November 26, 2024 • 32 mins
L.A.’s notorious 405 Thanksgiving traffic jam is built on a myth. Is ambivalence killing parenthood? GUEST: Robert S. Bader, author of Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's caf I Am six forty and you're listening to
The Conway Show on demand on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
App ca IF I Am six forty live everywhere on
the iHeart Radio app. I'm Doc McIntyre, pitch hitting for
Tim Conway Junior, who's and he's in a tanning bed.
He's just getting ready for the final home stretch of
twenty twenty four, which is kind of shockingly upon us.
I don't know how it got to the end of
(00:28):
the year. Anybody here we are. I know every year
it seems to be faster and faster like the numbers
in the gas pump. But we'll press through the holidays.
We're happy to have you with us this Thanksgiving week,
and of course caf I is open twenty four hours
a day, so we'll be here on Thanksgiving Day as well,
and on Black Friday and all that good stuff. And
maybe you'll be stuck in traffic. And if you're on
(00:50):
the four h five, I have good news for you. Well,
let's put it this way. I'm not optimistic this will
actually happen because it makes sense to do, but the
perpetual logjam that is the four oh five, the San
Diego Freeway, the dreaded four oh five on the west
side of Los Angeles. Somebody once again is trotting out
the ten mile stretch of the four toh five between
(01:11):
the ten and the one to one Freeway that gets
more than three hundred thousand cars a day, and according
to a twenty nineteen study commissioned by the La County
Metropolitan Transportation Authority or METRO, it takes afternoon peak period
commuters an average of forty eight minutes to drive those
ten miles northbound from the ten to the one oh one,
and it can possibly take even longer going the other way.
(01:34):
And we have continued to widen this thing and widen
this thing and wideness thing, and it never solves the problem.
By the time they add a lane and build gigantic
retaining walls to hold back the hillsides going through the
Santa Monica Mountains, it's obsolete. It's right back to where
it was. I mean, we could widen that thing so
(01:54):
that the southbound lanes are in Hawaii and the northbound
lanes are in the Brass and we'll still fill them up.
If we keep building lanes, more cars just fill them up.
And the only solution is going to be something that
would get cars off the road, which means a light
rail system of some ilk. And the proposals have been
(02:16):
a subway system and a monorail, and there's problems with both.
The problem with a subway through the Supulvida Pass is
that the grade is too steep. You need switchbacks, and
there's not enough land for that. So you'd have to
build a gigantic tunnel that would cost a couple of
billion dollars underneath the Getty Center, and you're going to
(02:37):
have all kinds of Nimbi issues, and you got all
those issues. And if they say it's going to cost
a couple of billion dollars, what do you think it
actually costs by the time they're done with it. And
then the problem with the monorail is that monorails you
can't change the rolling stock. And I like using that
term rolling stock because I heard some farm or some
train junkie use that term once. It's like, I don't
(02:58):
know anything about trains, but I got a nephew who
works at the Long Island Railroad. He's a diesel he's
a diesel inspector, and he tells me they call it
rolling stock, you know, the cars. He can't change him
out easily on a monorail, and they don't link up
with other rail systems, so that it would be a
weak link in a in an organized, unified light rail
(03:19):
system that someday I hope we will have in southern California.
Now let me get on my hobby horse here and
ride away. We really need to build the tunnel and
put a subway through the Supulveta Pass, even though I
will not live long enough to see it. Because here's
the deal. At some point when all of these rail
(03:42):
systems that we've built, all these light rail lines that
we've built, including the one that's going to the people
Mover to Lax, and someday they'll have one come up
from the OC through the South Bay right to Lax,
and they'll have one across the floor of the San
Fernando Valley from Burbank, maybe from Pasadena to Glendale to Burbank,
(04:03):
all the way you know, out two thousand oaks. Who
the hell knows, but you need one that's going to
come down to the Supulvaa Pass and take cars off
the road. It's the only way to fix the problem
in the long run, and if you look at population growth,
you know we're not building it, and they're still coming.
It's the old field of dreams. If you build it,
they will come. Well, we're not building enough housing for
(04:25):
the people that want to live here, which is why
housing costs continues a spike. But we keep seeing people
show up. We haven't seen the population. La County population
I was north of ten million. It's the only county
in America with a population north of ten million people.
And you can't keep stuffing cars onto the four h
(04:45):
five and expecting this to function. Now Here's where Jerry
Brown should be in the perpetual Hall of Shame for
his idiotic crazy train to nowhere that we're spending for
one hundred billion dollars, that doctor evil number from Austin
Powers one hundred billion dollars, where actually that's like a
(05:08):
real this is an astronomer's number that we're batting around
like this is something we should be considered. We're spending it.
We're on the hook for that because Jerry Brown decided
that he wants to turn California into some form of
Japan with high speed rail, which would be Would I
like to have high speed rail link that goes from
(05:29):
San Diego to San Francisco or all the way to
the Oregon border. Sure, I'd like to have that, but
that's a luxury item. What's not a luxury item is
getting people in and out of the most congested urban
area in the country, which is southern California and the
loss in the Greater Los Angeles area. If you want
to improve the quality of life for human beings and
(05:52):
save the environment, if you want to really impact global
warming and climate change, to get CO two's and knock
down smog, the way to do it is to get
the three hundred thousand cars a day that are stuck
in a quagmire in the Sapulvta Pass and reduce that
by giving people a practical, affordable alternative, and that is
(06:16):
a light rail link that would speed them to their
places that they want to go. And we're not doing that. Instead,
we're spending one hundred billion dollars on this idiotic vanity
project that Jerry Brown cooked up of staggering expense, one
hundred billion dollars, the highest estimates I've ever seen, the
(06:36):
highest estimates that have been following the story for twenty
years that I've ever seen to put the tunnel through
the Pulvta Pass that would allow a subway system to
go through. There is five billion, that's the highest. And
that was, you know, allowing for the cost over runs.
Figure in two and a half to three billion for
that giant engineering project, and then with cost over runs
(06:57):
it balloons to five what's that compared to one hundred
billion dollars for a train to nowhere it goes from
Fresno to Stockton or wherever the hell it goes. That
it won't be ready for another twenty years. If ever,
with the Trump administration, you think the Trump administration, the transportation,
the Department of Transportation under Donald Trump, is going to
shower money on California to build the crazy train. I
(07:20):
don't think so. When Elon Musk and those people are
going to come in and look for ways to save
money that we're going to get federal funding to continue
Jerry Brown's legacy project. Now, but if we could put
a tunnel through and a subway system that connects the
San Fernando Valley with two and a half million people
to the rest of the city of Los Angeles and
(07:41):
open up that corridor that literally could take people at
some point in the far future san Diego into the
San Fernando Valley and maybe up and beyond. I don't
know where it's going to go in the future. This is,
like I say, will be long past my personal expiration date.
So I'm not arguing this as if it's something that
I'll get to use. But it's something that we absolutely
(08:03):
need to have. And I know that you can point
to why we spend a lot money in a hole
in the ground, blah blah blah, because look, here's the thing.
