Playboy Interview: Groucho Marx

The hottest attraction to play New York's Carnegie Hall during 1972 was a frail 82-year-old man who used to be master of ceremonies on a television quiz show, and who before that was a movie star, and before that a vaudeville comedian and before that a baby. Although his Carnegie Hall concert consisted merely of reminiscences, a few songs and an occasional film clip, the capacity audience--the majority of them teenagers, many wearing painted mustaches and eyebrows, false noses and wire-rimmed glasses--was ecstatic. Three thousand people (among them his brother Zeppo) were turned away from this one-night stand by Julius Henry Marx. Subsequent sales of the recorded version of the concert, "An Evening with Groucho," only confirm that the veteran comedian is one of America's most durable attractions.

Julius and his brothers Leonard, Arthur, Milton and Herbert--later to become famous as Chico, Harpo, Gummo and Zeppo--were sons of an Alsatian tailor who prided himself on his ability to size up a customer without a tape measure. According to Groucho, these appraisals were "about as accurate as Chamberlain's predictions about Hitler. "Fortunately for his sons, Sam Marx was better at choosing a wife than at choosing a profession. A strong, astute woman, Minna Schoenberg Marx was the archetypal stage mother, and her untiring efforts launched her sons on what turned out to be legendary careers.

Showbiz ran in Minna's family. Her parents, who shared the small Marx flat in New York's German Yorkville district, had been professional entertainers in Germany before immigrating to the United States. Minna's father was a magician-ventriloquist; her mother yodeled and accompanied the act on a harp. (It was this very harp that was found in a closet years later by Harpo, who took from it a name and a way of life.) The best-known member of the family, though, was Groucho's uncle Al Shean--of Gallagher and Shean--who was the idol of the young Marx Brothers.

As children, Groucho and his brothers were far from rich, but they didn't know it. Heroic quantities of beans, potatoes and chowder were cooked in a huge pot that was also used for washing clothes (the food and their shirts were heavy on the starch), and Sam could convert leftovers into what Groucho remembers as "something fit for the gods, assuming there are any left." Good thing, too, since Minna hated cooking and perferred making the rounds of theatrical agents, hunting jobs for her sons. A booking often was clinched by an invitation to the Marx home for one of Sam's concoctions.

Groucho actually began his career as a female impersonator (the mustache obviously came later), playing a singer in a smalltime vaudeville troupe. With the onset of puberty and the subsequent change in his voice, he was left stranded by the troupe in Cripple Creek, Colorado, and you can't get more stranded than that. Though he'd never seen a horse, he wangled a job as a wagon driver until Minna could send him his train fare home. His next fling in show business ended just as abruptly in Waco, Texas, when the Englishwoman who had hired him to sing with her ran off with the married lion tamer who shared the bill. At 15, Groucho was already a stage veteran "between engagements." He found a job--cleaning actors' wigs, which he describes as a "hair-raising experience."

Undaunted, Minna organized an act called The Three Nightingales, featuring Groucho and Harpo (who couldn't sing at all) and a girl who couldn't sing on key but who did fit the bargain costume Minna had bought. The act became The Four Nightingales when Chico (pronounced Chick-o), who had been working as a lifeguard, had to be saved from drowning by another lifeguard. Finally--after the family moved to Chicago, when Groucho was in his late teens--Gummo was enlisted in the act, the girl was dropped and they became the Four Marx Brothers, adopting the stage names by which they have since been known, even to one another. They became one of the leading comedy teams in vaudeville, touring on the prestigious Orpheum Circuit until World War One intervened. Harpo and Gummo joined the Army, while Groucho and Chico made the rounds of military camps as entertainers. After the war, Gummo decided he'd had enough of show business and Zeppo, the youngest Marx, replaced him in the act. The Four Marx Brothers knocked around vaudeville for several more years until they were offered parts in an ailing musical comedy, "The Thrill Girl." Rejuvenated as "I'll Say She Is," it was so successful on tour that in 1924 it landed on Broadway. While being fitted for her opening-night dress, the indefatigable Minna broke her leg in a fall from a chair; characteristically, that didn't stop her. She was borne down the aisle to her front-row seat in triumph, on a stretcher. Her boys had arrived.

Though Groucho now describes "I'll Say She Is" as "a real stinker," it played on Broadway two years. Even bigger successes were "The Cocoanuts" and "Animal Crackers," written by George S. Kaufman and Morris Ryskind. Paramount picked up the film rights to both and in 1929 signed the quartet to a five-picture contract. So the Marx Brothers went to Hollywood, where they made the films that have become classics all over the world. In 1933, Zeppo left the group and the three remaining brothers moved to MGM, which never recovered. Eight more zany Marx Brothers comedies were made over the next 14 years--during which Groucho twice announced his retirement from films. He came back, of course, but after 1949, all his roles were solo ones--minus the other Marxes.

From 1934 on, Groucho had been on radio, making guest appearances and doing his own programs. One of these was "Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel," in which he and Chico played comic lawyers. Then, in 1947, Groucho originated the legendary "You Bet Your Life" on radio; later he moved the quiz show to television, where it became one of the most successful series of all time. Groucho loved "You Bet Your Life," which won several Emmy awards during its 14 years on the air; he still thinks it contains some of his best work. When the show finally went off in 1960, Groucho sensibly decided to retire; he could afford to and, after all, he was a ripe 69. But after several years of relative idleness, he got restless and--with a Marx Brothers revival burgeoning across the land--began to make the public appearances (mostly on TV talk shows) that led to his trium phant 1972 Carnegie Hall concert. Since then, he's suffered several strokes, at least one diagnosed heart attack and a bout with pneumonia. Somehow, he's always bounced back--most recently to do battle with publishers who have printed what Groucho says are fabrications purporting to be interviews. Lawsuits now pending ask for damages well into the millions of dollars.

To get a genuine interview with the indefatigable man behind the mustache, Playboy sent writer Charlotte Chandler to interview him. She reports:

"Groucho is still readily recognizable as his alter ego, Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush of 'A Day at the Races' infamy. His distinctive voice is little changed; his serious expression is punctuated occasionally by dramatic movements of the famous eyebrows. Still verbally nimble, always on the attack against pretentiousness or pretensions, never at a loss for a word--or several--he remains the maestro of the illogical, of the deflated platitude and of reductio ad absurdum.

"Groucho is a gentleman, and a gentle man, yet he is the undisputed king of the sarcastic insult. He is a man of another time, but a man whose audience is now larger, younger and more enthusiastic than ever. The reputed chaser, always on the prowl for the not-so-elusive female, is in reality a staunch believer in the sanctity of marriage. Groucho has been married a total of 47 years--albeit to three women; he was divorced from all three.

