The Boy Who Had a Seat at Groucho Marx’s Table

This is Lisa Beebe and this is our American stories we tell stories about everything you're on the show including your story. Send them our American stories.com now story from Cummins Wilson Junior Hemmings is a second-generation leader of their third generation family investment company.

It's out of Memphis, Tennessee with the first generation being his dad, the founder of Holiday Inn and by the way, we broadcast an hour south of Memphis in Oxford, Mississippi, a beautiful small town. It's home to great writers like Faulkner and Grisham also home to Ole Miss tenants as previously shared with us. The Holiday Inn story which you can find in our American stories.com and today he brings us some lighter stories about his father and the unusual interactions that he said some pretty famous folks use Canon fellow members back when they had the trampoline claims he decided that he will put a travel lane that was on ground level are coming here was manufacturing around traveling was about maybe 4 foot diameter and hamstrings and you would just bounce on an idea was you would jog in place so he put one and I and at the time our family Insurance for Holly back in early guys the conflict. So are pet insurance guy said I can't… Oh, liability here is get out here just that they don't just have some fun and so I think within a week. Some kid bounce him down with the plateglass window's life started tearing it all off and nobody were trying to find an end. So my dad call Dyson hi Mohammed Ali is in town he sang at the big Rivermont Hotel down on Riverside Drive and I'm not saying would you like to count massive absolutely huge plan and so I chose a fiction and he's got is traveling in a cold and so were you set for he said well I want to say feeling Dorset – my okay so we get out there and he's got he's sweet and he's got entourages never sign and finally we did Mohammed Ali is Raymond.

We leaning and my dad got a camera. He said he said Holly get on that traveling start start jog a little bit and so we did took his picture and he said I like for you to endorse a site for the Sam Miss Wilson talk to my lawyer. I got a Jewish lawyer and get past them were good to go. Also would only that picture you just are so very right and it went nowhere. But there was no no shame in whatever he did. He was really bold and the bad my damn love Tabasco and he loved us so much heat would get these little bottles in Karen's pocket so if the restaurant didn't have it. He had his own supply and this was in Holly and tie-dye.

He called Mr. Michael Hanni and asked him one night.

He said look I love your product and not like a fire company like that much and Mr. Maclaine said Mr. Wilson, you have no money to buy this company and I don't know if you've ever looked on the back of basket… Salt, pepper and vinegar. This is the secret sauce and so no telling how profitable they all are and have they became great friends and every year he would send them a personalized filing Tabasco that they were so big and take about a year until bebop I could put Tabasco on everything but ice cream later in his life was to retire from Holly and he came to work for our family business and he got in the nacho business he was making nacho chips so he he was good friends with Sam Walton. My dad start like a nachos, will he will also sell them to Sam Walton so after Mr. Walt was rolling his last like listen, I'll have time so he purchasing with one of his buyers and I and so we had the opportunity because of Dan's relationship to have lunch with Sam Walton couple different occasions after LaMotta and it was a good Friday. He had a red truck with bird-dog back what will all the stories that you read about your church to people got out the same old you know I think you my dad and a groan of depression and not really have anything. I think that made an impression on him and throughout his life. He was very very frugal when it happened but it was a mindset I mean he wouldn't pay to sense if he thought it was more once and in money was just a never really aspired to and I have second homes, bunks and buddy group and that there were you for your next meal is coming from. So money was just a number. I'm telling you home multiple occasions he he risk it all and I think if if money had been that important to me that annulus into Kevin's Wilson Junior with some fun and some fascinating stories about his dad who founded Holiday Inn so many more good stories to come. Kevin's Wilson Junior sharing fun stories about his father here on our American stories and view of the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, or asking you to become a part of the All-American stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country. Please make a donation monthly get the $17.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters to allow American stories.com now go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming@ouramericanstories.com and we continue with our American stories and with Kevin's Wilson Junior sharing some fun stories about his dad and Holiday Inn founder Cummins Wilson. Let's return to canons understands relationship and friendship with her fellow Memphians named Sam Phillips. Will Sam Phillips had a recording studio Colson studios and Sam Phillips actually discovered Elvis in Johnny Cash and Sam was. I he was an artist and he and Mme. were good friends and he looked at my dad as a total financial guy and so they got business with regular sessions. Sam was operator and my dad put up some money so it sounds, career in a studio grant, bad one night and he said Kim is got to talk to you got maybe opportunity of a lifetime.

