In Praise of Zeppo and Shemp
Two new biographies tell the stories of the unsung members of the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges.
Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother, by Robert S. Bader, Applause Books, 368 pages, $34.95
Shemp!: The Biography of The Three Stooges' Shemp Howard, The Face Of Film Comedy, by Burt Kearns, Applause Books, 280 pages, $32.95
When you think of the Marx Brothers, you likely think of Groucho's wisecracks, Harpo's sight gags, and even Chico's piano specialties. You don't think about their brother Zeppo.
When you think of the Three Stooges, you likely think of three guys slapping and poking each other: Moe, Larry, and Curly. Not Curly's replacement, Shemp (and certainly not later replacements Joe Besser and Joe DeRita).
Show biz has few stars but plenty of also-rans. And as if fate ordered it, two new biographies published within two weeks of each other—Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother, by Robert S. Bader, and Shemp!, by Burt Kearns—tell the stories of Zeppo Marx and Shemp Howard, unsung members of famous comedy teams. What a time to be alive.
Zeppo is the dullest Marx brother on screen, but his personal story may be the most remarkable. (Not least because of how he got his name, due to his alleged resemblance to circus freak Zip the Pinhead. Zip, Zippo, Zeppo!) Born Herbert Marx in 1901, Zeppo was the baby of the group: Older brothers Leonard (Chico), Arthur (Harpo), and Julius (Groucho) were born in 1887, 1888, and 1890, respectively. By the time Zeppo was a teenager, the Four Marx Brothers—the fourth was not Zeppo but another brother, Milton, a.k.a. Gummo—had a solid reputation in vaudeville.
Growing up, Zeppo was a street hooligan. If his mother hadn't tossed him onstage in 1914, he might have ended up in prison like some of his friends. He performed in a sextet without his siblings, then joined the Four Marx Brothers when Gummo joined the army during World War I.
Zeppo turned out to be considerably more talented than Gummo. Indeed, at one point he filled in for the ailing Groucho—mustache, eyebrows, glasses, and all—without the audience being any the wiser. Unlike his brothers, who had a decade's head start, he never managed to develop a memorable comic character. Yet by all accounts he was the funniest brother in person. I guess the others saved it for the stage.
Zeppo was never a full member of the quartet. He was a salaried employee of the team, making considerably less than his brothers. But he would remain part of the group for 16 years, going from vaudeville to Broadway to movies. Still, when Zeppo did finally drop out, unsentimental Groucho allegedly joked, "Without him we're worth twice as much."
It's hard to make a case for Zeppo as a performer based on his five films. In The Cocoanuts (1929), he cavorts a bit with his brothers but does not do much else. He did more in the Broadway version, but his part was easiest to cut when the show was adapted to film.
In Animal Crackers (1930), Zeppo has perhaps his best onscreen moment in the famous dictation scene with Groucho, holding his own even as his brother gets almost all the laughs. In Monkey Business (1931), Zeppo is promoted to romantic lead. In Horse Feathers (1932), he gets to sing a song to the leading lady. In Duck Soup (1933), there is no romance for him; he is back to playing straight man to Groucho and singing a bit with his brothers.
I find Zeppo charming, but he simply can't compete with the other Marxes. And he knew it. When asked if he could give more variety to his role, he replied: How many ways are there to say "yes"?
But Zeppo had a second act. When he quit the team, his life opened up. He started a talent agency that became one of the biggest in Hollywood. He later founded, among other businesses, a machine shop (he was always good with his hands) that became a leader in its field, grossing millions.
Despite his business success, Zeppo never left his inner hoodlum behind. He hung out with underworld figures and was himself a violent person, getting into public fights well into middle age. He was also, like Chico, an inveterate gamblerand womanizer. This caused trouble in his two marriages. (After his second wife left him, she married Frank Sinatra.) But he wasn't going to change his ways. Even as an old man, he could be found trying to pick up young, beautiful women.
Bader's book is a boon for Marx Brothers fans, giving us a deep look into the brother who is generally an afterthought. Indeed, it gives us a whole new perspective on the Marxes.
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Shemp's story is almost the opposite of Zeppo's. He loved being an entertainer.
He was born Shmuel Horwitz in 1895 to Lithuanian Jewish parents. The Anglicized version of his Hebrew first name is Samuel, but his mother called him "Shem" rather than "Sam," and that then became "Shemp."
Shemp and brother Moe started working in vaudeville as young men. By the 1920s, they were comedian Ted Healy's stooges. Moe took a couple of years off to work in real estate while Shemp became the top stooge and a notable performer on his own.
Moe eventually returned, and somewhere along the way Larry Fine joined the act. In 1930, Healy and his Stooges made a movie, Soup to Nuts. Here we can see their act: Healy is trying to perform and the boys interrupt him, which leads to a lot of slapping. The three are not differentiated yet, and Shemp, if anyone, seems to be the leader.
Shemp left the act in 1932, and the Three Stooges—now featuring the youngest Howard brother, Curly—went on to make a series of short films at Columbia, with Moe taking over the Ted Healy position as leader/slapper. Meanwhile, Shemp went on to be a successful character actor, appearing in more than 100 films before he rejoined the Stooges. (Shemp's solo years are the hardest section of this otherwise fascinating book to read, with Kearns giving one description after another of films that few have seen. But no doubt this part will be of great interest to Shemp specialists.)
Shemp mostly worked in short films, sometimes as the star, but also doing supporting work with major comics, such as Abbott and Costello. It's Shemp who plays straight man, for instance, in this classic exchange from W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick:
Fields (at a bar): Was I in here last night, and did I spend a $20 bill?
Shemp (as the bartender): Yeah.
Fields: Oh boy, what a load that is off my mind. I thought I'd lost it.
During his solo period, Shemp became known as the "Ugliest Man In Hollywood." Not true, but no matter—a press agent invented the title and Shemp embraced it.
Meanwhile, all was not well in Stoogeland. Curly, the hardest living of the Stooges, was deteriorating. He suffered some ministrokes and didn't have the same energy. After he had a severe stroke, Shemp replaced him in 1947. Now it was Shemp's job to be the group's main laugh getter. He had his bag of tricks (Curly said "Woo woo woo!" while Shemp said "Hee bee bee!"), but he couldn't really replace Curly.
Curly was big and outrageous, a hurricane of comedy. Shemp, in his knockabout way, worked in a finer fashion. Most Stooges fans prefer Curly, but some see something special in Shemp. He's more subtle, if that word can be used to describe anything about the Three Stooges.
The Stooges shorts had always been made cheaply, but in the 1950s, as shorts were dying, they became even cheaper. By the end of the Shemp series, the Stooges would often shoot for only a day or two, since the plots were remakes and Columbia would mix in the new stuff with old footage.
Shemp died in 1955 at age 60. His death certificate says the cause was a heart attack, but some believe it was a cerebral hemorrhage. In fact, Kearns has a theory that Curly, Shemp, and Larry all died of bleeding brains. Could it be from taking thousands of Moe's slaps?
After all that, the Stooges might have been forgotten. But their shorts were packaged for TV syndication, and a whole new generation of kids became fans. The Three Stooges—no matter which third Stooge—remain beloved to this day.
So there is a place for also-rans in show biz. Kearns quotes the film critic Leonard Maltin, who called Shemp "near great." And if Zeppo wasn't near great, at least he worked near greatness.