"The interview took place over many weeks in varied locations, most often in Groucho's comfortable contemporary home in Beverly Hills--the house he built for his third wife, Eden. There he's surrounded by treasured possessions, including a 1915 playbill from the Orpheum Theater in Oakland; two framed Time covers, one featuring the Marx Brothers and the other Groucho alone; a collage depicting Groucho as the 'Blue Boy,' 'Whistler's Mother' and others; an ancient hatrack festooned with berets, bowlers, straws and caps; the lectern he used in 'You Bet Your Life'; the guitar that he still plays; and pictures of his parents, himself and his brothers as children.

"Some evenings we'd dine at Groucho's; the fare might be an elaborate roast or an indoor picnic from Nate and Al's Delicatessen. Other times we'd move on to Chasen's or the Beverly Hills Hotel, where in Groucho's honor the management for the first time in its history served clam chowder on a Saturday. Our meetings continued in New York, where Zabar's provided the herring in sour cream, smoked salmon, cream cheese, celery tonic and pumpernickel. So important is pumpernickel to Groucho that he measures the financial state of the nation by its current price. We talked over soufflé of fruits de mer and côte de boeuf at Lutèce. While watching the telecast of his taped appearance on the Bill Cosby show, Groucho fortified himself with chocolate cake from Le Côte Basque. On occasion, we were joined by Erin Fleming, Groucho's attractive personal manager, who is also an actress specializing in Shakespeare and Shaw, but who could easily have played the Thelma Todd roles in the early Marx Brothers pictures. In real life, she plays Margaret Dumont to Groucho's Groucho. We also got together with Groucho's friend and intellectual ideal, CBS Vice-President Goddard Lieberson, and with Marx Brothers superfan and Groucho's super-friend, Woody Allen.

"For formal occasions, Groucho always wore a blue blazer over a turtleneck sweater in red, blue or white--and underneath that, a gray Tell 'Em Groucho Sent You T-shirt. In his lapel buttonhole was the Commander of Arts and Letters medal recently bestowed upon him by the French government at the Cannes Film Festival. Ever-present were the long cigars that have become his trademark; these he lit with one of his most prized souvenirs, a lighter engraved Sro to commemorate that sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.

"Talking to Groucho was a delight, even though from the beginning he persisted in taking over the interview--as you will see."

[Q] Groucho: I don't know what kind of an interview you're looking for. You want a silly interview? I don't know any jokes.

[A] Playboy: We could start by asking what question most interviewers ask you.

[Q] Groucho: "Could Harpo talk?"

[A] Playboy: Maybe we'll ask that later. Why don't we begin instead by asking you the very first thing you remember?

[A] Groucho: You're asking me to remember almost a hundred years ago.

[Q] Playboy: Well, then, what are your earliest childhood memories?

[A] Groucho: I remember riding on the back of a moving van. Gummo and I were back there; we must have been pretty young, because we didn't have our piano yet. And I remember playing stickball, which was a great challenge, because we played without a ball. We couldn't afford one. Anyway, we were surrounded by three breweries where we lived in New York City--Ruppert's, Ringer's and another one; when I went to school as a kid, I could always smell the malt. We used to go over to Park Avenue, where old man Ruppert lived in a big house with a fruit orchard, and we'd steal his apples and pears. There was a spiked fence about eight feet high, and dogs. We might have been dog meat, but we were very young, and we sure liked those apples and pears. I also remember the iceman delivering ice; you'd holler out the window to tell him how much you wanted. We had no icebox; we were very poor. While the iceman was delivering the ice, we'd get in his wagon and break off some ice. Ever since then, I've been great at breaking the ice.

[Q] Playboy: How poor were you?

[A] Groucho: So poor that when somebody knocked on the door, we all hid. We were paying $27 a month rent and there were ten of us. The five brothers, my father and mother, my grandmother and grandfather and an adopted sister. There were ten of us and one toilet.

[Q] Playboy: Did you want to be an actor when you were a kid?

[A] Groucho: No, I wanted to be a writer. But I became an actor because we were very poor and there were four brothers, so----

[Q] Playboy: You said there were five of you.

[A] Groucho: That's true, but what's the difference? Anyway, I decided to be in show business.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Groucho: Because I had an uncle in show business who was making $200 a week, and I wasn't making anything.

[Q] Playboy: Did you want to be rich?

[A] Groucho: I always wanted to be rich. I still want to be rich. Why, years ago, I came to Los Angeles without a nickel in my pocket. Now I have a nickel in my pocket. Unfortunately, the nickel today isn't worth what it used to be. Do you know what this country needs? A seven-cent nickel. We've been using the five-cent nickel since 1492. So why not give the seven-cent nickel a chance? If that works out, next year we could have an eight-cent nickel. And so on.

[Q] Playboy: You should have been an economist.

[A] Groucho: Then I wouldn't have been rich.

[Q] Playboy: When you were still poor, what did you think being rich meant?

[A] Groucho: I used to think being rich meant having a lot of money. Now I think it means having a lot of money.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a lot or a lot?

[A] Groucho: Somewhere in between.

[Q] Playboy: Does your money come just from income or have you also made some good investments?

[A] Groucho: I've always watched the stock market. Especially when it's going up. Do you know property values have increased 1929 since 1000 percent?

[Q] Playboy: No, we didn't. Were you hurt by the crash?

[A] Groucho: Yeah, I was wiped out. I had $200,000, which I'd saved over a period of many years playing smalltime vaudeville, and I lost it in two days when the market crashed. My old friend Max Gordon phoned me at my home in Great Neck. His real name is Saltpeter, but he calls himself Max Gordon. And he called me up one morning and he said, "Marx, the jig is up." And hung up. I don't take his calls anymore.

[Q] Playboy: You mentioned an uncle in show business.

[A] Groucho: Al Shean. He was an actor in vaudeville. He had originally been a pants presser on the East Side. I don't think he was a very good pants presser, because as soon as he got his job as a presser, he formed a singing quartet and the fellow who ran the factory threw all four of 'em out. He was always forming quartets and getting fired.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your parents.

[A] Groucho: Well, my mother came from Germany, my father came from France. When he met my mother, neither one could understand a word the other was saying, so they got married. They spoke German, because my mother was the stronger of the two. My father wasn't very well educated. Neither was my mother, but she was brighter. She lived long enough to see us successful on Broadway.

