Groucho Marx and “the Girl” Decades His Junior: The Shocking Relationship Debated for 50 Years

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It began in the most benign of ways: Groucho Marx needed somebody to deal with his fan mail.

In 1969, Marx was 80 and living a quiet, secluded life in a Beverly Hills enclave called Trousdale Estates. He had recently divorced for the third time, and his adult children didn’t visit often, so at night, he’d wander the neighborhood looking for someone to invite him in for dinner. Then Marx’s friend Jerry Davis, a producer at Paramount, called to say that he’d met a young woman who might be able to plow through the “junk” in Groucho’s office and restore it to some kind of order.

The woman was an aspiring actor named Erin Fleming. Some believed she was a godsend, reanimating a living legend’s public profile and zest for life. Others, including Marx’s adult children, considered her a fame-seeking, family-destroying agent of chaos taking advantage of a frail, elderly man.

In the spring of 1977, the naysayers made their case in a trial at the Santa Monica Courthouse. Drug paraphernalia had been found outside Marx’s house, his once quiet street was blocked with police cars and TV trucks, and a vicious legal fight over his conservatorship was about to begin. (Yes, “conservatorship” as in the Britney Spears variety—but if Spears were 86 years old.) Barbara Walters summed the situation up for viewers of the ABC evening news: “Police have begun a criminal investigation after private detectives testified that they found syringes with traces of barbiturates on the grounds near Groucho Marx’s home. Groucho’s son, Arthur, has claimed his father’s life is in danger.”

The testimony and public commentary were wildly polarized. Zeppo Marx, the youngest of the beloved Marx Brothers, had this to say on the courthouse steps: “My brother loves Erin Fleming. He can’t live without her.” Terry McCord, Groucho’s longtime nurse, had a different view: “She described how Erin Fleming gave Groucho tranquilizers, shook, pushed, slapped him, and threatened to throw him in a convalescent home and let him rot there. And when he drooled uncontrollably at the dinner table, called him a ‘filthy pig.’”

Maybe one side was right—or maybe, somehow, they both were.

By the time he was in his late 70s, Marx was an icon struggling to be remembered by the public as more than the mustache and wiggling eyebrows on all those novelty glasses. He and his brothers had deconstructed the social norms of the 1930s and ’40s to uproarious effect in over a dozen groundbreaking movies, such as Duck Soup and Horse Feathers. His 1950s television show, You Bet Your Life, further pushed the envelope and influenced a roster of future comedians, including Bill Murray, Will Ferrell, and Jim Carrey. Now 79, one of his only regular social outings was to a country club.

“Before Erin, all he’d do was go to Hillcrest for lunch, come home, take a nap,” says Burt Prelutsky, a screenwriter and friend of Groucho and Fleming’s. “And that was his day.”

Fleming, meanwhile, was in her late 20s. She had moved from Canada—where she’d attended the Banff Theatre school in 1959—and was trying to build some semblance of an acting career in New York City. She landed the occasional role in a D-level horror movie and shared the screen briefly with a young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Despite struggling as an actor, Fleming’s charm, beauty, and ingenuity landed her in prestigious circles. She became the secretary to New York City Mayor John Lindsay and dated prominent men. “I had heard she had gone with Marvin Hamlisch,” says Fleming’s friend, actor Ed Begley, Jr. “And according to [her], she definitely had a relationship with him. She freaked out when she saw [Hamlisch’s Broadway show] A Chorus Line. She said, ‘That’s my story. I was one of those dancers. How could Marvin write that without checking with me first?’”

After finding it hard to get roles in New York, Fleming moved to Los Angeles on a whim, and, at Davis’s suggestion, went to see a certain comedy icon about putting his home office in order. Marx’s home at 1083 North Hillcrest Road, she discovered, was in shambles—dark, dreary, and falling apart. More importantly, the supposed “junk” in his office was valuable memorabilia collecting dust from a legendary career stretching back to when Marx was a child managed by his mother.

