On-stage and in film, the Marx Brothers' antic comedy won millions of fans and left a major pop cultural legacy. Movies like The Coconuts (1929) and A Night at the Opera (1935) remain popular, and both Groucho Marx's wisecracking persona and Harpo Marx's silent, woman-crazed clown remain well-known icons. From their beginnings in vaudeville during the 1910s, to their rise as popular film comics during the Depression, Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo Marx delivered an energetic, anarchic comedy that seemed to overflow both the stage and the screen.
The Marx Brothers wer...