Bill Marx is the son of legendary comedian Harpo Marx, who of course was a member of the famous Marx Brothers. Bill, along with his three siblings, were adopted by Harpo and his wife, Susan. Through the years, Bill has racked up a lifetime of fond memories pertaining to his dad and his uncles. Recently, he completed a book titled Son of Harpo Speaks, a play on the title of his dad's autobiography (Harpo Speaks). Bill remembers his dad as a generous, good-hearted man who never took life too seriously, and in the process, maintained a child-like wonder that lasted until his death in 1964. I had the great pleasure of speaking to Bill about his famous family, his own life, and about remembering the man he was fortunate enough to call dad. You can read the transcription and listen to the audio below. If your browser is not equipped with Flash, you can download it right here.

MP: I’m on the phone with Bill Marx, the son of legendary comedian Harpo Marx and nephew of the equally famous Groucho Marx and Chico Marx, collectively known as The Marx Brothers. Bill has recently completed a book titled Son of Harpo Speaks, a play on the title of his dad’s autobiography Harpo Speaks. Bill, I really appreciate your time today, thank you so much.

Bill: Well thank you Gary for having me on your show.

MP: Let’s start with the obvious. Go back to your childhood for a moment and explain what it was like to have Harpo Marx for a dad.

Bill: Well like everybody else in the world, we all have dads. That’s usually how we come into this world. Whether they stay our dads or not is questionable in terms of the purest sense of the word. But dad was the only dad that I knew; I’m sure everybody else has the same feeling about theirs. And quite frankly, dad was always “dad”, he was not Harpo, he was not Arthur, he was just dad who went to work putting on a funny outfit as opposed to a 3-piece suit. He was fortunately, a wonderful father, a wonderful parent. Not every person in the world that’s male can attest to that. You can be a father in an instant, but to be a parent is a whole different story, and he was just a great father-parent. He was marvelous. Whenever he went out on stage – and I worked with him for twelve years – I never saw him as Harpo, I saw him as my dad going out there and going to work.

MP: We spoke once before the interview, and you said something that really stuck with me – that your dad and his brothers would pull the rug out from anyone, mainly celebrities, who took themselves too seriously. What did you mean by that?

Bill: They were anarchists; I guess you’d have to say that in the kindest manner. They believed in overthrowing anything that was either evil or pretentious. They showed the audience’s inner self by exposing pretension and people who took themselves more seriously than was absolutely necessary, and people who tried to cheat people out of money or whatever it might be. That’s the beauty part of them. I really feel that my dad and I suppose the brothers collectively were really the wish in all of us – the wish that we could tell our boss off if he was not a nice guy (laughs), or the wish that we could turn things around a certain way and make a difference, make people see things differently. So certainly the brothers had a distinctive point of view and that’s what made them very special to this day.

MP: You’re the only person left who’s worked with all three Marx Brothers professionally. So I assume you had a good relationship with your uncles. How did you interact with them when you were young; and also, in what capacity did you work with them?

Bill: When I was very young, as I am today because I’m moving back into that direction, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know they were famous and I spent the first ten years of my life being more concerned about who was going to play third base for us in the softball league than I was seeing guys like Berle (Milton) and Benny (Jack) and Burns (George) walking in and out of the door visiting with dad and all that kind of stuff. But when I went to British Vaudeville Circuit called British Music Hall with dad and Chico - when I was 12 years old - that was the first time I had a taste of real serious show business. And the fact that it was an extension of Vaudeville and that I got to participate with them in the act doing various little things and being a part of their particular performance – we wound up doing four weeks at the London Palladium, which is like making the Palace in Vaudeville in the United States. So I got a taste of it already then and of course I became my dad’s conductor/arranger by the time I was 16 years old. All the stuff that you hear on television that he plays on the harp, or on records, are all my arrangements. We worked together professionally, which is one of the wonderful things about my dad - he validated my musicianship by the time I was 16. Of course, I would do little state fairs and things with dad and Chico. Groucho was busy doing “You Bet Your Life” at that time, but ultimately I wound up being Groucho’s pianist after he finished “You Bet Your Life”. We would do parties and events and stuff like that. So I had a taste of all three of them and I’m very grateful for it. Yes, I am the last survivor now that Irving Brecher passed away about two and a half years ago. He had written “Go West” and “At the Circus” for the brothers, so he had worked with all three. But here I am, sitting here talking with you. I’m not going to leave my forwarding address, I don’t think, I’m just pending right now, the last of the breed. I’m very grateful to have been a part of it, in fact, far more grateful now than I ever was when I was thinking about who was going to play third base for us in the softball league.

