"Howard Waldrop - The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode in On)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode in
On)
by Howard Waldrop



A few years before Manny Marks (that's how he
insisted his name be spelled) died at the age of
107, he gave a series of long interviews to Barry
Winstead, who was researching a book on the
death of vaudeville. Marks was 103 at the time,
in the spring of 1990. This unedited tape was
probably never transcribed.



•••••


Marks: … I know it was, because I was playing
Conshohocken. Is that thing on? What exactly
does it do?

Winstead: Are you kidding me?

Marks: Those things have been going downhill
since the Dictaphone. How well could that thing
record? It's the size of a pack of Luckies …

Winstead: Trust me, Mr. Marks.

Marks: Mr. Marx was my father, Samuel "
Frenchy " Marx. Call me Manny.

W: Let's start with that, then. Why the name
change?

M: I didn't want my brothers riding my coattails.
They started calling themselves the Four Marx
Brothers, after they quit being the Four
Nightingales. Milton—Gummo to you—got it out
of his system early, after Julius—Groucho to you.
Of course, Leo and Arthur had been playing piano
in saloons and whorehouses from the time they
were ten and eleven. You'll have to tell me
whether you think that's show business or not …

W: It's making a living with your talent.

M: Barely.