Marx Brothers Minnie helped her younger brother Abraham Elieser Adolf Schönberg (stage name Al Shean) to enter show business; he became highly successful on vaudeville and Broadway as half of the musical comedy double act Gallagher and Shean, and this gave the brothers an entree to musical comedy, vaudeville and Broadway at Minnie's instigation. Minnie also acted as the brothers' manager, using the name Minnie Palmer so that agents did not realize that she was also their mother. All the brothers confirmed that Minnie Marx had been the head of the family and the driving force in getting the troupe launched, the
Silent comedy Charley Chase, Stan Laurel (who made a commercially successful transition into talking pictures in the team Laurel & Hardy), along with many others. In the early years of "talkie" films (beginning in 1927, see "The Jazz Singer") a few actors continued to act silently for comedic effect, most famously Charlie Chaplin, whose last great "silent" comedies "City Lights" (1931) and "Modern Times" (1936) were both made in the sound age. Another late example was Harpo Marx, who always played a mute in the Marx Brothers' films. Another important legacy of silent film comedy was the humor in animated cartoons. Even