MP: I read your dad’s book, Harpo Speaks, and also your uncle Groucho’s book, Groucho and Me. Both autobiographies had one thing in common - they credit their mother, Minnie, for essentially creating The Marx Brothers. Did your dad ever talk about his mom or those early days starting out?

Bill: Well first of all, dad was 50 years older than I was, so there were things we shared more that we both had in common. We loved sports. He was an avid golfer and so was I at the time that I was growing up. We were baseball fanatics and we loved music. So that was basically our relationship. In terms of him talking much about his mother or his father, he did all of his talking in “Harpo Speaks” really. Our family atmosphere was not one of relating historical facts about the family or anything like that. He rarely spoke of her. Actually, he rarely spoke of Woolcott, who was his closest friend. He was more into what he was doing at the time that he was out here, doing the guest shots on television shows and us working state fairs and things of that nature. So we never really talked too much about Minnie or Sam. His father was a really nice guy but was not really a motivator for them to be anything other than “not to be a tailor”. He was a lousy tailor, and in his own indirect way, (laughs) he convinced everybody based upon his work that you better not become a tailor! So Minnie, the only reason for her pushing all the brothers into show business was because her brother, who came over to Ellis Island with her as well, was in show business. He managed to get into show business and become one of the most successful Vaudeville acts at that time; it was called Gallagher and Shean. People that are familiar with the early days of Vaudeville will remember “Oh Mr. Gallagher…You’re right Mr. Shean”. So because his success was in show business, Minnie decided that the brothers are going to get out of the ghetto, go in there and get into show business like their uncle Al, who wound up writing a lot of their stuff for them in the early years.

MP: Each of the brothers had a distinct personality, at least from how they appeared on screen. Your dad Harpo decided not to speak, or was forced into silence after a poor vocal audition. From a hypothetical standpoint, if he had spoken in his act, do you think he would’ve had as successful a career?

Bill: It would be a very difficult question to answer. If my aunt had been male, I would’ve had two Grouchos. I don’t know; I’d have to say that what happened is what is. If you can trace back the fact that dad once told me that when they no longer had three people speaking back and forth at the same time, and they just had two people speaking, the act worked better – for their act. And it’s quite possible it was just a stroke of fortune that in fact he did get a bad review and decided he’d just do physical pantomime stuff. I would have to say that they might’ve been as successful but they wouldn’t have been as special or as unique as they were. It goes all the way back to the historical roots of Commedia dell'Arte - which is still in existence in New York’s Repertoire Company - where they had, at that time, the “authoritarian figure” Groucho became, they had the “idiot” which Chico became, and they had the “mime” which dad became, and it’s been a very successful triumvirate formula over the years; we’re going back to the 16th century now when this was created in small towns in Italy. But what’s even more astounding is – if you look at the pictures, the 13 movies, you will find that, except on rare occasion, Groucho never works with dad alone. For the most part, Groucho works with Chico, Chico works with Harpo, but rarely does Harpo just work with Groucho alone. Now they all come together at the end of the movie or in the middle of the movie and Chico is able to translate to Groucho, who hasn’t got a clue as to what Harpo’s all about! And that works. So for the most part it’s 2-2-2 and then the 3, and that’s what makes them unique I believe as opposed to had they just been three guys with a lot of funny lines.

MP: They were world famous, both collectively and individually. But even fame doesn’t protect people from certain prejudices, and they were, in fact, Jewish. In your dad’s book, he notes a few instances where he felt the effects of anti-Semitism, not only during World War II, but before and after. Do you think that had any bearing on him as a performer?

