MINNIE MARX AND THE MARX BROTHERS

Behind every great man is a great woman. So I wanted to take a look at the woman behind the greatest comedy team of all-time The Marx Brothers. The fifth of Levy Schönberg and Fanny Sophie Salomons's nine children, Minnie Marx was born in Dornum, Germany on November 9, 1865 and grew up in a family of entertainers. Her father was a ventriloquist and magician, her mother was a harpist, and according to family lore they and their children wandered all around Germany in a covered wagon, going from town to town putting on shows and entertaining people. In the 1870s, the family began coming to America. In 1879, Miene, by then called Minna (and soon to have her name changed to Minnie Schoenberg), came with the third wave of family immigration and settled in the Lower East Side.

On January 18, 1885 she married Samuel Marx (né Simon Marrix), although they later pushed back the date of their marriage to 1884 when they took in her sister Hänne (Hannah)'s illegitimate daughter Pauline, who was born in January of 1885, and began passing her off as their own. Many people believe that due to the death of her firstborn child, Manfred, at seven months of age in July of 1886, she pushed her five living sons into show business and took a very large role in doing so. To help her sons along when they were just getting started in vaudeville, she moved the family to Chicago in 1909 to be closer to a number of important vaudeville houses, and also because she felt she could do a better job at organizing their careers in this central hub city, as opposed to in the vaudeville scene back on the East Coast. 

Shortly after moving to Chicago, she also began billing herself as Minnie Palmer, which happened to be the same name as a woman who had also been involved in the entertainment industry. The original Minnie Palmer was out of the country at the time Minnie Marx began using her name. Seeing as how she was still living and eventually returned to the United States and successfully restarted her performing career, this caused understandable confusion and mix-ups in the press. However, whether or not she adopted this new name because she knew it already had a famous bearer, she didn't mind people assuming they were one and the same, since it meant good press for her sons. In Chicago she put her all into hobnobbing with booking agents for vaudeville houses, promoting her sons' act, and for a time was also in their act, along with her sister Hannah. She also became the only female producer in Chicago at the time, producing not only her sons but a number of other acts as well. Some of her acts were so successful they were booked on tours that took them not only around Chicago but also to more distant places in the United States. She became very good at working the press to her and her acts' advantage. After the United States entered World War I, she found out that farmers were exempted from the draft and subsequently bought a farm in a then-undeveloped region of Illinois so that her sons could be kept at home. 

However, her second-youngest son, Gummo, did end up joining the Army eleven days before the Armistice, at which time she put her youngest son Zeppo into the act in his place. All of her hard work eventually paid off when her sons graduated from being popular vaudeville stars to big stars playing on the more respectable stage of Broadway. Before the opening night of their first Broadway show, 'I'll Say She Is,' in 1924, she broke her leg while being fitted for a gown and was carried into the theatre, where she was placed in a box seat in the front row. This moment was described as her personal victory, a victory that was even greater when her sons' first film, 'The Cocoanuts,' had a very successful premiere and subsequent run starting in May of 1929. On September 13 of that year, she had a seizure and slumped over while she and her husband were being driven home from the family Friday night Sabbath dinner at the home of Zeppo and his wife Marion. The chauffeur was ordered to turn around and drive back to the house, where the other members of the family were still gathered. Early the next morning, with her nearest and dearest around her, she died of a stroke at the age of sixty-four...

GUMMO MARX: THE FORGOTTEN MARX BROTHER

Often referred to as the "forgotten" Marx brother, Gummo Marx was the first to leave the act to enlist in World War I and become a businessman.
Synopsis

Often referred to as the "forgotten" Marx brother, Gummo Marx played the role of straight man in the famous comedy troupe until he left the act to serve in World War I. The youngest of the Mark Brothers, Zeppo, took his place. Gummo went on to become a businessman, agent and inventor, and parhaps the most beloved sibling of all.

Everyone thinks of Harpo as the silent one (not with that horn!), but Gummo Marx was actually the quiet one. Born Milton Marx on October 21, 1892, in New York City, Gummo, like his brothers, was a first-generation American, the fifth of six boys born to Sam and Minnie Marx, who left Europe and met in New York. The first of their six sons, Manfred, died in infancy.