[Q] Playboy: Was your mother as important as we've heard in influencing you to go on the stage?

[A] Groucho: Of course. And as soon as she could, she got the others to go along. That's how we became the Marx Brothers. She used to book us herself. She thought she ought to look young, so she wore a corset and a blonde wig when she went to see agents. She was probably around 50 then, and everybody knew it was a wig. When she was at somebody's house playing cards, she'd get tired of wearing the corset, take it off and wrap it up in a newspaper with the strings hanging out.

[Q] Playboy: She was from a theatrical family, wasn't she?

[A] Groucho: My grandmother played the harp and yodeled. My grandfather was a ventriloquist and a magician.

[Q] Playboy: How about your father?

[A] Groucho: He was a tailor from Strasbourg, the worst ever. All his customers were easily recognized: One trouser leg was shorter than the other.

[Q] Playboy: Did your father ever fool around on your mother?

[A] Groucho: He must have. There were five boys.

[Q] Playboy: We mean with other women.

[A] Groucho: Not until my mother died. Then he got himself another girl.

[Q] Playboy: Right away?

[A] Groucho: Well, not at the funeral.

[Q] Playboy: Who were your idols when you were young?

[A] Groucho: I used to have a girl in Montreal.

[Q] Playboy: Was she an idol?

[A] Groucho: She was idle a good deal, but she made a pretty good living, anyway. Does that answer your question?

[Q] Playboy: No, so let's put it another way: Who did you like when you went to the theater?

[A] Groucho: President Roosevelt.

[Q] Playboy: He wasn't on the stage.

[A] Groucho: Who said anything about the stage?

[Q] Playboy: Did you have any girlfriends while you were growing up in New York?

[A] Groucho: Not until later, when we started traveling in smalltime vaudeville. And even then, we really weren't in towns long enough to meet anybody.

[Q] Playboy: So how did you meet girls?

[A] Groucho: We'd go to hook shops. We were a big hit in the hook shops.

[Q] Playboy: How so?

[A] Groucho: We were entertainment!

[Q] Playboy: You mean you'd go to a whorehouse and perform?

[A] Groucho: You can say that again. We also did our act. Harpo and Chico played the piano and I sang. The girls used to come to watch us at the theater--the madam and the girls--and if they liked us, they'd send a note backstage: "If you're not doing anything tonight after the show, why don't you come over and see us?" Sometimes we stayed all night. We were always after girls. We'd get into a town, and there was a hotel, and they had a piano on the mezzanine floor. Chico would start playing and there would be 20 dames there. Chico would pick out girls for us, too.

[Q] Playboy: Did you meet any "nice" girls that way?

[A] Groucho: Gummo did once, in New Orleans; her father came up to him after the show and said, "You took my daughter out tonight. If you take her out again, you'll go back to New York in a box." Actors weren't very popular in those days. Except in hook shops.

[Q] Playboy: What was your first physical relationship with a woman?

[A] Groucho: Going to bed.

[Q] Playboy: We're going to have to be more careful how we phrase things: How did you lose your virginity?

[A] Groucho: In a hook shop in Montreal. I was 16 years old and I didn't know anything about girls. Before I left town, I had gonorrhea.

[Q] Playboy: How did Chico lose his virginity?

[A] Groucho: To the first girl he met.

[Q] Playboy: And Harpo?

[A] Groucho: Oh, Harpo didn't fool around much. He had a few dames. But Harpo only had three girls in his life that he was really stuck on, and they were all named Fleming.

[Q] Playboy: You're now dating a girl named Fleming. How do you explain this coincidence?

[A] Groucho: It's no coincidence.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of man was Harpo?

[A] Groucho: He was a short man. Even shorter when he was sitting down, which he always was, playing the goddamn harp. I hated the harp. But he was very serious about it. He was also serious about playing cards. And also that other game that's popular now....

[Q] Playboy: Backgammon?

[A] Groucho: Yes. He was very good at those games, although he wasn't educated. He used to make a lot of money. You know, he'd play with guys like George Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott and Herbert Swope, who ran the New York World, and people like that, and he usually won. He was a very smart card-player and good at all kinds of games.

[Q] Playboy: He was also a great practical joker, wasn't he?

[A] Groucho: I don't know whether he was great. But I remember a good one he pulled in front of Tiffany's in New York. He went to Woolworth's and bought five or six dollars' worth of fake jewelry, then walked over to Tiffany's. He said he'd like to look at the jewelry, and he took it out into the street to look at it in the sunlight, and he did a phony stumble, and all the fake jewelry from his pocket flew all over the sidewalk. The cops came running.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you get involved with the law yourself when you "held up" the Morgan Guarantee Trust Company?

[A] Groucho: Oh, yeah. I was wearing a cap and I walked up to the ... what do you call her?

[Q] Playboy: Teller?

[A] Groucho: No, I didn't. She was with her husband. Anyhow, I said to the broad, "This is a stick-up!" A lot of bells started ringing and inside of three minutes there were 20 uniformed policemen surrounding me. I pulled my cap off and said, "I'm Groucho Marx. Don't you know me?" Luckily, they did. Otherwise, I would've got shot.

[Q] Playboy: There's a rumor that you and Harpo once went to a party naked.

[A] Groucho: It was when we were playing in I'll Say She Is and we were invited to a bachelor party for a friend of ours who was getting married. So Harpo and I got into the elevator and took off all our clothes and put them in suitcases. We were stark-naked. But we got off at the wrong floor, where the bride was having a party for her friends. So we ran around naked until a waiter finally came with a couple of dish towels--or, in my case, a bath towel.

[Q] Playboy: Was Harpo a practical joker in Hollywood, too?

[A] Groucho: Yeah. He used to call up people and tell them the water tank was on the bum and they were gonna cut off all the water. He did it to me once.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you recognize his voice?

[A] Groucho: No. I filled all the buckets and pans with water. Then I filled all the bathtubs. He told me to leave everything filled, because it was going to be two or three days before the repairs would be made.

[Q] Playboy: How could he fool you, his own brother?

[A] Groucho: I didn't usually recognize his voice, unless he asked me for money.

[Q] Playboy: It used to be said that no girl was safe alone with your alter egos--Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, Rufus T. Firefly, Otis B. Driftwood or Hugo Z. Hackenbush. Is that still true?

[A] Groucho: You're too good for that crummy crowd, baby. If I were 15 years younger, no good-looking dame would get out of here alive.

[Q] Playboy: Would a girl be in any danger today?