Bill: That’s a wonderful question, and it was asked of me when I just did a thing with Dick Cavett at the beginning of this year; somebody raised that question – how did they work through all of that, especially down south at that time when they were touring? You know, dad once told me that he was the luckiest guy in the world to have four other brothers that he could count on fighting for him if anything ever came to a situation like a fight or a confrontation. I’m sure they felt it. It’s interesting that the roots of Vaudeville were really ethnically inherited by the Jews and the Irish, who were also the point of prejudice at the turn of the 20th century, when Vaudeville was beginning to really flourish. Isn’t it interesting -Gallagher and Shean, a Jew and an Irish guy, Burns and Allen - a lot of people were of an ethnicity that was not particularly looked upon as being a good thing. I think that the brothers, somehow or another, in tandem, they must have been able to overcome all of that stuff. It is interesting to note that I think about it a lot – I think about a prejudiced person being able to laugh at what they did. It’s interesting to me that in the 1950s, I was watching college football when they suddenly integrated, a team in Alabama – the Crimson Tide – all of sudden they had a Black halfback that would run for a touchdown and win the game. Everybody would cheer for him and then go back to being prejudice against the Blacks. It never washed right for me; I’ve never understood prejudice, except that it’s a great defense mechanism for not really loving yourself. So I would have to say that it was just the times. We’ve changed dramatically. We still have prejudice, but we have prejudice for different reasons now than we had then. I just feel that they obviously handled it, and they obviously handled it by being good, by really making people laugh and forgetting they were Jewish. My dad told me one day – he had been to Israel on behalf of the State Department, he went there with James Michener and a few other people of artistic level – they went over to Israel on a goodwill tour. Israel, needless to say, was surrounded by enemies. He was walking down the street in Tel Aviv on one of the major streets, and he turned to my mom and he said “You know, this is the first time in my life that I’ve felt comfortable being a Jew”. Now what was fascinating is – the entire place was surrounded by people that don’t like him, but he felt comfortable there! Maybe because Israel, though it is a Zionistic state, it is not a religious state. But somehow or another, with all the gunfire and whatever might happen or might not happen, he said that to my mother who incidentally was not Jewish. I just thought it was a marvelous thing to be able to say. So unconsciously I really do believe they were always conscious of their Jewishness.

MP: When I hear the name Harpo Marx, the words that come to mind are: horn, pantomime, practical joker, and curly hair. That, of course, comes from a fan perspective. From your perspective, what words come to mind when you hear the name Harpo Marx?

Bill: Kind, thoughtful, childish, intellectual, and if I may be blatantly bold here to recommend that your listeners might check into a website that I just created as a tribute to him – it’s called HarposPlace.com, where I explore the fact that he was a complete person. If I was to say to you perhaps – other than having married Lauren Bacall and being an actor – do you know anything about Humphrey Bogart? Usually with celebrities, they’re either one or two dimensional, to the public, that’s all we know. The public sets that up. But in this particular website, which I really do feel I tried to make very clear that dad was just like you, just like everybody’s dad. He was just a human being that perceived life in his own unique way like we all do. I think you’ll really enjoy the website, HarposPlace.com, because you’ll see sides of him that you’ve never seen before if you haven’t been a Marx Brothers aficionado and read everything there is to read about him or any of the brothers. So I suggest it; it will really enlighten you to the warmth and the wonder of this guy who had a clear channel to who he was. He, just like everybody else, had his quiet demons and had his doubts, and I refer to a few of those in my book, “Son of Harpo Speaks”, how he dealt with them, and he dealt with them in a very adult, very matter-of-fact way. Allan Sherman once wrote about him, he said “Harpo Marx had the good sense to never grow up”. He’s just a special guy, but we’re all special, we’re no different, we all are the same – it just so happens he chose show business to go into. If we can strip away the celebrity and just understand that we’re all basically the same the world over, we have the same feelings, the trigger mechanisms may be different culturally but basically we’re all the same. We’re all the same, all human beings, and dad was one of them; and, I hope to show people that, they too, in seeing Harpo as an artist, seeing Harpo as a painter, Harpo as a family man, Harpo as a character, I hope they understand the non-complex complexity of all of us. We can identify with him.

