Hello, I Must Be Going

Groucho did not grow old gracefully, because there is no such thing. It was an indignity with which he lived, with the greatest dignity possible. "Growing old is what you do if you are lucky," he said, and though any decline was a constant offense to his pride, Groucho mustered all his strength for what in the end had to be a losing battle.

The Groucho legend, however, didn't age; it was frozen in time. The Duck Soup Groucho was expected by some; others expected to find the You Bet Your Life Groucho. After one of his jokes you could hear echoes of "He's the same, he's the same as ever!" People didn't want to see their idol fall. If Groucho was aging, so were they -- someone else's old age is a threat to one's own immortality. Time may pass for them as it does for other mortals, but they are shocked to find that it also passes for an immortal of the silver screen and the video tube. Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff, Impresario Otis B. Driftwood, and Dr. Hugo Z. ... read full excerpt from: Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends ebook