Speaker 1: This is our American Stories, and we've already brought you
Speaker 1: the story of how UCLA undergraduate Steve Stolier saved a
Speaker 1: Marx Brothers movie from extinction. But here's the story of
Speaker 1: how Steve called up Aaron Fleming, Groucho's manager, and landed
Speaker 1: the job of his dreams.
Speaker 2: In the summer of seventy four, I had two or
Speaker 2: three summer jobs fall through, for which I remain eternally grateful,
Speaker 2: and my dad was pressuring me, I don't want you
Speaker 2: sitting around on your fanny all summer long. I want
Speaker 2: you to find some job. They may need a bus
Speaker 2: boy at this restaurant, or you could go get interviewed
Speaker 2: at Taco Bell. And I thought, I don't want to
Speaker 2: do any of that, but he's never gonna let up
Speaker 2: on me. So I called Aaron Fleming, figuring I had
Speaker 2: nothing to lose, and I said, is there anything at
Speaker 2: all that you think maybe I could sort of help with?
Speaker 3: And she said, well, actually, it's funny you call because
Speaker 3: I used to be Groucho's secretary, but now i'm his
Speaker 3: manager and we need someone to handle all of the
Speaker 3: fan mail that's been coming in, and also to organize
Speaker 3: all of his memorabilia, which is going to be donated
Speaker 3: to the Smithsonian after he's gone. And we need someone
Speaker 3: who really knows their marsh brothers.
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, please please please please please please please
Speaker 2: with you, And in my mind's eye, I have this
Speaker 2: sort of tex av cartoon image of me zipping out
Speaker 2: of the house and instantly appearing on the doorstep of
Speaker 2: Groucho's house while Aaron is still on the phone explaining
Speaker 2: the job to me. It wasn't quite like that, but
Speaker 2: that's how it felt. And I thought that I would
Speaker 2: be working maybe in an office building, maybe twice a
Speaker 2: month he'd come by to sign checks or something. She said, Oh, no,
Speaker 2: you'll have your own room to work in at Groucho's
Speaker 2: house and you can make your own hours. And I thought,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna pay me to do this. And so
Speaker 2: I drove to Groucho's house in Beverly Hills, and I
Speaker 2: was so nervous, but it worked out, and sure enough,
Speaker 2: there was a room that had been a painting studio
Speaker 2: that his last wife, whom he had divorced in sixty nine,
Speaker 2: had used, and came my office and Groucher would often
Speaker 2: shuffle down the hall to or from his room or
Speaker 2: the living room or dining room, and we would chat.
Speaker 2: And it was a very egalitarian household. I was to
Speaker 2: sit at the lunch table when Groucher would have lunch.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a sense that the help ate in the
Speaker 2: kitchen or anything that haughty, and so I would be
Speaker 2: lucky enough to be there when George Burns would come over,
Speaker 2: or Steve Allen would come over, or some of his
Speaker 2: former writers, or if it was just just in quotes,
Speaker 2: Groucho and maybe a nurse, or Groucho and Aaron, it
Speaker 2: would just be us, and I could ask him all
Speaker 2: these questions that I'd had that I thought if I
Speaker 2: could ever meet him, I'd want to know this. And
Speaker 2: he appreciated the fact that I cared about and knew
Speaker 2: about all of the things that he had experience instant
Speaker 2: that he cared about, and that we had similar you know,
Speaker 2: we both liked tinpan Alley and George Gershwin and Irving
Speaker 2: Berlin and the humorists of the Algonquin round Table. One
Speaker 2: time he called me into his room and gave me
Speaker 2: a twenty dollars bill, and he said, go down to
Speaker 2: the record store and get me some records, you know
Speaker 2: what I like. And it meant so much to me
Speaker 2: that he had assumed that I would know what to
Speaker 2: get instead of having to explain it. But I mean,
Speaker 2: those days at the lunch table were so rich, and
Speaker 2: I came to appreciate him on three different levels. First
Speaker 2: of all, he was Groucho Marx, the guy in the
Speaker 2: grease paint mustache, swirling around on screen, insulting Margaret Dumont
Speaker 2: in Duck Soup and Night at the Opera. And second
Speaker 2: he was someone who personally knew people that to me
Speaker 2: didn't exist in three dimensions and in color, people like well,
Speaker 2: like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, James Thurber he was
Speaker 2: friends with W. C. Fields. The idea that he knew
Speaker 2: these people personally, you know, and I would get insight
Speaker 2: into what they were like from him firsthand, you know,
Speaker 2: not something he'd read or heard about, but he was there.
