Harpo Marx office boy. In January 1910, Harpo joined two of his brothers, Julius (later "Groucho") and Milton (later "Gummo"), to form "The Three Nightingales", later changed to simply "The Marx Brothers". Multiple stories—most unsubstantiated—exist to explain Harpo's evolution as the "silent" character in the brothers' act. In his memoir, Groucho wrote that Harpo simply wasn't very good at memorizing dialogue, and thus was ideal for the role of the "dunce who couldn't speak", a common character in vaudeville acts of the time. Harpo gained his stage name during a card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. The dealer (Art
I'll Say She Is autobiography "Harpo Speaks" (1961), Harpo wrote that theatre critic Alexander Woollcott encouraged the Brothers to use their stage names in any subsequent production, which they did, starting with their next Broadway show, "The Cocoanuts" (1925), which was later turned into a film version in 1929. Having toiled on the Vaudeville circuit for nearly a quarter century, this would be the last stage performance that The Marx Brothers would perform for Vaudeville theaters. Once "I'll Say She Is" hit Broadway, they never left. They would have two further Broadway hits, "The Cocoanuts" and "Animal Crackers", which were then filmed in the