The people who came before us, who built the infrastructure
that we take for granted. Dwight Eisenhower's visionary Interstate Highway program,
which he learned about he learned the need for in
(08:25):
the nineteen twenties. In the nineteen twenties, when Eisenhower was
a staff officer, he engaged in military maneuvers here in
the forty eight lower forty eight States, and he realized
that the road system across America was a catastrophe that
in the event of war, moving things from the West
(08:45):
coast to the East coast was a practical impossibility in
a timely fashion. So when he became president, he used
the Cold War as an excuse and military necessity to
start the Interstate Highway program, which is when we built
all of these, this network of super highways across the
country to stitch the country together and not only unifies
the country physically, it unifies the country culturally. Well. This
(09:10):
is what will ultimately need to be done in California
as we have these giant cities, San Diego, which will
continue to grow, all of Orange County, the greater Los
Angeles area, and then right up the West coast, it
becomes like that megalopolis on the East coast where you
go from Washington, d C. The Northeast Corridor Washington d C.
(09:31):
Into New York into Boston, that corridor of large urban
areas that actually are served quite well by Amtrak. Something
you don't get to hear very often, but the Axcela
and those trains back there work really well. If you've
ever used them, it's pretty pleasant experience and very efficient,
and you get off right in the middle of the
city and it's an easy uber ride to wherever you
(09:52):
want to go, if not a walk. We could have
that in the West coast, but the missing link is
the connection of the sand and Ando Valley to the
west side of Los Angeles, and the idea that we're
going to continue to just stuff cars onto that road.
It's just it's soul robbing. I know, I'm talking to
you right now and you're stuck in the car. And
there's other Listen, there's other choke points too. We're all
(10:15):
aware of them. Seven ten to six to all of them,
the one thirty four to one on one that I
mentioned before where they merge together. There's all kinds of
places where it just becomes unbearable, the five Freeway at
the wrong time, going down past Dodger Stadium. But this
is a perpetual problem, and there is a solution if
we would spend the money wisely. And I don't know
(10:35):
why Gavin Newsom was always trying to burnish his environmental credentials.
Doesn't stop the madness that is Jerry Brown's crazy train.
And used just a tiny portion of that money to
solve the problem on the west side of LA and
clean the air and improve the quality of life for
hundreds of thousands of people. All right coming up at
(10:57):
the bottom of the ar I'm really looking forward to this.
Bater is with us. He's written a book called Zeppo
the Reluctant Marx brother. It's a fascinating story. I know
it sounds really in the weeds, but it's a really
fascinating story. So I think you'll enjoy that conversation.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from kf
I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Coming up in just a bit, we're gonna talk Zeppa
with Robert S. Baters, So you don't want to miss that.
It actually will be fascinating. Trust me on this. So
you got kids, Hey, Isabelle, you want to have kids,
you want to have a whole bunch. I'm not I'm not
offering to father children with you because I think that's
an HR violation. But are you interested in having children
(11:41):
at some point in your life? Absolutely not? Okay, Brigitta.
Do you feel do you feel like there are children
as part of your future? I know these are personal questions,
so you can lie.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Oh sorry, repeat that again.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I was do you do you feel like having children
is a life ambition, life goal for you? Something that
you see.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You recently had a child.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Oh well, there you go, Okay, back to work. Okay, well, okay,
well then you can go. You can live in Russia.
But Isabella, You're in trouble because here's the thing. In Russia,
talking about not having children is about to become a crime,
literally talking about not having children. Russian lawmakers voted to
(12:25):
ban the advocacy of child free lifestyles, and a move
that's part of a broader effort by the Kremlin to
reverse a falling birth rate and promote the country as
a bastion of traditional values that is battling a decade
into West. I don't want to point any fingers.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Is about child free life, and the child free movement
is growing here as well.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, it absolutely is. And I've got this unbelievably pedantic
article that unfortunately I asked poor Richie to print for me.
It goes out for twenty one pages from the Atlanta
and that that title is is ambivalence Killing parenthood. But
I've had this conversation I've heard a lot of younger
people talk about. By the way, I have two step sons,
(13:09):
So I did not sire biological replicas of myself. I
never felt that biological compulsion that a lot of people do.
Plus you know, I probably did them a favor. But
I know a lot of people. You know, I have
this very very strong, ultimately human, foundationally biological imperative to reproduce,
(13:38):
and I was absent that, and I felt like if
it happened, it happen, and I couldn't be happier with
my two step sons. I love them dearly and I
consider them to be my sons. But a lot of
people are choosing not to be. It's a very very
conscious decision not to have kids, and I think more
so now for a variety of reasons, some for idiot
(14:00):
logical reasons, some because they think it's bad for the planet.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
But mostly people truly just can't afford bingo. I mean,
there is more than I make in a year. Kids
are and you need to stay you know, why would
you give eight hours a day to work when you
can stay home with your.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
You are, you would be so much better off buying
a maserat.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
It's unfortunate because a lot of people do want to
have children and they just simply can't afford h And
there is another plus to not having kids. Dual income
households with no children are now the highest earning family structures,
Like they have more money than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Oh, you know, the gays were ahead of the curve
on this, I think. So, now here's the thing. You remember,
Pope Benedict. It was that German Pope Ratzinger, the pope
that was too poop to pope, and so he says,
I'm tired, I'm not going to pope anymore, and we
got Pope Francis. He actually said something. It's the only
thing that I can remember a pope saying other than
a cum spiratutuo, which we used to joke when the
(14:58):
Master was in Latin. It was the Pope's phone number
at koomb spirit Tutuo. But he said something that was
really significant. And I'm paraphrasing now, but he was talking
about the declining birth rate in the Western world, in
Western Europe and the United States, and he said that
the Western world will have to reproduce or it will
take a bow from the stage of history. And Pope
(15:21):
Francis has picked up on that theme to an extent,
talking about how we are choosing things over children, and
a lot of people are doing that. They see a
lifestyle for themselves where they want to travel, they want
to see the world, they want to have these they
they want to have a beach house, they want to
have whatever they have and they see, boy, if I
have kids that's going into a college funder. I'm not
(15:42):
going to enjoy those things.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
I think most people are just trying to survive. I
really don't think that's the majority of people. The people
who can afford to live the life so you're talking
about probably have enough to have.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, Although, but when when a lot of young young
people are seeing the dream they're seeing, you know, it's
dangled in front of them and they don't reality hasn't
maybe smacked him in the head. They can see that
maybe that could happen to me, and they're they're planning
for that life as opposed to a life of parenthood,
of fatherhood and motherhood. But it's a pretty significant cultural shift.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And in Russia they're not making any bones about it.
This conversation would be a criminal offense in Russia. Now,
what's unspoken in this news article about the Russians for
the New York Times, about the Russians criminalizing discussing the
childless a childless future, is that they're running out of soldiers. No,
(16:38):
I know, they're breeding. They're breeding from boots on the ground,
is what that is.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Aren't They also recruiting foreign soldiers, emptying.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
The prisons, bringing in North Korean soldiers. Yes, exactly. Yeah,
war goes through a lot of young men, all right,
and young women, unless, of course, Hesgith becomes the Secretary
of Defense, in which case the women may offer off
the hook on that. Robert Vader's going to join us.