Speaker 2: And then on the third level, he was a man
Speaker 2: from eighteen ninety. He was a nineteenth century human being,
Speaker 2: literally a Victorian, since she was on the throne when
Speaker 2: he was born, although he was born in New York
Speaker 2: and not in England, and his first hand memories went
Speaker 2: from before the right brothers to after the moon landing,
Speaker 2: which is a staggering chunk of American history, world history.
Speaker 2: I asked him once, what's the earliest you remember? And
Speaker 2: he thought moment, and he said, I guess probably the
Speaker 2: Spanish American War, which was eighteen ninety eight. And he
Speaker 2: and his brothers had initially started out as a singing
Speaker 2: act in vaudeville in the early nineteen hundreds, before they
Speaker 2: started adding comedy. They would sing harmony popular songs, and
Speaker 2: you know, they did okay at that. But Graucho's career
Speaker 2: went back so far that he actually was one of
Speaker 2: the performers at a special charity benefit performance at the
Speaker 2: Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Enrico Caruso was also
Speaker 2: on the bill that night, and the money was to
Speaker 2: go to the aid of victims of the San Francisco
Speaker 2: earthquake of nineteen oh six. For a history buff like me,
Speaker 2: and as I say, I had been a history major,
Speaker 2: although I shifted to motion picture television after I had
Speaker 2: been working at Grouchos a while because it was just
Speaker 2: impossible to ignore how strongly I was drawn to that world.
Speaker 2: You know, he would have health problems now and again
Speaker 2: he'd have a small stroke or something like that, and
Speaker 2: I would think, oh jeez, this is it. This is
Speaker 2: I think about three weeks into my working there, he
Speaker 2: had a slight stroke and I thought it was great
Speaker 2: while it lasted, but now the coach is going to
Speaker 2: turn back into a pumpkin. And you know that morning
Speaker 2: that I showed up that he'd had a stroke and
Speaker 2: the housekeeper said, please keep your voice down, mister Marx
Speaker 2: has had a stroke. But the nurse asked that you
Speaker 2: go back to his room because she needs some help.
Speaker 2: And I expected him to be, you know, lying on
Speaker 2: the floor, unable to speak, unable to move, and instead
Speaker 2: he was sitting in bed, propped up in his pajamas
Speaker 2: and muck reading the La Times. And he said, is
Speaker 2: the ambulance here yet? I said no, it figures and
Speaker 2: goes back to his reading and I thought, gee, he's
Speaker 2: really taking this in stride. He's not banging at death's door.
Speaker 2: He's reading the La Times. And it was just that
Speaker 2: the nurse needed help getting him in to take a
Speaker 2: leak in the bathroom because his balance was off from
Speaker 2: that stroke. So I, you know, I was happy to
Speaker 2: help out, and he bounced back from that and from
Speaker 2: a lot of other health setbacks, even though he was
Speaker 2: in his mid eighties by then.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Steve Stollier's story and in the
Speaker 1: end Groucho Marx's story too, And what a lucky guy
Speaker 1: indeed that those summer jobs fell through. Is what an opportunity,
Speaker 1: an opportunity of a lifetime in Groucho's house, no less
Speaker 1: his hero, so many Americans heroes. By the way, he
Speaker 1: was a child of the Victorian Age, and his comedy
Speaker 1: was rebuttal to the Victorian age its properness, and Oi
Speaker 1: Groutshow was a revolutionary in his day. He really stretched
Speaker 1: the boundaries of what comedians were allowed to do and
Speaker 1: not do. And my goodness, what we learned listening to
Speaker 1: this is that even people like Groutchow want to be appreciated, right,
Speaker 1: the legends appreciate appreciation, and we can never forget that.
Speaker 1: When we come back more of this remarkable story here
Speaker 1: on our American Stories, And we're back with our American stories,
Speaker 1: and the story of Steve Stolier, a college student who
Speaker 1: saved a long lost Marx Brothers movie and then landed
Speaker 1: the job of his dreams working as Groutcho marks his
Speaker 1: personal assistant and archivist. Let's return to Steve and his.
Speaker 2: Story, and it just became this remarkably rich experience for
Speaker 2: me that ended up lasting not three weeks as I
Speaker 2: had thought that morning, but three years, the last three
Speaker 2: years of Groucho's life. And so I was able to
Speaker 2: get to know and talk with and with Groucho, my hero.