It was late at night my dance and look at this light want to just meet me at my office in 6 o'clock with tonic, so Sam said now Jim is this is too big to fail.

I got a silk guy so Sam Phillips comes over my follow up on bathrobe. The background story on this is my dad and my mother very big band oriented back in those times, Tommy Dorsey, the big bands I like that music so Sam Phillips tells my dad that he has an opportunity to sell Elvis Presley's contract to flag was RCA for 35,000 and my dad of course knew Elvis was, but he certainly didn't follow if you're big band guy you know follow rock 'n' roll. So when Sam said I've got this really great all 445 Willie told Sam Phillips he said I'm not owning flag illnesses and I kid people today is this is tantamount to somebody asking me about a ramp and I will cite none. They're not in Ottawa like him so.

Sam Phillips actually took my Dan's advice and my dances seller's contract and to be fair, this was the house passed by contract in the history of the industry at the time, and Sam Phillips and his business was not doing that great so we needed the capital S anyway so he sells Elsa's contract, and I always tell people said make sure you know you're asking advice from Ozzie just asked the wrong guy the right guy. Meyer sent you may want to hold water supply for little bit longer and see what happens in my dad said money can often Sam was really him. He was so keen on discovering talent, mind, and he could listen to it demo record bingo excavated so he may have grown a movement out of his comfort zone and he may have thought that I if I follow my intuition on building again know if you need the money. Need money and it was a household for ever paid time. So in case I somebody stealing the on site now so that happens and we all know nobles, one elderly huge iconic star of the universe and Sam Phillips. My dad stayed best friends until the dive and Sam Phillips have every right to never speak to my father you live, get out of my life is ruined my life and we had a roast. Years later, we roasted my dad and Sam Phillips was one of the grocers and he said Kim is big) as I love you is advising the table.

He said not if I can't 10%.

Elsa's contract not if I can't 5% contract.

He said if I Kim 1% of those contract I be worth $50 million and a course got a big laugh, never put again that this goes to show you what, friendship, and and neither one of look back.

Sam Phillips took that money and he went home to sign Johnny Cash ankle portions and he went home to be very successful and that had never having the story by Cesar how dumb can you be well, and it worked out and knows that there was ever hit the mark again and the office with. I think my dad even if he thought Elvis was or could be a huge success. At that point time.

I think he gave them the right decision about you need to sell and redeploy this money back in your business and and you will be able sign a couple guys only your record label and go from there. It's pretty your story when you tell somebody else is not professional and other fine I he he never had. As long as he lived unlisted telephone number and so I can't tell you how many times we would get a call to talk my father hashing phone and it would be some guy was it too much drinking and Peoria at the homeland and he's complainant there. They're closing the bar 2 o'clock and he never saw got upset and he would just say yes okay I okay I'll out. I'll call the manager and the will get back with you and this was back in the days were the general manager lease: innkeepers, they had to live on the property and so at 215 in the morning he would call the general manager and decide what in the heck is going on there and you got some got embargo.

Take care and I remember him one phone call he had again and make some intoxicated gas that was complaining about something and my files.

It would be wonderful, set up, probably isn't really what your leg is nice. I know Mr. Watson is chair. I obviously probably like to know that no phone hung up when I made to justify that he never had a unlisted number. You can look in the phone book and calling and we got all, crazy calls them well and that really a lot of the milestones in his life were that he did have the largest hotel chain in the world. One time he was on the cover of Time magazine. He was awarded their ratio Alger award, which is on the rags to riches. He was one of them thousand makers of the 20th century. As noted by the London Times and he was in the national business qualifying and really got to me. Presidents and popes and kings and queens watch a celebrity.

