6

WITH THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT CHECKS coming from Warner Bros. in 1971, Joe Greenberg and I moved back to New York together, to a really nice rented brownstone on West Thirteenth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Greenwich Village. Our landlord was a dentist. It was a real New York street, lined with trees, most of the block brownstones, with a couple of nightclubs and a couple of restaurants. We ate almost every day in a classic old-school Italian restaurant across the street, Felix’s. Felix and his son were really nice to us and let us build up credit for as much as forty-five days.

Our living room was our first real office. Alice’s first fan mail was starting to come in. That was exciting. If I was there I’d get up in the morning and start opening it. One morning I opened an envelope and shook out a little baggy filled with some pale, sticky-looking liquid. Dear Alice, the letter read, You bring out the best in me. I’ve never been able to tell anyone about my desire for men. I masturbated today thinking of you, and here’s the cum.

I didn’t open up a lot of fan mail after that.

The money coming in also let us rent the band a new place where they could all hang together and rehearse, only now they could do it in a style that suited rock stars. It was the Galesi mansion and estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. You entered through a twelve-foot-high iron gate and drove up to the house. It was fifteen thousand square feet, with I think forty rooms, thirteen of them bedrooms, plus a chapel, a beautiful library, frescoes on the ceilings, huge chandeliers, a pipe organ, and a grand ballroom so high and wide that we could set up the entire touring stage and do complete dress rehearsals. We converted the dining room into a recording studio. Alice and his girlfriend Cindy took the vast master bedroom, and the other guys spread out to others.

I knew of the Galesi family from my time in Buffalo, where they were very powerful and prominent. The patriarch, Francesco Galesi, was the son of Italian immigrants. He started out dealing in real estate in and around Buffalo in the 1960s. He was also a pioneer in telecommunications and would later be one of the directors of WorldCom, the second-largest long-distance telephone company in America. He was worth hundreds of millions, married a Russian princess, and had several enormous homes spread around, including a ten-thousand-square-foot Sutton Place apartment in Manhattan.

All the guys started living the way they thought rock stars should. They drove up to the mansion in Rolls-Royces and Jaguars. They bought all the liquor and drugs they wanted. Alice was becoming a drunk. It should have worried us more than it did at the time, but to us the drinking, the drugs, the sex were all perks of the rock star life, and we were only just starting to learn that the lifestyle had consequences. To us, drinking was cool, drugs were cool, sex was cool, and none of them had any serious consequences. You might get hungover, but no one we knew had liver failure. You might get herpes, but there was no AIDS. Jimi and Janis overdosed in 1970, Jim Morrison died in 1971, but we were still pretty slow to realize how dangerous the rock lifestyle could be.

Besides, Alice was a manageable drunk. He had started out drinking whiskey all the time, and that he couldn’t manage. So he switched to Budweiser in the daytime. From when he woke up he always had a can of Bud, but he sipped it slowly, not to get falling-down drunk, just to relax and help him through the day. It was his way of coping as life got steadily busier and crazier. At night, when his work was done, he’d switch to V.O. and Coke.

To me, the drunk was Alice, not Vince. They were still definitely two distinct personalities at that point. Vince was a sweet, funny, grown-up kid who was so gentle he wouldn’t swat a fly. His favorite activities were watching old movies and corny TV shows, and, after Joe Gannon introduced him to it around 1973, playing golf. His favorite music was Burt Bacharach. Although he drank, he did not, at that point, do any drugs, not even pot. He even forbade anyone from smoking pot around him on tour. On the road, when everybody else was partying, he was in his hotel room, watching the Marx Brothers on TV and practicing putts.

Basically, Vince and Alice were black-and-white opposites. For a while, he only became Alice when he put on the outfits and makeup and hit the stage. But slowly, Alice was taking over offstage as well. I admit I pushed hard for that to happen, because Vince wasn’t really a rock star—Alice was. And we needed the rock star not only onstage, but also offstage, hanging out with other stars, talking to the press, drinking, having a great time.

Of all the band members, rock stardom had the worst impact on Glen. He became such a horrible alcoholic he almost died from it, then switched to drugs. He was the band’s Brian Jones, an integral founding member who lost his way and was barely part of the band anymore. He showed up for rehearsals and recording sessions erratically. We had to hire a session guitarist to play his parts for him. It angered some of the other guys in the band, who wanted to fire him, but Alice loved Glen and couldn’t do that to him.

Alice took some of his first real money from Warners and bought himself a nice house in Benedict Canyon, north of Beverly Hills. He bought it from H. R. Haldeman, of Nixon White House and Watergate break-in fame. Cary Grant lived next door, and Elton John had a house just up the road. I woke up the day after escrow, turned on the news, and saw on my TV screen the house burning down. Right to the ground. Apparently Elton John saw flames in the windows and called the fire department.

I called Alice and said, “I have some good news and some bad news.”

“Give me the good news first,” he said.