There are related versions as to how Gummo acquired his nickname, all revolving around shoes: Legend has it that he was stealthy backstage, sneaking up on people like a gumshoe (detective), so monologist Art Fisher dubbed him Gummo. However, it has also been reported that Gummo actually wore rubber-soled shoes because frequent illnesses required that his feet be protected from damp.

Gummo was actually the first Marx brother on stage, appearing early on in his Uncle Julius's ventriloquism act. Then, Minnie Marx organized a vaudeville singing troupe called the Three Nightingales in 1909, with Groucho, Gummo and singer Mabel O'Donell, to tour the circuit. When Harpo was brought in, they became the Four Nightingales, and Minnie occasionally joined in the act along with the boys' aunt, Hannah Schickler, making them the Six Mascots. When Chico joined the act, they became the Four Marx Brothers.
WWI, Talent Agent and Inventor

When Gummo left the brother act to join the war effort in 1917, youngest brother Zeppo took over his role as straight man.

Gummo's military service in the U.S. Army didn't require him to go overseas, but he didn't return to the stage after World War I, deciding to start a raincoat business instead. He later became a successful talent agent, especially after Zeppo joined him in the business when he, too, left the act.

Gummo ended up representing brother Groucho as well as other top talent of the time, including Glenn Ford, and helped develop the television series Life of Riley. He also held a patent for a packing rack he'd invented.
Personal Life and Legacy

Gummo married Helen von Tilzer in 1929 and their son, Robert, was born the following year.

Gummo Marx died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 21, 1977, at his home in Palm Springs, California. He is buried next to wife Helen at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. His three grandsons all went into show business.

In The Marx Brothers Scrapbook, Groucho expressed his affection for Gummo, with some unkind words for Zeppo. But Zeppo, too, felt closest to Gummo. In his last interview, Zeppo told the BBC, "Gummo was a love. He didn't like show business but I think he felt, same as I did, that he was inadequate, that he wasn't doing his share. I miss Gummo very much...

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RIP: MIRIAM MARX

Just got word from the grapevine that Groucho’s daughter Miriam Marx Allen passed away on June 29th, 2017 at the age 90. She was one of the last links to the Marx Brothers’ glory days. When Miriam was born in 1927 The Coconuts was on Broadway, and the family was still based in New York. When the team retired from films (the first time) after The Big Store she was only 14.

Like her mom Ruth Johnson, who’d also performed with the family act, Miriam sadly developed an alcohol problem, and had a troubled relationship with her famous father. Her book  "Love Groucho: Letters from Groucho Marx to His Daughter Miriam", was first published in 1992.

Miriam’s older brother Arthur, author and playwright, passed away in 2011. She is survived by her half-sister Melinda, 20 years her junior, another link with the storied Marxian past...

HOW THE MARX BROTHERS GOT THEIR NAMES

Today I found out four of the five Marx brothers got their nicknames during a poker game.

The famed Marx family comedy act was made up of Julius, Adolph, Leonard, Milton, and Herbert Marx. But to all of us who know and love this delightful comedy group, we know these five characters better as Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Gummo, and Zeppo Marx, names four of the five were given one fateful night in 1915.

The boys got involved in a poker game in Galesburg, Illinois with monologist Art Fisher. It was a popular fad around this time to give everyone and anyone a nickname that ended in “o”. For instance, common nicknames were things like “Jingo” or “Bongo” or “Ringo” or “Typo” or “Cheerio”. (You get the idea.)

In this poker game, Fisher was dealing out the cards to the four Marx brothers and he gave them each their nicknames in rapid fire. “First, here’s a card for ‘Harpo’.” Harpo was the easiest, Adolph Marx played the harp.

“Here’s one for ‘Chicko’.” Leonard Marx was a notorious ladies’ man and, in those days, women and girls were often referred to as “chickens”. (Later, as now, the slang term became “chicks”, which had actually previously referred to children since the 17th century.) As Groucho later said, Chico got the nickname as he was a “Chicken chaser”.



You might be wondering at this point, why it was later “Chico” instead of “Chicko”. Supposedly, a typesetter accidentally left the “k” in “Chico” out in one town the brothers were performing in, and his name became “Chico” instead. This typo gave rise to the misconception that his name should be pronounced as “cheek-o”, when in fact the correct pronunciation is actually “Chick-o”. Although, Chico rarely corrected people when they pronounced it wrong, even show hosts who’d interview him.