Fleming quickly became a fixture in Marx’s life, not just organizing his house, but accompanying him around town. When the press asked him what he was going to do with his money, a visibly refreshed Marx replied, “Spend it on my secretary—which is a euphemism for this girl over here.” He had longed for companionship and he missed performing, which became another of Fleming’s missions.

A Whole New Groucho

Marx’s three children were not thrilled with their father’s makeover. When they visited him in Beverly Hills, they saw Fleming had redecorated it with new furnishings, art, and lighting. Even Marx himself looked shockingly different in the hip new clothes she’d help pick out for him. And there were parties now. What Marx and his housekeeper later called “new people” started showing up at the house for nightly festivities and dinners that Fleming organized. Marx would be at the center of it all—often performing duets with Fleming.

His tumultuous marriages and issues with his children seemed to have taken a toll and it had been years since Marx had been this lively. His son, Arthur, and his eldest daughter, Miriam, had grown up in a challenging household, due largely to their mother Ruth’s alcoholism. Miriam, unfortunately, followed in her mother’s footsteps and struggled with addiction throughout her adult life. Arthur grew resentful of his father, who he characterized as “neglectful.”

When Arthur wanted to pursue a career as a writer, Marx was far from supportive, especially when he started writing about his father’s life. Two of Arthur’s books—Son of Groucho and Life With Groucho—were tell-alls that further strained their relationship. “He got furious when he read it. He started to sue me,” Arthur said of the latter. “He said, ‘You treated me spuriously in that book.’ And I had to get my own lawyer. It went on for about four months.”

Marx had a third child, Melinda, from his second marriage to the actor Kay Marvis. Melinda grew up as a child actor on television. She first appeared on her father’s show, You Bet Your Life, and he wanted her to pursue a career in show business and encouraged her talent. But Melinda wanted nothing to do with Hollywood. She moved out of the spotlight and to Northern California, far from her father.

In 1954, Marx married his third wife, Eden Hartford. After they divorced in 1969, he announced he was done with matrimony: “I’ve paid three alimonies. Three is enough.”

Once the ’70s kicked off, however, there was no Groucho without Erin by his side. They were photographed everywhere together. Not surprisingly, the press speculated they had a romantic relationship. “Was there something sexual? Who knows? Who cares?” says Arthur Allan Seidelman, a film director and friend of Fleming’s from her New York days. “Was there a deep friendship? Yes, I believe there was.”

Whatever the truth about her and Marx, Fleming did see other men. “She and I dated for a while. I should in full disclosure tell you that,” Begley says of a years-long romance with Fleming in the 1970s. When Fleming met him, Begley was a young, struggling actor. It was a decade before his rise to fame on the hit television series St. Elsewhere. “I saw a lot,” he says of his time with Fleming. “[Groucho] called her every morning to say he loved her. And he called at night to say the same thing.”

Once she was ensconced in Marx’s life, Fleming discovered that the legend was still very much in demand. She found many offers for him to make personal appearances, and he seemed thrilled to oblige. When Marx went on The Dick Cavett Show and Merv Griffin, Fleming joined him—and the appearances usually concluded with them performing a musical number. Marx seemed thrilled with his resurgence. “I’m gonna work as long as I’m able to stand up on stage,” he said at a press conference for his famous Carnegie Hall performance in 1972. “And if I drop dead on stage, that’s the ideal way for an actor to go.”

Marx was doing sold-out appearances on college campuses, and a recording of his show, “An Evening with Groucho,” became a hit. He also popped up at sold-out movie screenings at New York’s iconic Ziegfeld Theatre, where fans lined the streets screaming his name and slamming their fists on the theater lobby windows—all to get in to watch the rerelease of the Marx Brothers’ long-lost film from 1930, Animal Crackers. At the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, Marx was made an honorary Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters. A national tour, which Fleming organized, concluded with the show at Carnegie Hall. “Marvin Hamlisch played the piano and Erin was [Groucho’s] nurse [in a comedy sketch on stage],” says the Oscar-nominated actor Elliott Gould, a friend to the couple. “And Groucho was able to perform in front of a packed house with his friends.”