In just a bit.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The holidays are here at the Disneyland Resort, and KFI
wants to give you the chance to enjoy the wonder
joy and magic of the season. Experience World of Color,
Season of Light, and Nighttime Spectacular at disney California Adventure Park,
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(17:31):
one day, one park tickets to Disneyland Park or Disneyland
California ad Venture Park. Okay, it's a confession time. I
am a lifelong Marxist. I was one of those kids
in the late sixties early seventies, in that period of radicalism,
who embraced a comedy team from basically the turn of
(17:52):
the last century. The Marx Brothers Graucho, Harpo, Chico and
sometimes Eppo, as Joe Adamson called one of his great books.
And the Marx Brothers had this great resurgence in the
late sixties early seventies, kind of because they were anti establishment,
anti authority figures. They were tweaking their nose of authority,
(18:13):
and they had this great resurgence. Was kind of peaked
and faded over the years, but it always out there.
People rediscovered them from time to time. But the lost
soul of the Marx Brothers tribe is poor Zeppo, who,
over all these years his name became a punchline in
and of itself, but for the wrong reason. He was
the unfunny Marx brother, the Paul Marx brother who didn't
(18:36):
get any of the jokes, didn't have a distinctive character
trait the wig and the horn and the honking of
the piano as shooting the keys of the big brush
mustache that Graucho had. Instead, he was the Marx brother
who got to say things like yes, mister hammer. So
when I saw a brand new full length biography of Zeppo,
(18:59):
I bought that books. So fast, and it got to
my greedy little hands, and I snapped it out of
the Amazon dot Com package and I literally started reading
it as I was walking from the recycling bin, throwing
in the package away and in studio right now, I
will stop talking. So what can hear from him? Is
the author of said book. The book is called Zeppo
the Reluctant Marx brother. The author is with us, Robert
(19:21):
s Bader, Robert, how are you.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
I'm good, Thank you, Doug. That's a good intro.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Well, it took a while to get to you. I
apologize for that, but I had to give a little
uh set the stage here for this. So Zeppo Marx
was the youngest of the Marx brothers. There were five
in all, and people may remember a figure nine known
as Gummo, who was actually a little older than Zeppo.
And how did Zeppo Herbert Zeppo Marx, how did he
(19:49):
become a member of the performing Marx Brothers tribe.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Before I do that so you don't get phone calls
from those real Marx Brothers lunatics. There was a sixth market,
oh from Manfred died at six months old before any
of the guys were born. Right now, I'll tell you
about Zeppa.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay, So how did he end up in the act.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
When the Marx brothers moved to Chicago to really further
their vaudeville career. Zeppa was just a kid. He's about
eight or nine years old, and he wasn't in the act,
and he was kind of roaming the streets of Chicago.
Their parents weren't paying much attention to him. Minie was
out on the road with the March Brothers. Their father
was playing pinochle, playing pool and chasing the housekeeper around
the house. According to his sons, so Zeppa became a
(20:28):
bit of a juvenile delinquent, and he was getting in
all sorts of trouble, and he developed an interest in cars.
But first he was interested in stealing them, and then
he became a guy who's interested in repairing them. But
when Gummo went into the army in World War One,
and there are different versions of why, but the Marx
brothers are getting draft exemptions all through the first couple
of drafts, and many realized a Marx brother has to
(20:49):
go into the army because it was starting to look
bad at these four healthy young guys are running around
Vaudeville stages while there are people in the battlefields in France. Now,
Gummo either volunteered to get out of the act or
she said, you're the least important member of the act,
so you're gonna go.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
You have no talent, you go carry a round.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah, I mean I think the Gummo's favorite line was
he thought it would be much safer in World War
One than being with the Marx brothers. So Zeppa was
sort of pressed into service as the available march brother.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Now this is because their mom Minnie, who was really
the power behind the throne of this the brains of
the operation. She wanted was it. She wanted to keep
their rate. It was the four Marx brothers, and she
wanted the fourth one because she could charge more if
there were four of them.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Well, that's going back to their earliest Vaudville days, when
they realized the three Nightingales would get more money if
they were the four Nightingales. She grabbed Harpoak, who couldn't
sing a note, and she just said, well, just growl
a little bit and move your lips while Groucho singing.
So she was always looking for strength in numbers. So
at one point She wanted to make it the Five
Marx Brothers, and for the summer of nineteen fifteen they
(21:49):
were Zeppa was fourteen years old out of school. Well
he was usually not in school because he was a truant,
but he was out for the summer. Legally, she put
him on stage with them as the Five March Brothers.
They toured the state of Michigan and those are the
only people who saw the Five March Brothers.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
We're talking with. Robert Bay of the book is called
Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother, and we got to get
into this reluctant part because he really didn't have any
interest in being in show Businesses brothers were stars. They
became superstars. Really, they became vaudeville headliners, they became Broadway stars.
He went along for the ride, but he was never
an equal partner with his older brother. He was never Graucho,
(22:27):
Harpo or Chico. In fact, he was an employee.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
For the entire time he was with them, which was
sixteen years, and that was half of his life at
the time he left, and he resented it tremendously, and
that's why he was the reluctant March brother. He didn't
like the fact that he had very little to do
on stage, but he really didn't like the fact that
he thought he could go out and make more money
doing almost anything else. And he was a pretty talented guy.
He was very resourceful, very smart, mechanically inclined, could do
(22:55):
almost anything. There's a wonderful quote from a guy named
Nat Perron, who March Brothers spans know is one of
the ters who was with them early on Duck Soup,
that radio show. Parents said Zeppa was a success at
everything he tried, except being one of the Marx Brothers.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, and you know, it's kind of there's a great
debate Amongst. Mark's officionados about the team. As a general rule.
You know, four wheels on a car makes a very
stable vehicle. Three wheel vehicles tend to be a little wobbly.
But the you know, comedy we talk about the rules
(23:29):
of three. You know, they and and the Marx Brothers
and the three Stooges both had fourth wheels. In the
Marx Brother's case, it was Zeppo. In the Stooges case,
it became the very necessary shamp And we're going to
talk about him tomorrow. But they're really the way the
act developed, there wasn't really room for a fourth comedian.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
But you know, in the earliest stage performances there kind
of was. There was a period on stage where Zeppa
was important, and they wrote a show after they did
their big show Home Again, which they did for seven
full seasons in Vaudeville, Zeppo just stepped into Gumo's spot.
And Gummo wasn't the very talented guy. He had a stammer,
he had troubled delivering lines, so basically they wrote him
(24:10):
into the act as just Groucho's sounding board. Basically, Groucho
bounced lines off and Gummo would do those yes, sir,
lines like you said, and Zeppo comes in and all
he's given to do is what Gummo did. And there
was this story that got passed down to me from
Chicko's daughter, who I was really friendly with. At one point,
when Zeppa was frustrated about just doing Gummo's bits, he
(24:31):
said something like, you want me to just stammer Gumo's lines,
which is kind of cruel. Gummo is a nice guy.
Nobody ever said a bad word about Gummo, but he
was frustrated just for that. But then the money thing too.