MP: When people hear The Marx Brothers, they usually think Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. But you also knew Zeppo and Gummo. Do you have an opinion on why Zeppo stopped acting and why Gummo never wanted to get into it?

Bill: Well Gummo did get into it. Gummo got into the act originally. He was thrust into the act by Minnie, who insisted that he go in and be a part of it, which he was for a while. Gummo was not particularly thrilled with singing, which was mostly what the act was all about to begin with. Originally they were just a singing act – The Four Nightingales and then they were The Six Nightingales, and then The Three Nightingales and Gummo finally decided “I don’t want to do this anymore”, and by that time, Zeppo was old enough to take over from Gummo. So Gummo went off and later became their personal manager. Zeppo, who was considerably younger, he was seven years younger than Gummo, and there was a thirteen year age difference between Chico and Zeppo, and Zeppo finally comes into the act and does what he has to do – he’s an ingénue and he sings. By that time the act had evolved into a musical act with comedy; ultimately, it became a comedy act with music. They always had music in all of their movies; they always loved music, all of them. Then, Zeppo, after the Paramount thing was over with, in ’33 or ’34 after “Duck Soup”, said “I don’t want to do this anymore. All I do is stand around and take notes from Groucho. I don’t want to do this anymore”. So he got out and became an agent, a theatrical agent. He had wanderlust for gambling just like Chico did, and he wanted something more in his life I guess than punching a time clock and going into work like the brothers had to do when they went into movies. Then he invented something that he sold to the United States government, the patent for, and he bought four or five Safeway stores and he just used that money to gamble. He did pretty well by it over the years but he was not as interested in show business as Groucho or my dad. Chico wasn’t particularly interested in it either; he was a huge gambler. But Gummo just kind of stayed peripherally with them.

MP: In his book, your dad mentions a lot of places that were special to him: the Algonquin Hotel, Neshobe Island in Vermont, and many places he frequented as a young boy. Have you ever visited any of those places, as a way of retracing your dad’s steps?

Bill: I’ve never been to Neshobe Island. In 1998, believe it or not, a French documentary company invited me to New York to talk about the brothers. They were filming a documentary – guess where – at the Algonquin Hotel. Of course, I went to school, when I was going to college, I went to Julliard and I’d been to the Algonquin many times. But this particular time was the last time I’d been there and we stayed at the Algonquin Hotel, my wife and I, and we stayed in a room called the “Dorothy Parker room”. They had all these wonderful letters framed on the wall. The rooms were incredibly small, but nevertheless it was the Algonquin. And I guess the most telling blow was that the “Round Table” was in fact a piece of plywood that they would put on various tables to accommodate Woolcott and that whole group of people. They still have that piece of plywood and they still use it. But it wasn’t a polished thing that you would find at Macy’s (laughs) or with King Arthur and all the guys sitting around. No, the circumference is what made the name of that legendary, intellectual, literary salon that they created there.

MP: Your mom Susan Fleming was an entertainer as well. She was a Ziegfeld Girl and then a film actress. Your dad made it clear in his book that he was a career bachelor until he married her in the mid-30s, and they remained married until he passed away in 1964. How did they compliment and benefit each other?