So I tell people he had a actually wonderful life you look back price it and he could no equipment scripted any better and great job by faith in the production of that piece and a special thanks to Alex for bringing Timmons Wilson Junior to us there been a number of stories is told about his father about his family and about his faith.

The story of Timmons Wilson Junior and his father, and my goodness doesn't get better in terms of father-son stories and the influence of the dad on his son shaping his outlook's worldview and so much more. Timmons Wilson Junior story here on our American story. This is no American stories and we've already brought you the story of how UCLA undergraduate these earlier saved a Marx Brothers movie from extinction. Here's the story of how Steve called up Erin Fleming Rogers manager and landed the job of his dreams and in the summer of 74 I had two or three summer jobs fall through for which I remain eternally grateful and my dad was pressuring me.

I don't want you sitting around on your Fanny all summer long. I want you to find some job there is a may need a bus boy at this restaurant. Or you could go get interviewed at Taco Bell and I don't want to do any of that, but he's never gonna let up on me. So I called Erin Fleming, figuring I had nothing to lose and I said is anything at all to think maybe I could story to hell, she said. Actually, it's funny you call because I used to be Groucho's secretary, but now I'm his manager and we need someone to handle all of the fan mail that's been coming in and also to organize all of his memorabilia which is going to be donated to the Smithsonian after he's gone and we need someone really knows their Marx brothers and I'm thinking please please please please please leave and in my minds eye I have this sort of Tex Avery cartoon image of me zipping out of the house and instantly appearing on the doorstep of Groucho's house while Aaron is still on the phone asked explaining the job.

To me it wasn't quite like that. But that's how it felt and I thought that I would be working may be in an office building, maybe twice a month he come by to sign checks or something. She said oh no you have your own room to work in Groucho's house and that you can make your own hours and and I thought and gonna pay me to do this and so I drove to Groucho's house in Beverly Hills and I was so nervous but it worked out and sure enough there was a room that had been the painting studio that his last wife, whom he had divorced and 69 hit use and that became my office and Groucho would often shuffle down the hall to her from his room or the living room or dining room and we would chat and it was a very egalitarian household. I was to sit at the lunch table 1. Groucho would have lunch.

It was an a sense that the helpmate in the kitchen there anything that hot and so I would be lucky enough to be there when George Burns would come over or Steve Allen would come over or some of his former writers or if it was just just." Groucho and maybe a nurse serve Groucho and Aaron. It would just be us and I could ask him all these questions that I had that I thought if I could ever meet him, I'd want to know this and he appreciated the fact that I cared about and knew about all the things that he had experienced and that he cared about that. We had similar you know it we both liked tin Pan Alley and George Gershwin and Irving Berlin. The humorists of the Algonquin roundtable one time he called me into his room and gave me a $20 bill and he said go down to the racket start get me some records you know what I like and it meant so much to be that he had assumed that I would know what to get. Instead of having to explain but I mean those those days at the lunch table were so rich and I came to appreciate him on on three different levels. First of all, he was Groucho Marx the guy in the greasepaint mustache swirling around on screen insulting Margaret Dumont in duck soup and night. The opera and second, he was someone who personally knew people that to me didn't exist in three dimensions and in color. People like well like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, James Thurber. He was friends with WC Fields. The idea that he knew these people personally. You know, and I would get insight into what they were like from him firsthand, you know, not something he read or heard about that he was there and then on the third level. He was a man from 1890. He was 1/19 century human being, literally, a Victorians she was on the throne when he was born although he was in New York and not England and his first-hand memories went from before the Wright brothers to after the moon landing, which is a staggering chunk of American history and world history.

I asked him once.

