Groucho Marx on having dinner with T. S. Eliot

It was not a Literary Evening

The main brother in the Marx Brothers and the Nobel Prize winner were fans of each other’s work and corresponded late in their lives. In their exchanges, Groucho was Groucho, once reflecting on Eliot’s first name, “There was once a famous Jewish actor named Thomashevsky. All male cats are named Tom - unless they have been fixed. . . .So when I call you Tom, this means you are a mixture of a heavyweight prizefighter, a male alley cat and the third President of the United States.” The Marxes visited the Eliots at their flat in London in 1964, six months before Eliot died. This story, told in a letter to his brother Gummo, appears in The Groucho letters: letters from and to Groucho Marx.

Groucho wanted a “Literary Evening” (capitals his), and in the week before had read Murder in the Cathedral twice and The Waste Land three times, and “just in case of a conversational bottleneck,” King Lear. He quotes The Wasteland.

Eliot smiled faintly — as though to say he was thoroughly familiar with his poems and didn't need me to recite them. So I took a whack at "King Lear." I said the king was an incredibly foolish old man, which God knows he was; and that if he'd been my father I would have run away from home at the age of eight — instead of waiting until I was ten.

That, too, failed to bowl over the poet. He seemed more interested in discussing "Animal Crackers" and "A Night at the Opera." He quoted a joke — one of mine— that I had long since forgotten. Now it was my turn to smile faintly. . . .

As for Eliot, he asked if I remembered the courtroom scene in "Duck Soup." Fortunately I'd forgotten every word.

It was obviously the end of the Literary Evening, but very pleasant none the less. I discovered that Eliot and I had three things in common: (1) an affection for good cigars and (2) cats; and ( 3 ) a weakness for making puns — a weakness that for many years I have tried to overcome. T. S., on the other hand, is an unashamed — even proud— punster. For example, there's his Gus, the Theater Cat, whose "real name was Asparagus." . . .

He is a dear man and a charming host. When I told him that my daughter Melinda was studying his poetry at Beverly High, he said he regretted that, because he had no wish to become compulsory reading.

We didn’t stay late, for we both felt he wasn’t up to a long evening of conversation — especially mine.

Did I tell you we called him Tom? — possibly because that's his name. I, of course, asked him to call me Tom too, but only because I loathe the name Julius.

Yours,

Tom Marx

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