Bill: When they first met, when he was about 44 or 45 years old, they had met before but they didn’t remember, but they had met on a set at Paramount studios. Harpo and his brothers were doing “Monkey Business”. Incidentally, I might add that come 2011, it will be the 80th anniversary of “Monkey Business” which was the first motion picture that they did in Hollywood. Also, “A Night at the Opera”, it’ll be the 75th anniversary. But anyway, he was on the soundstage doing “Monkey Business” and mom was doing a movie that was originally written for the Marx Brothers which they turned down; it was being filmed somewhere else on the same lot, it was called “Million Dollar Legs”, which was probably her most important picture and it’s one of comedy’s most important pictures, it holds up beautifully. It’s a spoof on the Olympic Games and it’s hilarious. It has every great character actor of the time in it - Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, Hugh Herbert, Andy Clyde, Ben Turpin, Billy Gilbert – it’s a wonderful picture. It’s only about an hour long now; I think they lost a few scenes or something but it’s well worth your while to see. Mom never liked show business. She was Susan Fleming in the Ziegfeld Follies, she was Susan Fleming as an actress, but she wanted to get out of show business and she finally convinced my dad to get married, and they did, and then she finally convinced dad that he should have children – which he and she adopted four children. What she did for him was to bring him back home, back up to East 93rd Street, and recognize the totality of family, how their family was in those days and how there’s a mommy and a daddy and kids, and he fell for it hook, line and sinker. She became Mrs. Harpo Marx and was his real true anchor for the rest of his life, as he just floated through this wonderful family experience that I guess he so desperately needed after so many years of just being out there and having a different kind of life experience. Then of course when he passed away, she no longer was Mrs. Harpo Marx. She decided that if she was going to accomplish anything, she would become Susan Marx and reinvent herself and get into education. She ran down here and won for the Board of Education and for 35 years she was a real advocate for education in the Coachella Valley, where I live.

MP: I think I mentioned to you that the first time I saw your dad was his appearance on I Love Lucy. This was years ago when I was really young, and I remember thinking that this happy, energetic man was like a big kid. But in reality, he would’ve been in his 60s at that time. Did he find it hard to settle down and retire?

Bill: I think that if you talk to people who have retired, you’ll find some that are happy that they’ve done it. There are others that wish they hadn’t and that it was the biggest mistake of their life. In terms of show business, you have to have an ego to get out there in front of people and risk rejection. You’re not just out there to hear the applause; you’re out there because this is what you do and this is what you have to do. It’s funny, I was watching Larry King last night interview Al Pacino, and he said the very same thing. It’s what you do. If you retire from what you do and you don’t have anything to replace it – dad of course did have the family and he had me and we would work on albums together, but he had to be out there and that’s why he would, every now and then, go out and appear on “The Colgate Comedy Hour” with Red Skelton or do the “I Love Lucy” show, because he had to keep his chops up. It was necessary. You have to have an ego to do those things, but dad’s ego was in the right place. He never thought much of his press clippings; he just wanted to do that because that’s what he had done all his life and he enjoyed doing it. He once told me, “Do what you love doing, and when you cease to love doing that, go and find something else you love to do”. Well, he loved his golf and he loved his theatre, and he loved show business and he loved the people that were in show business and their dedication and their journey. They all went through the same journey, those guys, Jessell, Burns, Danny Kaye, the brothers, Benny. You never want to say to yourself, “They don’t want me anymore”, it’s the toughest thing in the world. You know the five stages of show business – “Who’s Bill Marx?”, “Get me Bill Marx”, “He’s busy? Well get me somebody like Bill Marx”, “Get me a young Bill Marx”, “Who’s Bill Marx?” Those are the five stages and you never want to get the last two (laughs), you want to maintain the concept that what you have done, your body of work, is still fresh. That’s why he loved going out and doing it. Incidentally, in the “I Love Lucy” show, he played an arrangement called “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, and that was my arrangement. I was already his arranger/conductor and I was only 17 years old. So he gave me an opportunity to do things that a father wouldn’t always give a son to do; he had the confidence in me. It was filmed in front of a live audience and I’m very good friends with the fellow who directed that and another 125 episodes of “I Love Lucy”, Bill Asher. He remembers the moment when dad chased the lady around, got her, slung her over his shoulder, and he went to get his harp stool and walk out of Lucy’s apartment, and his hat fell off. Without dropping the lady, he just bent down, picked up his hat, put it on and he walked out. What is remarkable about that to me is he had just gotten over a heart attack; it was only about three months prior to that he had a heart attack, and yet he knew that you can’t stop the cameras, you got to keep it going. That, to me, is the ultimate true professional and that is the thing that I will probably remember about him more than anything else.

MP: Your book, Son of Harpo Speaks, which you mentioned before, has been out for a little bit and you’ve also released an audio book as an accompaniment. What kind of stories will readers find inside?

