Harpo speaks! New recordings reveal mute Marx brother chatting with audience

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The comedy legend, who adopted his silent persona because of stage nerves, did occasionally address his audience, as revealed by a new archive release Groucho was the cigar-chomping wit with the improbable moustache, Chico was the piano-playing rustic grifter and Zeppo played the straight man and the lover. But as any Marx Brothers fan knows, Harpo was the pantomime, who cracked up the audience without saying a word, dressed in his tattered raincoat and curly wig. His persona was childlike and mischievous but also musical – he let his harp and his taxi horn do the talking. But now we get to see, or rather hear, a new side to Harpo Marx. A very special recording has been unearthed of Harpo in 1964 speaking to an audience, in character. Arthur “Harpo” Marx was born Adolph Marx in New York in 1888. He started performing with his brothers in 1910, and his nickname probably came about because of his instrument of choice – he was an entirely self-taught musician. By 1915, due to his nerves a...
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The secret life of a child star: how Alyson Stoner survived stalkers, starvation and sexualisation

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Stoner was a small child when they began acting professionally – and their experience included extreme pressure, dangerous diets, rehab, dashed hopes and self-doubt. Now, with a new memoir, they consider how they escaped ‘the toddler to train-wreck pipeline’

When Alyson Stoner was nine, a wardrobe assistant on the set of a TV show noticed the child actor’s dark leg-hair and told Stoner it was “dirty and unladylike”, and that they couldn’t wear shorts in the show until it was removed. “I started to view my body in a detached way where it was just something to control, to fix, to manipulate for whatever standard was presented to me,” says Stoner. “In this case, the extreme beauty standards of the industry.”

It was a lot for a nine-year-old to take on, but by then Stoner had been working for several years – they were a Disney regular, and appeared in films such as Cheaper By the Dozen – and were used to doing whatever adults asked. As a teenager, this would lead to an excessive exercise regime and an eating disorder requiring inpatient treatment.

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