That was really rough. But when you say the fourth wheel,
understand that when Zeppo left, they kept getting all these
spare tires like Alan Jones, whoever it was, would just
(24:52):
be the fourth guy. He wasn't a brother, but they
needed that guy.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, they always had to have the young romantic lead,
even when Zeppo wasn't actually getting the girl. He did
in a couple of cases, but for the most part
they always had that role filled. Now, the thing is,
he did have one run when Groucho had appendicitis and
Zeppo was his understudy and put on the grease paint
(25:19):
mustache and the eyebrows and the glasses, and he did
the loping walk and then legled the cigar and apparently
was great at it.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
He understudied for all of them at different points. He
understudied for Harpo for a couple of weeks in I
think around nineteen nineteen, so he could do a little
bit of even harp playing, just to get the rudimentary
stuff down to do the bits that required it. So
when he did Groucho in Chicago, he was so good
that Groucho's friends came to the theater and went backstage
expecting to say hello to him and found out that
(25:46):
he wasn't there now.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Eventually, when the brothers came to Hollywood and they made
their first handful of pictures at Paramount in the West Coast,
Zeppo had enough and when they were moving on to MGM,
he dropped out of the act. When we come back,
we're going to talk about the rest of Zeppo's life,
because here's where it becomes really fascinating, and it picks
up on what nat parents said that he was successful
(26:11):
at everything except for being a Marx brother, and this
unbelievably successful life and kept reinventing himself. Robert Bater is
the author. The book is called Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother.
It's published by Applause. It's available at Amazon and good
bookstores everywhere. So go grab yourself a cop Go buy
a couple of copies. What the hell, it's not my money,
you tell them.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on DEMYA from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
In the next hour, we're going to talk about how
we're becoming a nation of loaners. And I actually have
some genuinely amazingly positive news which I think we can
all use so we'll get into that in the next hour.
Right now, we're chatting with Robert Batter, who is the
author of Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother, and we kind
(26:56):
of covered his show business performer aspect of his life,
which is foundational. When Zeppo Marx left the act, he
became a theatrical agent. And he didn't just become a
represent In fact, he hated representing his brothers. They were
a pain of the ass.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
He threw them away to Gumo as soon as he could.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
He want a deal. He made a very lucrative deal
for them to make a movie called Room Service, and
then wanted nothing to do with representing his brothers. But
he ended up representing some of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Of course he did. But you know the most interesting
thing about that Room Service deal. As their agent, he
got ten percent of a quarter of a million dollars.
How many years would he have had to work at
five hundred a week to get that?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, no, it's a pay check for himself.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
But he ended up having a couple of the biggest
money earners in Hollywood. At one point he had Barbara
Stanwick for years and he made her a bigger star
because he got her away from the agent that wasn't
doing much for her and he really built her up.
And he had Fred McMurray from an absolute nobody to
a big money earning star. And Fred McMurray, if you've
read the book, you know, kind of betrayed Zeppo and
(28:02):
wasn't very good to him and showing appreciation the ungrateful
stars or why Zeppo got out of the agency business
and he just got fed up with it because what
he found was the Marx Brothers weren't really that bad.
He had much worse clients than the Marx brothers. But
he made a fortune doing that, and he ended up
selling the agency to MCA, which you know is still
(28:23):
a functioning agency. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
So you know, in fact, he became so embedded in
Barbara Stanwick's life that they ended up with a gigantic
horse ranch and lived in side by side mansions that
they build out in the West Valley. It was called
Marwick Marwick for Marx and Stanwick. They were that close.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
He did that with all of his businesses. You know,
he take his partners name and his name and combine them.
I recently did a book signing and hosted a movie
screening in Barbara Stanwick's house at Marwick, which is still
there now.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
In addition to the agent e business, like you said,
he sold that, made a lot of money, sold that off,
and then he got into during World War two manufacturing
and he had another tremendous success as an arms basically
a part of the parts supply for World War Two.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
He became one of the most lucrative defense contractors in
the country. And it all started because a guy from
Douglas Aircraft was boarding his horses at Marwick and he said,
you know you've got a machine shop here. I know
you tinker around, but you make something like this. He
brought some airplane part and Zeppo took it home and
played around with it. And he used to have guys
work at his shop. Unemployed big band musicians, studio technicians
(29:36):
would come and just play at Zeppo's little machine shop.
And it became so big that he had to go
rent the place, and he had to rent the building
and buy equipment, and he went into a full time
manufacturing plant business. It became so big he had to
get a second plant, and.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
At one point he had literally hundreds of people working
for him.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Yeah, and interestingly, he ended up having not surprisingly, some
union trouble at one of his plants. And he had
a lot of friends in interesting places, shall we say,
and his union problems got solved pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Now for all of a success financially. On the personal front,
he was married for twenty seven years or something like
to do his first wife, Marion. They had two children.
He was, well, I got to I mean, we're running
out of time here to shortcut. He was a terrible father.
He was he wasn't interested in having the kids, and
(30:28):
he lived that way.
Speaker 5 (30:30):
The strangest quote I got about this from any of
his friends, and it was really touching to hear this
because I interviewed both of his sons, who gave me
very different stories. When Marian wanted to have kids, Zeppa
thought the marriage was falling apart and he didn't want them.
But he figured, well, let's get her a couple of kids,
so if I leave, she has someone to keep her company. Yeah,
he actually believed that was a good move.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, And of course he got married again and to Barbara,
who ended up leaving him for Frank Sinatra.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
Yeah, he was aware of her affair with Sinatra for
a few years, but he didn't make too big a
deal out of it because he was probably having about
six affairs of his own at the same time.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
It was a very busy life that mister Zeppo Marx lived,
successful at everything except for being a Marx brother and
possibly husband and father. We might add that as a
caveat as well. Let me ask you, though, as a biographer,
when you plunge into telling a life story, what happens
when you ultimately don't really like the character. You wouldn't
(31:33):
want to necessarily be friends with that person.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Well, I've known many of the Marx brothers' children for
a long time because of the other research of done
of my other books, and I've known for a very
long time that Zeppo was not exactly Father of the Year,
and he wasn't the most popular guy in town. So
I knew that going in. I never thought I was
going to write a book about Zeppo, but I did
have to leave a lot out of Four of the
Three Musketeers, which is a very large book I did
on the Marx brothers from twenty sixteen, and that book
(31:57):
was so big I had to just take some stuff
out of it to get it published, because a couple
of publishers turned it down because it was too long.
They said, why don't you cut this into two books?
I said, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I already
did it more for you part one. But Zeppo's early
days got taken out of that book in large part.
And that's a big part of this book, and it
really sets up why he became the difficult guy that
(32:19):
he became. He was controlled for like the first part
of his life. He had no decision making power in
his own life.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Well, as Graucho said about his brother Gummo, he was
a nice man, which is more than I could say
for Zeppy. I've heard that before Robert Vader. The book
is called Zeppo the Reluctant Mark's Brother. Thanks so much
for coming in and talking to us. Good luck with
the book.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
Thank you, Doug. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Conway Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Now you
can always hear us live on KFI Am six forty
four to seven pm Monday through Friday, and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.
