Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Also by Ron Goulart

  Copyright Page

  To Fran, Sean, and Steffan once again

  Thanks once more to Robert Finkelstein for his continued cooperation.

  One

  Groucho Marx solved his first Manhattan murder case in the summer of 1939.

  For good measure, again with me as his Watson, he also managed to solve a killing that had taken place in Hollywood. That we did from a distance of some three thousand miles.

  I’m Frank Denby. I used to be a crime reporter with the Los Angeles Times. Two years before, while I was scripting Groucho’s weekly radio show, he and I became a detective team for the first time and came up with the solution to a murder. Since then we’d worked successfully on several other cases. “We’re as good as the Thin Man, Philo Vance, and Charlie Chan rolled into one,” Groucho maintained. “Although why anybody would want a five-hundred-pound detective is beyond me.”

  After our radio show was cancelled, Groucho and I collaborated on a screwball comedy movie script we called Cinderella on Wheels. That had been optioned by Mammoth Pictures and was presently languishing on the shelf. But on the strength of that sale, I managed to get myself hired for six months as a staff writer at Mammoth. Working in an impressively small office in the Writers’ Building, I initially turned out a revise on the script for Curse of the Zombies and then did the second draft of The Zombies Walk Again. “That’s not a catchy enough title for upper-crust patrons such as myself,” Groucho had observed on hearing it. “Nobody walks in Beverly Hills. You’d best rechristen it The Zombies Ride Again, Preferably in a Rolls-Royce.”

  I next wrote the first two drafts on Stop the Presses, a B movie that Mammoth was trying to get either Chester Morris or Lee Tracy—whoever’d work more cheaply—to star in. Hollywood being Hollywood, none of these movies was a comedy. My contract hadn’t been picked up and by early summer I was once again at liberty. But I was in no danger of starving.

  My wife, Jane, is the best-looking cartoonist in America and her comic strip, Hollywood Molly, was by then the third most popular in the country. As a result, a large New York advertising agency and the Amalgamated Radio Network wanted to talk to her about turning Molly into a weekly radio show. When they suggested that Jane come back to Manhattan to discuss the idea and the possibility of writing the scripts herself, she told them she wouldn’t be interested at all unless she could collaborate with her gifted author husband. So we’d both been invited eastward.

  Admittedly I was moderately depressed by the fact that I had—temporarily I hoped—ceased to contribute to the family income. And I wasn’t any too cheered by the way things in general were going with the world. Franco’s gang had won the civil war in Spain, adding another fascist dictator to the list. Hitler was continuing to take over more and more of Europe and both England and France seemed on the brink of declaring war on Germany. President Roosevelt was still talking about keeping America out of World War II, but I figured we were going to get into it fairly soon.

  Two days before we were booked to leave on the Super Chief streamliner out of the brand-new Union Station, I decided to stop in at Groucho’s Sunset Strip office to tell him that we’d be out of town for a couple of weeks.

  It was a clear, blue afternoon and the traffic flashing by on Sunset was the usual mix of foreign sports cars, limousines, and jalopies. As I walked toward the building in which Groucho rented office space, I passed three separate young women who bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Jean Harlow. The building itself resembled a Poverty Row set designer’s idea of a Southern mansion.

  I was halfway up the wooden stairs that led to the second floor when I heard a loud rattling thump from the vicinity of Groucho’s outer office.

  Double-timing, I hurried up to the door and yanked it open.

  Nan Somerville, his secretary, was sprawled on the floor next to her desk. She was just starting to sit up, muttering. Half of a torn theatrical poster was clutched in her right hand. “Hi, Frank,” she said. “Never stand on a swivel chair when you’re ripping the poster of a no-good magician off your office wall.”

  Leaning over, I took hold of her free hand and helped her to rise. “Sound advice,” I said. “In fact, wasn’t that something Benjamin Franklin included in Poor Richard’s Almanac?”

  “Quite probably, although every time I ran into Ben Franklin all he ever told me was to go fly a kite.”

  “Sounds like you’re coming down with Grouchoitis.”

  “God, I hope not. Did that really sound like a line he’d say?”

  “Or already said.”

  “Oy.”

  Nan was a feisty, muscular lady in her late thirties and her earlier career as a circus acrobat and then a stuntwoman at MGM convinced Groucho she would be ideally suited to work as his secretary. She was a crackerjack typist, too.

  Glancing up at the portion of the poster that was still on the wall, I inquired, “You and Young Houdini have broken up?”

  She crumpled up her portion of the poster and tossed it into the deskside wastebasket. “I should’ve known any guy of forty-six who calls himself Young anything was going to be untrustworthy.”

  “So what precipitated the breakup?” I looked at the closed door of Groucho’s inner office.

  “Groucho wasn’t to blame for this one,” she said. “Admittedly he scared the Amazing El Carim off by insisting on doing card tricks for him every time he dropped by here to pick me up for lunch. And he alienated Yarko the Great by repeatedly warning him that I was too heavy to be used safely in his Floating Lady illusion. But he didn’t screw the Young Houdini romance up.”

