Sam Marx

Samuel Marx
Sam Marx in his late years
Born	Simon Marx (1859-10-23)October 23, 1859 Mertzwiller, Alsace, France
Died	May 10, 1933(1933-05-10) (aged 73) Los Angeles, California
Spouse(s)	Minnie Schönberg
Children	Manfred Marx (1885-1886) Leonard "Chico" Marx Adolph "Harpo" Marx Julius "Groucho" Marx Milton "Gummo" Marx Herbert "Zeppo" Marx
Relatives	Al Shean (brother-in-law)

Samuel Marx (born Simon Marx; October 23, 1859 – May 10, 1933) was the husband of Minnie Marx, and father of the Marx Brothers.

According to his birth certificate, Marx was born as Simon Marx in Alsace, France. Due to his place of birth, he was known as "Frenchie". He met Minnie in New York where he was working as a dance teacher. They married in 1884 and had six sons. Their first son, Manfred, born 1885, died in infancy. The other children were Leonard (Chico), born in 1887, Adolph (Harpo) in 1888, Julius (Groucho) in 1890, Milton (Gummo) in 1892, and Herbert (Zeppo) in 1901. Marx was an excellent pinochle player, a game he taught to his two oldest sons.

Marx became a tailor, although not a very good one. He was a talented cook, often convincing the landlord to delay their rent paytime with a good meal. In his show An Evening With Groucho, Groucho reminisced about Sam Marx:

"My father was a tailor, and a very bad one, and Chico was always short of money, and he used to hock my father's shears, so whenever my father made a suit, of course it didn't fit, and the shears would be hanging up in the pawnshop on Ninety-first Street."

Harpo put the bad tailoring down to the fact that Frenchie never took the time to measure a client for a suit, preferring to guess their size. He then took the suits that clients had rejected, travel to New Jersey, and sell them door-to-door.

In his last interview, Zeppo joked that his father "was a very bad tailor but he found some people who were so stupid that they would buy his clothes, and so he'd make a few dollars that way for food".

Marx made a cameo appearance in his four sons' film Monkey Business (1931), sitting on top of luggage behind the brothers on the pier as they wave to the First Officer, having slipped off the ship without being arrested as stowaways. (In some interviews, the brothers mistakenly attributed this scene to A Night at the Opera.)