Untold Stories: Harpo Marx, Comic, Musician, and Fighter for Jewish Rights

Famed US comedian, musician, and philanthropist Harpo Marx walked down the street in Tel Aviv in 1961. Harpo told his wife, 'You know, this is the first time in my life that I have felt it's okay to be a Jew. I feel safe here.’ And Harpo wanted everyone in America to have equal rights, too.

There are so many inspiring, beautiful stories about the great heroes of American history which are scarcely ever told. One happens on them accidentally—buried in a thick, out-of-print biography, in small print on a museum sign, casually and fleetingly mentioned in an obscure educational video. America cannot return to greatness in the future if we do not truly understand the greatness of our past. That is why I am writing an article series to tell a few of these little-known but moving or illustrative “untold stories” of American greatness. Other articles in this series include John Fitzgerald, Irishman, American Revolutionary, and friend of George Washington; Sgt. York, the pacifist who became a WWI hero; how Union soldiers helped a Virginia slave escape to freedom; Lincoln’s meeting with freed slaves in Richmond; and Bing Crosby’s letters to troops and families during WWII.

Today’s story is about Harpo Marx, the silent but hilarious member of the Marx Brothers comedy group whose wild antics and harp playing made him a beloved star during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin was considered the ultimate silent comedian, but Harpo’s brother Groucho once truly said, “Harpo was as good as Chaplin.” Indeed, in my opinion, Harpo was even funnier than Chaplin. And Harpo used his fame for good, working to combat prejudice against his fellow Jews and all other persecuted groups.

The rest of this article is taken from my piece about Harpo on PJ Media.

Harpo Marx never spoke on screen, yet generations of Americans laughed at, cried with, and enthusiastically applauded him for his comedic genius and musical brilliance. But even amidst the fame and glory of a lengthy career on stage and screen, the Jewish Marx had to contend always with the dark specter of anti-Semitism, leading him to fight for equal rights for all persecuted individuals and for the re-creation of the state of Israel.

The “Marx Brothers” are legendary in American entertainment history, comprising altogether in their vaudeville and movie careers five brothers, nicknamed Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo, and Gummo, though the first three were the most successful over decades of movies and TV and radio appearances. They are most remembered for their wild comedy, though they were all musically gifted, Harpo was a prolific painter, and Zeppo was an engineering pioneer and inventor. Adolph Marx, who Americanized his name to Arthur even before the stigma attached to his first name thanks to Adolf Hitler, received his iconic moniker “Harpo” from his masterly —and self-taught — performances on the harp. Today, Nov. 23, is the anniversary of Harpo’s 1888 birth.

Ironically, while one Adolf is infamous for massacring millions of Jews in the Holocaust, the other Adolph — Harpo — would spend his whole life battling anti-Semitism. Born to German Jewish immigrants in New York, Harpo purportedly left school during the second grade and never returned because of physically harmful and anti-Semitic bullying. Before he became the philanthropist and devoted husband and father whom friends and family remembered as unfailingly soft-spoken and loving toward all, Harpo was a bit of a juvenile delinquent. Poor and out of school, Harpo and his brothers picked up singing and playing jobs whenever they could, and Harpo recalled one time when his musical playing in a brothel was repeatedly interrupted as he fainted. When a doctor came in and diagnosed him with measles, the head of the brothel, who had no sexual inhibitions but apparently a few prejudices, said she didn’t want “sick Jews” on her premises.

You can hear Harpo himself tell the story below as part of the video/audio compilation. It is one of the only recordings of Harpo’s voice; his trademark was his purely physical/musical comedy, and he spoke only one confirmed line in a movie, in a 1925 comedy. Even on radio, he used only his ubiquitous honks, whistles, and music.

Yet Harpo ended up helping break through the anti-Jewish prejudice that was still far too prevalent in America. Vaudeville, movies, radio, and TV all provided platforms for talented Jewish (and black) performers to win the hearts of Americans and slowly chip away their prejudice. Al Jolson, Jack Benny, the Marx Brothers, Burns and Allen, George Jessel, Eddie Cantor, Don Rickles, and Fanny Brice were just a few of these Jewish megastars in the early 1900s. It was in fact Harpo’s dependence on wordless comedy and exceptional music that gave him an international appeal even in the midst of world conflicts. The man who clowned around in a preposterous wig and overcoat like an anarchic lunatic and played at least six instruments like an angel could do the same act in Russia that he could do in America.

His very contradictions were fascinating. He could go straight from eating a candle, pulling a cup of hot coffee from his pocket, or tackling a co-star to playing a harp solo or his own string trio. Remarkably, Harpo couldn’t read music, yet he was a phenomenal performer and talented improviser. Harpo’s harp was a prized possession, and that is why he willed it to Israel, where it subsequently featured in an Israeli orchestra. Which brings us to Harpo’s passionate advocacy for the British to move out of what they called “Palestine,” the ancient land of Israel, part of which was in the 1940s finally returned to the Jews for the modern rebirth of Israel. 

Harpo’s beloved wife Susan Fleming Marx said the anti-Semitism Harpo saw in Russia and Europe in the 1930s deeply troubled him, and she and their eldest son Bill Marx recalled Harpo’s first visit to Israel in 1961, per Jewish United Fund (JUF):

[Bill’s] parents and author James Michener traveled to Israel in 1961 on behalf of the State Department. It was Harpo's first visit to the country. "He was walking down the street with Mom in Tel Aviv," Bill said. "And he says to her, 'You know, this is the first time in my life that I have felt it's okay to be a Jew. I feel safe here.'" 

Yet even at that time the Muslim Arabs had already invaded and were occupying a significant amount of Israeli land, including Jerusalem, where the Jordanians razed the historic Jewish Quarter to the ground. For Harpo and so many other Jews who had experienced anti-Jewish hatred and watched the horror of the Holocaust unfold, Israel was the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams, the return of their ancient ancestral land promised to them by God. Yet Muslims in the East and bigots in the West continued and still continue to persecute and even massacre Jews. We see that with the Oct. 7 atrocities, the daily missile attacks on Israeli civilians from Islamic terrorists, the Amsterdam “pogroms,” and the global wave of anti-Semitic hatred. We should determine to fight irrational and dangerous prejudice, as Harpo did in his time:

[JUF:] One of the most powerful passages in [Mrs. Harpo Marx’s] book relates a trip to New York in the mid-1950s. Harpo was to appear on The Martha Raye Show. During the visit, Fleming Marx writes, Harpo overheard his wife's own mother refer to him as a "kike." Bill Marx remembers the incident vividly. He was attending Julliard at the time. "He was crushed," he recalls. "He was visibly shaken. I noticed it and asked mom what was the matter. Dad handled it internally. He never complained about it. He was very gracious to my grandmother. I never saw him angry. I saw him more disappointed in certain people and their behavior." 

Bill Marx said that his father never spoke with him directly about prejudice and bigotry, but Harpo's treatment of all people as equals spoke volumes. According to the book, Harpo was penalized by southern theater owners after insisting that Black people not be restricted to the upper balcony. "I learned by his example," Bill Marx said. "I watched him around all kinds of people when we were on the road. Dad got Hillcrest Country Club to open up membership to non-Jews. Danny Thomas got in because of my dad."

So today, take the time to watch and listen to Harpo Marx. But as you laugh as his wild antics and marvel at his musical versatility, remember also that he was the quintessential American success story, a poor and uneducated boy who overcame prejudice and persecution to entertain and  inspire millions of people, help his people reclaim their homeland, and make the world a freer and better place.