Movie
Photo: film trailer screenshot (Paramount) · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons Photo shows Groucho Marx as Firefly with Margaret Dumont (Duck Soup trailer, 1933)
Rufus T. Firefly
Groucho Marx's leader of Freedonia sports the most famous fake mustache in history — greasepaint, eyebrows, cigar and all.
- Actor
- Groucho Marx
- Film
- Duck Soup
- Year
- 1933
- Medium
- Movie
- Style
- Painted
- Fan Votes
- 0 legendary · 0 meh
Why Rufus T. Firefly's Mustache Matters
Groucho Marx's mustache was not hair at all. It was greasepaint, slapped on in a hurry early in his stage career and kept because audiences loved it. As Rufus T. Firefly, the newly appointed dictator of Freedonia in Duck Soup (1933), he wears the painted mustache and matching eyebrows while insulting everyone in the room.
The look is so iconic that it outlived the films. Novelty glasses with a nose, eyebrows and mustache are still called "Groucho glasses," which makes Firefly one of the only characters whose mustache is sold in party stores worldwide.
Duck Soup is considered the Marx Brothers' masterpiece, and the mirror scene, the war musical number and Groucho's endless wordplay all happen beneath that painted lip.
- *Duck Soup* was directed by Leo McCarey and released in November 1933.
- Groucho Marx (1890–1977) only grew a real mustache later in life, during his television years hosting *You Bet Your Life*.
- The film was a box-office disappointment on release but is now preserved in the U.S. National Film Registry.
