Zeppo, p.18
Zeppo, page 18
Zeppo and Kane decided that it was necessary to throw the studio into a fit of temporary insanity in which it would sign the actress without a screen test. They finally worked out a plan with a touch of genius. They saw or telephoned everybody they knew—producers, top executives, directors and writers—in all the studios except Paramount. Talking to each man confidently and exclusively, they advised seventy or eighty influential film people that Paramount had a sensational screen test of one Wendy Barrie, a young English Bernhardt.
The Paramount offices were flooded with requests from other studios to see the test of Miss Barrie. Paramount reported that it had no such test. This convinced the other studios that Paramount had uncovered another Garbo or Shearer and was deliberately making a secret of it. After being puzzled and annoyed, Paramount became excited. Al Kaufman of Paramount telephoned to Zeppo one morning to arrange for a screen test. He was told Miss Barrie didn’t have time to make one. Kaufman pleaded for a chance to look at her. “I can bring her around at two-thirty this afternoon,” said Zeppo, “but be prompt, because I take her to see Goldwyn at three.”
Shortly after 2:30 that afternoon, Kaufman signed Wendy Barrie for forty weeks at $1,000 a week. The next day he sent for the two agents. “What have you done to me?” he asked. “We sold you a client,” said Zeppo. “How can I go to my stockholders,” asked Kaufman, “and justify spending forty thousand dollars on a girl who had one small part in England and has been turned down by every other studio in Hollywood?”
This was the first time the agents had known anybody in Hollywood to show any concern over stockholders. After thinking awhile Zeppo said, “Here’s what we can do. We’ll help you promote her so fast that you can make her a star in six months. Then you can say to your stockholders, ‘For a mere forty thousand dollars I’ve made you a new star.’” The actress was promoted skillfully, and Paramount got its $40,000 back by lending her to other studios. She has been fairly successful in Hollywood ever since.
Shortly after Zeppo got her a Paramount contract, Wendy Barrie appeared in three pictures at the studio, and was also loaned out to Fox, Columbia, MGM, and RKO. To find additional British talent, Zeppo briefly contracted with American-born London-based agent David A. Bader in 1936. Bader had been with Universal in Hollywood for ten years and had served as studio chief Carl Laemmle’s personal representative. Not much came of Bader’s partnership with Zeppo and he would close his London office in 1938.
Shortly after Groucho, Harpo and Chico made their MGM deal, Groucho told Irving Thalberg he didn’t think the scripts he offered were good enough. He wanted the top writing talent they’d had for their biggest successes—like George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, who happened to be clients of the Zeppo Marx Agency. Groucho had rejected scripts by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby—who had been contributors to earlier Marx successes, and Robert Pirosh and George Seaton—who would later write A Day at the Races. The basic idea for A Night at the Opera was Thalberg’s and the story outline for the two rejected scripts was by James Kevin McGuiness, the head of the MGM story department. These were all people Groucho ultimately worked with on very successful plays and films. Whether intentional or not, Groucho set up a situation in which Thalberg had to negotiate with Zeppo to get a script for the new Marx Brothers film.
In his autobiography Ryskind credited his new agent for getting him the job, while managing to get in a dig at the now-former actor’s skills in front of the camera. “[T]he biggest factor working in our favor was that Zeppo was no longer part of the act. His part was filled by screen newcomer Allan Jones, whose good looks and excellent voice gave his characterization a dimension that allowed us to advance the story in ways that Zeppo would never have been able to fulfill.”
It seems an unfair criticism, since there had been better singers filling romantic lead roles in The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers as Zeppo performed his generally thankless tasks. Monkey Business didn’t suffer from Zeppo being the romantic lead and getting the girl for the one and only time. On the other hand, his commission on Kaufman and Ryskind’s salary easily eclipsed what he would have been paid by his brothers had he been in A Night at the Opera. Kaufman alone was paid $75,000. Zeppo was now successful enough to make his own Zeppo Marx jokes. He remarked that during negotiations with Thalberg, he gained leverage by threatening to rejoin the Marx Brothers.