Speaker 2: I also got to meet Zeppo the night that he
Speaker 2: came up there for dinner from Palm Springs. I had
Speaker 2: brought the young lady I was dating, a nineteen year
Speaker 2: old blonde who was very bright and very personable and
Speaker 2: very attractive, and he really took a liking to her.
Speaker 2: He sort of picked up where Chicko left off in
Speaker 2: terms of having an eye for the ladies. And he
Speaker 2: had recently lost his last wife to Frankson, who dumped
Speaker 2: him and went for Sinatra, and that was Barbara Marx Sinatra.
Speaker 2: So he was back to being a bachelor. And he said,
Speaker 2: you know, Steve, you and Linda should visit me in
Speaker 2: Palm Springs sometime. And I said, well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I was there when I was about nine and it
Speaker 2: just it was sweltering. And he said, well, when we're
Speaker 2: there in the summer, and I said yeah, and he said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, Steve, it's also cold in Alaska in the winter.
Speaker 2: It was true that Zeppo did have a great sense
Speaker 2: of humor that really didn't get a chance to shine
Speaker 2: on screen. I had heard that he could be very funny,
Speaker 2: and I had, you know, a charm and charisma, and
Speaker 2: people are always skeptical of that because he was sort
Speaker 2: of wooden and didn't have the lion's share of funny
Speaker 2: stuff to do. And the few movies he was in,
Speaker 2: was I happy as a performer, and once he once
Speaker 2: he left the act after Duck Soup in nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 2: he became a very successful agent, handling such obscure has
Speaker 2: beens as Clark Gable and Carol Lombard and Barbara Stanwick
Speaker 2: and Robert Taylor and Lucille Ball and Landa Turner. So
Speaker 2: he did really well and never looked back. But anyway,
Speaker 2: a few months later Linda and I broke up. I
Speaker 2: had a couple of photos that I wanted Zeppo to sign,
Speaker 2: so I mailed them to his address in Palm Springs,
Speaker 2: and in my cover letter, I said, by the way,
Speaker 2: Lynda and I broke up. So I know you've been
Speaker 2: around the block a few times. If you have any
Speaker 2: advice for the love lorn And a few days later,
Speaker 2: my phone rings save as Zeppo marks. I hope I'm
Speaker 2: not inconveniencing. No, no, how I got the photos you sent. God,
Speaker 2: I was good looking back then. But listen, I have
Speaker 2: a question for you, and I don't want to step
Speaker 2: on your toes. You understand that, because the last thing
Speaker 2: in the world I'd want to do would be something
Speaker 2: to upset you. Oh, okay, do you think that Linda
Speaker 2: would go out with me? And I thought, what I mean?
Speaker 2: She was nineteen, I was twenty, and he was seventy four,
Speaker 2: but a young seventy four, but seventy four, And I said,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean she enjoyed.
Speaker 3: You know, she got a kick a because really, tell me, honestly, Steve,
Speaker 3: if this is at all uncomfortable for no, no, no,
Speaker 3: no no, I said, so let me let me ask her,
Speaker 3: and okay, I would appreciate it. And again if it's any.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no. So I saw her at
Speaker 2: s and I asked her about it, and she laughed,
Speaker 2: also finding it strange and funny. But thought, you know,
Speaker 2: what the heck, I want to have the experience of
Speaker 2: going on a date with Zeppo Marx. So they went
Speaker 2: out once. He took her to dinner in San Diego
Speaker 2: and then drove to Tijuana and attended a Hilai game
Speaker 2: at a stadium, and then took her home. And I
Speaker 2: talked to him afterwards, and he said, Steve, I want
Speaker 2: to tell you I never even kissed a good night.
Speaker 2: You should know that she's very nice, but all she
Speaker 2: did was talk about herself. And then I saw her
Speaker 2: on campus and she said, you know, Zeppa was really nice,
Speaker 2: but all he did was talk about himself. And I thought,
Speaker 2: that's a really interesting symmetry there. And then at parties
Speaker 2: at Graucho's, whenever Zeppa would be there, he would make
Speaker 2: a point of introducing is someone and say, this is Steve.
Speaker 2: He's a nice young man. He and I dated the
Speaker 2: same girl, but he got further with her than I did.