[A] Groucho: When a guy is 83, he should forget the whole thing. I know if I do it, it's going to be lousy, so why cheapen myself?

[Q] Playboy: Doesn't this depress you?

[A] Groucho: No, it doesn't depress me. I don't miss sex. I know I can't do it properly anymore; if I could, I'd still be doing it. I've talked to a lot of guys who are 78, 79, and they all say it's hopeless. When you can't get it up anymore, you should quit. When a guy is 80 years old or thereabouts, he should read a book.

[Q] Playboy: How do you account for your reputation as a lecher back when you were in your prime--at 65 or 70?

[A] Groucho: I was seething with charm. When my brothers and I were young, we were all looking for dames we could go to bed with. Nothing wrong with that. That's what they're for.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you think they're good for anything else?

[A] Groucho: Yes. A lot of them can cook and a lot of them can take care of a house.

[Q] Playboy: You don't seem to be a devout believer in women's liberation.

[A] Groucho: Well, I feel this way about it: I think if there's a war and a husband is enlisted, his wife should take a Service job, too, not necessarily in the front lines shooting at the enemy, but there are so many things that a woman can do in an army. Since the man is risking his life, why shouldn't the woman be doing something? But I think they should have the same salary advantages as men.

[Q] Playboy: Have you met any liberated women lately?

[A] Groucho: Erin Fleming. Erin is my idol. I told her if she ever quit me, I'd quit show business.

[Q] Playboy: In what way is she liberated?

[A] Groucho: She does as she pleases. I don't follow her around. I wouldn't give a damn if she met a guy and wanted to go to bed with him. I'd say, "Go."

[Q] Playboy: Would you want her to tell you about it?

[A] Groucho: In my particular case, I wouldn't care if she did. Because, like I say, I'm not interested in sex anymore.

[Q] Playboy: When you still were, did you consider yourself a user of women?

[A] Groucho: God, no. I think a woman can be a wonderful companion. I like women! After all, my mother was one. I didn't find that out until a couple years ago.

[Q] Playboy: You said your father was faithful to your mother. Do you believe in monogamy yourself?

[A] Groucho: I don't think man is basically a monogamous creature. It's natural for a married man to be interested in other women.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it just as natural for a married woman to be interested in other men?

[A] Groucho: Having affairs? It's not gonna be much of a marriage.

[Q] Playboy: But it's all right for a man?

[A] Groucho: The man is the chaser of the two. The woman is subconsciously a chaser, but the man is--a man is a man. And if there's an attractive girl, he'll make a play for her. I think that's wonderful.

[Q] Playboy: But not for a married woman?

[A] Groucho: I don't think it comes out even that way. I think the average woman, if she's married to a man she likes, won't necessarily cheat.

[Q] Playboy: But if she did?

[A] Groucho: She should get a divorce and pay alimony.

[Q] Playboy: Why couldn't they both keep the relationship going and have extramarital affairs as well?

[A] Groucho: Well, then they shouldn't get married.

[Q] Playboy: Why not, if they love each other?

[A] Groucho: How can he love her if they're both after other people? It would be better for two people like that to live together and not get married.

[Q] Playboy: Feeling as you do, why did you get married?

[A] Groucho: With one of my wives, I asked myself that question for 16 years. But you know something? I didn't cheat on her once.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Groucho: I couldn't stop with just one.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever date rich women?

[A] Groucho: I could've married one and owned the biggest department store in Portland.

[Q] Playboy: Why didn't you?

[A] Groucho: I didn't like her behavior in bed.

[Q] Playboy: Was she too cold? Or inhibited?

[A] Groucho: On the contrary. She always wanted to go to bed. I think she was a nymph.

[Q] Playboy: You're complaining?

[A] Groucho: I don't want a woman who knows more tricks than I do.

[Q] Playboy: According to friends, you've never been romantically involved with a Jewish girl. Are you anti-Semitic?

[A] Groucho: No, it just always seemed to me that making love to a Jewish girl would be like making love to your sister.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever been a victim of anti-Semitism?

[A] Groucho: Oh, sure. Years ago, I decided to join a beach club on Long Island and we drove out to a place called the Sands Point Bath and Sun Club. I filled out the application and the head cheese of the place came over and told me we couldn't join because I was Jewish. So I said, "My son's only half Jewish. Would it be all right if he went in the water up to his knees?"

[Q] Playboy: Getting back to women----

[A] Groucho: I've been trying to for years.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever had an interracial affair?

[A] Groucho: The whole first part of my life was spent sleeping with colored girls. They were chambermaids in the hotels we used to stay in. In those days, all hotels had black chambermaids. You'd give her a couple of bucks and take her in your room and lay her. That was very common.

[Q] Playboy: How were they?

[A] Groucho: No different than a white girl. No, that's not true; some of 'em were even better. We couldn't get a white girl when we were in smalltime vaudeville. They were afraid of actors. A lot of girls had been raped by actors. So we took what we could get, which was black chambermaids. But I remember doing a big act once with W. C. Fields and we had 20 girls in the show. They were all white and they were all friendly. I knew them by number rather than by name.

[Q] Playboy: Who wrote your material when you started out?

[A] Groucho: I did. Except for Harpo, who didn't say anything.

[Q] Playboy: Did you write for Zeppo, too?

[A] Groucho: I didn't have to. He was the funniest one of us. But he wasn't in the act that much. He was in more than Gummo, though, who went in the Army during the First World War.

[Q] Playboy: Why didn't he rejoin the act after the war?

[A] Groucho: He didn't want to be an actor. He went into the garment industry. I remember Gummo had a son named Bobby, and Bobby came home from school one day and his father said to him, "How was it in school today?" And Bobby said, "Well, the teacher asked all of us who our fathers were, and I told her. 'Groucho Marx.'" And Gummo said, "Why did you say that?" And Bobby said, "Who knows you?"

[Q] Playboy: You said you didn't have to write lines for Harpo, since he didn't say anything. Did Harpo ever talk in a Marx Brothers act?

[A] Groucho: He talked a lot in a school act we used to do in vaudeville; he played a boy called Patsy Brannigan. In those days, if you did a school act, you usually had a Patsy Brannigan in the act. Patsy Brannigan was a kid with red hair and a funny nose. That's where Harpo got the idea for his wig. A fella had taught him a speech with a lot of big words in it and sometimes Harpo would dum-found the audience by making this speech with all those big words. He didn't understand most of them, but he loved the speech.

[Q] Playboy: What did Chico do in that act?

