Groucho Marx: Hello, I Must Be Going (1930)

Julius Henry Marx — better known to the world as “Groucho,” was the third born of the five Marx Brothers who took the American comedy scene by storm in the first half of the 20th century.

Know for his incredibly quick wit and heavily innuendo-laced repartee, he is often considered one of the best comedians of all time. While he made 13 feature films with his siblings (and yes, the Marx Brothers were really brothers), he also went on to a long and popular solo career, most notably with the classic TV show You Bet Your Life. Not only that, but his distinctive appearance — which, in classic vaudeville tradition, he emphasized with greasepaint — went on to become a comedy gag in and of itself: Groucho glasses, the one piece mask made of horn-rimmed spectacles, a big fake nose, and bushy eyebrows and a mustache.

Here’s Groucho singing the song he’s famously associated with from his time with the Marx Brothers: “Hello, I Must Be Going,” as seen in the 1930 film Animal Crackers. The song became so closely associated with him, it ended up being the title of his biography — and was the source for the Phil Collins album of the same name in 1982. – AJW