Not everyone felt that Marx was in the physical or mental shape to perform. Actor Zack Norman remembers attending the Carnegie Hall performance and being shocked by Marx’s physical state. “When the curtain opened, he was sitting in a chair. What happened to this man? This brilliant, powerful guy had become someone else,” says Norman. “And how did that happen, and who was this girl up there with him? I couldn’t understand it. It seemed like it wasn’t ‘An Evening with Groucho.’ It was an evening with Groucho and the girl.”

“He loved to perform and get out there, but he also would’ve been just as happy at home reading a book,” says Dick Cavett, who went backstage during the Carnegie performance. “I risked my life and got a look from Erin that would kill, when I said, ‘I think you ought to cut the final number. I don’t think he’s up to it.’ She was in it.” That number was Marx and Fleming’s duet of “Hello, I Must Be Going.”

Begley says he was torn about the show at the time. “For a guy that used to be very agile, to see him in this state—that was hard to watch,” he says. “But someone that we worshiped so much—to have even a small piece of him, it was just amazing to be a part of that.”

Everybody wanted a piece of the parties too. The regular bashes that Fleming put together for Marx brought out Hollywood’s A-list, including Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Burt Reynolds, Gould, Alice Cooper, and Freddie Mercury. Even old friends of Marx’s who had been out of touch for years started returning to 1083 North Hillcrest. George Burns—who was having his own career resurgence with an Oscar win for The Sunshine Boys—and Marx’s old sparring buddy from You Bet Your Life, George Fenneman, turned up too. Groucho’s children never attended, and seemed to feel these gatherings were an overstep and too taxing for their ailing father. Others disagreed. All in the Family legend Carroll O’Connor would later testify in court: “Groucho told me that the parties and dinners Erin was arranging were, in his own words, ‘Keeping me alive.’”

American culture famously shifted in the ’70s. Marx was part of the counterculture battling President Nixon and the never-ending Vietnam War—he even made an appearance on Nixon’s infamous enemies list. It all just added to his luster, as well as Fleming’s.

Fleming’s own star shined brighter when she was with Marx. “You couldn’t be in Groucho [in the 1970s] without seeing him with Erin Fleming,” says comedian David Steinberg. “Some people called her a gold digger but none of that was apparent to me. She made Groucho very happy.” Author Steve Stoliar, who worked for Marx and Fleming as a personal assistant and archivist, adds: “She does get some credit for helping him become a living legend in his own lifetime.”

Fleming formed the company Groucho Marx Productions to manage all things Groucho. Suddenly, the comedian’s face was being licensed to appear on T-shirts and merchandise. And then there were his lost TV episodes. “Erin was the one that took possession of these old 16mm prints of the show You Bet Your Life. They were going to destroy them and Erin was the architect for [getting them syndicated],” says Begley. In 2021 You Bet Your Life was rereleased, hosted by Jay Leno.

Fleming’s savvy culminated in her campaign to garner Marx a long overdue honorary Oscar in 1974. The legend’s friend Prelutsky later testified, “I gave her full credit for all the good stuff that started happening to him, from the medal from the French government to the honorary Oscar.” Alice Cooper agrees: “I don’t think there was anything wrong with Erin at that point in his life. He needed someone around to take care of him.”

Marx thanked Fleming when he accepted the Oscar (“And last of all, I’d like to thank Erin Fleming, who makes my life worth living and who understands all my jokes”), and in a TV interview that year, he spoke even more earnestly: “When I was a small child in vaudeville years ago, I didn’t think anything would ever happen. We were lucky. I met Erin and I got the Academy Award, and I got this [award] from the French government.” In another interview, Groucho points over to Fleming. “Women are still crazy about me. Here’s an example of it right there. She wouldn’t leave me.”

Over the years, Fleming grew paranoid. As Begley puts it, “I was never a victim of Erin’s dark side…. I think she didn’t want somebody else coming in, a family member perhaps, and usurping her authority.”