[A] Groucho: He helped Harpo. Harpo used to wear a funny hat. And I would say to Harpo, "Take dat ding off." I was a German comedian. Harpo would take the "ding" off and give it to Chico, and Chico would pass it to a guy who played a fag. Well, you asked; it was a pretty lousy act.

[Q] Playboy: Did you get any laughs in those days?

[A] Groucho: Now and then. Especially when Zeppo came on stage and said, "Dad, the garbage man is here," and I said, "Tell him we don't want any." Another time Chico shook hands with me and said, "I would like to say goodbye to your wife," and I said, "Who wouldn't?"

[Q] Playboy: How did you create the Groucho character?

[A] Groucho: When we were playing smalltime vaudeville, I would try a line and if it got a laugh, I'd leave it in. If it didn't get a laugh, I'd take it out and write another line. Pretty soon I had a character.

[Q] Playboy: How did the mustache originate?

[A] Groucho: The mustache came about while we were doing a show called Home Again at Keith's Flushing. My wife was having a baby at the time and I used to spend a lot of time in the hospital with her. One night I stayed too long and by the time I got to the theater, it was too late to paste on my mustache, so I just smeared on some grease paint. The audience didn't seem to mind, so I stuck with it. Or got stuck with it. Or got sticky with it.

[Q] Playboy: How did you develop the Groucho walk?

[A] Groucho: I was just kidding around one day and I started to walk funny. The audience liked it, so I kept it in.

[Q] Playboy: Did you always feel you were going to make the big time?

[A] Groucho: No. Chico did, and he did the least work in the act. He said, "We won't always be playing these dumps." And Chico got a guy who owned a coal mine and a pretzel factory to put up the money for us to become big time. Chico was a smooth character. He would be talking long distance on the phone to one dame and having his hat blown by another at the same time.

[Q] Playboy: What was your first big success?

[A] Groucho: A play called I'll Say She Is. The money for it was put up by the pretzel-factory owner, who later got stuck on one of the girls in the chorus. It so happened that Harpo was laying this same girl at the time, but fortunately, he didn't find out. Anyway, the play was a smash in Philadelphia. It was a real stinker, but when we took it to New York, Alexander Woollcott gave it a good review.

[Q] Playboy: What did your childhood friends think of your success on Broadway?

[A] Groucho: I had a friend in New York who lived on 93rd Street, where we lived. We always figured he was gonna be a Supreme Court Justice or something. Well, he became a lawyer, and he came to see Animal Crackers one day. He came to my dressing room afterward and he didn't mention anything about the show. So I said, "How'd you like it?" He said, "Don't you think you're kinda old to be jumping over furniture and making a fool of yourself in front of an audience?"

[Q] Playboy: What was your reply?

[A] Groucho: I pointed out that I was making $1000 a week to make a fool of myself and that he was doing it for .$150, and I asked him to empty the garbage on his way out.

[Q] Playboy: You were soon making a lot more than $1000 a week in Hollywood. Did all that money--and your newfound fame in movies--attract a lot of women?

[A] Groucho: Well, it helped my brother Chico--who didn't need any help along those lines. But if I wanted to go to bed with a girl, I had to marry her.

[Q] Playboy: Which stars would you have liked to make it with but didn't?

[A] Groucho: I'd have liked to have gone to bed with Jean Harlow. She was a beautiful broad. The fellow who married her was impotent and he killed himself. I would have done the same thing.

[Q] Playboy: How about Carole Lombard?

[A] Groucho: She was a great dame. I loved Lombard. She was married to Gable at one time, you know. I met her on the street one day--I did a whole series of shows with her--and I said, "How are you and Gable getting along?" and she said, "He's the lousiest lay I ever had." That's the way she talked--the way a lot of men do. Very sexy dame. She was also a hell of an actress. She did a picture with Jack Benny, which Lubitsch directed. Benny was wonderful in it. It was called To Be or Not to Be. Lubitsch was the best director, I guess, in this country. There was nobody to equal him. He wanted to do a movie with us.

[Q] Playboy: Why didn't you do it?

[A] Groucho: Well, we were tied up with Paramount making those five turkeys. I remember Lubitsch had an opening line that he tried out on me one day. It went like this: "You haf a girl in your betroom and she iss married. And her husband come home unexpectedly, just as a streetcar iss going through the betroom." And I said, "What's the joke?" My next line, he said, was, "Believe it or not, I was waiting for a streetcar." And then I was supposed to step out of the closet and onto the streetcar. He was a genius.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of geniuses, aren't you a friend of Orson Welles's?

[A] Groucho: Well, I've done a lot of shows with him. Comedy shows. He's a great straight man. He's also a great round man.

[Q] Playboy: Weren't you also a friend of Humphrey Bogart's?

[A] Groucho: I was at his house all the time. He was a wonderful host. He'd have two or three shots of booze and get on his yacht to get away from Lauren Bacall. Not that he didn't like her. He just wanted to be around men. When I was around, could you blame him?

[Q] Playboy: The Marx Brothers have also had a number of literary friends. Didn't you correspond with T. S. Eliot?

[A] Groucho: He wrote to me first. He said he was an admirer of mine and he would like a picture of me. So I sent him a picture. And he sent it back. He said, "I want a picture of you smoking a cigar." So I sent him one. Later he told me there were only three people he cared about: William Butler Yeats, Paul Valéry and Groucho Marx. He had those three pictures in his private office. When I went to visit him. I thought he wanted to talk about all those fancy books he had written, like Murder in the Cathedral. But he wanted to talk about the Marx Brothers. So naturally we became close friends and had a lot of correspondence. I spoke at his funeral.

[Q] Playboy: What other writers have you known?

[A] Groucho: Ring Lardner used to come to my house in Great Neck and get drunk. If I had been him, I would have gotten drunk, too. He had four boys at home and couldn't get any writing done, so he used to go to the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York and take a room and pull the shades down, because there might have been somebody in another room across the alley from where his room was--and that's the only way he could write. He would stay there for a week or two and then he'd go back to Great Neck, where his four sons were.

[Q] Playboy: How about F. Scott Fitzgerald?

[A] Groucho:He wasn't one of Lardner's sons.

[Q] Playboy: Thanks for the information. We were wondering how well you knew him.

[A] Groucho: I knew him very well, because he was stuck on a dame named Sheilah Graham, who used to play a little tennis at my house.

[Q] Playboy: You're not going to make any jokes about playing a love game with her, are you?

[A] Groucho: No, her serve was too big for me.

[Q] Playboy: Who was the wittiest man you ever knew?