“You know that skylight you wanted in the bedroom? No problem.”

“Great,” he said. “What’s the bad news?”

“The house burned down.”

He thought I was joking at first. He went on to build a completely new house on the site and lived there for most of the 1970s.

Living in Benedict Canyon made Alice a neighbor of one of his biggest heroes—Groucho Marx. Groucho was in his eighties and frail, Alice was a rock star in his early twenties, but they hit it off. Like me, Alice had been a huge Marx Brothers fan ever since childhood. He had watched the movies dozens of times and could practically quote them line for line.

Groucho had insomnia and would call Alice at one in the morning and ask him to come over. Alice would get on the bed with him and they’d watch TV until Groucho fell asleep—both of them wearing Mickey Mouse ears. It was the cutest thing you ever saw. Groucho chewed on a cigar, Alice worked on a six-pack of Bud, and they watched old movies.

Alice respected Groucho as a living legend, a comic genius, and a virtuoso entertainer. Once he got to know Groucho the man, he adored him even more, and felt very protective of him in his old age. Groucho treated Alice like a son. He liked Alice so much, he started calling him “Coop,” which had been his affectionate name for his friend Gary Cooper. They went places together all the time. They sang a duet of Groucho’s signature song, “Lydia the Tattooed Lady,” at a birthday party for Sinatra. Alice took Groucho to the Polo Lounge for his eighty-sixth birthday. I thought their odd-couple friendship was really, really sweet.

I first met Groucho one night when Alice called and said, “Can you come over to Groucho’s house?” I was really nervous about meeting him. I was twenty-two, and as I said, like Alice I’d been a Marx Brothers fan all my life. They made me and my dad laugh so many times. I felt I owed Groucho so much. I found them on the bed, watching TV. We made a little small talk until Groucho fell asleep and we left. The next morning Alice called and said, “You notice there wasn’t a nurse last night? He requires around-the-clock care, but he can’t afford the night shift of nurses anymore. Can you see if you can put his business back together?”

Erin Fleming, a part-time actress, was Groucho’s assistant. She had started out as his secretary, mostly to answer fan mail, and at some point moved in. When they appeared together on Dick Cavett’s TV talk show, she said, “I’m Groucho’s secretary.” And he cracked, “This is the euphemism of the year.” He was in his eighties, she was maybe thirty, and he wanted the world to think she was assisting him with more than the mail. When he was alone, he’d slump over like a marionette with its strings cut. But when she walked into the room, he’d perk up right away.

Erin hired me. I never really had a conversation with Groucho about being hired. I brought in a guy named Bill Owen, who worked for me in L.A., and positioned him in Groucho’s house to be the point man. We looked into Groucho’s financial affairs and they were a mess. He had to be wealthy, but nobody seemed to know where the money was. We found a bunch of freeloaders on the books, whom Groucho was paying for doing nothing. We weeded them out.

I concentrated on finding him more income sources. I was really proud of the first deal I did for him. In London, at the end of the block-long Savile Row, was a top-class men’s tailor shop called Blades. When you walked or drove down Savile Row you looked right at their big display window. I licensed them Groucho’s image for a sweater they displayed in that window for years. I wear one in Supermensch. We also helped get the episodes of his old TV show You Bet Your Life back on the air, which took some doing. Almost everyone who appeared on that show was an actor who came under Screen Actors Guild rules, which meant you could syndicate it but you’d lose money unless you cut deals with the actors or their estates to reduce their SAG rates. A lawyer had already outlined the strategy and started making the phone calls, and we helped execute.

In 1972 A&M released the album An Evening with Groucho, a live recording of a one-man show he did at Carnegie Hall. TV show host Dick Cavett introduced; Groucho told family stories and jokes, and sang a few of the classic old songs from his films, with Erin singing backup and Marvin Hamlisch on piano. Albums actually made money in those days, so I thought we should ask A&M to give Groucho an advance against potential future earnings, which we could use to pay for nurses. A&M stood for Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, the label’s founders, both industry legends. Erin knew Moss and got us a meeting. To me, Moss was larger than life, a guy from the Bronx who had made better than good. I was feeling particularly small and insignificant as we arrived at A&M’s offices, which were in the beautiful old Charlie Chaplin Studios at La Brea and Sunset.

Erin and I waited a short while, then Jerry Moss rolled into the room in a wheelchair. I didn’t know if he had a permanent condition or had just had an accident or something; he is only about ten years older than me. Erin hugged him.

“Listen, guys, I’m on my way to the hospital,” he said. “I’m getting back surgery today. But I figured it was important, and I love Groucho. So what are we meeting about?”

Nervously, I said, “Mr. Moss, thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I got involved in Groucho’s financial affairs, and we’re looking for ways to get him some income to pay for the health care he needs at this stage in his life. We’re wondering if—”

Out of nowhere, like a tiger exploding out of the underbrush, Erin started screaming at him. “You motherfucker! You’re fuckin’ stealing from him, you cocksucker!” And on and on, raging like a madwoman.

