Radio: What Comes Naturally

When he played master of ceremonies on a quiz show last season, Groucho Marx worked a radio wonder by winning the prized Peabody Award as the best comedian on the air. This week he worked another one. After Variety had reported that giveaways are giving way to “entertainment without the gimmicks,” Groucho sold his radio giveaway, You Bet Your Life (Wed. 9 p.m. E.S.T., CBS), to a new sponsor (De Soto) for five years starting Jan. 1.

The Marxian formula is simple, scriptless, and enormously successful. Each couple of contestants (three for each half-hour show) is given $20 and a chance to bet on their answers to questions in a given field. Quizmaster Groucho perches on a stool by the microphone, and chats with them between questions. He encourages them to tell their life stories, and as they talk, he festoons the impromptu dialogue with strings of rapid-fire gags, or simply guides his victims into verbal traps and lets them writhe. “Women are the best ones on this program,” says Marx, carefully flicking cigar ashes on his grey slacks. “They talk a lot. And the older women talk more than the younger ones. They make great contestants, but I’d hate to be married to one of them.”*

Incorrigible Punster Marx often uses the double play on words—no matter how obvious it is—to make his misanthropic points (“I used to think a dowry was where you got milk—until I got married. I got milked plenty then”). He can affect poor hearing if it will make a gag go: once he pretended to think a woman described herself as a “monster” instead of a “spinster” (“Oh well,” he said, winding up the whole discussion, “there isn’t a great deal of difference”).

After the breakup of the stage & screen team of the Marx Brothers (The Coconuts, Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera), Groucho was on & off radio for ten years before anyone found him particularly funny on the air. Then Producer John Guedel saw him ad lib for ten minutes on a network show when Bob Hope accidentally dropped his script. Shortly thereafter Guedel put Groucho into You Bet Your Life. He still has some qualms: “Having Groucho as emcee of a quiz show is like using a Cadillac to haul coal.”

But Groucho likes it fine. “In the old days they almost threw me off the air if I deviated from the script,” he says. “I had to sign a written pledge that I would read only what was before me. But now I’m doing what comes naturally. It’s like stealing money [$3,000 a week] to get paid for this.”

* Groucho, 54, has been married to second wife Kay Dittig, 27, for four years.