The above is not a photo of Chico, Groucho and Harpo, nor is it a picture of Chico, Frank Ferrante and Harpo. It's actually Chico, Irving Brecher and Harpo. The late Irving Brecher (he died last November at the age of 94) not only wrote two of the Marx Brothers movies but one time when Groucho was ill and publicity pictures had to be taken, they stuck the screenwriter in a Groucho suit and used him in the photos. Brecher also wrote movies that didn't have any Marx Brothers in them — films like Meet Me In St. Louis and Bye Bye, Birdie and he even did a dialogue punch-up on The Wizard of Oz. He created the TV series, The People's Choice and the radio and TV series, The Life of Riley. He worked with all the great comedians but especially Milton Berle. And he was a very funny, clever man.
I have just read his newly (posthumously) published autobiography, The Wicked Wit of the West, which is aptly subtitled, "The last great Golden-Age screenwriter shares the hilarity and heartaches of working with Groucho, Garland, Gleason, Burns, Berle, Benny and many more." I dunno if he's genuinely the last but he did fraternize with all those folks and boy, has he got stories to tell. Some of them, I even believe — stories of how Berle discovered him. It happened when Brecher put a little classified ad in Variety offering to sell "Positively Berle-proof gags. So bad that not even Milton will steal them." Berle just had to hire a guy who'd advertise like that…and from there on, Brecher just kept getting more and more work until he was one of the leading comedy writers of his day.
You can see why since the book oozes humor…and Brecher's memory is pretty good, though a few tales feel invented to me and there are odd factual lapses. For instance, he keeps insisting that Ernie Kovacs was killed in a car accident on his way home from a New Year's Eve party. That had to have been some party because Kovacs died on January 13, 1962. But if you can get past lapses of that sort, you'll find the book hilarious and regret you didn't know its author. I met him briefly on a few occasions and it sure made me wish those occasions hadn't been so few and far between. Here's an Amazon link to order.