It's caf I Am six forty and you're listening to
The Conway Show on demand on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
App ca IF I Am six forty live everywhere on
the iHeart Radio app. I'm Doc McIntyre, pitch hitting for
Tim Conway Junior, who's and he's in a tanning bed.
He's just getting ready for the final home stretch of
twenty twenty four, which is kind of shockingly upon us.
I don't know how it got to the end of
(00:28):
the year. Anybody here we are. I know every year
it seems to be faster and faster like the numbers
in the gas pump. But we'll press through the holidays.
We're happy to have you with us this Thanksgiving week,
and of course caf I is open twenty four hours
a day, so we'll be here on Thanksgiving Day as well,
and on Black Friday and all that good stuff. And
maybe you'll be stuck in traffic. And if you're on
(00:50):
the four h five, I have good news for you. Well,
let's put it this way. I'm not optimistic this will
actually happen because it makes sense to do, but the
perpetual logjam that is the four oh five, the San
Diego Freeway, the dreaded four oh five on the west
side of Los Angeles. Somebody once again is trotting out
the ten mile stretch of the four toh five between
(01:11):
the ten and the one to one Freeway that gets
more than three hundred thousand cars a day, and according
to a twenty nineteen study commissioned by the La County
Metropolitan Transportation Authority or METRO, it takes afternoon peak period
commuters an average of forty eight minutes to drive those
ten miles northbound from the ten to the one oh one,
and it can possibly take even longer going the other way.
(01:34):
And we have continued to widen this thing and widen
this thing and wideness thing, and it never solves the problem.
By the time they add a lane and build gigantic
retaining walls to hold back the hillsides going through the
Santa Monica Mountains, it's obsolete. It's right back to where
it was. I mean, we could widen that thing so
(01:54):
that the southbound lanes are in Hawaii and the northbound
lanes are in the Brass and we'll still fill them up.
If we keep building lanes, more cars just fill them up.
And the only solution is going to be something that
would get cars off the road, which means a light
rail system of some ilk. And the proposals have been
(02:16):
a subway system and a monorail, and there's problems with both.
The problem with a subway through the Supulvida Pass is
that the grade is too steep. You need switchbacks, and
there's not enough land for that. So you'd have to
build a gigantic tunnel that would cost a couple of
billion dollars underneath the Getty Center, and you're going to
(02:37):
have all kinds of Nimbi issues, and you got all
those issues. And if they say it's going to cost
a couple of billion dollars, what do you think it
actually costs by the time they're done with it. And
then the problem with the monorail is that monorails you
can't change the rolling stock. And I like using that
term rolling stock because I heard some farm or some
train junkie use that term once. It's like, I don't
(02:58):
know anything about trains, but I got a nephew who
works at the Long Island Railroad. He's a diesel he's
a diesel inspector, and he tells me they call it
rolling stock, you know, the cars. He can't change him
out easily on a monorail, and they don't link up
with other rail systems, so that it would be a
weak link in a in an organized, unified light rail
(03:19):
system that someday I hope we will have in southern California.
Now let me get on my hobby horse here and
ride away. We really need to build the tunnel and
put a subway through the Supulveta Pass, even though I
will not live long enough to see it. Because here's
the deal. At some point when all of these rail
(03:42):
systems that we've built, all these light rail lines that
we've built, including the one that's going to the people
Mover to Lax, and someday they'll have one come up
from the OC through the South Bay right to Lax,
and they'll have one across the floor of the San
Fernando Valley from Burbank, maybe from Pasadena to Glendale to Burbank,
(04:03):
all the way you know, out two thousand oaks. Who
the hell knows, but you need one that's going to
come down to the Supulvaa Pass and take cars off
the road. It's the only way to fix the problem
in the long run, and if you look at population growth,
you know we're not building it, and they're still coming.
It's the old field of dreams. If you build it,
they will come. Well, we're not building enough housing for
(04:25):
the people that want to live here, which is why
housing costs continues a spike. But we keep seeing people
show up. We haven't seen the population. La County population
I was north of ten million. It's the only county
in America with a population north of ten million people.
And you can't keep stuffing cars onto the four h
(04:45):
five and expecting this to function. Now Here's where Jerry
Brown should be in the perpetual Hall of Shame for
his idiotic crazy train to nowhere that we're spending for
one hundred billion dollars, that doctor evil number from Austin
Powers one hundred billion dollars, where actually that's like a
(05:08):
real this is an astronomer's number that we're batting around
like this is something we should be considered. We're spending it.
We're on the hook for that because Jerry Brown decided
that he wants to turn California into some form of
Japan with high speed rail, which would be Would I
like to have high speed rail link that goes from
(05:29):
San Diego to San Francisco or all the way to
the Oregon border. Sure, I'd like to have that, but
that's a luxury item. What's not a luxury item is
getting people in and out of the most congested urban
area in the country, which is southern California and the
loss in the Greater Los Angeles area. If you want
to improve the quality of life for human beings and
(05:52):
save the environment, if you want to really impact global
warming and climate change, to get CO two's and knock
down smog, the way to do it is to get
the three hundred thousand cars a day that are stuck
in a quagmire in the Sapulvta Pass and reduce that
by giving people a practical, affordable alternative, and that is
(06:16):
a light rail link that would speed them to their
places that they want to go. And we're not doing that. Instead,
we're spending one hundred billion dollars on this idiotic vanity
project that Jerry Brown cooked up of staggering expense, one
hundred billion dollars, the highest estimates I've ever seen, the
(06:36):
highest estimates that have been following the story for twenty
years that I've ever seen to put the tunnel through
the Pulvta Pass that would allow a subway system to
go through. There is five billion, that's the highest. And
that was, you know, allowing for the cost over runs.
Figure in two and a half to three billion for
that giant engineering project, and then with cost over runs
(06:57):
it balloons to five what's that compared to one hundred
billion dollars for a train to nowhere it goes from
Fresno to Stockton or wherever the hell it goes. That
it won't be ready for another twenty years. If ever,
with the Trump administration, you think the Trump administration, the transportation,
the Department of Transportation under Donald Trump, is going to
shower money on California to build the crazy train. I
(07:20):
don't think so. When Elon Musk and those people are
going to come in and look for ways to save
money that we're going to get federal funding to continue
Jerry Brown's legacy project. Now, but if we could put
a tunnel through and a subway system that connects the
San Fernando Valley with two and a half million people
to the rest of the city of Los Angeles and
(07:41):
open up that corridor that literally could take people at
some point in the far future san Diego into the
San Fernando Valley and maybe up and beyond. I don't
know where it's going to go in the future. This is,
like I say, will be long past my personal expiration date.
So I'm not arguing this as if it's something that
I'll get to use. But it's something that we absolutely
(08:03):
need to have. And I know that you can point
to why we spend a lot money in a hole
in the ground, blah blah blah, because look, here's the thing.