Bill: First of all, the audio book is the same text basically as “Son of Harpo Speaks” and I’m into my second printing now on “Son of Harpo Speaks”. It hasn’t come out just yet but it’ll be out in about a month or two and you’ll see it on Amazon or wherever it’s going to be. On my particular website, SonOfHarpoSpeaks.com, you can purchase it there and I will autograph it for you – autographed is $25 and un-autographed is $30 (laughs). I talk more about my relationship with my father than anything else. It’s really my autobiography. Yes, it has a few stories about the Marx Brothers and my close relationship with Groucho, and of course my mother and our family and the whole thing. But Harpo is the only one of the boys that a sibling had not written about, so I chose to do that. I waited until after my mother passed away; and she was all fine with it when I accidentally, in a freakish, impossible way, I found out who my birth parents were. I’d never been interested, and once I found out, because it’s such a strange circumstance that I felt I had to follow through on it. And I just didn’t want to write anything about it until my mother Susan passed away. It is the accompanying story and it is a really important woman’s book, I think. I think women will really address abandonment, rejection, and hope, and all these kinds of things in dealing with adoption and kids that really deserve a good home. It’s none of our faults that we show up here; we just accidentally wind up here one day and some of us are luckier than others. I think it’s a book that is a good accompaniment to dad’s book, which I think is really a great book. It’s had a shelf life of over 50 years and it’s still going strong, and I know that you read it and enjoyed it. You know, Groucho had Arthur write about him, and Miriam, his son and daughter; and Maxine, who is Chico’s daughter, she wrote a book about her father. And so, I was left to do it and now the trifecta has occurred. I think everything that has ever been written about the Marx Brothers, there’s nothing much more you can do, except there is a book that’s going to be out in a year or two that traces their entire Vaudeville experience. It’s going to be a fantastic book written by Robert Bader, who incidentally just discovered the Bing Crosby film that he had of the greatest World Series game ever, when Bill Mazeroski hit that home run to beat the Yankees (1960), and Bing Crosby was part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he had the whole game filmed. Only a little portion of it has ever been out on newsreel, but accidentally, Bader has discovered it recently and they had a big thing in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago. He is doing a definitive thing on the Marx Brothers, just their Vaudeville (years) through all of the research he’s done. Other than that, there’s nothing more to talk about with the Marx Brothers, except to enjoy their films, and “You Bet Your Life” and some of the great personal appearances that they had on television.

MP: I read something online, another interview of yours, where you address the online clips of your dad speaking. Of course he never spoke professionally, he rarely spoke publicly, and you said you thought he’d be unhappy about those clips being “leaked”, so to speak. Why do you think that?

Bill: In the 1950s, I would have to say the early-to-mid 1950s, he was offered, I think, by NBC – and in that day and age it was a lot of money – something like $250,000 to say one word on television. He turned it down, and his reasoning was that he didn’t want to violate the trust that people had in his creating that character. He felt that the character would last a lot longer if his voice was not heard. Unfortunately, there’s stuff that’s floating around that the BBC got ahold of, and yeah you can look at it and say “Guess what, I heard Harpo Marx speak” – well okay, once you hear him speak, why spoil it for other people, you know? I don’t know, I think without a doubt he would’ve been very unhappy that any of that stuff got out. In my audio book, which is out now, I think, on mp3 download, in my book I do all the voices and the narration, and I do dad’s voice. I think I do a pretty good intimation of his cadence, of his voice placement, of his New York accent, I’m very proud of it. I’m not dead-on but it’s a good, good shot at it, and I feel that is okay because it’s my book, and he wouldn’t object to it. Everybody knows it’s me and it’s not him. I have these visitations from him in my book and I address them and he speaks to me. I think that he would be very comfortable with that, but I’m sure he would be very distraught if he ever found out that some people wanted to take advantage or not honor his request. That’s life, you know, people don’t care.

MP: Could you give a brief example of what his voice sounded like?

Bill: (Imitating Harpo) Gary, it is so good to be able to be on your program today. It makes me feel so good to know that there’s people out there that really enjoy a good laugh, and that they care, and that no matter how much things in life can hurt, still and all, there’s nothing better in all the world than laughter.

MP: A typical New Yorker!

