Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother

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Zeppo was the Marx Brother who didn’t want to go into the family business. A juvenile delinquent in his teen years, before joining his brothers on stage, Zeppo balanced two careers: auto mechanic and petty criminal. Even after getting dragged into the world of entertainment—for sixteen years, he did his familial duty as a vaudeville, Broadway, and movie star—he finally made his escape from the Four Marx Brothers. After failed attempts to find steady work in real estate, screenwriting, and the restaurant business, Zeppo finally hit it big as a Hollywood talent agent, representing stars like Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Lana Turner. From there, he bred racehorses, owned a manufacturing plant, tried out citrus ranching and commercial fishing, and patented several new inventions. He was, in short, a complex character, and his own family never quite figured him out.

Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother gives a lively account of this checkered life and career. As Robert Bader recounts, Zeppo’s lifelong addiction to gambling led him into relationships with several notorious organized crime figures, and he would ultimately appear before grand juries more frequently than movie cameras. (He was certainly the only Marx Brother who saw the corpse of a friend in a newspaper crime scene photo.) Socially, he mixed as easily with mobsters like Mickey Cohen as he did with movie stars like Clark Gable. Comprehensively researched with the full cooperation of Zeppo’s estate, including the first-ever interviews with his two sons, this is a remarkable look at the many lives of Zeppo Marx—even the ones he did his best to keep secret.

ZEPPO: The Reluctant Marx Brother

ADVANCE PRAISE

Marx Brothers authority Bader has done a remarkable job successfully uncovering the story of the unknown brother, revealing a genuinely complex character. This book is revelatory not just about Zeppo but also about the rest of the Marx Brothers.

— Library Journal

It’s not enough that Robert Bader wrote my favorite book about the Marx Brothers (Four of the Three Musketeers.) He’s now topped it by writing a revelatory book about Zeppo, the least interesting of the brothers on screen. The short version: Zeppo was by far the most interesting of the brothers off-screen. Who knew?

— Scott Eyman,
author of Charlie Chaplin vs. America

My Uncle Zeppo was a fascinating and complex guy. He lived a very unusual and successful life, but he was difficult to know. I only really got to know him when l read Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother.

— Bill Marx,
son of Harpo Marx

What a revelation! The least known Marx Brother had the most colorful and unpredictable life, which is fully explored by Robert Bader in this unflinching biography. I couldn't put it down.

— Leonard Maltin,
American film critic and historian

Bader’s meticulous research provides fascinating details about my father that I was unaware of. He's accurately portrayed as a charming, funny, but narcissistic individual driven to constantly prove himself. This is a wonderful look into the life of a brilliant man always striving to be somebody – and then ...somebody else!

— Tim Marx, son of Zeppo Marx

I'll read any book with a nice dog on the cover.
— Dick Cavett,
Legendary Talk Show Host

For Media Inquiries contact minniepalmer@marxbrothers.net

Author's Biography

Robert S. Bader is the author of Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage (Northwestern University Press, 2016, 2022) and the editor of Groucho Marx and Other Short Stories and Tall Tales (Faber & Faber, 1993 / Applause, 2011), an anthology of the comedian’s lost writings. He is also the coauthor of Speaking of Harpo (Applause, 2022), the autobiography of Harpo Marx's wife Susan Fleming Marx, and the author of Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother (Applause, 2024).

Bader is also a filmmaker. His documentary Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes (2018) examines Dick Cavett’s long relationship with Muhammad Ali. It premiered on HBO in 2020 and won a Critics Choice Documentary Award. As part of his ongoing work with The Dick Cavett Show archive, Bader has also produced Dick Cavett’s Watergate (2014) and Dick Cavett’s Vietnam (2015) for PBS. His latest film, Groucho & Cavett, premiered on the acclaimed PBS series American Masters in December 2022.

Bader’s other credits include The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk (Warner Bros., 2007) and The Legendary Bing Crosby (PBS, 2009). His other Marx Brothers projects include a pair of DVD collections of Groucho’s television show You Bet Your Life and The Marx Brothers TV Collection, a DVD set of rare television appearances by the brothers. Bader has also appeared in Marx Brothers documentaries including Universal's Hollywood's Kings of Chaos in 2016, and the French production, Le folle histoire des Marx Brothers in 2015. He will also be seen in the forthcoming documentary, Buster Keaton: Home.

Bader's radio credits include Westwood One Radio Network’s series The Lost Lennon Tapes, Little Steven’s Underground Garage and Bing’s Basement for Sirius XM Satellite Radio. He also manages intellectual property for several celebrity estates, including those of Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Al Hirschfeld, Rosemary Clooney, and the Marx Brothers.

Other books by Robert S. Bader

Check out GROUCHO & CAVETT now showing on PBS