A Marriage Not Made To Last
On July 17, 1954 Groucho Marx married Eden Hartford at Sun Valley, Idaho. It was his third marriage, it was her second. He was 63, she was 24.
This was the beginning.
This was the end.
The look on both of their faces in this photo from around 1962 says it all about the state of their marriage after eight years.
Groucho and Eden are dining at the famous Brown Derby restaurant and apparently not enjoying each other’s company. Groucho and Eden displayed similar expressions during the 1960’s anytime they were photographed together.
Even though the love affair was apparently over, the official end wouldn’t come until 1969 after 15 years of marriage when Groucho and Eden were divorced.
Six years after Groucho died, Eden passed away from cancer at the age of 53 on December 15, 1983.
The wedding was a private affair. One of Union Pacific’s PR men, Allan Krieg, caught wind of it and went to take some photos and do a write up. In true Groucho fashion, he asked the stranger, Allan, to be his best man right there on the spot. Their relationship was even shorter than the marriage, less than a couple of hours if I’m not mistaken.
Honestly, Groucho should have stuck with hookers as in his vaudeville days. As with Chico, marriage material he wasn’t. Both those photos are sad in their own ways.