What's the earliest you remember any thought a moment and he said I guess probably the Spanish-American war 1898 and he he and his brothers had initially started out as a singing act in vaudeville in the early 1900s before they started adding comedy they would sing harmony popular songs and you know they did okay at that but Groucho's career went back so far that he actually was one of the performers at a special charity and the fit performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Enrico Caruso was also on the bill. That night, and the money was to go to the aid of victims of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 for a history buff like me and as I said I had been a history major. Although I shifted to motion picture, television after I'd been working Groucho's a while because it was just impossible to ignore how strongly I was drawn to that world. You know, he would have health problems now and again, he'd have a small stroke or something like that and I would think of Jesus. This is it this is I think about three weeks into my working there. He had a slight stroke and I thought it was great while it lasted but now the coaches going to turn back into a pumpkin. You know that that morning that I showed at that he'd had a stroke and the housekeeper said a please keep your voice down Mr. Marx's had a stroke that the nurse asked that you go back to his room. She needs some help and I expected him to be, you know, lying on the floor or unable to speak, unable to move and instead he was sitting in bed propped up in his pajamas, and my flux reading LA times and he said his ambulance. He said no. It figures that goes back to his reef and I thought she he's really taking this in stride is not banging at deaths door is reading the Los Angeles Times and it was just in the nurse needed help getting them into take a leak in the bathroom because his balance was off from that stroke so I know I was happy to help out and he bounced back from dad and from a lot of other health setbacks, even though he was in his mid-80s and you're listening to Steve, stole your story and in the end Groucho Marx's story to and what a lucky guy. Indeed, that those summer jobs fell through, is what an opportunity and opportunity of a lifetime in Groucho's house is hero. So many Americans here, by the way he was a child of the Victorian age. His comedy was a rebuttal touring properties and boy, Groucho was revolutionary in his day really stretch the boundaries of what comedians were allowed to do enough to my goodness, what we learn. Listening to this is that even people like Groucho want to be appreciated right legends appreciate appreciation, we can never forget that when we come back more of this remarkable story here on our American story and were back with our American stories and the story of Steve, stole your college student who saved the long-lost Marx Brothers movie and then landed the job of his dreams working Groucho Marx's personal assistant and archivist. Let's return to Steve and his story and it it just became this a remarkably rich experience for me. That ended up lasting, not three weeks as I had thought that morning but three years.

The last three years of Groucho's life and so I was able to get to know and you know talk with with Groucho my hero. I also got to meet Zico the night that he came up there for dinner from Palm Springs.

I had brought the young lady I was dating a 19-year-old blonde who was very bright and very personable and very attractive. And he really took a liking to her Serta picked up where Ciccone left off in terms of having an eye for the ladies, and he had recently lost his last wife to Frank Sinatra dumped him and went for Sinatra and that was Barbara Mark Sinatra so he was back to being a bachelor and he said you know Steve you and that Linda should visit me in Palm Springs sometime and I said well I don't know I was there when I was about nine just it was sweltering and he said what when we get there in the summer and I said yeah and he said well you know Steve, it's also cold in Alaska in the winter it was true that Zappa did have a great sense of humor that really didn't get a chance to shine on screen.

I had heard that he could be very funny and I had you know a charm and an charisma and people are always skeptical that because he was sort of wooden and didn't have the lion share of funny stuff to do in the few movies he was and he was never happy his former and once he once he left the act after duck soup in 1933 he became a very successful agent handling such obscure has-beens as Clark Gable and Carol Lombard and Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor and Lucille Ball Landon turn to. He did really well and never looked back. But anyway, a few months later Linda and I broke at. I had a couple of photos that I wanted Zappa to sign so I mailed them to his address and Palm Springs and in my cover letter. I said, by the way Linda and I broke up, so I know you've been around the block a few times. If you have any advice for the Lovelock and a few days later my phone rings Steve itself a loss. I hope I'm not inconveniencing know how I got the photos you sent God I was good-looking back but listen I have a question for you and II don't want to step on your toes. You understand that because the last thing in the world I want to do would be something to catch you okay do you think that Linda would go out with me and I thought she was 19.

