THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GROUCHO
Thursday, August 14, 2014 21:49
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.
For as long as I can remember I have loved Groucho Marx [pictured] and his movies, TV shows, and writings.
Groucho, who was Jewish, was not into formal, institutional religion, although he did start attending services at a liberal synagogue, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, in the last few years of his life, but it seems that was more to please his then secretary and companion Erin Fleming who had converted to Judaism. In fact, Groucho hated institutions of all kinds. For example, he said of marriage, ‘Marriage is a fine, upstanding institution, but who wants to live in an institution?’ So that’s what he thought of institutions. ‘I’m the brash, realistic type,’ he once said.
A number of persons, including his son Arthur and the actor Stanley Holloway(with whom Groucho starred in a 1960 Bell Telephone Hour television production of The Mikado) have written that Groucho was an agnostic. On one occasion, when speaking about his father, Sam, said, ‘Sam was a great cook. He could convert leftovers into something fit for the gods, assuming there are any left.’ And he had this to say about the last film in which he appeared [see image below]: ‘In my last film [Skidoo] I played God. Jesus, I hope God doesn’t look like that.’
Although not formally religious Groucho did identify very closely with the Jewish people and during his long lifetime he donated generously to a number of Jewish charities and causes. He was also the victim of antiSemitism. He would often recall the time when a country club manager told him he couldn’t use the swimming pool. His reply has made it into countless books of quotations. ‘Since my daughter is only half-Jewish, could she go in up to her knees?’ He would also tell this one:
Two Jewish men in Israel are in adjoining urinals. One says to the other, ‘Are you Jewish?’ He says, ‘Yes.’ So the first man says, ‘How is it you’re not circumcised?’ ‘Well,’ says the other guy, ‘I’m not sure I’m going to stay.’
Groucho certainly did not believe in an afterlife. ‘You only live once, despite what Jesus or somebody said … Go out to the garden and tear a flower in four. It won’t be a flower again.’ He said that in a 1969 New York Times interview. A few years later he was asked by Bill Cosby whether he believed in life after death—this was in 1973 when Groucho appeared on Bill’s TV show—and this was Groucho’s reply. ‘I’m beginning to have serious doubts about life before death.’ Love it. Then there’s this whimsical quip: ‘Someday we’ll meet in Heaven. New York. Or Philadelphia.’ In his book The Grouchophile, published in 1976, Groucho had this to say about his brother Chico:
Chico was a rogue and a scamp. Had the Lord spared him and allowed him a few more years, he wouldn’t have changed. I can imagine that after being rescued from death’s door, he would look God straight in the eye and ask, ‘What odds will You give me on another ten years?’
I’m sure Groucho did not pray in any traditional way, but he did write this in his 1976 book The Secret Word is Groucho:
There’s a prayer of sorts I recite to myself every night. I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s me: ‘Unborn tomorrow, and dead yesterday, why fret about them if today be sweet?’
Well, I do not where that ‘prayer of sorts’ comes from. It’s from the The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
On another occasion Groucho expressed it this way. ‘Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, and I’m going to be happy in it.’ On yet another occasion he expanded on the same theme:
Each morning when I open my eyes, I say to myself, I, not the events, have the power to be happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead. Tomorrow has not arrived yet. I have just one day, and I’m going to be happy.
Groucho once told the showbiz writer and interviewer Pete Martin that he got that advice from a 100-year old man who appeared on Groucho’s TV show You Bet Your Life. It’s damn good advice. No matter what happens to us in life, we all have choices. We can alwayschoose how to respond to what happens. Each of us is in the manufacturing business. We manufacture our own happiness or unhappiness every moment of every day.
Groucho may not have believed in religion or the hereafter but he did believe in life—and in living fully and deeply. ‘I intend to live forever, or die trying,’ he once quipped.
He died trying. But his legacy will live on forever.
Material owned and controlled by the Estate of Groucho Marx
or other rightsholders is copyright. Fair use permitted. All rights reserved.
or other rightsholders is copyright. Fair use permitted. All rights reserved.
RELATED POST
Source: http://ianellis-jones.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-gospel-according-to-groucho.html
Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world.
Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.
"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.
Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.
"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.
Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!
Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!
HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.
Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.
MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)
Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser! Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!
Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.
Smart Meter Cover - Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).
MOST RECENT
HELP KEEP NEWS FREE
DONATE
HERE
| Online: | |
| Visits: | 1,604,430,079 |
| Stories: | 8,153,167 |
Wanted: Citizen Reporters,
Whistler Blowers, Insiders
Whistler Blowers, Insiders
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Zechariah 4:6
Today's Top Stories
Featured
Top Global
Top Alternative
Se religion, it takes that person away from God, you.
barh barh. 