[A] Groucho: George S. Kaufman. I remember once he went to Philadelphia to see the tryout of a play one of the Bloomingdales was backing. They were the department-store people. After he saw the play, he said, "Close the play and keep the store open nights."

[Q] Playboy: Why are theater and movies more serious today--or at least less funny--than they used to be?

[A] Groucho: There are no comedians left. Chaplin doesn't work anymore--he's too old and can't. Mae West isn't too old, but won't. Buster Keaton is dead. W. C. Fields is dead. Laurel and Hardy are dead. And Jerry Lewis hasn't made me laugh since he left Dean Martin. One of the reasons there are no comedians is that there's no more vaudeville. There is no place to train a comedian today. There's no place to be funny anymore. You've got just a few TV shows and night clubs. There's no place for a comic to polish his act. That's what vaudeville provided.

[Q] Playboy: You and Chaplin got together while he was over here for the 1972 Academy Awards. What did you talk about?

[A] Groucho: He just kept saying, "Keep warm. Keep warm." I think he's one year older than I am. He was worried that I wasn't keeping warm enough. I was saying, "Hi ya, Charlie, how are ya?" And all he said was, "Keep warm."

[Q] Playboy: How did you and Chaplin first meet?

[A] Groucho: Well, my brothers and I were playing in Canada, and so was Chaplin. He was doing an act called A Night at the Club. It was a very funny act. I remember he had a big dowager in the act who used to sing, and while she was singing, Chaplin was chewing on an apple and spitting the seeds in her face. This is the kind of comedy they had 60 years ago. Anyway, when we were in Winnipeg one day, my brothers went off in search of a poolroom to kill three hours before leaving for the Coast. Since I didn't play pool, and I don't play cards, and I don't gamble, and I only smoke occasionally--just enough to cough--I took a walk and I passed this dump theater, the Sullivan-Considine. I heard the most tremendous roar of laughter, and I paid my ten cents and went in and there was a little guy on the stage, and he was walking around kinda funny. It was Chaplin. It was the greatest act I'd ever seen. All pantomime. He had a shirt that he wore for the whole six weeks, 'cause he was only getting $25 a week and he didn't want to spend any money getting a clean shirt.

[A] I went back to the hotel and told my brothers what a real comedian was, and I walked around funny like Chaplin, you know. Then the following week, I went backstage to visit him and tell him how wonderful he was, and that's how we got acquainted. Each week we would be in the same towns in Canada; I can't remember all the towns; this was a hell of a long time ago. We used to go to the whorehouses together, because there was no place for an actor to go in those towns, except if you were lucky, maybe you'd pick up a girl, but as a rule, you'd have to go to a hook shop. And then Chaplin and I got very well acquainted. Not together! I mean, I wasn't with him! I was with him, but not with a girl, I mean----

[Q] Playboy: We understand. Had he made a movie yet?

[A] Groucho: No. He hadn't made anything. He was just doing this act.

[Q] Playboy: Did he ever mention wanting to make movies?

[A] Groucho: No. It never occurred to him. He was a big hit in his act. Then, when we got to Seattle, there was Mack Sennett, who saw Chaplin in A Night at the Club and offered to sign him up. I talked to Chaplin afterward and I said, "I understand you were offered a job with Sennett and he offered you $200 a week." And he says, "I turned it down." I says, "You must be crazy! You turned down $200 a week for this lousy vaudeville act you're doing?" He says, "Nobody could be that good, so I turned him down." Chaplin went back to England after that. He was afraid.

[Q] Playboy: Would you have accepted an offer from Sennett?

[A] Groucho: No. I was working with my brothers and they were busy shooting pool.

[Q] Playboy: Seriously, do you think you would have been funny in silent films?

[A] Groucho: No. In the first place, Harpo didn't talk at all in the act. And Chico didn't talk if he could find a dame. So the only one that really talked was me. Anyway, I really wanted to be on Broadway at that time. Broadway was bigger than pictures in those days. Audiences paid ten dollars a ticket for Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers for the entire run. Anyway, getting back to Chaplin, six years passed, and we were now playing the Orpheum Circuit, and we got an invitation from Chaplin. He had bought the Mary Pickford home, he was so rich by this time from making pictures. So he invited us over for dinner. There was a butler in back of each chair, and there were solid-gold plates, and we had the most magnificent meal. He was a bigger star then than we were. Hell, he was the greatest thing in pictures.

[Q] Playboy: How did you meet W. C. Fields?

[A] Groucho: We were on the bill together in Toledo. He was a tough guy. He was doing his juggling act, and there was a pool table on the stage, because he used to do funny stuff with a pool table, and Ed Wynn was also on the show. So Wynn used to get under the pool table, and while Fields was doing his stuff, Wynn would stick his head out and make funny faces. One day Fields caught him doing this and when Wynn stuck his head out from under the table, Fields was standing there with a pool cue and he hit Wynn on the head and knocked him unconscious. He was a funny guy, but he didn't want anybody to interfere with his act. Or to upstage him.

[A] When we were playing together in Toledo, he walked off our show. He told the manager of the theater that he had "humpers on the carumpers." They were just words he was making up, but that's the way he was: He didn't want to follow us on the show. We did a big act with 30 people, and he was standing there alone on the stage with a cigar box, singing "Yankee-Doodle went to town," and the audience was walking out of the theater. So Fields quit the show and took the next train for New York. I knew him years later, when he worked in Hollywood. He used to hide in the bushes in front of his house and shoot at tourists with his BB gun.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about some of the other great comics you knew. How about Buster Keaton?

[A] Groucho: He used to put in gags for Harpo when we were at MGM.

[Q] Playboy: In which films?

[A] Groucho:A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Go West. He was washed up by then, but he was good for Harpo. Harpo was always looking for a good piece of business. He didn't talk, he didn't need lines, but he did need good business, and Keaton was a hell of a comic in silent films.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of man was Keaton?

[A] Groucho: He was kind of eccentric. Near the end of his life, he bought a trailer and he would drive around Beverly Hills, stop the trailer, turn off the engine, take out a bridge table and have dinner in front of somebody's house. I guess everybody recognized it was Keaton, because nobody minded his eating his dinner in front of their house. It was a beautiful trailer.

[Q] Playboy: It's common knowledge that you never got along well with Louis B. Mayer of MGM. Why?

