This afternoon, Carolyn and I took our friends, Alice and Leonard Maltin, down to the La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts to see Frank Ferrante being very Groucho about things. Frank (and his pianist, Jim Furmston) were in fine form and the audience vaulted to its collective feet at the end to cheer a very fine show.
Frank has notched thousands of performances as Groucho Marx on stages, and one of the many things I like about his show is the sheer beauty of watching a guy who's perfected what he does. Though much of the show is ad-lib, nothing throws him. You could probably waterboard the man and he wouldn't break character. He'd continue to nail Groucho with every move, every gesture, every line. I usually think "impersonators" go on too long. After a minute or so, you start seeing all the ways they don't look or sound like the person they're doing.
Not so with Ferrante. About three minutes in, some part of your brain surrenders. You just think, "Yeah, that's Groucho up there" and from then on, you just accept and enjoy. That may be because it isn't so much an impersonation as a performance by an actor who has made the Groucho style a part of himself. After the show, before we took pictures, I heard Frank tell someone that he's done this so long and immersed himself so totally in Groucho's life and times that he doesn't have to think hard about it. It just comes to him.
Leonard and Alice were impressed. So was Jerry Maren, who appeared with Groucho in At the Circus. (Remember the midget with the tiny dressing room? That was Jerry, fresh from his stint representing the Lollipop Guild in The Wizard of Oz.) And Groucho's daughter Miriam was there, telling people how much she loves how Frank spreads the good name and glory of her father. If you want to see Frank, check this page to see if and when he'll be wandering in your direction. I am not, despite how it may appear on this site, his agent.
Before I close, here's another photo someone took. It's my lovely friend Carolyn with me and Frank…
Carolyn's father was the great cartoonist, Walt Kelly. I got to thinking that if we were to extract some of her DNA and match it against Miriam's, we could do some genetic engineering and grow the wittiest human being who had ever lived. I'll have to try this when I get some time.