Lydia the Tattooed Lady Stock Exchange by commandeering a microphone and singing the song before telling jokes for 15 minutes, during which time traders suspended their work to watch him perform. Lydia the Tattooed Lady "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" is a 1939 song written by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen. It first appeared in the Marx Brothers movie "At the Circus" (1939) and became one of Groucho Marx's signature tunes. The complex lyrics by Harburg – with clever rhymes such as "Lydia/encyclopedia" and "Amazon/pajamas on" – were inspired by W. S. Gilbert. Harburg made many contemporary references to topical personalities such as Grover Whalen,
Lydia Bilbrook Lydia Bilbrook Lydia Bilbrook (6 May 1888 – 4 January 1990; sometimes credited as Bilbrooke) was an English actress whose stage and film career spanned four decades. Bilbrook appeared in 23 films between 1916 and 1949; she is probably best known to today's audience as the haughty "Lady Epping" in the popular "Mexican Spitfire" movie comedies (1939–43) opposite Leon Errol. The daughter of Lydia and Robert Walker Macbeth, Bilbrook was born Phillis Lydia Macbeth in Somerset. It is claimed that Bilbrook was an illegitimate daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree. In 1908 she appeared at the Comedy Theatre as