I’ve been crazy about the Marx brothers for a long time. I’ve read biographies, autobiographies and have seen every movie I can get my hands on. My family and I have watched many episodes of Groucho Marx’s game show, “You Bet Your LIfe,” on DVD. But Harpo is my favorite, and I’m in good company.

Once upon a time Minnie and Sam of Manhattan had five strapping boys. In order, they were Chico (Leonard), Harpo (Adolph, later changed to Arthur), Groucho (Julius), Gummo (Milton) and Zeppo (Herbert).

Sam was a tailor by trade, though he shouldn’t have been. The poor man couldn’t measure an inch worm. Sam was generous to a fault and loved to mix and match the colors and textures of the fabrics he used to make lopsided menswear. The family, largely as a result of Sam’s incompetence, were poor. Chico went to work at a young age, putting his few piano lessons to use in the lounge of a brothel. Harpo quit school at the age of eight to scrounge for pennies as a delivery boy among other things. Groucho, the family intellectual, stayed in school the longest (of the three most famous brothers) and managed to get more than an elementary school education.

Minnie’s boys (as the sons of a show business minded stage mother on steroids) went to work as a vaudeville act, singing and dancing in their untutored way. Though their mother wanted them to be serious entertainers, her loutish sons had other plans. Their antics offstage quickly became the main act. Though Minnie was mortified, she changed her tune when the new comedy act became more popular than anything they had done before.

Harpo, as the Cinderella of the crew, was asked to keep his mouth shut. Rumor has it that poor Harpo couldn’t match wits with his articulate and very quick brothers (though some say that Harpo’s deep, mellifluous voice didn’t match his impish persona and, even worse, made Groucho’s voice seem high and squeaky in comparison). Harpo, the professional mute, was born and the world would never be the same. In life Harpo was a gentle, patient man, prone to acts of kindess and deeply involved in artistic and intellectual circles (such as the Algonquin Round Table). Onstage and in movies he was the dimwitted foil to his strutting brothers.

Ironically, though Harpo’s actual vocal cords were silenced, he spoke through the strings of his harp. He was self taught and, as the story goes, he learned how to hold a harp from a dime store picture of a harp wielding angel. His playing style was highly eccentric but with brilliant results. Experts in the field studied his style, even when the poor man sought them out to correct it. He was an original in the purest sense of the word.

In his own words:

We were washed up. We were stranded…I was depressed, and confused, and I had to be alone. I kept telling myself that something good always happened every time I hit bottom. But I didn’t believe it.

…As I walked, a long-forgotten voice came out of my past. Miss Flatto. Miss Flatto, wiggling her finger at my nose and saying, ‘Some day you’ll realize, young man! Some day you’ll realize!’…

I was startled to find I was standing watching an auction sale… I was careful to keep my hands in my pockets, so I could resist any crazy impulse to make a bid, and blow my entire capital of seven cents.

The shelves were nearly emptied out and most of the crowd had left, but I still hung around, having nothing better to do with myself. Finally everything was gone except for one scrub brush, the former owner, hovering in the background, the auctioneer, myself, and an elderly Italian couple. The elderly couple had been there all the time. Either they had no money or they were too timid to make a bid on anything. Whichever it was, they exchanged sad looks now that the auction was winding up.

The auctioneer was tired. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get it over with and not horse around. I have left here one desirable item. One cleansing brush in A-number-one, brand-new condition, guaranteed to give you floors so clean you could eat off them. What am I offered?’

The old Italian guy and his wife looked at each other, searching for the key to the right thing to say… they held on to each other like they had done something wrong. I said quickly, ‘One cent.’

The auctioneer whacked his gavel.

‘Sold-thank-God-to-the-young-American-gentleman-for-one-cent.’ I picked up my brush and handed it to the old lady. She was as touched as if I had given her the entire contents of the store. The old man grabbed my hand and pumped it. They both grinned at me and poured out a river of Italian that I couldn’t understand. ‘Think nothing of it,’ I said, and added, ‘Ciao, eh?’ … which was the only Italian I could remember from 93rd street. They thought this was pretty funny, the way I said it, and they walked away laughing. I walked away laughing too… I couldn’t explain it, but a lousy penny scrub brush had changed the whole complexion of life.