German ( see Groucho Marx ).