Margaret Dumont (October 20, 1882 – March 6, 1965) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comedic actress.
She is remembered mostly for being the
comic foilA double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic device in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...
to
Groucho MarxJulius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit.He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of which he was the third-born...
in seven of the
Marx BrothersThe Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
films. Groucho called her "practically the fifth Marx brother" (In fact, there were five Marx brothers, but only four of them ever performed together on film).
Born
Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York she adopted the
stage nameA stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Margaret (and/or Marguerite) Dumont.
Dumont played wealthy high-society, posh-voiced widows who Groucho alternately insulted and romanced for their money.
Margaret Dumont (October 20, 1882 – March 6, 1965) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comedic actress.
She is remembered mostly for being the
comic foilA double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic device in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...
to
Groucho MarxJulius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit.He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of which he was the third-born...
in seven of the
Marx BrothersThe Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
films. Groucho called her "practically the fifth Marx brother" (In fact, there were five Marx brothers, but only four of them ever performed together on film).
Biography
Born
Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York she adopted the
stage nameA stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Margaret (and/or Marguerite) Dumont.
Dumont played wealthy high-society, posh-voiced widows who Groucho alternately insulted and romanced for their money. The roles are Mrs. Potter in
The CocoanutsThe Cocoanuts is the first feature-length Marx Brothers film, produced by Paramount Pictures. The musical comedy stars the four Marx Brothers, Oscar Shaw, Mary Eaton and Margaret Dumont. Produced by Walter Wanger and directed by Robert Florey and Joseph Santley, it was adapted to the screen by...
(1929), Mrs. Rittenhouse in
Animal CrackersAnimal Crackers is a 1930 comedy film, in which mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable painting goes missing during a party in honor of famed African explorer Captain Spaulding...
(1930), Mrs. Gloria Teasdale in
Duck Soup (1933), Mrs. Claypool in
A Night at the OperaA Night at the Opera is a comedy film starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx and Harpo Marx, and featuring Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Siegfried Rumann, and Walter Woolf King. It was the first film the Marx Brothers made for MGM after their departure from Paramount, and the first...
(1935), Emily Upjohn in
A Day at the RacesA Day at the Races is the seventh movie starring the three Marx Brothers, with Margaret Dumont, Allan Jones and Maureen O'Sullivan. Like their previous MGM feature A Night at the Opera, this film was a major hit.-Synopsis:...
(1937), Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury in
At the CircusAt the Circus is a 1939 Marx Brothers comedy film in which they save a circus from bankruptcy. It is notable for Groucho Marx's classic rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady." and co-stars include Margaret Dumont, Eve Arden, and Kenny Baker.-Plot:...
(1939), and Martha Phelps in
The Big StoreThe Big Store is a Marx Brothers comedy film in which Groucho, Chico and Harpo work to save the Phelps Department Store, owned by Martha Phelps . Groucho plays her detective and bodyguard Wolf J...
(1941). Groucho once said that many people believed they were married in real life, even though they were not. A typical exchange, from
Duck Soup, follows:
- Groucho: You might think me a sentimental old fluff, but would you mind giving me a lock of your hair?
- Dumont (smitten): A lock of my hair? Why, I had no idea that you ...
- Groucho: You're getting off easy. I was going to ask for the whole wig!
Dumont also endured dialogue about her characters' (and thus her own) stoutish build, as with these lines, also from
Duck Soup:
- Dumont: I've sponsored your appointment because I feel you are the most able statesman in all Freedonia.
- Groucho: Well, that covers a lot of ground. Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself! You'd better beat it; I hear they're going to tear you down and put up an office building where you're standing!
and:
- Groucho: Why don't we get married, and take a vacation? I'll need a vacation if we're going to get married. Married! I can see you now, in the kitchen, bending over a hot stove. But I can't see the stove!
Or her age (in their last film pairing,
The Big Store):
- Dumont (kittenish after Groucho steals a peck): You make me think of my youth.
- Groucho: Really? He must be a big boy by now.
Dumont's character would often give a short, startled or confused reaction to such insults, but would not otherwise respond and appeared to forget the insult quickly.
Dumont's presumed ladylike innocence, in contrast to Groucho's perpetual leer, was fodder for Groucho's oft-stated comment that the brothers had to explain jokes like this to her:
- Groucho (to the other brothers, during a battle sequence in Duck Soup): Remember, you're defending this woman's honor, which is probably more than she ever did!
and this, from
A Night at the Opera:
- Dumont: Do you have everything, Otis?
- Groucho: I've never had any complaints yet!
But there could be fleeting moments of touching consideration shown by Groucho in their faux romances, as in the final scene of
The Big Store where he goes off to her apartment:
- Dumont: Oh, I'm afraid after we're married a while a beautiful young girl will come along and you'll forget all about me.
- Groucho: Don't be silly. I'll write you twice a week.
Decades later in his one man show at New York's
Carnegie HallCarnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, Groucho mentioned Dumont's name and got a burst of applause. He informed the audience that she rarely understood the humor of their scenes together and would ask him, "Why are they laughing, Julie?" ("Julie" was her nickname for Julius, Groucho's birth name.)
