You're Not So Bad Yourself

Though she tried to keep her birthdate a secret, it's now known Margaret Dumont, the Marx Brothers' great straight woman, was born this day in 1882. She usually cut seven years or so off her age, even fooling obituary writers.  The truth is by the time she started working with the team on Broadway in the 20s, she'd been around show biz a while, and was old enough to play the dowager.

She felt that appearing in seven movies with the Marxes typecast her.  She may be right--most of her other roles have her playing the social matron opposite other comedians--but who knows if she would have had a film career at all otherwise.  Anyway, I can't imagine doing better than playing a central part in the Marx Brothers' oeuvre.

In later years, Groucho claimed she never got any of the jokes.  This is nonsense.  Maybe she missed the occasional innuendo, but her work, as anyone can see, required a true understanding of comedy.

She's best known for her scenes with Groucho, but she worked with all four of the boys.  Here's one of my favorite bits from Animal Crackers. (Just before this moment Harpo has been punching Dumont in the stomach--the most physical bit she ever did with them):



Here she is in a more familiar situation, receiving serial insults from Groucho:



Her last professional appearance, about a week before she died, was in 1965 on the TV show Hollywood Palace. Groucho was hosting. He and Dumont did the famous Captain Spaulding scene (updated) that they'd created almost four decades earlier.  That's how you want to go out.