The people who came before us, who built the infrastructure
that we take for granted. Dwight Eisenhower's visionary Interstate Highway program,
which he learned about he learned the need for in
(08:25):
the nineteen twenties. In the nineteen twenties, when Eisenhower was
a staff officer, he engaged in military maneuvers here in
the forty eight lower forty eight States, and he realized
that the road system across America was a catastrophe that
in the event of war, moving things from the West
(08:45):
coast to the East coast was a practical impossibility in
a timely fashion. So when he became president, he used
the Cold War as an excuse and military necessity to
start the Interstate Highway program, which is when we built
all of these, this network of super highways across the
country to stitch the country together and not only unifies
the country physically, it unifies the country culturally. Well. This
(09:10):
is what will ultimately need to be done in California
as we have these giant cities, San Diego, which will
continue to grow, all of Orange County, the greater Los
Angeles area, and then right up the West coast, it
becomes like that megalopolis on the East coast where you
go from Washington, d C. The Northeast Corridor Washington d C.
(09:31):
Into New York into Boston, that corridor of large urban
areas that actually are served quite well by Amtrak. Something
you don't get to hear very often, but the Axcela
and those trains back there work really well. If you've
ever used them, it's pretty pleasant experience and very efficient,
and you get off right in the middle of the
city and it's an easy uber ride to wherever you
(09:52):
want to go, if not a walk. We could have
that in the West coast, but the missing link is
the connection of the sand and Ando Valley to the
west side of Los Angeles, and the idea that we're
going to continue to just stuff cars onto that road.
It's just it's soul robbing. I know, I'm talking to
you right now and you're stuck in the car. And
there's other Listen, there's other choke points too. We're all
(10:15):
aware of them. Seven ten to six to all of them,
the one thirty four to one on one that I
mentioned before where they merge together. There's all kinds of
places where it just becomes unbearable, the five Freeway at
the wrong time, going down past Dodger Stadium. But this
is a perpetual problem, and there is a solution if
we would spend the money wisely. And I don't know
(10:35):
why Gavin Newsom was always trying to burnish his environmental credentials.
Doesn't stop the madness that is Jerry Brown's crazy train.
And used just a tiny portion of that money to
solve the problem on the west side of LA and
clean the air and improve the quality of life for
hundreds of thousands of people. All right coming up at
(10:57):
the bottom of the ar I'm really looking forward to this.
Bater is with us. He's written a book called Zeppo
the Reluctant Marx brother. It's a fascinating story. I know
it sounds really in the weeds, but it's a really
fascinating story. So I think you'll enjoy that conversation.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from kf
I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Coming up in just a bit, we're gonna talk Zeppa
with Robert S. Baters, So you don't want to miss that.
It actually will be fascinating. Trust me on this. So
you got kids, Hey, Isabelle, you want to have kids,
you want to have a whole bunch. I'm not I'm not
offering to father children with you because I think that's
an HR violation. But are you interested in having children
(11:41):
at some point in your life? Absolutely not? Okay, Brigitta.
Do you feel do you feel like there are children
as part of your future? I know these are personal questions,
so you can lie.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Oh sorry, repeat that again.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I was do you do you feel like having children
is a life ambition, life goal for you? Something that
you see.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You recently had a child.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Oh well, there you go, Okay, back to work. Okay, well, okay,
well then you can go. You can live in Russia.
But Isabella, You're in trouble because here's the thing. In Russia,
talking about not having children is about to become a crime,
literally talking about not having children. Russian lawmakers voted to
(12:25):
ban the advocacy of child free lifestyles, and a move
that's part of a broader effort by the Kremlin to
reverse a falling birth rate and promote the country as
a bastion of traditional values that is battling a decade
into West. I don't want to point any fingers.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Is about child free life, and the child free movement
is growing here as well.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, it absolutely is. And I've got this unbelievably pedantic
article that unfortunately I asked poor Richie to print for me.
It goes out for twenty one pages from the Atlanta
and that that title is is ambivalence Killing parenthood. But
I've had this conversation I've heard a lot of younger
people talk about. By the way, I have two step sons,
(13:09):
So I did not sire biological replicas of myself. I
never felt that biological compulsion that a lot of people do.
Plus you know, I probably did them a favor. But
I know a lot of people. You know, I have
this very very strong, ultimately human, foundationally biological imperative to reproduce,
(13:38):
and I was absent that, and I felt like if
it happened, it happen, and I couldn't be happier with
my two step sons. I love them dearly and I
consider them to be my sons. But a lot of
people are choosing not to be. It's a very very
conscious decision not to have kids, and I think more
so now for a variety of reasons, some for idiot
(14:00):
logical reasons, some because they think it's bad for the planet.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
But mostly people truly just can't afford bingo. I mean,
there is more than I make in a year. Kids
are and you need to stay you know, why would
you give eight hours a day to work when you
can stay home with your.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
You are, you would be so much better off buying
a maserat.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
It's unfortunate because a lot of people do want to
have children and they just simply can't afford h And
there is another plus to not having kids. Dual income
households with no children are now the highest earning family structures,
Like they have more money than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Oh, you know, the gays were ahead of the curve
on this, I think. So, now here's the thing. You remember,
Pope Benedict. It was that German Pope Ratzinger, the pope
that was too poop to pope, and so he says,
I'm tired, I'm not going to pope anymore, and we
got Pope Francis. He actually said something. It's the only
thing that I can remember a pope saying other than
a cum spiratutuo, which we used to joke when the
(14:58):
Master was in Latin. It was the Pope's phone number
at koomb spirit Tutuo. But he said something that was
really significant. And I'm paraphrasing now, but he was talking
about the declining birth rate in the Western world, in
Western Europe and the United States, and he said that
the Western world will have to reproduce or it will
take a bow from the stage of history. And Pope
(15:21):
Francis has picked up on that theme to an extent,
talking about how we are choosing things over children, and
a lot of people are doing that. They see a
lifestyle for themselves where they want to travel, they want
to see the world, they want to have these they
they want to have a beach house, they want to
have whatever they have and they see, boy, if I
have kids that's going into a college funder. I'm not
(15:42):
going to enjoy those things.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
I think most people are just trying to survive. I
really don't think that's the majority of people. The people
who can afford to live the life so you're talking
about probably have enough to have.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, Although, but when when a lot of young young
people are seeing the dream they're seeing, you know, it's
dangled in front of them and they don't reality hasn't
maybe smacked him in the head. They can see that
maybe that could happen to me, and they're they're planning
for that life as opposed to a life of parenthood,
of fatherhood and motherhood. But it's a pretty significant cultural shift.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And in Russia they're not making any bones about it.
This conversation would be a criminal offense in Russia. Now,
what's unspoken in this news article about the Russians for
the New York Times, about the Russians criminalizing discussing the
childless a childless future, is that they're running out of soldiers. No,
(16:38):
I know, they're breeding. They're breeding from boots on the ground,
is what that is.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Aren't They also recruiting foreign soldiers, emptying.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
The prisons, bringing in North Korean soldiers. Yes, exactly. Yeah,
war goes through a lot of young men, all right,
and young women, unless, of course, Hesgith becomes the Secretary
of Defense, in which case the women may offer off
the hook on that. Robert Vader's going to join us.
