Daily BirthdaysMargaret Dumont
Dumont played wealthy aristocratic widows whom Groucho alternately insulted and romanced for their money. They include Mrs Rittenhouse in Animal Crackers, Mrs Claypool in A Night at the Opera, Mrs Gloria Teasdale in Duck Soup, Martha Phelps in The Big Store, Mrs Susan Dewkesbury in At the Circus, and Emily Upjohn in A Day at the Races. Groucho once said a lot of people believed they were married in real life, but they were not.
Over the course of her lifetime she played in 40 movies, not including some minor silent work. Her first feature film was the Marx Brothers movie The Cocoanuts in 1929 in which she played Mrs Potter, the same role she played in the stage version from which the film was adapted. Her last movie was What a Way to Go! in 1964.
She also played the same type with W.C. Fields (in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break), Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Jack Benny and Danny Kaye. She also played some dramatic parts.
Her offstage personality has been said to be pretty much like the characters she played – a rich regal woman who never quite understood the joke.
Margaret Dumont Facts
| Birth Name | Daisy Juliette Baker |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Birthday | October 20, 1882 |
| Sign | Libra |
| Birthplace | Brooklyn, New York, USA |
| Date of death | March 6, 1965 (age 82) |