Bill: Yep, and you know I’m just so grateful, because I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I can sit here and talk to you about an icon. I am so glad that I don’t have to sit here and talk to you about me; I get uncomfortable about that. I’m really proud about my body of work, my output in my life and what I’ve done with it; but I gotta tell you, there is nothing better in the world than being able to talk about somebody who really deserves it. I’ve had that privilege in my life over the years of being able to say thank you to so many people that love Harpo and love what he stood for and what he still stands for, and that’s why I’m the luckiest guy. I can just sit back and get the emails that I get on SonOfHarpoSpeaks.com and I get them from all over the world – “Hey I just dressed up my kid as Harpo. You know, when I was a kid I dressed up as Harpo on Halloween!” You know, I get these things all the time – “I still have ‘Harpo Speaks’ on my bed stand.” I couldn’t be any luckier than I am Gary. It’s just been a great, great, fun ride for me to accidentally fall into the lap of Susan and Harpo.

MP: Well I can understand that. When I read your dad’s book, prior to reading his book, I knew the Marx Brothers professionally, from their movie work and the things that I had read about them. But when I read your dad’s book, it made me wish that I had known him in person because I just really got the sense that he was a very honest, good-natured person. Unfortunately that’s a rarity in Hollywood.

Bill: Or anywhere else, let’s not pin it on Hollywood. Let’s face it – any field of endeavor. Hollywood is high profile and exposed to this kind of thing; but as I said early on in the interview, people that populate the entertainment business are no different from anybody else – they got egos, they got desires, they have hopes, they have dreams. They go through the whole gambit of being a human being, and there are some good human beings and there are some not-so-good human beings, and he (Harpo) was one of the good guys. He really was. And that’s the joy. Once again, the brothers, if not just Harpo, they really are the wish in all of us. I wish I could be that honest in my assessment of life and its vicissitudes. That’s what I think they brought to their audiences, and that’s the reason why you can still look at “Monkey Business” and laugh your head off, because nothing has changed. Nothing much has changed, at least as far as I’m concerned. People still laugh at the same things, people are still amused by the same things, and people know the difference between talent and faking it.

MP: I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about this, but I thought it would be interesting to ask. If a movie based on the life of the Marx Brothers were to be released, are there any actors you think would be best to play the brothers?

Bill: Well, there are so many wonderful actors that don’t get much shot at anything. To give you why I feel this way about who I would recommend for Harpo, or Groucho or Chico – when I saw “The Godfather”, I loved the Godfather movie. The only person I didn’t like or I didn’t buy into was Marlon Brando. I wish that there had been somebody that I had never seen before as the Godfather. Instead, what I saw was “Marlon Brando doing the Godfather”, and he was brilliant, please don’t misunderstand me. But I think the Godfather’s presence would have been far greater if we didn’t know the actor, if we met the Godfather for the first time on the screen. I have to say that perhaps with the brothers, it would be a real tough call. I know Johnny Depp would do Groucho phenomenally. I think that if there was a release of “Harpo Speaks” or something like that, I think, without question because of his performance as Chaplin, I think Robert Downey would do Harpo about as well as anybody could do. And those are famous people, famous actors. Whether I think that any famous actors should be cast in the roles of the Marx Brothers, I don’t know. I don’t know whether it would take away or whether it’d become a tour de force for them as actors, I just don’t know. But it’s a wonderful question and there are so many great actors and actresses out there that (could play) Margaret Dumont’s character or Minnie’s character, or whoever. There’s so much to choose from and I think that if it was my call, I’d look for some remarkably talented people that nobody’s ever heard of.

MP: Once again, I’ve been on the phone with Bill Marx, the son of legendary comedian Harpo Marx. Bill, it’s been a real pleasure speaking with you. Please keep me posted on your latest projects and I hope we have the chance to speak again soon!

Bill: It’s been my pleasure this whole time. You are obviously a very, very well-read fan of the Marx Brothers, for which I will always be very grateful that you were, and that you had me on your show. You probably got some pretty sharp listeners out there. I want to thank them for paying any attention to me through this time period and I hope one day you guys can say hello to me on my website or on HarposPlace.com, and I thank you very, very much. It was just wonderful.