Over the course of her career Margaret Dumont played in 57 films, including some minor silent work that began with
A Tale of Two Cities (1917). Her first feature film was the Marx Brothers film
The Cocoanuts (1929), in which she played Mrs. Potter, the same role she played in the stage version from which the film was adapted. Her last movie was
What a Way to Go!What A Way To Go! is a 1964 American comedy film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly and Dick Van Dyke.-Plot:...
(1964), in which she played
Shirley MacLaineShirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, dancer, activist, and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
's mother, Mrs. Foster.
She also played the same dignified, poised dowager with W.C. Fields (
Never Give a Sucker an Even BreakNever Give a Sucker an Even Break is a 1941 Universal Pictures comedy film starring W.C. Fields. Fields also wrote the original story, under the pseudonym "Otis Criblecoblis". Fields plays himself, searching for a chance to promote a surreal screenplay he has written, whose several framed sequences...
, 1942),
Abbott and CostelloWilliam Abbott and Lou Costello performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work in radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 50s...
(
Little Giant, 1946),
Laurel and HardyLaurel and Hardy were a popular comedy team composed of thin, English-born Stan Laurel and heavy, American-born Oliver Hardy . They became famous during the early half of the 20th century for their work in motion pictures and also appeared on stage throughout America and Europe.The two comedians...
(
The Dancing MastersThe Dancing Masters is a 1943 Laurel and Hardy feature film. The plot involves the team running a ballet school, and getting involved with an inventor. A young Robert Mitchum has an uncredited cameo role as a fraudulent insurance salesman.- See also :...
, 1943),
Jack BennyJack Benny , born Benjamin Kubelsky, was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
(
The Horn Blows at MidnightThe Horn Blows at Midnight is a comedy fantasy starring Jack Benny, directed by Raoul Walsh and co-starring Alexis Smith, Dolores Moran, Allyn Joslyn, and Reginald Gardiner...
, 1945) and
Danny KayeDanny Kaye was an American award-winning actor, singer and comedian.-Early years:Born David Daniel Kaminsky to Jewish Ukrainian immigrants in Brooklyn, Kaye became one of the world's best-known comedians...
(
Up In Arms, 1944). She also played some dramatic parts, such as
Youth on Parole (1937), and
Dramatic School (1938).
Just days before her death from a
heart attackMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, is the interruption of blood supply to part of the heart, causing some heart cells to die...
, she made her final acting appearance on the television program
The Hollywood PalaceThe Hollywood Palace was an hour-long television variety show that was broadcast weekly on ABC from January 4, 1964 to February 7, 1970. It began as a mid-season replacement for the short-lived Jerry Lewis Show, another variety show which had lasted only three months...
in early March 1965, where she was reunited onstage with Groucho - that week's guest host - one final time. They performed some material from
Animal Crackers. The taped show was aired several weeks after her passing. Some sources say it was broadcast on April 10, others say April 17.
In her interviews and press profiles, Dumont preserved the myth of her on-screen character: the wealthy, regal woman who never quite understood the joke. She had claimed she had returned reluctantly to acting as a result of widowhood, turning to the Broadway stage in 1919 a year after her husband of eight years, sugar heir John Moller, Jr., died suddenly.
As a young actress however, Dumont had specialized in straight female leads in musical comedies, where the cardinal rule was to make space for the featured comedian. Her theatrical debut was in
Beauty and the Beast at the Chestnut Theater in Philadelphia. In August 1902, two months before her 20th birthday, she appeared as a singer/comedienne in a vaudeville act in Atlantic City. The dark-haired soubrette, described by a theater reviewer as a "statuesque beauty," attracted notice later that decade for her vocal and comedic talents in
The Girl Behind the Counter (1908),
The Belle of Brittany (1909), and
The Summer Widower (1910).
Dumont's acting style, especially in early films, provides a window into the old-fashioned theatrical style of projecting to the back row, such as trilling the "r" for emphasis. She also had a classical operatic singing voice which screenwriters eagerly used to their advantage.
Perpetuating Groucho's joke on the subject, film critics and historians have stated for decades that since Dumont never broke character or cracked a smile at Groucho's jokes, she did not "get" the Marx Brothers' type of humor. The fact is she knew the jokes were funny indeed, but as a seasoned actress and a professional kept a straight face no matter what. In the early Marx brothers films especially, when Groucho levels an insult at her, she can be seen giving an appropriate and fleeting "shocked" response as part of her characterization. One exception to her sticking with the script occurred in her last appearance with Groucho in 1965 on ABC-TV's
Hollywood Palace. Mid-way through a recreation of a scene from
Animal Crackers, Groucho stopped her as she was about to deliver her next line. "Don't step on those few laughs I have up here" he scolded, which made Dumont break up laughing.
Death
On her death on March 6, 1965, Margaret Dumont was cremated, her ashes stored in the vault at the
Chapel of the Pines CrematoryChapel of the Pines Crematory is a crematory and columbarium located at 1605 South Catalina Street Los Angeles, California, in the historic West Adams District a short distance southwest of Downtown...
in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
. Dumont was 82 years of age.
External links