Next to be dealt a card was Julius, “and here’s a card for Groucho”. As to why this nickname was picked, there are two popular explanations and one that for a long time was put forth by Groucho, which few believe. The first is that the name derived from Julius’ not-so-friendly demeanor. Julius denied this for most of his life. The second popular theory is that it had to do with an item he commonly carried with him, a big pouch-type container, popular at the time, called a “grouch bag” (a.k.a. a small purse that goes around your neck and under your shirt), where Groucho kept his money.

The origin story Groucho himself often put forth was that he got the nickname after “Groucho the Monk” from the Knocko the Monk comic strip. However, shortly before he died, Groucho said that he hadn’t been entirely honest about the origin of his name and that Al Fisher had given him the nickname because of a propensity towards moodiness. However, it isn’t clear if this is any more accurate than his “comic strip character” origin story.



The fourth and least-known Marx brother was Milton, “and here’s a card for Gummo”, Fisher said, as he dealt the final Marx brother his card. This one has two popular theories behind it, but the one the family (excepting Harpo) states is correct is that Milton often wore gumshoes (rubber soled shoes), hence the “gummo” moniker. The alternate origin put forth by Harpo is that Gummo was sneaky and would creep up on people like a gumshoe detective. In both cases, the origin is related to the rubber soled gumshoes (where gumshoe detectives got their name).

As to how the fifth Marx brother got his name, that one’s completely up for debate. A few years later, the new straight man and the youngest of the five brothers entered the act, replacing older brother, Gummo. Herbert Marx somehow became the infamous “Zeppo” Marx. Harpo said Zeppo was named in honor of a wild monkey who played on the bars and ran around named “Zippo”. Groucho, on the other hand, said in 1972 that Zeppo was named after the Zeppelin airships...



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GROUCHO MARX AND HIS LAST SECRETARY

In January 1974, a 19-year-old UCLA student named Steve Stoliar started The Committee for the Rerelease of Animal Crackers to pressure Universal Studios into releasing the Marx Brothers' 1930 black-and-white film, which had been in copyright limbo for at least two decades. Executives at Universal were more concerned with their recent releases, Airport 75 and Earthquake, than they were in untangling the legal knots necessary to re-release a 44-year-old movie.

"I probably discovered the Marx Brothers when I was in high school and I wondered where they had been hiding all my life," Steve Stoliar said in a recent interview with us.

"They were such a wonderful blend of physical comedy and clever wordplay -- either Groucho's wordplay or Chico's mangling of the language."

Marx mania swept college campuses in the late '60s and early '70s. Their anarchic shenanigans resonated with baby boomers who weren't even alive when the Marx Brothers were making movies. Abbie Hoffman once said, "Groucho Marx had more to do with my subversion than Karl Marx."

Stoliar's campaign led to a campus visit from Groucho himself, who sat down and chatted with damn-near levitated Stoliar. After collecting a few thousand signatures, Universal announced that they would strike two prints of the film and premiere it in Westwood and New York. It broke the box-office record at the United Artists Westwood.

Groucho hired Stoliar to work out of the comedian's Beverly Hills home to handle fan mail and organize all of the memorabilia -- an extraordinary job that would last three years and become the basis for one of the more honest and complex show-biz memoirs in modern memory Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House.

Stoliar's storied tenure as Groucho Marx's secretary is tempered with highs and lows, bookended by the psychotic Erin Fleming -- Groucho's young and mercurial life manager and companion who hitched her wagon to the star in his declining years. But before the shadow of Erin Fleming would darken the day -- at least for Stoliar--at 1083 Hillcrest Road, it was an auspicious start to a young man's dream-come-true.

"Erin helped me set up the campaign to get Animal Crackers rereleased," Stoliar said. "She would call me at all hours and just start talking about whatever was on her mind. I felt like I had been specially selected that she'd share all of this information with me."

Most extraordinary was Stoliar's free rein around Groucho's house, not to mention Groucho's egalitarian lunch policy which allowed staff to dine with him and freely interact with celebrity guests.

Although several strokes had diminished Groucho's caustic swagger significantly, there were still many flourishes of the wit that made him Groucho--something which never went unnoticed or unappreciated by his secretary.

