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Margaret Dumont (October 20, 1882 – March 6, 1965) was an American comedic actress. She is remembered mostly for being the comic foil to Groucho Marx in seven of the Marx Brothers films. Groucho called her "practically the fifth Marx brother." She was born Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of William Baker and Harriet Anna Harong. As a child Daisy Baker lived in the southern states, where she was mainly raised by her godfather, the writer Joel Chandler Harris. Dumont trained as an operatic singer and actress in her teens, and began performing on stage in both... MORE

Margaret Dumont (October 20, 1882 – March 6, 1965) was an American comedic actress. She is remembered mostly for being the comic foil to Groucho Marx in seven of the Marx Brothers films. Groucho called her "practically the fifth Marx brother." She was born Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of William Baker and Harriet Anna Harong. As a child Daisy Baker lived in the southern states, where she was mainly raised by her godfather, the writer Joel Chandler Harris. Dumont trained as an operatic singer and actress in her teens, and began performing on stage in both America and Europe, at first under the name Daisy Dumont and later as Margaret (or Marguerite) Dumont. Her theatrical debut was in Beauty and the Beast at the Chestnut Theater in Philadelphia, and in August 1902, two months before her 20th birthday, she appeared as a singer/comedienne in a vaudeville act in Atlantic City. The dark-haired soubrette, described by a theater reviewer as a "statuesque beauty", attracted notice later that decade for her vocal and comedic talents in The Girl Behind the Counter (1908), The Belle of Brittany (1909), and The Summer Widower (1910). In 1910, she married millionaire LESS