On This Day: August 19

On This Day, for August 19, by Britannica.

I’m Kurt Heintz. In today’s program we have:

• The woman behind the world’s favorite fragrance and the little black dress
• Lady Gaga’s rise to fame with The Fame
• The death of a mustachioed comedy hero

French fashion designer Coco Chanel—who, with her elegantly casual fashions, ruled over Parisian haute couture for almost six decades—was born on this day in 1883.

Chanel was born into poverty in the French countryside; her mother died, and her father abandoned her to an orphanage. After a brief stint as a shop girl, Chanel worked for a few years as a café singer. She later became associated with a series of wealthy men, and, in 1913, with financial assistance from one of them, Arthur (“Boy”) Capel, she opened a tiny millinery shop in Deauville, France. There she sold simple sportswear, such as jersey sweaters, as well as hats. Within five years her original use of jersey fabric to create a “poor girl” look had attracted the attention of influential wealthy women seeking relief from the corseted styles so common in the day. Faithful to her maxim that “luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury,” Chanel’s designs stressed simplicity and comfort and revolutionized the fashion industry. By the late 1920s Chanel industries were reportedly worth millions and employed more than 2,000 people, not only in her couture house but also in a perfume laboratory, a textile mill, and a jewelry workshop.

The financial basis of this empire was Chanel No. 5, the phenomenally successful perfume she introduced in 1921 with the help of Ernst Beaux, one of the most-talented perfume creators in France. It has been said that the perfume got its name from the series of scents that Beaux had created for Chanel to sample: she chose the fifth, a combination of jasmine and several other floral scents that was more complex and mysterious than the single-scented perfumes then on the market. That Chanel was the first major fashion designer to introduce a perfume and that she replaced the typical perfume packaging with a simple and sleek bottle also added to the scent’s success. She partnered with businessmen Théophile Bader of the Galeries Lafayette department store and Pierre Wertheimer of the Bourjois cosmetics company, who both agreed to help her produce more of her fragrance and to market it in exchange for a share of the profits. After signing a contract that entitled her to only 10 percent of the royalties, Chanel pursued a series of lawsuits in the ensuing decades to regain control of her signature fragrance. Although she was never able to renegotiate the terms of her contract to increase her royalties, she still made a considerable profit from the perfume.

Chanel closed her couture house in 1939 with the outbreak of World War II. Her associations with a German diplomat during the Nazi occupation of France tainted her reputation, and she did not return to fashion until 1954. That year she introduced her highly copied suit design: a collarless braid-trimmed cardigan jacket with a graceful skirt.

After her death in 1971, Chanel’s couture house was led by a series of different designers. This situation stabilized in 1983 when Karl Lagerfeld became chief designer. Chanel’s shrewd understanding of women’s fashion needs, her enterprising ambition, and the romantic aspects of her life—her rise from rags to riches and her sensational love affairs—continued to inspire numerous biographical books, films, and plays, including the 1970 Broadway musical Coco starring Katharine Hepburn.

I’m Meg Matthias, and here are Fast Facts for August 19th.

Bill Clinton—who, as the 42nd president of the United States, from 1993 to 2001, oversaw the country's longest peacetime economic expansion but became, in 1998, the second president to be impeached—was born on this day in 1946.

Matthew Perry, Canadian-American actor known for his portrayal of Chandler Bing—or should we say, Miss Chanandler Bong—on the hit ’90s TV show Friends, was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on this day in 1969.

American air pilot Francis Gary Powers was sentenced to 10 years' confinement by the Soviet Union on this day in 1960 for espionage in the U-2 Incident, but he was released in 1962 in exchange for a Soviet spy.

On this day in 1561, Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived in Scotland to assume the throne after spending 13 years in France.

On this day in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1985 and president of the Soviet Union since 1990, was briefly ousted in a coup by communist hard-liners. While the coup lasted only a few days, it set in motion a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.

On this day in 2008, Lady Gaga’s debut album, The Fame, was released. Her first single, “Just Dance,” became popular in clubs throughout the United States and Europe and eventually landed at number one on the Billboard Pop Songs chart.

Three other singles off The Fame—“Poker Face,” “LoveGame,” and “Paparazzi”—also reached number one on the Pop Songs chart, making Lady Gaga the first artist in the 17-year history of that radio airplay chart to have four number ones from a debut album. The Fame was well received critically and proved enormously successful commercially, selling more than eight million copies worldwide by the end of 2009. The album also yielded Lady Gaga five Grammy nominations, including for album of the year and song of the year (for “Poker Face”); she took home two of those five Grammys—for best dance recording (“Poker Face”) and best electronic or dance album.

On this day in 1977, comedy legend Groucho Marx passed away in Los Angeles, California, signifying the end of a comedic era.

Here's our closing story.

On this day in 1977, comedy legend Groucho Marx passed away in Los Angeles, California, signifying the end of a comedic era.

