This amuses me more than it probably should. We were talking here earlier about photos being misidentified on the web. This happens a lot and it happens nowhere more than over on eBay.
Yesterday morn, I went net-surfing to find a decent photo of Jack Larson to post with his obit. Once in a while, I locate what I seek over on eBay so I went there, searched for "Jack Larson" and this is one of the listings I found…
That's right. It's Jerry Thomas and Jack Larson in the 1965 movie, How to Murder Your Wife. Those of you who thought that film starred Terry-Thomas and Jack Lemmon…well, you obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about.
How did this confusion occur? Well, like a lot of photos that turn up on eBay these days, this picture is being sold because a newspaper decided to digitize (or maybe just dump) its photo archives and sell the originals. Here is what was written on the back of this photo…
If you didn't know better, you might think that said "Jerry Thomas" and "Jack Larson." I doubt that was a scanning error…probably a human one made by someone too young to at least recognize Jack Lemmon. Mr. Lemmon was a pretty big star in his day.
My friend Steve Stoliar, who'll be featured in the next Video Link I post, is driven mad by some of the eBay identifications of who's Groucho Marx and who isn't. It's not just that sellers think someone dressed as Groucho is Groucho. Sometimes, they think Eli Wallach not dressed up like Groucho is Groucho or that George Jessel, looking just like George Jessel is Groucho or that Laurel and Hardy are the Marx Brothers.
Actually, anyone with a mustache and prominent eyebrows is likely to be identified as Groucho because a pic of Groucho will sell better than a photo labelled as "Unknown man with mustache and prominent eyebrows." I especially liked the seller a few years ago who posted a photo he said was Groucho Marx without his mustache. Apparently, many folks wrote in to inform him it was actually Bud Abbott without his mustache.
The seller changed the listing to read that it was "Bud Abbott disguised as Groucho Marx." No one bought it so he relisted it as "Groucho Marx disguised as Bud Abbott" — and he got twenty bucks for it. If you're interested in the photo of Jerry Thomas and Jack Larson, it's been marked down to $27.00. Hey, it's the only known photo of Jerry and Jack together.