Speaker 2: That was like my official introduction. So anyway, I have
Speaker 2: the distinction of being able to say that Zeppo Marx
Speaker 2: and I dated the same girl. I also got to
Speaker 2: meet the other living Marx brother, Gummo, who to those
Speaker 2: who aren't that familiar with the Marx brothers. It's even
Speaker 2: more obscure because Gummo was the straight man before Zeppo
Speaker 2: on the stage, and then he was drafted during World
Speaker 2: War One and left the act. So at the time,
Speaker 2: seventeen year old Zeppo took his place, and Gummo also
Speaker 2: became an agent and did very He became Groucho's agent, actually,
Speaker 2: and did very well. He was never that much interested
Speaker 2: in performing. So I got to meet three out of
Speaker 2: five of the March brothers, which is, you know, approximately
Speaker 2: three more March Brothers than most people ever got a
Speaker 2: chance to meet. Harpo and Chico had died in the
Speaker 2: early sixties, unfortunately, so I was never able to meet them.
Speaker 2: But when I would watch Groucho and Zeppo and Gummo
Speaker 2: talking amongst themselves, which was great, I thought, what must
Speaker 2: it have been like with all five brothers in their
Speaker 2: youth sitting around the table. It must have been hysterical.
Speaker 2: Groucho had a cook named Robin, who was tall and
Speaker 2: thin and blonde and young. When Zeppo and Gummo had
Speaker 2: come up for dinner and I was there for that dinner,
Speaker 2: Zeppo said Robin said she'd marry me, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think she's too tall for me. Groucho said, well,
Speaker 2: what part of it do you want? And Zeppo said,
Speaker 2: I'll take as high up as I can read each
Speaker 2: and Gummo said, what do you want with her feet?
Speaker 2: So there's a Gummo anecdote, which is extremely rare, but
Speaker 2: evidence of the kind of goofy humor they had amongst themselves,
Speaker 2: that quickness. It was just it was all still there
Speaker 2: under various layers of rust. I was very fortunate because
Speaker 2: of my Groucho association, I became friends with Dick Cavit.
Speaker 2: That was another case where because of my insecurities, I
Speaker 2: thought when Groucho was gone, my link to Dick Cavot
Speaker 2: would be over. But instead he called me from New
Speaker 2: York the week Groucho died and he said, listen, I
Speaker 2: hope just because Groucho is gone, we're not going to
Speaker 2: lose touch. And by the way, I hope you don't mind,
Speaker 2: but I've shown some of your letters to Woody and
Speaker 2: he says they're very well written. And I sort of
Speaker 2: had to empty the urine out of my shoes that
Speaker 2: Cabot was calling me to say, hey, don't drop me
Speaker 2: as a friend and saying, I hope you don't mind,
Speaker 2: but Woody Allen thinks your letters are well written. So
Speaker 2: that was something. And in fact I did end up
Speaker 2: moving to New York in nineteen eighty two and spending
Speaker 2: a few years there writing for Dick Cabot at HBO,
Speaker 2: and had many remarkable adventures in Manhattan, including getting to
Speaker 2: meet Woody Allen and Catherine Hepburn and lots of other
Speaker 2: stuff before I returned to LA to take another job.
Speaker 2: And it was so great when I was working at
Speaker 2: Groucho's to be able to comfortably meet these people and converse,
Speaker 2: because I think they figured since I was inside the house,
Speaker 2: I must be okay, whether I'm Groucho's grandson or something
Speaker 2: like that. If I'm sitting at Graucho's lunch table, it
Speaker 2: might must be okay. So there wasn't any nobody. There
Speaker 2: were no star trips there. There was people that were
Speaker 2: very down to earth, and I tended to find that
Speaker 2: the old people who were legends were much more down
Speaker 2: to earth and personable than some of the people who
Speaker 2: had recently become famous. Aaron Fleming tended to have younger friends,
Speaker 2: Elliott Gould and George Siegel and Budcourt and Sally Kellerman
Speaker 2: and streisand to a lesser degree, and I found myself
Speaker 2: instantly drawn to Groucho's old gang. I felt much more
Speaker 2: that I belonged there, even though I was nineteen and
Speaker 2: they were in their seventies and eighties, than I did
Speaker 2: towards Aaron's sort of quirky group of neu veaux stars.
Speaker 1: And especial thanks to Robbie for superb production and great storytelling,
Speaker 1: and especial thanks to Steve Stollier as well. Steve Stollier's
Speaker 1: story rout Jo Marx's story here on Our American Story