Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends

1978, 1979 Penguin edition
Charlotte Chandler
Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends
Original price $4.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback, contains a sentimental message from my aunt, for my sixteenth birthday
C+

There are several problems with this long, rambling book.  One is that Chandler deliberately didn't edit things down, so that there are many redundancies, not just in stories being retold, often with little or no variation (Groucho's punchline about the horse who wanted his autograph being an exception), but in her relaying information repeatedly.  I understand that she was trying to show what Groucho's life was like in his 80s, but a shorter, tighter book would've been an improvement.

Also, if I liked Groucho less after reading his son's biography, I definitely like him less after reading Chandler's.  Groucho comes across as even more sexist, despite his claims that his beloved mother would've been a feminist.  That anecdote about him not wanting to date the over-the-hill 40-year-old?  Well, it turns out he said it at a dinner where all his friends' wives were older than the lady in question.  And he seems to think it was some sort of accomplishment that he and his brothers (not just Chico) "humped" as many girls as they could, once while wearing matching shirts with one girl in the dark.  (I've heard other men tell similar stories, so it might not even be true.)  He was also homophobic.  Yes, admittedly he made fun of everyone and everything, but in this book he brings in slurs against gay men (and occasionally lesbians) out of nowhere, while criticizing friends who tell ethnic jokes.

Chandler deliberately didn't take sides in the court battle between Arthur Marx and Groucho's "companion" (secretary/manager/girlfriend-without-benefits-for-the-impotent-octagenarian) Erin Fleming, but even in this book there is evidence that Fleming committed elder abuse, no matter if Chandler thinks Groucho enjoyed Fleming's temper because it made him feel "alive."  (Fleming apparently had mental health issues, and she committed suicide in 2003.)

All that said, there are moments when the book works, as when Chandler provides an eyewitness account of the "Animal Crackers riot," part of the enthusiastic reception to the movie's release.  I liked learning that (according to son Billy anyway) Harpo's favorite of their films was Duck Soup, something I've never seen elsewhere.  As the subtitle suggests, Groucho had a wide array of friends, from George Jessel to Bud Cort, and there are some nice scenes (much of the book is in dialogue, like a marathon play) showing Groucho interacting with them.

He died the year before this book came out, suspecting he wouldn't live to see it published.  Brother Gummo had died a few months before, and Zeppo was the last to go, in 1979.  Ironically, what this book offers that no other book I own does is glimpses of the two straight men in the team of comedians.  Gummo tells us his friends think that he's the funniest offstage, then he agrees with everyone else interviewed that Zeppo is.  Maybe Chandler should've written a book about Gummo and Zeppo instead.