I was 20 and he was 74,000,074, 74, and I said I don't know. I mean she she enjoys that you know she got a kick because it really tell me honestly Steve that this is at all uncomfortable. No no no no I said so let me let me ask her and okay I would appreciate it and and again if it's any known, so I saw her at school and I asked her about it and she laughed. Also, finding it strange and funny but thought you know what the heck I I I want to have the experience of going on a date with Sappho. Marx so they went out once. He took her to dinner in San Diego and then drove to Tijuana and attended a hyaline game at the stadium and then took her home and I talked to him afterwards and he said Steve I want to tell you I never even kissed her good night. You should know that she's very nice but all she did was talk about himself and then I saw her on campus and she said you know Zappa was really nice but all he did was talk about itself and I thought that's a really interesting symmetry there and then parties. Groucho's whenever Zappa would be there. He would make a point of introducing me to someone and say this is Steve he's a nice young man.

He and I dated the same girl. But he got further whether the night that was like my official introduction so anyway I have the distinction of being able to say that Zappa Marx and I dated the same girl I also got to meet the other living Marx brother gumbo to those who aren't that familiar with the Marx Brothers it even more obscure because gumbo was the straightman before Zappa on the stage and then he was drafted during World War I and left the act so at the time, 17-year-old Zappa took his place and gumbo also became an agent and did very became Groucho's agent actually and did very well. He was never that much interested in performing so I got to meet 3/5 of the Marx Brothers which is approximately three more Marx brothers than most people ever got a chance to meet Harpo and Chicco had died in the early 60s. Unfortunately, so I was never able to meet.

But when I would watch Groucho and Sacco and gumbo talking amongst themselves, which was great. I thought what must it have been like with all five brothers in their youth sitting around the table. It must've been hysterical.

Groucho had a cook named Robin who was tall and thin and blond and young ones that Owen gumbo had come up for dinner and I was there for that dinner. Zappos said Robin said she'd marry me, but I don't know. I think she's too cold for me. Groucho said well what part of India want and Zappos said I'll take as high up as I can reach and gumbo said what you want with her feet, so there is a gumbo anecdote, which is extremely rare, but evidence of the kind of goofy humor they had amongst themselves that quickness. It was just it was all still there under various layers of rust.

I was very fortunate because of my Groucho Association, I became friends with Dick Cavett. That was another case where because of my insecurities I thought when Groucho was gone my link to Dick Cavett would be over, but instead he called me from New York the week, Groucho died and he said listen, I hope just because Groucho's gone were not going to lose touch and by the way, I hope you don't mind, but I've shown some of your letters would be and he says they're very well written and I sort of had to empty the urine out of my shoes that Cavett was calling me to say hey don't don't drop me a friend and saying I hope you don't mind, but Woody Allen thinks your letters are well written.

So that was something. And in fact I did end up moving to New York in 1982 and spending a few years there writing for Dick Cavett at HBO and had many remarkable adventures in Manhattan including getting to meet Woody Allen and Katharine Hepburn. Lots of other stuff before I returned to LA to take another job and it was so great when I was working at Groucho's to be able to comfortably meet these people and converse because I think they figured since I was inside the house.

I must be okay. Whether I'm Groucho's grandson or something like that.

If I'm sitting at Groucho's lunch table in my must be okay.

So there wasn't any nobody there were no star trips there. There was people that were very down to earth and I tended to find that the old people who were legends were much more down to earth and personable than some of the people who had recently become famous. Aaron Fleming tended to have younger friends, Elliott Gould and George Segal, and Betancourt, Sally Kellerman and Streisand to a lesser degree and and I found myself instantly drawn to Groucho's old gang. I felt much more that I belonged there. Even though I was 19 and they were in their 70s and 80s than I did towards Aaron sort of quirky group of nouveau stars and a special thanks to Robin for superb production and great storytelling and a special thanks to Steve Stoner as well. Steve stole your story.

Groucho Marx's story on our Americans