On with the greasepaint

It was 1929 and Wall Street had just crashed. Backstage in a Broadway theatre Groucho Marx and his brothers sat staring at each other; but mainly the other brothers were staring at Groucho. He was refusing to go on with the show. He had lost everything in the financial meltdown: savings, investments, the whole shebang. After years of treading the boards of the lowest dives in the country, the Marx Brothers had finally reached the top of the tree. The big money had come at last . . . only to go straight out of the window along with quite a lot of suicidal businessmen.

Of all the brothers, Groucho was suffering the most. He had been the most prudent with his cash. He looked at Chico and now wished he had been as profligate as his gambling, womanising elder brother, for now they were both skint and Groucho hadn't had nearly as much fun along the way to show for it. He announced he was finished - it was all pointless.

The curtain went up. To save the show, its composer Harry Ruby began painting on a black moustache so he could take Groucho's place. It was then that Groucho changed his mind. 'All right, I give in,' he groaned. 'No audience deserves to look at you all night.'

On went the moustache where it belonged. On went Groucho where he belonged - out on the stage, not out of the window. There were no antidepressants in those days. Not unless laughter is classed as one, of course. He immediately had the audience rolling in the aisles with a string of one-liners about the crash. So good were the gags that many of them remained in the show on a permanent basis.

Groucho Marx and his brothers had developed an inner strength during their rise from poverty to stardom that stood them in good stead when the winds of change shifted and blew into their faces. Years after the Wall Street Crash, when they had recovered and gone on to even greater glory in Hollywood, Groucho came out with one of his most famous lines: 'You're heading for a nervous breakdown, why don't you pull yourself to pieces?' He wasn't being cruel . . . he was just speaking from experience.