  Nan, a mostly rational person otherwise, had an unfortunate affinity for falling in love only with guys who were professional magicians.

  “What exactly happened?”

  “Young Houdini vanished.”

  “Magicians,” I pointed out, “have a tendency to do that now and then.”

  “True, but not with two hundred dollars of my money.”

  “You didn’t loan the guy dough?”

  “He borrowed it,” Nan corrected. “Although I didn’t know that until I consulted the cookie jar in my kitchen two nights ago. The money and Young Houdini haven’t been seen since.”

  After a sympathetic nod, I asked her, “Groucho in?”

  Nan pointed a thumb in the direction of the Sunset Strip. “Across the street at Moonbaum’s deli,” she said. “How’s Jane?”

  “You may find this hard to believe, but she’s doing better than I am.”

  Nan sat down in the swivel chair and rested her elbows on her desk. “You still don’t like the idea that she makes enough money to support you if need be, do you?”

  “I can live with it, but—”

  “Jane’s not the usual wife,
so you’re really going to have to get used to that fact.”

  “I suppose so, yeah,” I said. “She and I are going to be heading back East in a couple of days and I dropped in to say farewell to Groucho.”

  “Vacation? Second honeymoon?”

  “Nope, mostly business.” And I explained about the radio show deal.

  “Gee, that’s swell,” said Nan when I finished. “It’ll be, I bet, more fun collaborating with your wife than with Groucho.”

  “I’m undecided about that,” I told her, moving to the door. “I’ve become used to cigar smoke.”

  “Have a safe trip,” said Nan.

  “B movies to the contrary,” I assured her, “nothing very exciting or dangerous ever happens on a train trip east.”

  At the time I actually believed that.

  There was a chunky forty-year-old newsboy in a Hawaiian shirt hawking papers out in front of the deli. “Extra! Extra!” he was shouting. “Mobster killed in gangland slaying!”

  The gangster in question was a local gambler named Nick Sanantonio. I hadn’t the faintest suspicion that his violent death had a damn thing to do with me.

  I found Groucho in his favorite booth, looking forlornly from his blintzes to a thick manuscript opened beside his plate. “I’ve been blintzkrieged,” he complained as I slid in opposite him. “Mellman the waiter persuaded me to peruse his latest play.”

  “This isn’t still The Rape of the Lox, is it?”

  “Nay, this is a new effort of his.” Groucho gave a negative shake of his head. “I entered these sacred confines simply to indulge in a helping of cheese blintzes and a celery tonic and then Mellman descended on me like a snappy simile I’ll think of before we go to press. He pleaded with me to read this new effort, which is entitled something like Shootout at Kosher Canyon or Goodbye, Mr. Knish or—”

  “No, Groucho, it’s called Love Laughs at Lox Myths,” corrected the lean, frail Mellman, who’d been lurking nearby.

  “Begone,” suggested Groucho, making a shooing motion. “My disciple and I have some parables to whip into shape. Then, if we have time, I want to revise my Sermon on the Mount and put in some more socko one-liners. We’re also thinking of picking a new location for that—how’s the Sermon at Malibu strike you?”

  “I’ll bring you some more coffee.” The waiter went flat-footing away.

  I leaned an elbow on the tabletop and said, “The reason I dropped by, Groucho, was—”

  “You haven’t even asked me, Rollo, why I have such a woebegone expression on my puss.”

  “I mistook it for your everyday look. Sorry.”

  “The reason is that I saw the final cut of At the Circus yesterday.”

  “And?”

  “Chico, Harpo, and I have pretty much decided to change our name to the Andrews Sisters and try starting all over again.”

  The Marx Brothers had just recently finished filming a new movie for MGM. It was part of a three-picture deal for which they were being handsomely paid. I mentioned that to Groucho.

  “Actually, my lad, the salary goes beyond handsomely and into gorgeously,” he corrected. “When you realize that three overgrown street urchins are pulling down such dough, why, it makes you proud to be an American. If only At the Circus wasn’t so out and out lousy, I’m sure we’d all be as happy as kings. The kings I have in mind are, reading from left to right, King Lear, Wayne King, and King of the Royal Mounted.” He paused to fish a cigar out of the pocket of his corn-colored sports coat. “Now, many of our critics think we’ll go from bad to worse with these three movies. But we’ve outwitted them by making the worst one first. So what we’ll be doing is going from worse to bad.”

  “I thought you were pleased to be back at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.”

  “In your vanished youth did you see a film entitled Frankenstein?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “How about a cinematic effort called The Mummy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do those two movies have in common?”

  “Boris Karloff?”

  “No, Rollo. The monsters in both were based on Louis B. Mayer,” he said, putting the dead cigar between his teeth. “And Mayer is still roaming the grounds at MGM. At night the peasants claim they can hear him howling at the moon, pinching starlets, and dropping options.”