Of any band of comedic brothers (the list of which seems incredibly niche but is in fact quite populated), the Marx Brothers are by far the most distinct. Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo were the sons of a tailor and a domineering stage mother, as well as the nephews of vaudeville headliner Al Shean of the popular team Gallagher and Shean. In 1904 Groucho became the first of the brothers to appear onstage, when he joined a singing trio. He was eventually joined by Gummo, Harpo, and Chico in what evolved into a comedy act after a long series of incarnations. For several mostly successful years in burlesque and vaudeville, the brothers’ stage act consisted of songs, dances, musical specialties by Harpo (on the harp, of course) and Chico (on the piano), and the Marxes’ own brand of chaotic humor. They scored a major triumph on Broadway with their musical-comedy revue I’ll Say She Is in 1924, by which time Zeppo had replaced Gummo.

By 1924 the brothers’ act had evolved into its familiar incarnation. Groucho was the master of wit and verbal timing, and he delivered wisecracks and non sequiturs at a dizzying, relentless pace. His visual trademarks included greasepaint eyebrows and mustache, glasses, a tailcoat, and his ever-present cigar. Harpo, clad in rags and battered top hat, communicated through gestures, whistles, horn-honking, and wild facial expressions but did not speak during his performances. His character is that of pure unbridled emotion and impulse, devilish and angelic in equal measure. Although he had no formal musical training, Harpo was a proficient harpist, and virtually all Marx Brothers films feature one of his impressive solos. Although Groucho and Harpo are regarded as the comic geniuses of the act, audiences also found Chico the most immediately endearing. In the manner of dialect comedians of the time, Chico adopted a bogus Italian accent for his character, a somewhat thick-headed conniver with a heart of gold. Zeppo, who dropped out of the act after the team’s first five films, played a straight character and was usually given little to do, but, when given the opportunity, he too had a sound sense of comic timing.

The success of I’ll Say She Is enabled the brothers to secure Broadway’s most prestigious talents for their next show. As produced by Sam Harris, and with a book by George S. Kaufman and Irving Berlin, The Cocoanuts opened in 1925 and ran for more than two years on Broadway and on tour. After the 1928 hit Animal Crackers, the brothers turned their attention to the new medium of sound motion pictures. They adapted their revues into films. The Cocoanuts, in 1929, was the first and thus suffered from the typical technological issues of early talkies. By 1930, when they filmed Animal Crackers, most of the problems with sound had been solved, and that film is now recognized as their first classic.

Pleased with the success of the first two films, Paramount Pictures extended the Marx Brothers’ contract, which they fulfilled with three of their greatest comedies: Monkey Business in 1931, Horse Feathers in 1932, and Duck Soup in 1933. Among their wildest, most anarchic efforts, those three films mercilessly lampoon moneyed society, higher education, and warring governments. Monkey Business and Horse Feathers were enormously popular with Depression-era audiences, but the political satire Duck Soup (directed by the renowned Leo McCarey) was a box-office disappointment. Today, however, it is regarded as one of the great film comedies of the 1930s. After the Marx Brothers’ Paramount films, Zeppo quit the act and subsequently became a successful talent agent.

Irving Thalberg, one of the most powerful producers in film history, took an interest in the brothers and signed them to a two-picture deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The resulting films, A Night at the Opera in 1935 and A Day at the Races in 1937, proved to be the team’s most financially successful ones and are regarded as among their best efforts.

In 1938 the team starred for RKO Radio Pictures in an adaptation of the stage hit Room Service. Back at MGM the following year, the brothers found themselves under the guidance of Louis B. Mayer, who reputedly never cared for their style of comedy. Their final three MGM films—At the Circus in 1939, Go West in 1940, and The Big Store in 1941—lacked the quality of their earlier work and were much less successful. In 1941 the brothers announced their retirement as a team.

During the war years Groucho performed frequently on radio, Harpo appeared onstage, Chico led his own big band, and all three toured individually and entertained troops. They reteamed for two more films, the enjoyable A Night in Casablanca in 1946 and Love Happy in 1949, the latter being most notable for a cameo appearance by the young Marilyn Monroe. Groucho began hosting the quiz show You Bet Your Life on ABC radio in 1947. While the quiz itself was underwhelming, it acted as the backdrop to the real draw: Groucho’s ability to ad-lib and improvise with the audience and the contestants. The show was picked up for television in 1950, by which time Groucho had grown a real mustache. The show ran for 11 seasons, and it was canceled in 1961.

Groucho was the most recognizable of the core three brothers and lived the longest life: Chico died in 1961 and Harpo in 1964. Groucho made his last major appearance at 84 years of age. At the 1974 Academy Awards ceremony, he was presented with an honorary Oscar and received a standing ovation. The award also commemorated Harpo and Chico posthumously while Zeppo sat in the crowd, clapping along with the rest of world.

Groucho died in 1977 from pneumonia, and his ashes were interred at Eden Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles. Fans of comedy from around the world still leave cigars on his grave.

Thanks for listening today. Whether your name is Coco, Gaga, Groucho, or Gorbachev (oh my!), there’s always more to read and discover at Britannica.com. Today’s program was written by Emily Goldstein, and edited by yours truly. For Britannica, I’m Kurt Heintz. And I’m Meg Matthias.

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