Frequent Marx Brothers costar Margaret Dumont was added to the cast of A Night at the Opera. Zeppo, who’d known Dumont since she appeared in the stage version of The Cocoanuts ten years earlier, saw her potential value as a client. But she was represented by an aggressive young agent at the small Joyce & Polimer Agency named Henry Willson. Zeppo first encountered him in 1933 at Perry’s Brass Rail, when Willson arrived in Hollywood as a fan magazine writer.
Zeppo wanted Dumont as a client, and in June 1936 he got her by hiring Henry Willson away from Joyce & Polimer. Willson, a relentless self-promoter, had a keen eye for talent. One of his early successes at the Zeppo Marx Agency was dancer Marjorie Belcher—later known as Marge Champion of the famous team of Marge and Gower Champion. Willson also discovered an attractive high school student named Marilyn Louis, who he renamed Rhonda Fleming. Zeppo also hired the completely inexperienced Solly Baiano in October 1936. Baiano, one of Hollywood’s best tennis players, had been working as a violinist in the MGM studio orchestra when Zeppo took a chance on him. With his gambler’s instincts, Zeppo played hunches. Baiano and Willson both became valuable employees.
Hiring Walter Kane would continue to pay off for Zeppo. He brought in the agency’s first big radio deal in December 1936. The National Biscuit Company and the McCann-Erickson advertising agency were to sponsor a musical comedy program on NBC with Helen Broderick, Victor Moore, and the Buddy Rogers Orchestra. Kane negotiated the stars’ contracts for the agency. Radio had become a lucrative source of additional revenue for movie stars, and Zeppo tried to make a deal for the Marx Brothers. A Hollywood Reporter item from September 24, 1936, detailed an interesting idea that never materialized:
A deal for the Marx Brothers to star on a full-hour air show sponsored by Axton-Fischer, makers of Spud cigarettes, is expected to finally be closed today in a confab between the brothers and executives of the Young & Rubicam ad agency. The show would be a script program without guest stars, to start around the first of the year, emanating from Hollywood. Zeppo Marx is agenting.
Even without a Marx Brothers show, radio became a good source of revenue, but the Zeppo Marx Agency’s strength at this point remained representing writers and stories. Zeppo sold rights in several plays to major studios while still looking for some star power to put his agency on the map in a big way.
While the Marx Brothers were making A Night at the Opera, life imitated art. As Groucho would in the film, Zeppo signed an Italian opera singer to a management contract. He saw great potential in expanding his business outside the walls of the movie studios and signed tenor Paolo Marconi, freshly arrived from La Scala in Milan. With Zeppo as his personal manager, Signor Marconi performed with the Pacific Grand Opera Company. He didn’t become the sensation Zeppo was hoping for, but he did ultimately find work in Hollywood as a voice teacher. His studio pupils would include Kathryn Grayson and Deanna Durbin.
Zeppo signed a diverse array of clients and on occasion his connections landed him accomplished people who were in demand. In November 1935 he signed the husband-and-wife screenwriting team of Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell to a deal at Warner Bros. Zeppo also used his new position to help old friends. He placed Lila Lee, his former neighbor from the Garden of Allah, in the film Champagne for Breakfast. Lee was not much in demand by 1935 and worked mostly in forgettable B-pictures, but Zeppo took her as a client.
Zeppo’s early success as an agent didn’t put an end to the jokes at his expense in the press. When Allan Jones was making his second film as what Morrie Ryskind might have called “the better, more talented Zeppo,” Sidney Skolsky ran this item in his syndicated “Hollywood” column on March 28, 1937:
Chico Marx was listening to Allan Jones complain. “I’m not getting the money I should get,” said Jones, “and what is more important, Metro is not giving me the big roles. I don’t know what to do.” Chico tried to advise Allan. “What you need,” said Chico, “is a good agent who will go in and fight for you to get the big, important parts.” “Maybe you’re right,” said Jones. “Zeppo Marx is my agent.”
The Allan Jones item is a ridiculous canard. In between A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, Jones played the lead opposite Irene Dunne in Universal’s screen version of the Broadway musical Show Boat. There were few pictures more anticipated in 1936. For good measure, Jones was also seen in a featured role alongside two of MGM’s biggest stars, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, in The Firefly that same year. Considering that Jones is mostly remembered today for those two musicals and the Marx Brothers movies he was in, Zeppo did a pretty good job as his agent—especially considering that he arranged for MGM to loan Jones to Universal for Show Boat.