[A] Groucho: Mayer took things too seriously. Nobody else took us seriously in Hollywood--just Mayer. One day he was having a conference with the censor about Lana Turner showing too much cleavage in her last film and Mayer was trying to convince the censor that MGM was a highly moral studio. So Harpo hired a stripper for the afternoon and chased her around the room while Mayer was talking to the censor. Another time we were sitting in Mayer's waiting room and after hours of waiting, we started a bonfire in his outer office. We'd done that to Thalberg years before. But Mayer didn't think it was funny.

[Q] Playboy: We can't imagine why. Was he vindictive about it?

[A] Groucho: I think he wanted us to bomb. He didn't want us to take road tours and he refused to hire the best directors and writers; he gave us a lot of schleppers to work with, like the two German immigrants who wrote the ending to A Day at the Races. Mayer was cutting off his nose to spite his face. Now that I think about his nose, his face would have been better without it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a favorite Marx Brothers film among those you did at MGM?

[A] Groucho: I liked Duck Soup and Horse Feathers and I liked parts of Animal Crackers. But I guess my favorite is A Night at the Opera.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Groucho: It just has great scenes in it--great funny scenes. Like the scene in the stateroom where I'm meeting this lady, Mrs. Claypool, played by Margaret Dumont; I'm having a rendezvous with her. And when she arrives at my room, 14 people come out. I enjoyed all my romantic scenes with Margaret Dumont. She was a wonderful woman. She was the same off the stage as she was on it--always the stuffy, dignified matron. And the funny thing about her was she never understood the jokes. Seriously, she never knew what was going on. At the end of Duck Soup, we're alone in a small cottage and there's a war going on outside and Margaret says to me, "What are you doing, Rufus?" And I say, "I'm fighting for your honor, which is more than you ever did." Later she asked me what I meant by that.

[Q] Playboy: After A Night in Casablanca, you made three pictures in a row without your brothers. They're not considered your best efforts, are they?

[A] Groucho: No, and neither are the pictures. After Casablanca, I made Copacabana, A Girl in Every Port and then Double Dynamite. That one was such a bomb it almost ruined the studio.

[Q] Playboy: Which studio was it?

[A] Groucho: RKO. A fellow named Howard Hughes was running it then, and he's the one who came up with the title Double Dynamite. That was supposed to be a clever description of Jane Russell's breasts. With thinking like that, it's no wonder Hughes is a billionaire. He'd have to be a billionaire; otherwise, how could he make a living?

[Q] Playboy: The last Marx Brothers film, Love Happy, was made in 1950, and that same year you began a whole new career with the television quiz show You Bet Your Life. Did you like doing that series?

[A] Groucho: You bet your life I did. It was some of the best stuff I ever did. I really had to think. I never worked so hard.

[Q] Playboy: What was the meaning of the duck on your TV show and in your films?

[A] Groucho: Well, it's easier to crack a joke about a duck than an elephant.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you once appear in a television production of The Mikado?

[A] Groucho: Yes. I played Coco in The Mikado for NBC. That's how I got rid of my first wife.

[Q] Playboy: By playing in The Mikado?

[A] Groucho: Yeah. Well, it's Gilbert and Sullivan, you know, and I love Gilbert and Sullivan, so I kept playing it at home, and she didn't quite understand it. She wasn't educated. Until I married her, I don't think she'd ever heard of Gilbert and Sullivan.

[Q] Playboy: Where did you first hear of them?

[A] Groucho: When I was doing Cocoanuts, we had a fellow in the act who was what you'd call a straight man. His name was Basil Ruysdael. He had been in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas himself, and whenever we were backstage getting ready for a scene or something, he would start singing, "My object all sublime, I shall not ... uh ... to let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime. And let each prisoner repent and willingly represent, a song of innocent merriment, of innocent merriment." I asked him, "What's that you're singing all the time?" "That's Gilbert and Sullivan," he told me. And I said, "Who the hell are they? A vaudeville team?" He said, "They were the greatest writers in England." That's how I got interested in them, and that's why I accepted that part in The Mikado when NBC offered it to me.

[Q] Playboy: Are you sorry television has taken over so much of the movie industry?

[A] Groucho: No, because most of the movies today are lousy. I saw Barbra Streisand in Up the Sandbox recently. I thought it was terrible. They tell me there was some kind of symbolism, fantasy, in it, but by that time, I was in the toilet smoking a cigar. As people get older, they don't want to get in their car and go to a theater and stand in line to see it--even if it's a good picture. The average person hasn't got that much taste, either, so most people just turn on the television. It's much easier to just put on your bathrobe and look at a couple of lousy TV shows.

[Q] Playboy: What was Hollywood like when you came out here?

[A] Groucho: Well, I was much younger.

[Q] Playboy: We assumed that. When did you move out here?

[A] Groucho: We arrived here in 1930 from New York and immediately signed up with Paramount and did 12 pictures here.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have wild times?

[A] Groucho: Not that I can remember, unfortunately.

[Q] Playboy: From the newspapers of that time, it looks like the Marx Brothers tore the town apart.

[A] Groucho: We had fun. We were young. But I don't think the town has changed too much, except that there are fewer studios, because of television.

[Q] Playboy: Would you be interested in playing in any more movies?

[A] Groucho: No. Not unless it was a great part and the hours were short and they held up cards so I wouldn't have to memorize everything.

[Q] Playboy: John Cassavetes has said that you are the greatest actor who ever lived.

[A] Groucho: He was drunk.

[Q] Playboy: Well, a lot of young, established actors admire the way you're able to play yourself on the screen.

[A] Groucho: I play with myself, too, but mostly off screen.

[Q] Playboy: What would you do if you retired completely?

[A] Groucho: I'd get a massage occasionally and shave and take a walk. But I'm not gonna retire. I'd like to die right on stage. But I don't plan on dying at all.

[Q] Playboy: Do you turn down many jobs?

[A] Groucho: Depends on the money. If a (continued on page 185)Playboy Interview(continued from page 74) guy is worth almost a billion dollars--I'm talking about Bob Hope--and he offers me $1000 to go on his show, I consider it an insult. I wouldn't unwrap a cigar for $1000. When I did a show down here a couple of weeks ago, I got S10,000. For that kind of money, I not only unwrap a cigar but light it up and take a few puffs.

[Q] Playboy: Would you ever do a show for free?

[A] Groucho: Yes. I'd do a show with the baseball announcer Vin Sculley, because he's given me so much enjoyment all my life listening to him describe baseball.

[Q] Playboy: Who are your closest friends?

[A] Groucho: Nunnally Johnson, who was one of the top movie writers in this town; I knew him when I lived in Great Neck, and we've been friends ever since. And a fellow named Sheekman, who used to do a column for the Chicago Times. When I played Chicago, I offered to write a column for him because he had to do one every day. And when he came out here, I invited him to become one of the writers on our movies. Mostly, my friends are all roughly my age.