I was shocked. I didn’t know her well and had no idea where this was coming from. It was one of the most insane things I’d ever seen. He let her scream like that for maybe thirty seconds, then turned to me and said, “Shep, can I see you outside?”

I followed him to the outer office.

“So what’s this about?” he said, remarkably calm under the circumstances.

I explained that I’d gotten involved through Alice, that we were looking for ways to pay for night nurses, etc.

“I’m really sorry this happened, Mr. Moss. I had no idea. This is the last thing I wanted.”

Now, this is the kind of mensch Jerry Moss is. He pulled out a checkbook and right there and then wrote Groucho a personal check for a significant amount. I was so moved and touched. Then, as he held it out to me, he got a little glint in his eye and said through a crooked smile, “There’s only one thing I ask.”

“Name it,” I said.

“Don’t bring her back!”

Jerry has a coupon with me that goes all the way back to that day. I will gladly pay it back for the rest of my life. I will do anything I can do for him at any time. That’s what a coupon is. More than that, I had a feeling that day that we’d become good friends, and we did. I found him a house in Maui, so we became neighbors. I helped to organize the wedding of Jerry and his beautiful wife, Ani, in the heart of Maui. A few friends attended, including Herb Alpert and his wife, Lani. Herb blew a conch shell we found on the beach. I arranged for a helicopter from the Kapalua Hotel to bring in champagne, caviar, and a picnic dinner. A few years ago Jerry asked me where I’d like to go for my birthday. He has his own plane. I said Bhutan, and he and Ani flew me there.

The rest of Erin’s story, unfortunately, is a sad one. When Groucho died in 1977 she fought a big court battle with his family over the estate, and lost. The mental instability she flashed in Jerry’s office grew more pronounced over the years. She would be periodically institutionalized in the 1990s, sometimes living on the street in between, and she killed herself with a gun in 2003. Still, she did a lot of good things for Groucho in his final years, and he was very happy to have her around.

At some point Groucho got curious about Alice’s act, which he’d seen something about on TV, so Alice invited him to a concert in L.A. Alice’s stage show was as elaborate as we could afford to make it by then. It was theatrical and cinematic as much as musical. I loved it and pushed for it, because I loved theater and still didn’t care much for the music. Alice did “Dwight Fry” in the straitjacket. For “Dead Babies” he chopped up baby dolls with a hatchet and lots of fake blood. It was my idea, even though I had to turn my head for that part of the show. As I said, I feel faint at the sight of blood, even if I know it’s fake. If I cut a finger I have to get down on the floor and put my feet up above my head for a few minutes. That’s why I wanted it in the show. I figured that if it freaked me out it had to have an effect on the audience. Alice says it was his idea to start performing with a huge boa constrictor curling around him. I’m sure I approved even though I’m very frightened of snakes. I have never touched a snake in my life. We also staged a choreographed knife fight inspired by West Side Story. It ended with the band dragging Alice to the gallows and hanging him.

Erin brought Groucho. Wearing earplugs, he watched the fake blood, the mock hanging, the snakes, all of it, and loved it. After the show, a reporter asked him what he thought and he said, “Alice is the last chance for vaudeville.”

When Alice read that quote in the paper the next day, he said, “Wow, that’s exactly what it is.” I thought so, too. It had not occurred to us before then, but vaudeville was the perfect frame to put around what we were doing, a big, freewheeling spectacle of nutty, offbeat novelty acts. Groucho had seen it before we did.

Every couple of weeks a bunch of us went to Groucho’s house for dinner. After dinner everybody had to give a little performance for him. Apparently it had been a tradition in the Marx household when he was growing up. Groucho insisted it be something you wouldn’t usually do. If you were a singer, you had to dance. Alice told a string of one-liners once. If you wanted musical accompaniment, Jeff Bridges might be there to play guitar, or Marvin Hamlisch or Bud Cort at the piano. (Bud was the young actor in Harold & Maude. He often came over to watch TV with Groucho, too.) When it got around to me, I always read contracts to musical accompaniment. Groucho would let me go for maybe thirty seconds before calling, “Get out of here!”

Groucho never turned off the shtick. A group of us would be out somewhere, and he’d turn to me and say, “You’re Shep?”

“Yes, Groucho.”

“You’re my manager?”

“Yes, Groucho.”

“Funny, you don’t look like a crook.”

Or we’d be sitting in a restaurant and he’d say, “It’s been five minutes and you haven’t sued anybody yet.”

Sometimes I still can’t believe that I got to work with Groucho Marx. I can’t say I ever developed a close friendship with him, like Alice and Bud Cort did. I don’t think I ever sat down for a one-on-one conversation with him. I was always too much in awe to talk. And I wasn’t trying to develop a career for him at that point in his life. My job was to maximize his assets, and I was proud and happy to do it.