Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx - Softcover

Stefan Kanfer

4

658 ratings by Goodreads

9780140294262: Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140294260 ISBN 13: 9780140294262

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2001

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This definitive biography of one of the world’s greatest comedians unflinchingly yet affectionately uncovers the man behind the cigar.

Here is the amazing career of the man the world recognized as Groucho: the improbable disasters of the vaudeville years; the Marx Brothers, an act so funny W.C. Fields refused to follow it; the unprecedented Broadway success of The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers; the cinematic triumphs of Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera; and the marvelous come-back career as king of the game show hosts with You Bet Your Life. Here, too, is the man himself: a lonely middle child who aspired to be a doctor; a man who sabotaged three marriages; a father alternately indulgent and cruel. Intelligent and thorough, hilarious and sad, Groucho is a spectacular biography of the century’s most influential comedian.

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From the Publisher:

"Engrossing...exhilarating... Kanfer calls Groucho the father of modern comedy, whose influence extends from M*A*S*H to Jerry Seinfeld to Woody Allen to daily conversation.... [With] a truckload of gemlike anecdotes, incisive mini-biographies of all the Marx Brothers and invaluable film and stage criticism."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Groucho has finally gotten a biographer worthy of him."
-- Wall Street Journal

"Delightful and definitive. Groucho is one of the great biographies."
-- Lance Morrow

"Not since Boswell has there been a more perfect matching of biographer and subject, and Boswell couldn't tell what was funny. Stefan Kanfer -- brilliant and hilarious himself, blessed with a critic's eye and a scholar's scruples -- presents Groucho's mind and world as no one else could. He looks into the comic genius and sees the man; then he brings both to life, not a moment too soon. This is a rich, full, glorious book."
-- Roger Rosenblatt

About the Author:

Stefan Kanfer's books include The Eighth Sin, A Summer World, The Last Empire, and Serious Business. He was the primary interviewer in the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Line King. A former writer and editor at Time and a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library, he has been a writer-in-residence at the City University of New York, the State University of New York at Purchase, and Wesleyan University. He lives in New York and on Cape Cod.

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