Whereas in Charlie Chaplin’s My Autobiography I never felt like I was reading something written by the Little Tramp, this is very much Groucho being Groucho. The voice, the style, of the writer of this autobiography is very much what you’d expect if you’ve watched a lot of Marx Brothers movies, and especially if you’ve seen or heard Groucho on his You Bet Your Life show or on various talk shows. Ironically, if the title of this book really is supposed to highlight a sharp distinction between Julius Henry Marx and Groucho, I think Groucho is one of those figures where the distinction is more fuzzy.
Sometimes the public persona and the “real” person leak into each other and really aren’t all that different, whether because the person chose not to perform in a way much different from how he would have acted had he never adopted a public persona, or because he played a part for so long that eventually it “stuck” and that’s how he was all the time. Sometimes that distinction is more fuzzy though.
A book about any of them could examine both the public figure and the real person behind the public figure.
are all folks who didn’t just play a certain character one time, but who more broadly had a very recognizable public persona they created for professional reasons. may be very different from how that person is in private, when he’s not “on.” Hulk Hogan, Pee Wee Herman/Paul Reubens, and Morton Downey, Jr. The public persona of a rock star, superstar athlete, politician, etc. Obviously Captain Kirk and William Shatner (“Me”) are two different people.īut there can also be a difference between a person and the role he plays in life rather than in one specific performance. That’s most obvious when we’re talking about, say, a fictional character in a movie or TV show, such as if William Shatner wrote a book entitled Captain Kirk and Me. One way to interpret the title of Groucho and Me is as a reminder that there is a distinction between a person and his persona as a performer.
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