In just a bit.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
The holidays are here at the Disneyland Resort, and KFI
wants to give you the chance to enjoy the wonder
joy and magic of the season. Experience World of Color,
Season of Light, and Nighttime Spectacular at disney California Adventure Park,
or over at Disneyland Park, Rediscover holiday classics like a
Christmas Fantasy Parade, and so much more. Keep listening to
KFI for your chance to win a four pack of
(17:31):
one day, one park tickets to Disneyland Park or Disneyland
California ad Venture Park. Okay, it's a confession time. I
am a lifelong Marxist. I was one of those kids
in the late sixties early seventies, in that period of radicalism,
who embraced a comedy team from basically the turn of
(17:52):
the last century. The Marx Brothers Graucho, Harpo, Chico and
sometimes Eppo, as Joe Adamson called one of his great books.
And the Marx Brothers had this great resurgence in the
late sixties early seventies, kind of because they were anti establishment,
anti authority figures. They were tweaking their nose of authority,
(18:13):
and they had this great resurgence. Was kind of peaked
and faded over the years, but it always out there.
People rediscovered them from time to time. But the lost
soul of the Marx Brothers tribe is poor Zeppo, who,
over all these years his name became a punchline in
and of itself, but for the wrong reason. He was
the unfunny Marx brother, the Paul Marx brother who didn't
(18:36):
get any of the jokes, didn't have a distinctive character
trait the wig and the horn and the honking of
the piano as shooting the keys of the big brush
mustache that Graucho had. Instead, he was the Marx brother
who got to say things like yes, mister hammer. So
when I saw a brand new full length biography of Zeppo,
(18:59):
I bought that books. So fast, and it got to
my greedy little hands, and I snapped it out of
the Amazon dot Com package and I literally started reading
it as I was walking from the recycling bin, throwing
in the package away and in studio right now, I
will stop talking. So what can hear from him? Is
the author of said book. The book is called Zeppo
the Reluctant Marx brother. The author is with us, Robert
(19:21):
s Bader, Robert, how are you.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
I'm good, Thank you, Doug. That's a good intro.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Well, it took a while to get to you. I
apologize for that, but I had to give a little
uh set the stage here for this. So Zeppo Marx
was the youngest of the Marx brothers. There were five
in all, and people may remember a figure nine known
as Gummo, who was actually a little older than Zeppo.
And how did Zeppo Herbert Zeppo Marx, how did he
(19:49):
become a member of the performing Marx Brothers tribe.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Before I do that so you don't get phone calls
from those real Marx Brothers lunatics. There was a sixth market,
oh from Manfred died at six months old before any
of the guys were born. Right now, I'll tell you
about Zeppa.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay, So how did he end up in the act.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
When the Marx brothers moved to Chicago to really further
their vaudeville career. Zeppa was just a kid. He's about
eight or nine years old, and he wasn't in the act,
and he was kind of roaming the streets of Chicago.
Their parents weren't paying much attention to him. Minie was
out on the road with the March Brothers. Their father
was playing pinochle, playing pool and chasing the housekeeper around
the house. According to his sons, so Zeppa became a
(20:28):
bit of a juvenile delinquent, and he was getting in
all sorts of trouble, and he developed an interest in cars.
But first he was interested in stealing them, and then
he became a guy who's interested in repairing them. But
when Gummo went into the army in World War One,
and there are different versions of why, but the Marx
brothers are getting draft exemptions all through the first couple
of drafts, and many realized a Marx brother has to
(20:49):
go into the army because it was starting to look
bad at these four healthy young guys are running around
Vaudeville stages while there are people in the battlefields in France. Now,
Gummo either volunteered to get out of the act or
she said, you're the least important member of the act,
so you're gonna go.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
You have no talent, you go carry a round.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah, I mean I think the Gummo's favorite line was
he thought it would be much safer in World War
One than being with the Marx brothers. So Zeppa was
sort of pressed into service as the available march brother.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Now this is because their mom Minnie, who was really
the power behind the throne of this the brains of
the operation. She wanted was it. She wanted to keep
their rate. It was the four Marx brothers, and she
wanted the fourth one because she could charge more if
there were four of them.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Well, that's going back to their earliest Vaudville days, when
they realized the three Nightingales would get more money if
they were the four Nightingales. She grabbed Harpoak, who couldn't
sing a note, and she just said, well, just growl
a little bit and move your lips while Groucho singing.
So she was always looking for strength in numbers. So
at one point She wanted to make it the Five
Marx Brothers, and for the summer of nineteen fifteen they
(21:49):
were Zeppa was fourteen years old out of school. Well
he was usually not in school because he was a truant,
but he was out for the summer. Legally, she put
him on stage with them as the Five March Brothers.
They toured the state of Michigan and those are the
only people who saw the Five March Brothers.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
We're talking with. Robert Bay of the book is called
Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother, and we got to get
into this reluctant part because he really didn't have any
interest in being in show Businesses brothers were stars. They
became superstars. Really, they became vaudeville headliners, they became Broadway stars.
He went along for the ride, but he was never
an equal partner with his older brother. He was never Graucho,
(22:27):
Harpo or Chico. In fact, he was an employee.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
For the entire time he was with them, which was
sixteen years, and that was half of his life at
the time he left, and he resented it tremendously, and
that's why he was the reluctant March brother. He didn't
like the fact that he had very little to do
on stage, but he really didn't like the fact that
he thought he could go out and make more money
doing almost anything else. And he was a pretty talented guy.
He was very resourceful, very smart, mechanically inclined, could do
(22:55):
almost anything. There's a wonderful quote from a guy named
Nat Perron, who March Brothers spans know is one of
the ters who was with them early on Duck Soup,
that radio show. Parents said Zeppa was a success at
everything he tried, except being one of the Marx Brothers.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, and you know, it's kind of there's a great
debate Amongst. Mark's officionados about the team. As a general rule.
You know, four wheels on a car makes a very
stable vehicle. Three wheel vehicles tend to be a little wobbly.
But the you know, comedy we talk about the rules
(23:29):
of three. You know, they and and the Marx Brothers
and the three Stooges both had fourth wheels. In the
Marx Brother's case, it was Zeppo. In the Stooges case,
it became the very necessary shamp And we're going to
talk about him tomorrow. But they're really the way the
act developed, there wasn't really room for a fourth comedian.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
But you know, in the earliest stage performances there kind
of was. There was a period on stage where Zeppa
was important, and they wrote a show after they did
their big show Home Again, which they did for seven
full seasons in Vaudeville, Zeppo just stepped into Gumo's spot.
And Gummo wasn't the very talented guy. He had a stammer,
he had troubled delivering lines, so basically they wrote him
(24:10):
into the act as just Groucho's sounding board. Basically, Groucho
bounced lines off and Gummo would do those yes, sir,
lines like you said, and Zeppo comes in and all
he's given to do is what Gummo did. And there
was this story that got passed down to me from
Chicko's daughter, who I was really friendly with. At one point,
when Zeppa was frustrated about just doing Gummo's bits, he
(24:31):
said something like, you want me to just stammer Gumo's lines,
which is kind of cruel. Gummo is a nice guy.
Nobody ever said a bad word about Gummo, but he
was frustrated just for that. But then the money thing too.
