Margaret Dumont
from Brooklyn, New York, USA
from Brooklyn, New York, USA
Margaret Dumont would probably consider it a tragedy that she is best-known for her performances as the ultimate straight woman in seven of the Marx Brothers' films (including most of their best). By all accounts she never understood their jokes (offscreen and on), which is of course a major reason why she's so funny. Apart from a small role in a 1917 Dickens adaptation, she spent her early career on the stage, ending up with the Marxes in the late 1920s in the stage versions of The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930), and was given a Paramount contract at the same time they were. She played similar roles alongside other great comedians, including W.C. Fields, Laurel & Hardy and Jack Benny and also played straight dramatic parts (her chief love), but few of them made much impact - it is as Groucho Marx's foil that she ranks among the immortals, and she died shortly after being reunited with him on "The Hollywood Palace" (1964).
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Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Mrs. Foster
Persephone Updike
Dowager #1
Noblewoman in Play (uncredited)
Georgianna Fitzdingle
Mrs. Agnes Hawthorne
Mrs. Whitelaw
Mrs. Hendrickson
Mrs. Starr
Mme. Traviata / Miss Rodholder
Mrs. Standish
Aunt Dolly / Aunt Arabella
Mrs. Willoughby
Mrs. Croxton-Lynch
Mrs. Allenwood
Louise Harlan
Mrs. E. V. Lawson
Flo Faulkner - Landlady
Mrs. Culpepper
Mme. Langehanke (uncredited)
Ophelia MacDougal
Mrs. Franklin Evans
Martha Phelps
Mrs. Hemogloben
Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury
Pantomime Teacher
Emily Upjohn
Mrs. Penner
Mrs. Abernathy
Martha Arlington
Mrs. Bell-Rivington
Mrs. Wentworth
Mrs. Whitney
Woman Outside (uncredited)
Mrs. Murchison (uncredited)
Gypsy Sweetheart
Mrs. Van Updyke
Woman in Audience Yelling 'Get Off the Stage' (uncredited)
Mrs. Hendricks (uncredited)
Mrs. Claypool
Sybilla Crum
Mrs. Fields
Mrs. Baxter
Self
Duchess Sophie (uncredited)
Gloria Teasdale
Here, Prince
The Queen of Deleria (uncredited)
Blanche Ledyard
Mrs. Rittenhouse
Mrs. Potter
French Beauty
Aristocrat (uncredited)