Monkey Business - Softcover

"Told with tremendous style and sparkle, Louvish's composite portrait of the Marx Brothers offers an indispensable overview of the actors' saga."-"Publishers Weekly" "Mr. Louvish has written a well-researched and playful version of this hysterical history."-"The Orlando Sentinel" "[The Marx Brothers are] well captured in Simon Louvish's zippy group portrait, "Monkey Business", which ferrets out the facts behind the brothers' often murky accounts of their lives with a care that never interferes with the fun."-"Elle" "Louvish is a . . . committed researcher and has come up with new material . . . [He] has interesting things to say about scripts versus finished films and fills in details [others] omit."-"The New York Times Book Review "

This is the first full and properly researched biography of all five Marx Brothers - Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo. It features the first authentic account of their origins, of the roots of their comedy, and their twenty-four years on the stage prior to the shooting of their first movie, The Cocoanuts, in 1929. Never-before-published scripts, well-minted Marxian dialogue, and much madness and mayhem feature in this tale of the Brothers' battles with Hollywood, their loves and marriages, and the story of the forgotten brother Gummo, who never appeared on screen. Spicing up the anarchic brew are accounts of Salvador Dali's 'missing' script for Harpo, the true identity of the long-suffering Margaret Dumont, and the FBI's verdict on Groucho's particular brand of Marxism.