A Night at the Opera (film) DVD commentary. But this could not have occurred, because Sam Marx had died in 1933, during pre-production of "Duck Soup", two years before "A Night at the Opera" was released. The rumor arose because Frenchy had had such a cameo appearance in the Marx Brothers' earlier "Monkey Business". There is, however, a reference to the Marx Brothers' mother, Minnie Marx, during the stateroom scene, in which a woman asks, "Is my Aunt Minnie in here?" Part of the concept of casting the Marx Brothers as stowaways on a ship was recycled from "Monkey Business". As Groucho's and Margaret Dumont's characters
Marx Brothers Marx Brothers until the premiere of "I'll Say She Is", which was their first Broadway show, so this would mean that they used their real names throughout their vaudeville days, and that the name "Gummo" never appeared in print during his time in the act. Other sources reported that the Marx Brothers went by their nicknames during their vaudeville era, but briefly listed themselves by their given names when "I'll Say She Is" opened because they were worried that a Broadway audience would reject a vaudeville act if they were perceived as low class. The Marx Brothers' stage shows became