Dick Cavett is 86 years old and appears to be in fine physical and mental shape. His friend and idol Groucho Marx is dead, has been for a long time, having taken his last breath and offered his final witty remark in August 1977 when he was 86, his obituaries overshadowed by those of Elvis Presley, who died three days earlier.
They had met on a summer day in 1961 at the Manhattan funeral of playwright, director and humorist George S. Kaufman, when Cavett was a fresh-faced 25-year-old writer for television and Marx was a 70-year-old — no other word for it — legend.
After the funeral, Cavett sheepishly approached Marx and said, “Hello Groucho, I’m a big fan of yours,” to which Marx replied, “If it gets any hotter, I could use a big fan.”
From such a humble exchange, a deep and meaningful relationship was born.
The two are together again in the latest edition of “American Masters,” “Groucho & Cavett,” which premiered Tuesday on PBS.
Of course, Marx comes to us in very old clips, most of them from the more than a dozen appearances he made on Cavett’s various television talk shows. We do not get much from Marx’s film career, which includes such acclaimed movies as “A Day at the Races,” “Duck Soup,” “Animal Crackers” and “A Night at the Opera.” There is nothing at all from his successful run as the host of the 1947-1961 television game show “You Bet Your Life.”
Instead, for the uninitiated, this program might compel further exploration of the vanished star. The same is likely true of Cavett too. He has been out of the public eye for some time and, especially now, when most TV interview programs (and radio too) have devolved into shouting fests or celebrity massages, deserves new attention and respect.
Most of Cavett’s contributions to this documentary are of recent vintage, filmed at his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut. He is relaxed and forthcoming and self-effacingly charming.
Marx was famously acerbic and you’ll get a healthy dose of that. But did you know he loved to sing? I did not but was mildly delighted to hear his distinctive way with such relatively obscure but clever tunes as “Show Me a Rose,” “Everybody Works But Father,” “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” and others.
He also tells of his aspiration to be a writer, saying that having a story of his published in an early edition of The New Yorker magazine under his full name — Julius Henry Marx — made him prouder than any of his films or other endeavors. And he speaks with some palpable awe of having been asked by the Library of Congress to donate his letters to its collection.
The film is primarily the work of director Robert S. Bader who has collaborated with Cavett before, producing a series of DVD compilations of his former talk shows and the 2018 documentary, “Ali & Cavett: Tale of the Tape,” about another of Cavett’s frequent guests, the boxer Muhammad Ali.
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if some viewers had only a passing knowledge of Marx and perhaps even of Cavett. If this show is able to spur further exploration of both men, that would be a good thing. Though I was never an ardent fan of the Marx brothers’ films, I can certainly understand their appeal and the brothers’ talents. As for Cavett, there is not enough about him in this film, though we are reminded that he was a Yale-educated Nebraskan who wrote for such TV hosts as Jack Paar, who he describes as “strange, odd, neurotic and brilliant;” Groucho for a week when he filled in on “The Tonight Show;” Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson. He did try to make it as a stand-up comic and we get only a flicker of that career when we glimpse the marquee he shared with Mel Torme at Chicago’s Mister Kelly’s.
His TV talk shows, primarily ABC’s “The Dick Cavett Show,” which started in the late 1960s, were oases of erudite, thought-provoking, enlightening and often contentious conversations. He talked and sparred and interviewed across six decades, and virtually every important figure from politics and entertainment, sports and letters sat across from him.
There is no doubt that Marx quietly nurtured Cavett’s career and there is, in old clips and contemporary conversation, a palpable affection expressed. One late TV clip has Marx sharing Cavett’s show, and more than holding his own, with Truman Capote.
There are some disturbingly touching moments near the end, when Cavett recalls Marx’s final years, his failing health, his idol’s suspicious relationship with a very young woman and his death.
“We had lost Captain Spaulding,” Cavett says, his voice halting with emotion, referring to Marx’s character in “Animal Crackers.”
After watching an hour and 20 minutes of “Groucho & Cavett,” it’s easy to understand why Cavett admired, perhaps even loved, his older friend and why Marx returned the feeling. They were two sides of the same comedic coin, as this fine program allows you to understand. Now it is up to you to explore further the talents and times of both men.
———
