"Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890^[1] – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit.

He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of which he was the third-born. He also had a successful solo career, most notably as the host of the radio and television game shows You Bet Your Life and Tell it to Groucho.^[2] His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as glasses, cigars, and a thick greasepaint mustache and eyebrows.

Groucho's radio life hadn't been as successful as his life on stage and in film, though historians such as Gerald Nachman and Michael Barson suggest that, in the case of the single-season Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel (1932), the failure may have been a combination of a poor time slot and the Marx Brothers' returning to Hollywood to make another film.

In the mid-1940s, during a depressing lull in his career (his radio show Blue Ribbon Town had failed to hold on, and the Marx Brothers looked finished as film performers), Groucho was scheduled to appear on a radio show with Bob Hope. Annoyed that he was made to wait in the waiting room for 40 minutes, Groucho went on the air in a foul mood. Hope started by saying, "Why, it's Groucho Marx, ladies and gentlemen. (applause) Groucho, what brings you here from the hot desert?" Groucho retorted, "Hot desert my foot, I've been standing in the cold waiting room for 40 minutes." Groucho continued to ignore the script, and although Hope was a formidable ad-libber in his own right, he couldn't begin to keep up with Groucho, who lengthened the scene well beyond its allotted time slot with a veritable onslaught of improvised wisecracks.

Listening in on the show was producer John Guedel, who got a brainstorm. He approached Groucho about doing a quiz show. "A quiz show? Only actors who are completely washed up resort to a quiz show." Undeterred, Guedel explained that the quiz would be only a backdrop for Groucho's interviews of people, and the storm of ad-libbing that they would elicit. Groucho said, "Well, I've had no success in radio, and I can't hold on to a sponsor. At this point I'll try anything."

You Bet Your Life premiered in October 1947 on radio on ABC (which aired it from 1947-49), and then on CBS (1949-50), and finally NBC, continuing until May 1961 -- on radio only, 1947-1950; on both radio and television, 1950-1959; and on television only, 1959-1961. The show was an utter sensation, one of the most popular in the history of radio and television. With one of the best announcers and, as it turns out, straight men in the business, George Fenneman, as his faithful foil, Groucho slayed his audiences with extraordinary improvised conversation, usually with the most ordinary of guests.

The program's theme music was an instrumental version of "Hooray for Captain Spaulding", which became increasingly identified as Groucho's personal theme song. Groucho released a record of the song with the Ken Ham singers and orchestra in 1952. Another interesting recording made by Groucho during this period was "The Funniest Song in the World," released on the Young Peoples' Records label in 1949. It was a series of five original children's songs with a connecting narrative about a monkey and his fellow zoo creatures.