Zeppo had arranged another loan of a studio contract player that resulted in a tremendous career boost for the actor—and enough aggravation to cause Zeppo to refuse to even mention the actor’s name in later years. Fred MacMurray was playing the saxophone in the California Collegians, making $60 a week when he signed a contract with his first agent, Arthur Lyons. Lyons was successful and well regarded as Jack Benny’s longtime manager. He also represented stars like Joan Crawford, Hedy Lamarr, Lucille Ball, and Carole Lombard and songwriters Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. MacMurray had done some uncredited extra work in a handful of films at Fox and Warner Bros. but had no real acting experience. In early 1934, Lyons got MacMurray a six-month contract with Paramount that paid him $100 a week. In unpublished comments from a 1970 interview with Detroit Free Press columnist Shirley Eder, Zeppo reluctantly told how he jump-started MacMurray’s career:
I saw him, and I liked his looks, so I asked him if he had an agent, and he didn’t have an agent. I don’t think he did, anyway. I signed him up, made a contract with him. Now he had been at the studio three months. He only had a couple of more months to go, and he had never been in a picture. They didn’t know he was on the lot. So, I went into the front office and said to one of the executives, “What’s going to happen to this boy?” They said, “Well, we’ve never had a part for him.” I said, “This boy has great potential.”
Zeppo asked his friend Cliff Reid, a producer at RKO, to borrow MacMurray from Paramount and put him in a picture. When Reid called Paramount, he was told they’d never heard of Fred MacMurray. Once Paramount figured out that they had him under contract, the arrangements were made, and Reid cast MacMurray in Portrait of Laura Bayles with May Robson. (The film would be retitled Grand Old Girl.) Daily Variety announced on September 20, 1934, “Fred MacMurray, on Paramount’s payroll six months without a part is likely for a loan to RKO-Radio. . . . Zeppo Marx is handling the deal with the player.” Zeppo’s next move worked out very well for Fred MacMurray. He asked Cliff Reid to buy MacMurray’s contract from Paramount. Still not sure who MacMurray was, Paramount decided that if he was good enough for RKO, they had better keep him at Paramount. Zeppo negotiated the renewal of the Paramount contract at a significant salary increase.
Arthur Lyons read Daily Variety. His client signing with another agent did not go unnoticed. MacMurray’s contract renewal was worth $234,000 over five years. Lyons promptly filed a lawsuit—first for $220,000 in a California State Court, and then upping the ante and changing the venue with a $250,000 suit in Federal Court. The agent’s commission on MacMurray’s wages would be $23,400. Lyons’s suit claimed the additional amount was for damages to his reputation as an agent and exemplary punishment.
Zeppo and Lyons each had their own version of the events. Zeppo simply claimed he had no idea MacMurray had an agent. No one believed that someone as sharp as Zeppo thought that Paramount gave a contract to an unknown saxophone player who had never acted outside of extra work without an agent being involved. It was clear that Lyons got the studio to sign MacMurray. But Lyons took great liberties with the facts, asserting that he had gotten MacMurray the renewal and the larger salary and was entitled to the agent’s commission on it. The truth was that Lyons was doing nothing for his client and Zeppo played a hunch and discovered a star.
The suit would be settled out of court on January 24, 1936, but not before Arthur Lyons spitefully hired agent Louis Artigue away from the Zeppo Marx Agency. Zeppo retaliated by signing Ray Milland away from Lyons. Lyons also hired Zeppo’s old nemesis Pat DiCicco when he left Frank Orsatti’s agency in December 1935. Suffice it to say Arthur Lyons and Zeppo Marx were not friends. Shortly after settling the Lyons lawsuit, Zeppo was back in court with a much smaller problem. Writer Al Boasberg sued him for $3,500 in damages, and an order to prevent Zeppo from claiming commission on his MGM salary because Zeppo didn’t get him the job.