  “Can I mention now why I—”

  “Here’s something else to think about on those sleepless nights at the front,” he continued. “On its roster of stars MGM has such beauties as Greta Garbo, Hedy Lamarr, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, and Eleanor Powell. But who was cast as the young thing I make a pass at?”

  “Wasn’t Eve Arden in that movie with you?”

  “Exactly.” He dropped the unlit cigar away in his coat pocket and returned his attention to his blintzes. “But enough evasion, old chap. Tell me why you intruded on my humble repast?”

  “Jane and I are leaving for New York this Thursday and—”

  “I forgot to mention that there are actually two highly passable moments in At the Circus.” He ate the final bite. “Modesty prevents me from saying that I’m responsible for both. However, since you’re obviously about to plead and cajole, I’ll reveal that one occurs when I appear in acrobatic tights. It is, I guarantee, a sight for sore eyes. In fact, several oculists have booked blocks of seats for their patients at the first sneak preview. The other great moment occurs when I render”Lydia the Tattooed Lady” in my boyish tenor. Speaking of boyish tenors, Kenny Baker has a small part in our epic and is a slight improvement over Allan Jones. The fellow was constantly dogging my footsteps asking for singing advice and the secrets of my—”

  “The reason that Jane and I are going to Manhattan is because they want to turn Hollywood Molly into a radio show.”

  “Would you like me to sing a bit of ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady’?”

  “No.”

  “I take that as a negative response, meaning you don’t wish to enjoy an experience that’s been compared with seeing Caruso in his prime? Of course, seeing Caruso in his underwear was an equally fascinating experience and I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed—”

  “You sang the entire song for me the last time we had lunch,” I reminded him.

  “Great songs bear repeating. I wager you’ve heard ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ more than once.”

  “The what?”

  Mellman returned and put a fresh cup of coffee before Groucho. “We’re all out of hemlock,” he said and went away.

  Groucho located his cigar again, lit it, and leaned back in the booth. “Are you kiddies flying to New York, Rollo?”

  “Nope, taking the Super Chief. Jane’s uneasy about airplanes so—”

  “A pity and a shame, young man, because I’m flying to Manhattan early next week,” Groucho informed me. “We could have shared a plane and I might’ve obtained the services of my old chum Crash Corrigan to pilot it for us. Some folks don’t like to fly with Crash, because of his unfortunate first name, but I for one—”

  “Why are you going to New York?” I managed to ask.

  “Not, as you might suspect, to get away from the scene of our recent crime at MGM,” he assured me. “Actually, I’ve been invited to appear in a streamlined version of The Mikado. They’re planning for a limited run on Broadway and possibly a series of previews at the New York World’s Fair.”

  “You’re playing who?”

  “They want me to be the Lord High Executioner. I would’ve preferred being the Three Little Maids from School, but this Ko-Ko part isn’t bad either. Perhaps you’re aware of my fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan.”

  “I knew you were that way about Sullivan, but who’s this Gilbert guy?”

  “Not a great exit line,” he observed, sliding free of the booth and heading for the cashier. “But I intend, sirrah, to utilize it as such.”

  When we emerged onto the sunny afternoon sidewalk, two amply built dark-haired young men in wide-shouldered pinstripe suits were waitin
g for us.

  Two

  The larger and wider of the two hoods discreetly slipped his hand inside his jacket to pat what was no doubt a shoulder holster. “Mr. Marx, would you and your colleague like to come with us to pay a little visit to Vince Salermo?”

  “What a shame, because normally we’d both jump at the chance to drop in on one of the most respected gangsters in all of southern California,” answered Groucho apologetically. “However, we just bought a lifetime supply of trolley tokens and took a vow never to ride with strange men until we use them all—”

  “The boss said to inform you that this is a courteous invitation, Mr. Marx, and you are free to accompany us or not.”

  The second hoodlum added, “And we’re not to hurt you seriously if you refuse.”

  We decided to go for a ride.

  Maybe it was the heat of the afternoon, but I found myself perspiring somewhat profusely as we were escorted, much too politely, to an extremely long black limousine that was illegally parked beneath a palm tree just around the corner.

  There was an extremely pretty perfumed blonde already seated in the shadowy backseat when we climbed in.

  “Aren’t you Groucho Marx?” she asked, her black satiny dress whispering as she slid to the far side of the wide seat.

  “Which one of us are you addressing that query to, my dear?” asked Groucho as he plumped down close beside her.

  “You, Mr. Marx.”

  “Just as well, because if you were asking Frank here, he’d have grounds for a substantial lawsuit for slander. He’d also have grounds for an attractive off-the-shoulder sunsuit with enough material left over to upholster his love seat.”

  Giggling, she produced an autograph album from her black-leather purse. “I collect signatures.”

  “Well, the only one I have on my person at the moment is that of John Quincy Shapiro. He was supposed to be one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence, but he got there too late and ended up having to sign the caterer’s bill instead.”

  “No. What I want is your signature.” Opening the book to a blank page, she plopped it down on his lap.