"He used to love it when I brought him the mail because he subscribed to the Hollywood trade papers," said Stoliar. "One time he came to the table and said, 'Wonderful mail today, nothing but requests for money.' I said, 'You got a Variety didn't you?' 'Yes,' he said. 'A variety of requests for money.'"

"The only limitation was that I was also fighting against time," said Stoliar. "He was getting hazier and having health problems. It wasn't as though the longer I stayed there, the closer we got, because he was pulling away against his will. It was kind of a strange juggling between time and intimacy."
"Steven was being very parental, almost like he was Groucho's bodyguard," recalled Groucho's nephew and Harpo's son, Bill Marx.

"He was a very important figure in Groucho's life at that time from the standpoint of caring."
It was also gratifying for Groucho to have such an enthusiastic and knowledgeable employee in Stoliar.

 And then there were the many moods of Erin Fleming, which kept everyone--cooks, nurses, maids, and secretary/archivists -- on eggshells and off-balance.

"She would fly off the handle, slam her fist, and slam doors," said Stoliar. We used to tell what kind of mood she was in by how hard she'd throw her keys in the dish. You never really knew what you were in for and it was a release of tension when she'd leave."

There were others who hadn't seen Fleming's dark side and had an altogether different take on her -- at first.

"I didn't see anything wrong with her when I met her," Dick Cavett said.

"She was a little overwrought, always a little on edge -- or had an edge on from something -- but she seemed rather nice and charming and devoted to Groucho. He was pretty lonely and his children were not all that available."

Stoliar always remained mindful of the fact that it was Fleming, after all, who made the dream possible and who allowed him access to Groucho and his famous friends.

It was impossible to ignore Groucho's diminishing mental and physical condition, which concerned friends and family and only intensified Fleming's megalomania. She alienated him from his children and continued booking him for appearances, despite his failing condition, and members of the household witnessed Erin yelling at Groucho until he cried.

"I began to hear Arsenic and Old Lace-type references to Erin and, of course, lived to find that most of it was true," Cavett said. "Steve was a good source of information and we were friends enough that it wasn't as if he was distributing gossip to a stranger who might make damaging use of it."

"Groucho said to my dear friend [biographer] Hector Arce in the hospital towards the end, 'This is no way to live,'" Stoliar said. "He was painfully aware of how bad things had gotten. It was time and yet still you hate saying goodbye."

Groucho Marx died on August 19, 1977.

In the months before Groucho's death, his son Arthur Marx took Fleming to court for temporary conservatorship of his father. A California Superior Court judge appointed writer Nat Perrin to handle his dying friend's affairs and Perrin tasked Stoliar to not only watch the house on weekends, but gave him the authority to keep Fleming from entering the premises. A battle over Groucho's estate raged on for nearly six years before the case came to trial in 1983, but the judge ruled in favor of Arthur Marx, ordering Fleming to repay $472,000 to the Marx estate, including $221,000 the Bank of America claimed she had swindled from Groucho...

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THE PERSONAL SIDE OF HARPO MARX

I have always liked The Marx Brothers, and I think each of them were hilarious and great comedians. However, even though I did not know any of them, I have always felt that Harpo Marx was the kindest and most down to earth person of all of them. I started researching an article on Harpo Marx's personal side, and this is what I found out...

Harpo Marx, born Adolf Harpo Marx in 1888 was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. Harpo married actress Susan Fleming on September 28, 1936. Fleming's wedding to Marx was announced to the public when President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations that November. Marx had sent a thank you letter to Roosevelt in appreciation for a signed photograph of the President, in which Marx had stated that he was "in line for congratulations, too, having been married since September" in a ceremony that took place in an unspecified "little town up North".

Unlike most of his brothers (bar Gummo), (Groucho was divorced three times, Chico once, and Zeppo twice), Harpo's marriage to Susan was lifelong. The couple adopted four children: Bill, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie. When asked by George Burns in 1948 how many children he planned to adopt, he answered: "I’d like to adopt as many children as I have windows in my house. So when I leave for work, I want a kid in every window, waving goodbye."

