“H. L. Mencken wrote, ‘A legend is a lie that has attained the dignity of age.’ H. L. Mencken was right.”
If I could take absolutely anyone to an imaginary lunch, it would have to be Groucho Marx. And I would take him to Lindy’s. No question. That is, if Groucho were still alive. And if Lindy’s still existed. The famous delicatessen opened in 1921 and closed on February 27, 2018. Groucho opened in 1890 and closed on August 19, 1977, five years after I last spoke to him.
Lindy’s was known for its artery-clogging cheesecake and mile-high pastrami sandwiches. But their most amazing specialty wasn’t on the menu, and they never ran out of it: a seemingly endless supply of insulting waiters. Their witty invective casually aimed at the givers of the occasional ungenerous tip or the slightest complaint about the cold coffee would have bankrupted any other restaurant quicker than a salmonella outbreak. Instead, it made Lindy’s one of the most popular places in town. It was the reason you went there in the first place.
Which is exactly why I wish I could have taken Groucho there. Groucho was the human equivalent of the restaurant. He never appeared to give a damn about anything or anybody. His repartee was as cutting and as effortless as the Lindy’s waiters’ retorts. And his lack of the need to be adored, or even liked, created the opposite effect in his many fans. It certainly did in me.
When I was a little kid, I watched Groucho’s TV quiz show, You Bet Your Life, religiously. I liked the part when the fake bird flew in on a wire and gave out the prize for the secret word of the day. But what really made the show such a “do not miss” for me was Groucho and the cranky, unpredictable, and unrepressed put-downs he ad-libbed in front of millions of people every week.
Groucho simply uttered whatever popped into his head. You could practically see the thought bubble forming above him as he spoke. The contestants weren’t faking their responses, either. They really were embarrassed. And amused. And sometimes even a little mad. The effect was subtle but unforgettable.
Years later I was at a party and ran into a hardworking, not hugely successful actress I knew named Erin Fleming. She casually introduced me to her date—an old man with thick black glasses . . . and an unmistakable moustache. I don’t remember exactly where or when the encounter took place. But I’ll never forget what it felt like to experience Groucho in the flesh. And hear the voice I’d first heard when I was in my single digits.
Groucho was clearly crazy about Erin. Why not? He was eighty, frail, and decidedly lonely. His particular brand of misanthropy may have endeared him to audiences, but it didn’t exactly make for close personal relationships. Erin was charming, gorgeous, and probably, I decided, infatuated with his fame, money, and exalted position in the show business pantheon. But she also seemed—to me, anyway—to have a real affection for the man. His family would come to heartily disagree. But that’s another story.
I pretended not to be awestruck when he shook my hand, but I practically dropped my drink when Erin breezily asked me if it would be all right if Groucho gave me a call sometime. And then, like Brigadoon, they both disappeared into the night, and I was left standing alone wondering what the hell had just happened.
Much to my surprise, the great Groucho called me a few days later to ask if I would be willing to replace him at an event he had agreed to host the following week. I was still trying to wrap my brain around the unimaginable concept of me replacing Groucho Marx at anything when Erin got on the phone to confirm the request: Groucho had indeed agreed to host an event at the esteemed Hillcrest Country Club and then realized he wasn’t up to it. For reasons I will never comprehend, she has told Groucho I would be the perfect replacement, and he deeply hopes I will be able make it.
I take a deep breath.
I want to scream, “Ask George Burns. Ask Milton Berle. I’m sure Morty Gunty would be happy to do it,” but I carefully explain to Erin that I am hardly qualified to replace the most revered comic genius in the world at anything. And even if I were, when the audience hears an unknown character actor like me is replacing Groucho, they will throw bricks at me.
She seems so genuinely crushed by my response that I tell her I will think about it, hang up the phone, spend twenty-four hours feeling horribly guilty, wait another twenty-four hours to make it look as though I am seriously considering it, and then call Erin back to say I can’t do it. I have suddenly booked a commercial in Toronto. And that’s the last I ever see or hear from either one of them.
The entire Balaban/Groucho “experience” lasted less than a week and occupied a scant ten minutes. And yet the event occupies a much larger seat in the balcony of my brain than it has any right to. How many times do we get to meet one of our heroes in the flesh? And how many of those times do they ask us to help them out of a jam?
I have been mulling over this brief and perplexing encounter for decades. In the litany of regrets I recite to myself when it’s late at night and I’m sitting in an airport waiting for a much-delayed flight, Groucho never fails to make a brief appearance.
It would be a relief to have my imaginary lunch with Groucho. I’d get to ask him about his friendships with T. S. Eliot and Carl Sandburg. Did they think it was funny when he insulted them? Did he take them to Lindy’s? How did they meet in the first place? Did they all belong to the same temple group?
We’d talk about Margaret Dumont and whether or not she really didn’t know the movies they did together were comedies. Or whether Bob Hope really kept Groucho waiting for an hour when he first appeared on Hope’s radio program and Groucho got so mad that he needled Hope mercilessly and was so funny that he ended up landing his own insult-filled quiz show that lasted for thirteen years?
I’d finally get a chance to tell Groucho that the theatres in Chicago where he and his brothers performed their vaudeville act were built by my family after they fled Russia at the turn of the last century and ended up in America. I would tell Groucho that his mom, Minnie, had been pals with my grandmother Gussie. I’d ask if he remembers what my grandmother was like. I’ve always wanted to know more about her.
I’d reminisce with Groucho about the time I auditioned for a voice-over for Chico’s daughter Maxine Marx, a successful casting director, and we talked about the old days in Chicago. She told me about the time she was standing backstage with George S. Kaufman, watching her dad and his brothers perform one of Kaufman’s new plays, when Kaufman suddenly pointed at the stage and whispered excitedly to Maxine, “My God, my God! They just said one of my lines!”
I’d really like to know if Groucho ended up hosting that Hillcrest event or if he managed to find some braver soul than I to take the bullet for him.
H. L. Mencken wrote, “A legend is a lie that has attained the dignity of age.” H. L. Mencken was right. The lesson I learned from my decades-old encounter still resonates. Legends don’t necessarily seem like legends when they hold still long enough for you to get a good look at them.
In person, my legend couldn’t have been less funny, special, or memorable if he tried. In fact, he bore an uncanny resemblance to a good third of the adult male population of the building I grew up on Chicago’s North Side. They, too, came equipped with cigars, bushy eyebrows, and a heavy dose of sarcasm.
And yet it’s precisely that unquantifiable, illusive dissonance between the legend and the person behind it that so tantalizes us.
There will be no surprises at my imaginary Lindy’s lunch. And no disappointments. The matzoh balls will be hard as rocks. The chicken soup as cold as ice. The waiters will, of course, refuse to even acknowledge Groucho’s presence until he puts out his ever-present cigar. They’ll grunt disapprovingly when he orders his beloved banana shortcake. And when the check finally arrives after an unconscionably long wait, Groucho will have conveniently forgotten his wallet, aim his perfectly timed shrug in my direction, and say more with his eternally ironic smile and half-raised eyebrows than a thousand well-chosen words ever could.
Bob Balaban has been an actor for more than a hundred years. He sometimes directs and produces. Previous literary endeavors include a bestselling series of children’s books called McGrowl and a memoir about the making of Close Encounters of the Third Kind called Spielberg, Truffaut, and Me. He currently resides in Bridgehampton, New York, where he’s contemplating what to do with the next hundred years.