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THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK

HAROLD ARLEN

AT THE CIRCUS: “LYDIA THE TATTOOED LADY”

The Marx Brothers had carved out a successful niche at Paramount, and their zany method of barely controlled chaos had taken them out of vaudeville and Broadway, and established them in Hollywood. Irving Thalberg at MGM had begun the process of wooing the brothers, and Louie B. Mayer inked the deal.

Mayer added romantic subplots to the Marx Brother movies featuring photogenic actors and actresses under contract to the studio. Groucho didn’t like this, but it added a lot of box office appeal to the Marx Brothers’ films at MGM and added to the money everyone made. What clinched the deal was that Mayer built a theater on the MGM lot where the Marx Brothers could try out their bits before live audiences to see how well they played. This gave the guys a chance to polish their material for the movies.

The songs that Harold and Yip wrote for the brothers weren’t recorded by many others, but they made their way into the songbook because no one could resist Groucho. Everyone who has ever seen this movie can sing the chorus. This is the clip from the film.

Groucho Marx: “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” (1939)

This is a video clip from “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1969. He’s in the last years of his long life, has trouble holding the tune, but he’s only slowed down a little.

Groucho Marx: “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” (1969)

:-)