That was really rough. But when you say the fourth wheel,
understand that when Zeppo left, they kept getting all these
spare tires like Alan Jones, whoever it was, would just
(24:52):
be the fourth guy. He wasn't a brother, but they
needed that guy.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, they always had to have the young romantic lead,
even when Zeppo wasn't actually getting the girl. He did
in a couple of cases, but for the most part
they always had that role filled. Now, the thing is,
he did have one run when Groucho had appendicitis and
Zeppo was his understudy and put on the grease paint
(25:19):
mustache and the eyebrows and the glasses, and he did
the loping walk and then legled the cigar and apparently
was great at it.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
He understudied for all of them at different points. He
understudied for Harpo for a couple of weeks in I
think around nineteen nineteen, so he could do a little
bit of even harp playing, just to get the rudimentary
stuff down to do the bits that required it. So
when he did Groucho in Chicago, he was so good
that Groucho's friends came to the theater and went backstage
expecting to say hello to him and found out that
(25:46):
he wasn't there now.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Eventually, when the brothers came to Hollywood and they made
their first handful of pictures at Paramount in the West Coast,
Zeppo had enough and when they were moving on to MGM,
he dropped out of the act. When we come back,
we're going to talk about the rest of Zeppo's life,
because here's where it becomes really fascinating, and it picks
up on what nat parents said that he was successful
(26:11):
at everything except for being a Marx brother, and this
unbelievably successful life and kept reinventing himself. Robert Bater is
the author. The book is called Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother.
It's published by Applause. It's available at Amazon and good
bookstores everywhere. So go grab yourself a cop Go buy
a couple of copies. What the hell, it's not my money,
you tell them.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on DEMYA from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
In the next hour, we're going to talk about how
we're becoming a nation of loaners. And I actually have
some genuinely amazingly positive news which I think we can
all use so we'll get into that in the next hour.
Right now, we're chatting with Robert Batter, who is the
author of Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother, and we kind
(26:56):
of covered his show business performer aspect of his life,
which is foundational. When Zeppo Marx left the act, he
became a theatrical agent. And he didn't just become a
represent In fact, he hated representing his brothers. They were
a pain of the ass.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
He threw them away to Gumo as soon as he could.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
He want a deal. He made a very lucrative deal
for them to make a movie called Room Service, and
then wanted nothing to do with representing his brothers. But
he ended up representing some of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Of course he did. But you know the most interesting
thing about that Room Service deal. As their agent, he
got ten percent of a quarter of a million dollars.
How many years would he have had to work at
five hundred a week to get that?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, no, it's a pay check for himself.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
But he ended up having a couple of the biggest
money earners in Hollywood. At one point he had Barbara
Stanwick for years and he made her a bigger star
because he got her away from the agent that wasn't
doing much for her and he really built her up.
And he had Fred McMurray from an absolute nobody to
a big money earning star. And Fred McMurray, if you've
read the book, you know, kind of betrayed Zeppo and
(28:02):
wasn't very good to him and showing appreciation the ungrateful
stars or why Zeppo got out of the agency business
and he just got fed up with it because what
he found was the Marx Brothers weren't really that bad.
He had much worse clients than the Marx brothers. But
he made a fortune doing that, and he ended up
selling the agency to MCA, which you know is still
(28:23):
a functioning agency. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
So you know, in fact, he became so embedded in
Barbara Stanwick's life that they ended up with a gigantic
horse ranch and lived in side by side mansions that
they build out in the West Valley. It was called
Marwick Marwick for Marx and Stanwick. They were that close.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
He did that with all of his businesses. You know,
he take his partners name and his name and combine them.
I recently did a book signing and hosted a movie
screening in Barbara Stanwick's house at Marwick, which is still
there now.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
In addition to the agent e business, like you said,
he sold that, made a lot of money, sold that off,
and then he got into during World War two manufacturing
and he had another tremendous success as an arms basically
a part of the parts supply for World War Two.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
He became one of the most lucrative defense contractors in
the country. And it all started because a guy from
Douglas Aircraft was boarding his horses at Marwick and he said,
you know you've got a machine shop here. I know
you tinker around, but you make something like this. He
brought some airplane part and Zeppo took it home and
played around with it. And he used to have guys
work at his shop. Unemployed big band musicians, studio technicians
(29:36):
would come and just play at Zeppo's little machine shop.
And it became so big that he had to go
rent the place, and he had to rent the building
and buy equipment, and he went into a full time
manufacturing plant business. It became so big he had to
get a second plant, and.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
At one point he had literally hundreds of people working
for him.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Yeah, and interestingly, he ended up having not surprisingly, some
union trouble at one of his plants. And he had
a lot of friends in interesting places, shall we say,
and his union problems got solved pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Now for all of a success financially. On the personal front,
he was married for twenty seven years or something like
to do his first wife, Marion. They had two children.
He was, well, I got to I mean, we're running
out of time here to shortcut. He was a terrible father.
He was he wasn't interested in having the kids, and
(30:28):
he lived that way.
Speaker 5 (30:30):
The strangest quote I got about this from any of
his friends, and it was really touching to hear this
because I interviewed both of his sons, who gave me
very different stories. When Marian wanted to have kids, Zeppa
thought the marriage was falling apart and he didn't want them.
But he figured, well, let's get her a couple of kids,
so if I leave, she has someone to keep her company. Yeah,
he actually believed that was a good move.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, And of course he got married again and to Barbara,
who ended up leaving him for Frank Sinatra.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
Yeah, he was aware of her affair with Sinatra for
a few years, but he didn't make too big a
deal out of it because he was probably having about
six affairs of his own at the same time.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
It was a very busy life that mister Zeppo Marx lived,
successful at everything except for being a Marx brother and
possibly husband and father. We might add that as a
caveat as well. Let me ask you, though, as a biographer,
when you plunge into telling a life story, what happens
when you ultimately don't really like the character. You wouldn't
(31:33):
want to necessarily be friends with that person.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Well, I've known many of the Marx brothers' children for
a long time because of the other research of done
of my other books, and I've known for a very
long time that Zeppo was not exactly Father of the Year,
and he wasn't the most popular guy in town. So
I knew that going in. I never thought I was
going to write a book about Zeppo, but I did
have to leave a lot out of Four of the
Three Musketeers, which is a very large book I did
on the Marx brothers from twenty sixteen, and that book
(31:57):
was so big I had to just take some stuff
out of it to get it published, because a couple
of publishers turned it down because it was too long.
They said, why don't you cut this into two books?
I said, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I already
did it more for you part one. But Zeppo's early
days got taken out of that book in large part.
And that's a big part of this book, and it
really sets up why he became the difficult guy that
(32:19):
he became. He was controlled for like the first part
of his life. He had no decision making power in
his own life.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Well, as Graucho said about his brother Gummo, he was
a nice man, which is more than I could say
for Zeppy. I've heard that before Robert Vader. The book
is called Zeppo the Reluctant Mark's Brother. Thanks so much
for coming in and talking to us. Good luck with
the book.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
Thank you, Doug. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Conway Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Now you
can always hear us live on KFI Am six forty
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