Death
Marx's children, particularly his son Arthur, felt strongly that Fleming was pushing their weak father beyond his physical and mental limits. Writer Mark Evanier concurred. Fleming's influence on Marx was controversial. Many close to him believed that she did much to revive his popularity. Also, some observers felt the apparent relationship with a young starlet boosted Groucho's ego, adding to his vitality. Others described her as a Svengali, exploiting an increasingly senile Marx in pursuit of her own stardom while reportedly behaving erratically and violently, suggesting mental instability. Marx was hospitalized for pneumonia on June 22, 1977 and died on August 19 at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Fleming, increasingly mentally unstable through the years, committed suicide in 2003.
He was cremated and the ashes were interred in the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Groucho had the longest lifespan of all the Marx Brothers and was survived only by younger brother Zeppo, who outlived him by two years. His death was somewhat overshadowed by the death of Elvis Presley, which occurred three days earlier. In an interview, he jokingly suggested his epitaph read: "Excuse me, I can't stand up." His mausoleum marker bears only his stage name, a Star of David, and the years of his birth and death.
Read more about this topic: Groucho Marx
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practise, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever- present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)