Harpo was good friends with theater critic Alexander Woollcott and because of this became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table. Harpo, who was quiet in details about his personal life, said his main contribution was to be the audience in that group of wits. In their play The Man Who Came to Dinner, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart based the character of "Banjo" on Harpo. Harpo later played the role in Los Angeles opposite Alexander Woolcott who had inspired the character of Sheridan Whiteside. In 1961, Harpo published his autobiography, which was titled Harpo Speaks. In one chapter, he tells the story of a man who did not believe that Harpo could talk. Because Harpo never spoke a word in all of his movies and TV appearances, many fans and other people believed he really was mute. In fact, radio and TV news recordings of his voice can be found on the Internet, documentaries, and on bonus materials of Marx Brothers DVDs.

In relating one story to a reporter who privately interviewed him in the early 1930s, the reporter wrote that "Harpo had a deep and distinguished voice like a professional announcer" and, like his brothers, he spoke with a New York accent his entire life. Harpo's final presence before the public came in early 1964, when he appeared on stage with singer/comedian Allan Sherman. Sherman burst into tears when Harpo, speaking for the first time to the audience, announced his retirement from the entertainment business. Comedian Steve Allen, who was in the audience, remembered that Harpo – after announcing his retirement from the stage – kept talking for several minutes to the theater audience about his career and how he would miss it all, and he kept verbally cutting Sherman off when he tried to speak. After a while, the sorrowful audience started tittering and giggling. Allen said that everyone found it charmingly ironic that the comedian Harpo Marx, having been mute on stage and screen for several decades, "wouldn't shut up!"

Marx was also an avid croquet player, and was inducted into the Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979. Harpo Marx died on September 28, 1964 (he and his wife, Susan's, 28th wedding anniversary), at age 75, after undergoing open heart surgery following a heart attack, barely six months after his retirement. Harpo's death was said to have hit the surviving Marx brothers very hard. Groucho's son Arthur Marx, who attended the funeral with most of the Marx family, later said that Harpo's funeral was the only time in his life that he ever saw his father cry. Harpo was cremated and his ashes were reportedly sprinkled into the sand trap at the seventh hole of the Rancho Mirage golf course, on which he occasionally played. In his will, he donated his trademark harp to the State of Israel. For never talking on film much, Harpo said a lot by his actions in his personal life...

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: ERIN FLEMING

Not many people will know who Erin Fleming is - I would guess hardly anyone. I just know the name from reading biographies of Groucho Marx and the Marx Brothers. Fleming's story is a sad one that I discovered ended equally sad.

Erin Fleming, born on August 13, 1941, was a Canadian actress who was best known as the companion and "secretary" to Groucho Marx in his final years.
She appeared in minor roles in five films between 1965 and 1976, during which time she became acquainted with Marx and moved into his house.

Fleming's influence on Marx was controversial. Many close to him admitted that she did much to revive his popularity; these efforts included a series of one-man shows, culminating in a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall which was released on a best-selling record album and an honorary Academy Award he received in 1974. Also, some observers felt the apparent relationship with a young starlet boosted Groucho's ego, adding to his vitality. Others, including Marx's son, Arthur, described her in Svengali-esque terms, accusing her of exploiting an increasingly senile and frail Marx in pursuit of her own stardom.

In the years leading up to Marx's death in August 1977, his heirs filed several lawsuits against Fleming. One allegation leveled against Fleming was that she was determined to sell Marx's favorite car, a Cadillac, against his wishes. When Marx protested, it was said, Fleming threatened, "I will slap you from here to Pittsburgh." Many people close to Marx believed Fleming was abusive towards him. Arthur wanted temporary conservatorship of his father, and took Fleming to court. According to the book Raised Eyebrows by Groucho's secretary Steve Stoliar, Fleming had several personal problems; he stated in his book that she used drugs, had mood swings, and was given to inappropriate outbursts, both in public and in private.

The court battles dragged into the early 1980s, but judgments were eventually reached in favor of Arthur Marx, ordering Fleming to repay $472,000 to the Marx estate.

Fleming's mental health deteriorated in the 1990s. She was arrested once in the Los Angeles area on a weapons charge, and spent much of the decade in and out of commitments to various psychiatric facilities. She was also reportedly impoverished and homeless in her final years, living on the streets of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Erin Fleming committed suicide in 2003 by shooting herself...

RIP: ARTHUR MARX

Arthur Marx, who wrote screenplays for film and television and a best-selling book about his father, “Life With Groucho,” died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.

As a child Mr. Marx spent several years on the road with Groucho Marx and the rest of the Marx Brothers’ vaudeville act — Chico, Harpo, Gummo and later Zeppo — before enjoying a celebrity-filled youth in Los Angeles as the brothers rose to stardom.

