Thank you, it's nice to be wanted. I...I must eh tell you, for the people in the back, it's Dick Cavett up here. I can't believe that I'm here tonight. It's not Carnegie Hall that gets to me, but I can't believe that I know Groucho Marx and he asked me to..ehm... to introduce him tonight, and I'll do that as quickly as possible.
I met Groucho Marx on a sunny sunday afternoon about twelve years ago. He was coming from the funeral of a great friend of his, a man he has often said was his God, George S. Kaufman, We met on the corner of fifty.. eightyfirst and fifth and, I couldn't believe it, but he asked me to walk down fifth avenue with him. We stopped ever so often so he could insult a doorman. We got to the Plaza where he was staying and I assumed that the dream was over and I was trying to think of a way to say goodbye and he said, with that familiar soft voice, that I knew first from the quizshow and then from the movies "Well, you certainly seem like a nice young man, and I'd like to have lunch with you." And we had lunch. It was wonderful, I went home to write it down, as much as I could remember of it. I remember for dessert... the captain and the waiter both came over to take his dessert order, and Groucho said "Do you have any fruit, you can recommend" to the waiter "and I don't mean the captain here." So...eh...it was like that.
The only sad thing about Groucho's life is that there is so many thousands of funny things that have gone unrecorded. Luckily there was someone along at the anti-semetic country club, when they told him he couldn't use the pool, and he asked "Since my daughter is only half-jewish, could she go in up to her knees?"
Thank you, for him.
There's a lot of profound things, that should be said about Groucho, like the fact that his comedy achieves the level of great art, that he has all the gifts I think that a comedian can have. Some of them have a few of them, he has them all, but that's for people to write about.
I was asked to mention one thing: please don't take any flash pictures. It makes Groucho dizzy and he could... it's true, he could fall. He wanted me to mention that, and I said "How can I say that and not alarm the audience?" And he said "Easy, tell them I'll drop dead, if they do." He's serious, but not when you want him to be.
Anyway, to get quickly to the part of the evening that you came and paid for, I would first like to introduce a few people that should be mentioned now. Among them: Rufus T. Firefly, J. Cheever Loophole - J. Cheever Loophole - hold your applause to the end, please - Dr. Hugo C. Hackenbush, Otis B. Driftwood, and Captain Jeffrey Spaulding - the one, the only, Groucho.Teksty umieszczone na naszej stronie są własnością wytwórni, wykonawców, osób mających do nich prawa.