Marx obviously wasn’t getting any younger, but Fleming ignored the doctors and appeared convinced he would live forever. She seemed to want him to perform and be as big a star as he was decades earlier—her own career hinged on this. “The press had continued to perpetuate this idea—‘Good old Groucho just as strong as ever at 81,’” says Stoliar. “But he had suffered a substantial stroke [in 1972]. That stroke was essentially hushed up.”

People who worked in the house were also concerned with Fleming’s behavior. “He had to do what she said,” cook Martha Brooks later testified. “Because he was afraid of her.” Soon after taking reigns of the household, Fleming had Marx fire Brooks.

Whether Fleming was a force for good or a gold digger taking advantage of an old man is still debated by the people close to the situation. The legendary talent manager Shep Gordon saw a more nuanced relationship between the two. “He wouldn’t always eat. And he needed to eat,” he says. “She would scream at him. It appeared to me to be tough love. She brought joy to Groucho’s life and that was what was important to me.” Gould agrees: “If Erin had to be forceful, it may have sometimes looked as if it might have been abusive but no, no.”

What Fleming seemed to be trying to hide, and may not have even been able to admit to herself, was how seriously Groucho’s health was deteriorating. And of course, if Groucho couldn’t perform, what was left for Fleming personally and professionally? “Groucho had a stroke on Erin’s birthday [in 1974], and she flipped out. She screamed ‘fuck’ all the way down the hallway and then slammed the door of what was her office at Groucho’s house,” says Stoliar. “She said, ‘He only did this because it’s my birthday. He doesn’t want me to get attention.’”

As the calendar turned to 1977, Groucho was making fewer public appearances. Strokes had confined him to bed, eating and sleeping were a painful struggle, and he had become increasingly estranged from his children, who blamed Fleming for their deteriorating relationship with their father. Arthur and Fleming exchanged tense phone calls and Arthur’s wife threw a glass of water at her face at a Beverly Hills restaurant. Gould believes that the great comedian’s family just didn’t understand Fleming’s value to him: “Erin was more important to Groucho’s life, I would think, than his family was willing to admit.”

But Fleming’s behavior was becoming more erratic and that soon became a powerful factor. “I finally got sober finally in 1979,” Begley says. “But I was nowhere near in recovery back in the 1975 and ’76 when I was dating Erin. And she did drugs too, so I thought it was about that. But when I heard later that she had some mental illness, I was not shocked to hear that.”

In the spring of 1977, Fleming enlisted private investigators to take a look around Groucho’s home in Beverly Hills, because she believed that Arthur had planted listening devices around the house. According to one of the investigators, she even thought Arthur was trying to kill her and Groucho.

The private investigators found nothing inside the house. But as they departed, they noticed some syringes in bags at the end of the driveway. They took them to the Beverly Hills police. According to the investigators’ testimony in the subsequent trial, the syringes tested positive for barbiturates. Was Fleming trying to poison Groucho?

Fleming claimed that Groucho had trouble sleeping due to his many strokes and that he needed sedatives to have a peaceful night of sleep. Believing that his father was being poisoned, Arthur began a conservatorship battle over Groucho’s custody. Arthur tried to prove that he was the one who Groucho wanted to take care of him. But it was complicated. As ABC News reported, “Groucho wrote years earlier in a legal document that if he ever needed a conservator, Miss Fleming would be it. But Arthur Marx [contested] that document.”

During the conservatorship trial in 1977, most of the family excoriated Fleming, and Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” reported on the proceedings, using her as the punchline. Marx’s brother Zeppo, however, came to Fleming’s defense and said his brother loved her.

After a lengthy battle, the judge ruled that Marx was to be taken out of Fleming’s custody. “I don’t mean to gloat,” Arthur exclaimed to a line of television cameras. “But I won.”

It ended up being a short-lived victory. In early August of 1977, Marx suffered another stroke. He passed away on the 19th of that month, largely alone, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in LA. Fleming, who had been taking anxiety medication throughout the hearing, was traumatized. She believed that the conservatorship case had killed him and singled out as her bete noir Marx-family-lawyer J. Brin Schulman, who had accused her in her deposition of being mentally ill.