His own show-business career was varied and long, writing Hollywood screenplays and scripts for some of television’s most popular sitcoms.

But his father’s life and career provided Mr. Marx with perhaps his richest source of material. “Life With Groucho,” published in 1954, captivated readers with its sharp but affectionate portrait of Groucho — who peppered the narrative with kibitzing footnotes — and its shrewd account of the show-business milieu in which he thrived. A sequel, “Son of Groucho,” was published in 1972.

Mr. Marx and Robert Fisher, a former writer for Groucho, also wrote the book for a 1970 Broadway musical about the Marx Brothers, “Minnie’s Boys,” with Shelley Winters in the lead role of Minnie Marx, and “Groucho: A Life in Revue,” which was produced Off Broadway in 1986.

Taken together, Arthur Marx’s two books about his father offered a bittersweet picture of life in the Marx home. He described himself as desperate both to escape from his father’s shadow and to please him, an impossible task. The comic genius who kept millions in stitches was, in his private life, miserly and emotionally distant.

“No matter how much he loves you, he’ll rarely stick up for you,” Mr. Marx wrote in “Son of Groucho.” “He’ll make some sort of wisecrack instead to keep from getting involved. It’s a form of cowardice that can be more frustrating than his monetary habits.”

When “Life With Groucho,” which was much sunnier than the sequel, was being serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, Groucho denounced it as “scurrilous” and threatened legal action unless substantial changes were made.

Arthur sent him a phony set of galley proofs with the requested changes but had the book published as written. Groucho never brought the matter up again.

In 1974, Arthur Marx became embroiled in a legal battle to block the appointment of his father’s longtime companion, Erin Fleming, as the conservator of his estate. Lurid court testimony depicted Ms. Fleming as a controlling, abusive caretaker, and a superior court judge eventually appointed Andy Marx, Arthur’s son, to replace her. Groucho died a little more than a month after that, on Aug. 19, 1977.

Arthur Julius Marx was born in Manhattan on July 21, 1921. After his family moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s he gained renown as a tennis player, achieving national ranking while still in high school and playing on the junior Davis Cup team in 1939 with the future stars Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder and Budge Patty. As a student at the University of Southern California, he competed in national tournaments.

After serving with the Coast Guard in the Philippines during World War II, he returned to Los Angeles and found work as a reader at MGM. He soon turned his hand to screenwriting. He wrote scripts for the 1947 Blondie film “Blondie in the Dough” and several popular short films narrated by Pete Smith.

He later teamed up with Mr. Fisher to write the screenplays for the Bob Hope films “Eight on the Lam,” “A Global Affair,” “I’ll Take Sweden” and “Cancel My Reservation.”

The two went on to write for television sitcoms, including “McHale’s Navy,” “Petticoat Junction, “My Three Sons,” “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Maude.” They wrote 41 episodes of the sitcom “Alice” from 1977 to 1981.

Mr. Marx used his tennis experiences as background for a novel, “The Ordeal of Willie Brown” (1951), about an unsavory tennis bum, and his lighthearted magazine articles about his young family were gathered into a comic memoir, “Not as a Crocodile” (1958). At the time, he was married to Irene Kahn, the daughter of the songwriters Gus and Grace Kahn. (Mr. Marx and Ms. Kahn later divorced.)

In addition to his family memoirs, Mr. Marx wrote several show-business biographies, including “Goldwyn: A Biography of the Man Behind the Myth,” “Red Skelton,” “The Nine Lives of Mickey Rooney” and “The Secret Life of Bob Hope.” His joint biography of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime (Especially Himself),” published in 1974, was made into a television movie, “Martin and Lewis,” in 2002.

With Mr. Fisher, he also wrote the comedy “The Impossible Years,” which opened on Broadway in 1965 with Alan King in the starring role of a harried psychiatrist with two teenage daughters. It ran for 670 performances.

In addition to his sons Steve, of Seattle, and Andy, of Los Angeles, he is survived by his wife, Lois; a stepdaughter, Linda Donovan of Pleasant Hill, Calif.; two sisters, Miriam Allen of San Clemente, Calif., and Melinda Berti of Mendocino, Calif.; four grandchildren; and two step-grandchildren.