![]() ![]() Potter, the role she played in the stage version from which the film was adapted. Her first feature was the Marx Brothers' The Cocoanuts (1929), in which she played Mrs. Her Broadway career included roles in the musical comedies and plays The Fan (1921), Go Easy, Mabel (1922), The Rise of Rosie O'Reilly (1923/24) and The Fourflusher (1925).ĭumont appeared in 57 films, including some minor silent work beginning with A Tale of Two Cities (1917). and retired from stage work, but, after her husband's sudden death during the 1918 influenza pandemic, Dumont reluctantly returned to the Broadway stage, and soon gained a strong reputation in musical comedies. In 1910, she married millionaire sugar heir and industrialist John Moller Jr. The dark-haired soubrette, described by a theater reviewer as a "statuesque beauty", attracted notice later that decade for her vocal and comedic talents in The Girl Behind the Counter (1908), The Belle of Brittany (1909) and The Summer Widower (1910). Her theatrical debut was in Sleeping Beauty and the Beast at the Chestnut Theater in Philadelphia, and in August 1902, two months before her 20th birthday, she appeared as a singer/comedian in a vaudeville act in Atlantic City. and in Europe, at first under the name Daisy Dumont and later as Margaret (or Marguerite) Dumont. Groucho Marx called her "practically the fifth Marx brother".ĭumont trained as an operatic singer and actress in her teens, and began performing on stage in the U.S. She is best remembered as the comic foil to the Marx Brothers in seven of their films. I really think her story would lend itself well to a staged musical adaptation.The Big Store Margaret Dumont was an merican stage and film actress. I love watching that performance on YouTube, she still had it even up till the bitter end. I would love to see this adapted into a film or a staged musical - her life was fascinating from childhood up until the end when she got to perform with Groucho one final time days before her death. Was there an old award show of the same name? I’ve been googling like crazy but does anyone know what Screen Actors Guild award she won in the 30’s? Clearly it was the current Sag awards as they just started in ‘95. I love that this just came out - it would be a shame for her story to be lost to time, thank you Chris and Howard for taking the time to do this! I do wish there was more detail on her life, her thoughts and feelings about not getting into some of the Marx’s films - instead of just info about those films she wasn’t in which lead to a few pages of her name not even being mentioned but it was still a fascinating history on the brothers and on this amazing underrated actress. I’m so happy I stumbled upon this book! I haven’t read a book in a long time and I love Margaret Dumont and was happy to see her finally get a book! This book will appeal to motion picture enthusiasts, Marx Brothers’ fans, and film historians. Several books have been written about the Marx Brothers as a comedy family and about their individual lives, but there haven’t been any books written about Margaret Dumont. Straight Lady: The Life and Times of Margaret Dumont, "The Fifth Marx Brother" d focuses on the Dumont and her role in the production of the comedy teams' most successful films. You must build up your man but never top him and never steal the laughs from him. a belief she contradicted in a 1942 interview. Her character’s seemingly obliviousness to insult led to the widespread belief, encouraged by Groucho himself, that Dumont was a humorless person who never got the joke. ![]() Tall and regal in bearing, her character provided the perfect foil to the wisecracking Groucho Marx in a series of films including A Night at theOpera and Duck Soup. A Broadway regular by the 1920s, Dumont found lasting fame once she started appearing with the Marx Brothers. On October 20, 1882, future actress Margaret Dumont was born in Brooklyn, New York. ![]()
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