Rob Zombie to direct Groucho Marx biopic
Horror film director and musician Rob Zombie says: 'I have been a huge Groucho Marx fan ever since I was a child'
Rob Zombie, the musician and film director behind The Devil's Rejects and Werewolf Women of the SS, is to direct a biopic about comedian Groucho Marx.
Zombie, 50, and Miranda Bailey, have acquired the rights to Steve Stoliar’s memoir Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho’s House.Oren Moverman will write the screenplay and Zombie is attached to direct. Cold Iron Pictures’ Miranda Bailey and Amanda Marshall are producing along with Zombie and Andy Gould.
Zombie is a big fan of Groucho and in his 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses used names for the villains that were taken from the names of Marx characters (Captain Spaulding in Animal Crackers; Otis B Driftwood from A Night at the Opera; Rufus T Firefly from Duck Soup and Hugo Z Hackenbush from A Day at the Races.
Stoliar’s book chronicles his time spent as Groucho’s personal secretary and archivist in the years before the comedy legend died aged 86 in August 1977.
Zombie told Deadline.com: “I have been a huge Groucho Marx fan ever since I was a child and have read countless books on the comic legend, but after reading the book Raised Eyebrows, a totally new perspective on Groucho’s life emerged. I immediately saw this project as Groucho’s Sunset Boulevard and knew I had to bring it to the big screen. It is a sad, funny and very dark tale of a one of Hollywood’s greatest stars final years.”
Zombie is currently filming horror thriller 31, about a group of people kidnapped and taken to a killer fun house called Murder World.
Groucho Marx, famed for his snappy one-liners and sharp wit, was one of the 20th-centuries greatest comedians. He once described his comedy as "the type of humour that made people laugh at themselves."