Fleming’s battle with the Marx family didn’t end with the legendary comedian’s death. According to Fleming’s lawyer, the family seemed to believe the estate was worth more than what was left to them due to gifts and money that were given to Fleming, on top of which, they believed she had drugged their father to control him.

Trials and Tribulations

In 1983, Erin Fleming was back in the headlines and the top story on national nightly news broadcasts. Bank of America was suing her for over $400,000. “When Groucho died, he left her some money in his will as well as her house. The will stipulated that if anyone contested it, then they would only receive a single dollar,” says Fleming’s nephew, David Fleming.

Marx and Fleming’s friend Warren Berlinger, who was a witness to the will being drawn up, adds that in the event the children did contest it, the balance of the estate would go to the Boy Scouts of America. “But they didn’t know anything about the will,” Berlinger says. “They went their merry way and made life miserable for Erin.”

Well, not directly. Marx’s children recruited Bank of America to essentially sue for them, which led to a trial in 1983. “Bank of America was the executor of the estate,” says Fleming’s lawyer, David Sabih. “And if they’re convinced that there might be fraud in the estate, then they have the duty to sue.” Sabih adds that, in court, whenever he noted that the bank was acting on behalf of the children, the opposing lawyer, J. Brin Schulman, would passionately disagree: “Objection, your honor. Groucho’s children are not suing anyone.”

Marx’s will left Fleming a home on Cynthia Drive in West Hollywood, an additional piece of real estate, a Mercedes-Benz, and half of Groucho Marx Productions, the company she cofounded in the 1970s. Marx’s children were to receive the remainder of the estate, which amounted to more than $2.5 million. (That would be roughly $13 million today.) The children, via Bank of America, claimed the estate would have been worth more if not for Fleming’s machinations. Yet, Groucho Marx Productions was a lucrative business in Marx’s final years.

In the intervening five years since Groucho’s death, Fleming had already gone back to court with the California labor board. The labor commissioner determined that she had represented Marx as an unlicensed talent manager and ordered her to pay back $80,000 in earnings. The 1983 trial took three months, during which time Fleming was accused of all manner of things: exerting undue influence over Marx by encouraging him to redecorate his house, as well as drugging and abusing him to get what she wanted. As it happened, Schulman, the Marx family attorney from the conservatorship case, represented Bank of America in the trial. Fleming, who had not forgotten that Schulman claimed she was mentally ill while questioning her in the 1977 deposition, believed that the stress of that trial was what killed Marx. When she took the stand in the later trial, she got her revenge with TV cameras rolling, though she may have unintentionally underscored his point about her mental health when she said, “Mr. Brin Schulman is an assassin and he murdered Groucho Marx.”

Friends of Marx strongly believe that, though she may have been flawed, Flemming was a force for good in the comedian’s life. “So she wasn’t Snow White. So what?” says Marx’s friend Prelutsky. “Like I said in my testimony, anyone who spent six or seven years taking care of him should be commended. No one else was doing it. I thought it was Arthur Marx, who wasn’t on the closest of terms with his father, who was behind [suing her]. I thought it was indecent at the time and do to this day.”

Still, there’s no ignoring the fact that Fleming’s behavior became more and more erratic.

The day after she called the opposing lawyer an assassin, he claimed that he feared for his life and Fleming was searched for a weapon, but no weapon was found. Before the trial was over, she had manic episodes in front of the cameras. At one point she emptied her purse, and in front of the courtroom, enumerated its contents, including her pills. “These are uppers and downers in case I am drugged like I have been in the past,” she said.

Judge Jacqueline Weiss asked that a court-appointed psychiatrist evaluate Flemming. The psychiatrist concluded that Fleming was severely mentally ill but could still testify. It was clearly taking a toll on Fleming, however. “It’s called thin-skull theory,” says Sabih. “[If] you have a thin skull, the slightest bit of stress will get to you. If you’re a normal person it’s one thing, but Erin was not normal. So that kind of thing will affect her a lot more…. And you’re being called an awful woman and everything. My goodness, she has to be as strong as iron not to be affected.”