Zeppo would move on from his problems with Arthur Lyons, but there would be more trouble with Fred MacMurray. Zeppo came to regard him as greedy and ungrateful. Later Zeppo would privately tell people that he made MacMurray a millionaire and was shown no loyalty in return. With Lyons out of the picture as the lawsuit worked its way through the courts, Zeppo was able to do great things for his client. In the fall of 1934, Zeppo’s friend Wesley Ruggles was about to direct a Claudette Colbert comedy at Paramount and the film needed two young, handsome leading men. Also friendly with Colbert, Zeppo suggested his two clients, Fred MacMurray and Ray Milland. These were perfect and inspired casting choices, and the film, The Gilded Lily, became a big hit in 1935. MacMurray would go on to make six more films with Colbert.
Zeppo and MacMurray staged a walkout by the star in February 1936 as shooting was about to begin on The Princess Comes Across, in which MacMurray was featured with Zeppo’s friend Carole Lombard. Zeppo demanded another salary increase before his client would work on the picture. Paramount didn’t give MacMurray the salary Zeppo asked for, but they did give him a raise. Zeppo eventually used the success of The Gilded Lily to get Paramount to tear up their MacMurray and Milland contracts and give each of them a new seven-year deal with a healthy salary increase. There’s no question that Zeppo was effective in representing his clients.
For a time, Zeppo and MacMurray were friendly enough to come up with an invention together. In 1940 they patented a collapsible rubber fishing boat that could be carried like a backpack with room for equipment. MacMurray became a top star at Paramount, and all seemed well until the seven-year contract was about to expire. Paramount reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that MacMurray earned $347,333 in 1942, as he entered the last year of the contract. That made him the highest paid male movie star in Hollywood. Only Claudette Colbert earned more that year from making movies, being paid $360,000.2
MacMurray told Zeppo he wanted a straight five-year contract with a guaranteed salary, no options, and no cancellation clause. MacMurray had become a big enough star to make demands, but this was a challenge for Zeppo. Paramount wasn’t agreeable with MacMurray’s terms and initially there were no takers for one of the biggest stars in the business who suddenly had a list of unreasonable demands. It took some time, but Zeppo was able to make a deal with Darryl F. Zanuck and Joe Schenck at 20th Century Fox. It was a big money deal for both the star and the agent. It came as a great surprise to Zeppo that MacMurray asked to get out of the contract almost immediately. Zeppo managed to do this for him, forfeiting a significant commission on this guaranteed contract. Then MacMurray decided that since his seven-year Paramount contract had expired, Zeppo was no longer his agent. The Zeppo Marx Agency had become one of the most successful agencies in Hollywood and Zeppo was making a small fortune for his efforts, but Fred MacMurray was the first client that made Zeppo think about getting out of the agency business—but he certainly wasn’t the last.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Enter Miss Stanwyck
AS THE ZEPPO MARX AGENCY FLOURISHED, THE MARX BROTHERS made a seamless transition from quartet to trio. A Night at the Opera was a big hit, and no one seemed to object to Allan Jones in the Zeppo role. It worked so well they repeated the formula for A Day at the Races in 1937. But Zeppo’s absence from the screen did not necessarily exclude him from the press coverage of a new Marx Brothers movie. Veteran newspaperman Harry T. Brundidge, in the St. Louis Star-Times on March 3, 1937, gave readers—who probably didn’t ask for one—a Zeppo update: “From the worst actor in history to the best actor’s agent in Hollywood—all in four years. He’s a hustling, bustling businessman who swept aside the handicaps of bad singing and a receding hair line, to become the most ambitious chap in Hollywood.”
The accolades heaped upon Zeppo in the promotion of Duck Soup not quite four years earlier were apparently only valid if he didn’t quit. Suddenly this formerly integral part of the act was a balding guy who couldn’t sing. He was no longer the fourth Marx Brother, but he was still worthy of all the abuse that position entitled him to. He was not to forget that—no matter how much money he made.
The success of the agency should have ended the jokes about Zeppo, the unimportant Marx Brother, but Walter Winchell couldn’t resist printing this item in his column a few years after Zeppo had made his last screen appearance:
The Marx Brothers’ Horse Feathers flicker was revived the other day, and a Broadwayite confessed he couldn’t enjoy its comedy because he kept remembering that three of its principals were dead . . . Thelma Todd, David Landau and Zeppo Marx, he said . . . “Zeppo isn’t dead,” corrected a listener, “he’s a Hollywood booking agent!” . . . “I know” was the reply, “but I thought it would be kinder to say he is dead.”1
