It was an ordinary day. Sitting down in front of my mom and dad's black & white TV at 929 North Queen Street, preparing to watch Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life" on NBC-TV. The show debuted on October 4, 1950 on NBC, a few years after it began on ABC Radio in 1947. I remember watching Groucho with his cigar between his forefinger and thumb, his wire-rimed glasses and his signature bowtie. For years, Groucho projected a look that has become a staple at costume parties: horn-rimmed spectacles, cigar in his hand and a thick mustache and eyebrows.
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| Groucho Marx |
It was back in 1907 that Groucho, then known as Julius Marx, first came to my town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was 17 years old at the time and had no specs or mustache. He arrived with his group known as the Nightingales, which included his brother Milton (aka Gummo) and a soprano named Mabel O'Donnell. They appeared at the Family Theatre which was a vaudeville house on West King Street. We know all this because notices of the Nightingales' visit in 1907 and again in 1908 appeared in Lancaster newspapers.  |
| A young Groucho |
We know of these visits because H. Clifton Thorbahn wrote about the visits in the September 6, 1931 Lancaster News. Mr. Thorbahn said that when Julius Marx was not singing and carrying on at the Family Theatre, he spent time playing checkers at the Lancaster "Y." Following his checker games, he would wander up and down North Queen Street examining the goods displayed in store windows and his fellow pedestrians. During one of his checker games he announced his opinion of Lancaster saying: "Those quaint-appearing folks I see on the street...what and who are they? I've watched them walk along North Queen Street, and I've come to the conclusion that they're genuinely happy. I guess they have every reason to be happy because they don't have to smear paint on their faces, sing silly songs to empty houses and do hundreds of other things that actors have to do if they want to eat." Eventually, Groucho joined his equally silly brothers to delight audiences throughout America. Mr. Thorbahn also wrote about the Pennsylvania Dutch Dug-Out, which promoted itself as Lancaster County's only pubic A-Bomb shelter which opened on Lincoln Highway East in East Lampeter Township in 1950 and closed in 1952. The shelter was in the basement. As for my watching The Groucho Show...I can remember bits and pieces of the show, but the only thing I can really remember was the parrot on the swing that dropped next to Groucho's head when the contestant on the show said the "secret word of the day." "You Bet Your Life" has been revived three times since the original series ended, the most recent being an ongoing version hosted by Jay Leno that launched in first-run syndication in September 2021. Anybody remember seeing the show? It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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