Thirty years ago today, the nation was still busy mourning the death of Elvis Presley and not nearly enough attention was paid to the passing of a man who meant as much if not more to some of us. Groucho Marx may have been born in 1890 — there are still historians willing to argue the point — but there's no argument that he died on August 19, 1977. In body, at least. One could insist that he'd died a few years earlier when his brilliant mind began to fail. One might even have wished that. But the body went on 8/19/77 — and that's all that went. The spirit…the influence…the legacy of immortal TV shows and movies and oft-quoted anecdotes remain intact.
I don't have a lot to add today that isn't in this article but I did want to note here that Groucho quotes and impressions are as ubiquitous as ever. In fact, we have reached the point now where people are imitating people imitating Groucho, which I suppose is also the case with Elvis impersonators copying other Elvis impersonators. I will also note that the once-endless cascade of books on the Marx Brothers seems to have dwindled to a trickle because, I suspect, we actually managed to momentarily exhaust the topic.
We need more on them and about Groucho, especially. Actually, what we really need today is Groucho, himself. Our leaders are doing a decent job of always reminding us that those in charge usually don't know what they're doing and are in constant need of deflation. But it would be nice to have Groucho around to make it funny. Or at least as funny as it can possibly be.