The first suggests the pseudonym originated during a card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. In his memoir, Groucho wrote that Harpo simply wasn't very good at memorizing dialogue, and thus was ideal to portray the archetypal Vaudeville role of the "dunce who couldn't speak." ĭiffering stories exist regarding the origin of the Harpo stagename. Multiple unverified stories attempt to explain Harpo's evolution as the "silent" character in the brothers' act. In January 1910, Harpo joined two of his brothers, Julius (later "Groucho") and Milton (later "Gummo"), to form "The Three Nightingales", which would later be renamed "The Marx Brothers". Newspaper ad for Animal Crackers (1930) with Lillian Roth paragraph. He began to work, gaining employment in numerous odd jobs alongside his brother Chico to contribute to the family income, including selling newspapers, working in a butcher shop, and as an office errand boy. Harpo received little formal education and dropped out of New York Public School 86 at age eight (mainly due to bullying) during his second attempt to pass the second grade. His mother was from East Frisia, Germany, and his father, a tailor, was born in Alsace-Lorraine, then part of the Second French Empire. Harpo's parents were Sam Marx (known by his nickname "Frenchie"/"Frenchy") and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx, sister of comedian and Vaudeville performer Al Shean. The neighborhood hosted many historical homes and other buildings, such as the William Goadby Loew House (now the Spence School), the Congregation Shaare Zedek, and the Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt house. The turn-of-the-century tenement that Harpo later called "the first real home I can remember" was situated in a neighborhood populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans. He grew up in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill (known at the time as Yorkville) on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, on East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue. Harpo was born on November 23, 1888, in Manhattan, New York City.
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