In rare, archival footage from ABC News, Fleming can be heard shouting behind closed doors in the courthouse, still convinced that Arthur is bugging her home. Her mental state unraveled—yet she continued to testify.

Groucho’s younger daughter, Melinda, also testified at the trial and said she was convinced her father had been sedated by Flemming. In tears on the stand, she said, “I was talking to him and it was like he was drugged. He wasn’t coherent,” Melinda cried. “Erin went right up to my face and said, ‘I am his daughter. He doesn’t have any other daughters but me.’”

However, many of the celebrities who visited Marx’s home and were called to testify by Fleming’s legal team pushed back against the claims made by Marx’s children. “He was alive and alert from the time I met him until the very end,” Caroll O’Connor testified. Begley concurs that, despite the strokes, Groucho’s mind remained sharp. “The voice box was affected by the stroke,” he says, “but the data processor was working exactly as it was in the You Bet Your Life days and before.”

Decline and Fall

Fleming’s lawyers, Sabih and Melvin Belli, were top celebrity attorneys, who had represented Muhammad Ali and the Rolling Stones. They represented Fleming pro bono. Even so, she lost access to her home and car during the trial. Homeless, with nowhere to go, she was found sleeping on the floor of her attorney’s office in Beverly Hills.

During closing arguments, Fleming arrived at the courthouse, medicated and wearing a white sweater covered with a crude hand-drawn picture in black ink of Groucho Marx. Her bulging eyes would be broadcast to the world. On March 30, 1983, Fleming was found guilty after the jury was asked to answer 18 special questions in addition to delivering the verdict. Specifically, she was found guilty of breaching her fiduciary duty to Marx, and ordered to pay over $220,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages to Bank of America. Some of the compensatory damages seemed like overkill, such as the cost of Groucho’s medication and lunches for nurses who were providing household care for him. Later, Ted Koppel interviewed Fleming on Nightline and they had this exchange:

Koppel: You owe the Bank of America almost $500,000. That’s a lot of money. How will you pay the bank?

Fleming: I don’t know. Will you accept a check? I was wondering if I could put it on my Mastercharge.

In another bizarre twist, Judge Weiss questioned the jury’s verdict, after discovering that the decision contradicted their answers to the 18 questions. The jury had answered “no” to the questions regarding whether or not Fleming had committed fraud or induced undue influence over Marx’s decision-making. In other words, the jury did not think she had committed fraud or abused Groucho, yet somehow still delivered a guilty verdict.

When the press asked jury foreman Eugene McCarthy to explain, he said the special-findings answers were influenced by the jury members’ sympathy toward Fleming, but the verdict reflected the truth. Fleming’s lawyer, Belli, would state in a press conference, “How can there be fraud and punitive damages [with a guilty verdict] when the jury said there’s no fraud in 18 special findings questions? It’s utterly ridiculous.”

Judge Weiss ultimately reversed the verdict regarding the punitive damages in a packed courtroom full of television reporters. “The overwhelming evidence was that this was a loving, positive relationship between the defendant and Groucho Marx,” she said. “The evidence simply does not support a finding of punitive damages against defendant Erin Fleming. Miss Fleming’s care and affection for the comedian sustained him, prolonged his life, and helped to keep him at home. There is no substantial evidence to support the bank’s accusation that Mr. Marx had been drugged by Miss Fleming.”

The evidence at the center of the 1977 conservatorship case was completely dismissed. Judge Weiss believed that Marx needed sedatives to have a peaceful night of sleep after he suffered the strokes. “I’m happy we had a female judge,” Fleming said in an interview on ABC. “I think a woman understands another woman.”

Fleming had been cleared, but she was still guilty in the eyes of many, her reputation was tarnished, and her mental health deteriorating. Her role as Marx’s manager wasn’t official since she had never registered with the state of California as a licensed talent representative, and the compensatory damages of what she was ordered to pay back remained at over $220,000.

