The Maxine Marx Centennial

Born a century ago, the eldest of the NEXT generation of Marxes (after the brothers),Maxine Marx (1918-2009).

Maxine was the only child of Chico and Betty, born five years before the Marxes had made it to Broadway, and was thirteen before they moved to Hollywood. This connected her to the older generation more tightly than her younger cousins perhaps — more shared memories. And like her uncles Gummo and Zeppo she became a successful talent agent and was a real creature of show business. My friend Mari-Lyn Henry worked as her right arm (assistant) at the beginning of her career, and described her as a crusty, tough old bird with a big heart.

Maxine actually dipped her toe in the biz as an actress when she was around 20, playing bit parts in films such as Dramatic School (1938) with Luise Rainer and Paulette Goddard; Four Girls in White (1939) with Florence White from the At the Circus, Una Merkel, Ann Rutherford, and Mary Howard; and Dancing Co-Ed (1939) with Lana Turner and Artie Shaw. She might have gone farther but she was skittish about trading on the family name.

In 1946 she married legendary animator Shamus Culhane, whose dream-like career included stints working for the Fleischer Brothers,Bub Iwerks, Walt Disney, Walter Lantz, and Warner Brothers. I mean, who else is there? Culhane had even been one of the lead animators on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs! According to publicity at the time, Maxine had called to ask him out on a date at a friend’s suggestion, impersonating a French maid. It has the ring of flackery but maybe it happened! The pair had two sons and were divorced by the early 1960s.

In 1980, Maxine’s most lasting legacy arrived, her book Growing Up with Chico. Unlike Groucho and Harpo, Chico never penned his own life story, so Maxine’s portrait is the closest one we will ever have to the oldest, if not wisest, Marx Brother. One’s over-riding takeaway from the book is affection and forgiveness, and perhaps an understandable glossing over. Chico’s gambling problem may be the most famous one in the history of the human race. As for womanizing, however, she correctly points out that the other brothers were just as guilty of it as he was. Point well taken! And foibles aside, he was a sharp man of business, a trait Maxine clearly inherited. As with all the brothers, Chico loomed large in the life of his progeny, but from a distance. And her mom had the thankless job of mopping up. (Eventually the pair divorced, and Chico spent his last years with his second wife Mary, who had been his significant other for quite some time.)

Maxine was not nearly as public a figure as her next oldest cousin Arthur, but she did make the occasional tv appearance on things like The Today Show and Mike Douglas, and was in a couple of documentaries. She was 91 when she passed. I really wish I had met her but am thrilled to be a friend of a friend!

For more on the Marx Brothers, please readThe Marx Brothers Miscellany: A Subjective Appreciation of the World’s Greatest Comedy Team.