[Q] Playboy: Who are your younger friends?

[A] Groucho: Well, there's Woody Allen, and Erin, and Goddard Lieberson, and Goody Ace. There are a few others that keep in touch with me, like Dick Cavett, Jack Nicholson and Elliott Gould. I have lunch with them occasionally, provided they pick up the check.

[Q] Playboy: A friend of yours told us you sleep with your bedroom door locked. Why?

[A] Groucho: He's no friend of mine. But if you must know, I lock it when I'm all alone in the house.

[Q] Playboy: Could that be because of your years in vaudeville, when you stayed in cheap hotels and locked your door so nobody would steal your money?

[A] Groucho: Could be. I remember in those days how I used to put the bureau up against the door. That was also during a phase of my life when I wanted to jump out the window. We were doing well in vaudeville by then, living in good hotels like the Statler in Cleveland or Detroit, but I was always afraid of jumping out the window.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Groucho: I don't know. I guess it was a kind of nervous point in my life.

[Q] Playboy: Were you depressed?

[A] Groucho: No. I'd seen some Boris Karloff movies and I was scared. I was very young then. I saw one Karloff picture and I took sleeping pills every night for about a month after that. It was the only way I could get to sleep.

[Q] Playboy: Did you see a psychiatrist about it?

[A] Groucho: Yeah, but he said I was crazy, so I bit his leg and walked out.

[Q] Playboy: What's your opinion of psychoanalysis?

[A] Groucho: It won't get it up if you're 83 years old, so what's the point of it?

[Q] Playboy: But back then, you felt you were going a little crazy?

[A] Groucho: I was working very hard and I was single. And I had a wife who drank.

[Q] Playboy: You were single and you had a wife?

[A] Groucho: So I'm a liar.

[Q] Playboy: You were married to your first wife during your years in vaudeville, weren't you?

[A] Groucho: For part of them. We were married 21 years. She was so beautiful when I married her. She weighed about 109 then. The last time I saw her, she must have weighed 250.

[Q] Playboy: This obviously wouldn't include marriage, but what's the most satisfying thing you've ever done?

[A] Groucho: I went to Germany, and while I was there, they showed me Hitler's grave and I danced on it. I was never that much of a dancer, but I was great that day!

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about being 83?

[A] Groucho: I'm still alive. That's about it. I can tell I'm still alive because I wake up in the morning. If I don't wake up, that means I'm dead. But talking about not knowing whether you're alive or dead. I remember once when I visited the offices of The New York Times, they showed me my obituary. It wasn't very good. I offered to punch it up for them, but they turned me down.

[Q] Playboy: Have you observed any special diet over the years?

[A] Groucho: Well, since I turned 80, I've tried to limit my eating exclusively to food.

[Q] Playboy: Do you drink?

[A] Groucho: The only drink I used to like is bourbon. Now I don't drink at all, except for an occasional shot of Maaiox.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever tried marijuana?

[A] Groucho: One cigarette that Garson Kanin gave me. I took six puffs and I couldn't get to the other side of the room.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think it should be legalized?

[A] Groucho: No, and I don't believe in booze, either. I didn't even have a drink until Prohibition. Then my father made wine in the cellar and killed all the rats.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of cigars do you smoke?

[A] Groucho: This one comes from Havana. It costs four dollars. Real Havana, not from the Canary Islands.

[Q] Playboy: What's it called?

[A] Groucho: Charley. Actually, this is the only cigar I have left that's genuine Havana. Bill Cosby gave them to me. Very few people can affored this cigar. Cosby can. I did a TV show for Cosby. It was all ad-libbed. We had a few cards to hold up, but they kept mixing them up, cosby paid me off in cigars.

[Q] Playboy: You've also made some talk-show appearances over the past couple of years.

[A] Groucho: Yeah, You get so little for being on a talk show, You're lucky if you can afford a five-pack of White Owls.

[Q] Playboy: We remember, on at least one Cavett show, hearing you speak out against the amount of sex in movies today. Do you approve of film censorship?

[A] Groucho: Yes, I do. There are lots of children who go to movies. Besides, I don't like dirty pictures. I'm glad nobody took their clothes off in our movies. Can you imagine how ridiculous I'd have looked walking around naked with a cigar in my mouth?

[Q] Playboy: There's a lot of explicitness on the stage these days, too. Have you seen any of the recent productions?

[A] Groucho: No. I wouldn't even go to see Oh! Calcutta! I had tickets to the opening night from Kenneth Tynan and I said, "I don't want to see it. I understand that what they're doing on the stage is what a lot of people do in bed."

[Q] Playboy: Sleeping?

[A] Groucho: That's what I would have done in my seat if I'd have gone to see it.

[Q] Playboy: Did you see Hair?

[A] Groucho: I saw half of it and walked out. Dick Cavett asked me if I'd seen it and I said no, and he wanted to know why not. I told him, "Well, I was gonna go see it, and then I called up the theater and I said, 'How much are the tickets?' They said the tickets were $11 apiece. I told them I'd call back, went in my bathroom, took off all my clothes and looked at myself in the full-length mirror. Then I called the theater and said, 'Forget it.'"

[Q] Playboy: You said you saw half of it, and then you said you didn't see it at all. Which version are we to believe?

[A] Groucho: Both. I told you I'm a liar.

[Q] Playboy: They say good liars make great storytellers. What's your favorite story?

[A] Groucho: Clean or dirty?

[Q] Playboy: Just funny.

[A] Groucho: Well, a hooker picks up a guy. No. A married woman picks up a guy, takes him to her apartment and they go to bed. While they're doing it, the man says, "I've never had a woman like you. You're the most extraordinary woman in bed that I've ever heard of. You know. I'm not a religious man, but when I die, if there's such a thing as a hereafter, I'm going to come back and find you, no matter where you are in the whole world." And she says to him, "Well, if you do come back, try to come in the afternoons."

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any more jokes?

[A] Groucho: No, except for this cheap cigar that Bill Cosby gave me. I'm suffocating.

[Q] Playboy: Apart from cheap cigars, what annoys you most?

[A] Groucho: This interview.

[Q] Playboy: Hang on, it's just about finished. Have you any regrets?

[A] Groucho: The fact that I agreed to this interview.

[Q] Playboy: One last question: What would you do if you had your life to live all over again?

[A] Groucho:Try more positions.