When Fleming and her lawyer, Sabih, appeared on NBC’s Today Show, host Jane Pauley saw there was clearly something amiss with Fleming. “Are you concerned for your client?” she asked Sabih. “She says things like she doesn’t want to live anymore.” Fleming’s own comment on the subject was often the same: “Without Groucho, I don’t have a reason to live.” Once again, she was asked how she planned to pay Bank of America, and once again, she deflected with bitter humor: “I guess I’ll have to go into the bank tomorrow morning and wash their floors.”

For their part, Fleming’s lawyers, Sabih and Belli, stayed on message. “Erin has a roof over her head,” Belli said. “She is not losing her home. The Bank of America can go back into the vaults and count their gold bullion.”

The press continued to camp outside Fleming’s house, which she had gained access to again. She would taunt them, walking out wearing the bizarre Groucho sweater with sunglasses and a trench coat. She would bang her chest with her fists while screaming and jumping into her Mercedes, driving off as cameras captured every moment. At the Santa Monica Courthouse, Fleming’s lawyers appealed the remaining verdict that she owed compensatory damages, while heated debates continued in the court of public opinion. “She loved him very, very much. People fight if they love each other. And Groucho had his cantankerous moments too,” said Bud Cort, an actor and friend of Fleming’s, in a 1983 interview with NBC News. Fleming lost the appeal and later filed for bankruptcy.

Gould stands by Fleming to this day. “I don’t care what anyone says. Erin did more for Groucho than anyone,” he says. “No question about it.” Marx and Fleming’s screenwriter friend Prelutsky says much the same, though he still carries some regret. “I wish there was something I could’ve done to help Erin,” he says. “But his children should have been grateful that Erin was helping to revive his life and put him back in the spotlight.”

With no source of income, Fleming would never repay the compensatory damages. Instead, she spent her remaining years homeless and living with what struck many as mental illness. She never worked in the entertainment industry again. “Years later, I saw her on Santa Monica Boulevard after the trial,” says Seidelman. “And she clung to the hope of being an actress. She kept talking about hearing things and seeing things that were not real.”

Fleming was never officially diagnosed with a disorder. “After the trial, Erin sank into a deep depression, and we believe that she developed a debilitating mental illness probably precipitated by substance abuse,” says her nephew David. “However, she was never diagnosed with mental health problems, in part, because she could not afford the necessary medical attention. My father tried to reach out to her, but she always pushed him away.”

In 1990, Fleming walked into a sheriff’s station in West Hollywood with a magnum revolver visible in her purse. She was arrested under suspicion of carrying a concealed loaded firearm in a public place, again appearing in papers around the country, though the story wasn’t featured as prominently as coverage of her in the past had been. Fleming was once again checked into a psychiatric hospital. During this time, her brother, Russell, tried to help her, but Fleming refused. She lived her final years on the streets, until scrounging up enough to move into an assisted living home on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. The building bordered the 101 freeway.

Tragically, Fleming’s gun arrest in 1990 would foreshadow her death years later. “All of her friends abandoned her,” says David Fleming. “In the end, she somehow acquired a magnum pistol and committed suicide.”

Erin Fleming died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 15, 2003. She did not leave a note.

“I am very angry at how she was treated by Groucho’s heirs and her so-called friends in Hollywood society. I met many of them, but I will not name them here,” says her nephew. He credits Gould as one of the people who stood by her. “I remember my aunt as a beautiful woman, although she always had an edge to her personality. I have a picture of her from when she took me to Disneyland in 1972 as a six-year-old boy. This is how I like to remember her.”

To the extent that pop culture remembers Fleming, she tends to be written off as an abusive gold digger with mental health struggles. Maybe because of the sexism and double standards of the ’70s, the narrative does not include her being a pioneering female manager, albeit an unlicensed one. Lest we forget, at the same time Fleming was being called “Groucho’s girlfriend,” Jon Peters was successfully managing the career of his soon-to-be wife Barbra Streisand. Fleming was a former actor. Peters was a former actor turned hairdresser. Peters’s career skyrocketed, while Fleming’s life imploded.

“I didn’t know [the way she died],” says Begley. “I had heard she was in West Hollywood Park. After I got sober, I made some feeble attempt to track her down once, but I was never able to find her. I wish I could’ve helped her.”