Margaret Dumont
Acting
🎂 1882-10-19
Margaret Dumont would probably consider it a tragedy that she is best-known for her performances as the ultimate straight woman in seven of the Marx Brothers' films (including most of their best). By all accounts she never understood their jokes (offscreen and on), which is of course a major reason why she's so funny. Apart from a small role in a 1917 Dickens adaptation, she spent her early career on the stage, ending up with the Marxes in the late 1920s in the stage versions of The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930), and was given a Paramount contract at the same time they were. She played similar roles alongside other great comedians, including W.C. Fields, Laurel & Hardy and Jack Benny and also played straight dramatic parts (her chief love), but few of them made much impact - it is as Groucho Marx's foil that she ranks among the immortals, and she died shortly after being reunited with him on "The Hollywood Palace" (1964).
Cast credits(60)
Self
1956
1958
Self
1950
Mrs. Willoughby
1944
1951
Noblewoman in Play (uncredited)
1958
Mrs. Foster
1964
Gloria Teasdale
1933
Self (archive footage)
1975
(archive footage)
1976
Mrs. Rittenhouse
1930
(archive footage)
1982
Self (archive footage)
1972
Mrs. Claypool
1935
Mrs. Agnes Hawthorne
1952
Mrs. Potter
1929
Mrs. Fields
1934
Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury
1939
Mme. Langehanke (uncredited)
1942
Mrs. Allenwood
1944
Martha Phelps
1941
Mrs. Whitney
1936
Mrs. Hendrickson
1946
Pantomime Teacher
1938
Emily Upjohn
1937
Woman in Audience Yelling 'Get Off the Stage' (uncredited)
1935
Mrs. Whitelaw
1952
Wedding Guest (uncredited)
1934
Mrs. E. V. Lawson
1942
Mrs. Baxter
1934
Mrs. Croxton-Lynch
1944
Mrs. Murchison (uncredited)
1935
Mrs. Hendricks (uncredited)
1935
Mrs. Penner
1937
(archive footage)
1979
Sybilla Crum
1934
Mrs. Hemogloben
1941
Martha Arlington
1937
Mrs. Culpepper
1942
Self
1933
Mrs. Wentworth
1936
Georgianna Fitzdingle
1956
French Beauty
1923
Mrs. Abernathy
1937
Aunt Dolly / Aunt Arabella
1945
Persephone Updike
1962
Louise Harlan
1943
Blanche Ledyard
1931
Mme. Traviata / Miss Rodholder
1945
Mrs. Van Updyke
1935
Duchess Sophie (uncredited)
1933
Mrs. Bell-Rivington
1937
Woman Outside (uncredited)
1936
Flo Faulkner - Landlady
1942
Mrs. Standish
1945
Aristocrat (uncredited)
1917
Mrs. Franklin Evans
1941
The Queen of Deleria (uncredited)
1932
Ophelia MacDougal
1942
Self (archiveFootage)
1999