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
1950
1958
1951
Self
1956
Mrs. Potter
1929
Self (archive footage)
1975
Mrs. Foster
1964
Noblewoman in Play (uncredited)
1958
Gloria Teasdale
1933
Mrs. Claypool
1935
Emily Upjohn
1937
Mme. Langehanke (uncredited)
1942
Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury
1939
(archive footage)
1976
Mrs. Willoughby
1944
Mrs. Fields
1934
Mrs. Allenwood
1944
Pantomime Teacher
1938
Mrs. Hendricks (uncredited)
1935
Martha Phelps
1941
Mrs. Rittenhouse
1930
Woman in Audience Yelling 'Get Off the Stage' (uncredited)
1935
(archive footage)
1982
Mrs. Murchison (uncredited)
1935
Mrs. Penner
1937
Louise Harlan
1943
Mrs. Bell-Rivington
1937
Mrs. Hendrickson
1946
Mrs. Baxter
1934
(archive footage)
1979
Mme. Traviata / Miss Rodholder
1945
Mrs. Culpepper
1942
Mrs. Wentworth
1936
Mrs. E. V. Lawson
1942
Mrs. Hemogloben
1941
Self (archive footage)
1972
Mrs. Standish
1945
Martha Arlington
1937
Mrs. Abernathy
1937
Georgianna Fitzdingle
1956
Aristocrat (uncredited)
1917
French Beauty
1923
Sybilla Crum
1934
Persephone Updike
1962
Duchess Sophie (uncredited)
1933
Flo Faulkner - Landlady
1942
Ophelia MacDougal
1942
Aunt Dolly / Aunt Arabella
1945
Woman Outside (uncredited)
1936
Blanche Ledyard
1931
Mrs. Croxton-Lynch
1944
Wedding Guest (uncredited)
1934
Mrs. Van Updyke
1935
Mrs. Whitelaw
1952
The Queen of Deleria (uncredited)
1932
Mrs. Whitney
1936
Self (archiveFootage)
1999
Mrs. Agnes Hawthorne
1952
Mrs. Franklin Evans
1941
Self
1933