Margaret Dumont
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Margaret Dumont (October 20, 1882 – March 6, 1965) was an American comedic actress.
Born Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York she adopted the stage name Margaret and/or Marguerite Dumont. She is remembered mostly for being the comic foil to Groucho Marx in seven of the Marx Brothers movies. Groucho called her practically the fifth Marx brother. (There were, in fact, five Marx brothers, but only a maximum of four ever performed together.)
Dumont played wealthy high-society widows whom Groucho alternately insulted and romanced for their money. They include Mrs. Potter in The Cocoanuts, Mrs. Rittenhouse in Animal Crackers, Mrs. Claypool in A Night at the Opera, Mrs Gloria Teasdale in Duck Soup, Martha Phelps in The Big Store, Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury in At the Circus, and Emily Upjohn in A Day at the Races. Groucho once said a lot of people believed they were married in real life, but 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:
- 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!
Dumont's presumed ladylike innocence (contrasting with 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:
- Dumont: Do you have everything, Otis?
- Groucho: I've never had any complaints yet!
Decades later, in his one man show at New York's Carnegie Hall, 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 lifetime, she 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 in 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! in 1964, in which she played Shirley MacLaine's mother, Mrs. Foster.
She also played the same dignified, poised dowager with W.C. Fields (Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, 1942), Abbott and Costello ("Little Giant," 1946), Laurel and Hardy ("Dancing Masters", 1943), Jack Benny ("The Horn Blows at Midnight," 1945) and Danny Kaye ("Up In Arms," 1944"). She also played some dramatic parts ("Youth on Parole," 1937, and "Dramatic School," 1938).
Just days before her death from a heart attack, she made her final acting appearance on the television program The Hollywood Palace 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 rich, 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 Philadeplphia. 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, whom a theater reviewer described as a "statuesque beauty," garnered 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 classic-sounding operatic singing voice, which screenwriters eagerly used to their advantage.
Movie writers have stated for decades that since Dumont never broke character or cracked a smile at some of Groucho's jokes that she did not "get" the Marx Brothers type of humour. 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.
The character of the wealthy dowager from The Simpsons is based on her work.
On her passing on March 6, 1965, Margaret Dumont was cremated, her ashes stored in the vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles. Dumont was 82 years of age.
