Love, Groucho: Letters from Groucho Marx to His Daughter Miriam ed. Miriam Marx Allen Faber & Faber 241pp, £8.99 in UK
Groucho Marx and Other Short Stories and Tall Tales: Selected Writings of Groucho Marx ed. Robert S. Bader Faber & Faber 157pp, £8.99 in UK
For all his flamboyant cigar swagger, Groucho Marx could be a rather insecure little man. These books, published for the first time in the UK, show two contrasting sides to the complex character who was a master of slapstick, spinner of brilliant one-liners and for whom, it seemed to millions of movie fans, life was just a laugh a minute.
His eldest daughter, Miriam, saved every letter he wrote her between 1938, when she was eleven years old, and 1967. The letters show Groucho's famous wit, but underneath he longs to get away from being what he calls the professional funny man.
The correspondence afforded him a refuge from this role, and the letters are full of the concerns of a father doting on his eldest daughter, enquiring after her health and dishing out advice normally given by mothers. But in the Marx household, Groucho saw himself as fulfilling a dual role.
He was married three times and each time the marriage ended in failure. His first marriage to Ruth seems to have the most successful. But she became an alcoholic (as did the other two); his critics blamed him but the letters do not contain any note of recrimination.
Between the lines one detects a large ego that needed constant massaging and reassurance. In almost every letter Groucho gives her a list of the radio and television shows he is appearing on, what the critics are saying about him, where she can read them, and asks for her comments. When she forgets to tune in, or is obviously not too impressed, he cannot hide his disappointment and irritation.
He can be peevish about her demands for extra allowance, in the same letter say that he is sending an additional cheque, with instructions as to how she should spend it. When Ruth and he divorced, Miriam became the lifeline to whom he confided all his concerns, especially how he was getting along with his new young bride.
Miriam, in turn, latched on to him and became over-dependent. Midway through these letters she too has succumbed to alcoholism and also begins a long session of psychoanalysis at the celebrated Menninger Institute in Topeka, which is the start of a long-running battle between Groucho and her doctors over costs.
By the end of the correspondence she has recovered, has been married and divorced and in between has become a moderately successful writer, thanks to the encouragement of her father and his influential friends in publishing.
Psychologists might put a bleak interpretation on these letters, but they are brimming with life, love and in no way sentimental. She says that her father was great fun and if he had a fault it was that he made himself too important in her life. "He was so interesting and humorous that he made the boys and men I dated dull in comparison."
Before his film career Groucho had written books and screenplays and over a hundred articles and essays. The early books were not very successful, but Groucho explained this by saying that he only wrote limited first editions. Many of the pieces included in Groucho Marx and Other Short Stories and Tall Tales appeared in the New Yorker, Variety and the Chicago Tribune. They vary in style and content and some were most likely ghosted by the humourist S.J. Perelman as promotional pieces associated with Marx Brothers movies.
The most interesting articles are those by Groucho describing his family troupe performing across America in theatres where the dressing room was shared with the performing animals. It was in such places that the famous trio tested and honed the jokes and gags that would be immortalised in their movies.
The book is also peppered with one-liners which Groucho seemingly tossed off at will. He could never desist from the sharp retort even in writing a business letter, as in his famous note to the Governor of Idaho: "Thanks for the potatoes. But would have thought you'd have stuck a piece of butter in each one."
Altogether, the book is a charming reminder of what humour used to be before the PC cult flattened our social discourse.
Bill Maxwell is a critic and travel writer