Nat Perrin Biography

New York native Nat Perrin was fresh out of Fordham Law School when, in 1930, he landed a job with the Warner Bros. publicity department. An inveterate jokester, Perrin began submitting comedy material to vaudeville's "Borscht circuit." In 1931, he bluffed his way into Groucho Marx's Broadway dressing room with a forged letter of introduction from playwright Moss Hart. Impressed by the young man's talent and chutzpah, Groucho saw to it that Perrin was hired by Paramount to work on the upcoming Marx Brothers' film feature Monkey Business (1931). His professional association with the Marxes continued throughout the team's Hollywood career, while off-stage Perrin became one of Groucho's closest friends. He went on to write for such screen comedians as Eddie Cantor, Red Skelton, and Abbott and Costello, and also contributed to the smash Olsen and Johnson Broadway revue Hellzapoppin'. Perrin served as a producer at Columbia in the late '30s and at MGM in the mid-'40s; in addition, he was credited with the direction of MGM's The Great Morgan (1946), a pastiche of musical highlights from earlier films. Remaining active into the video era, he co-produced such TV series as My Friend Irma and The Addams Family. In early 1977, Nat Perrin was appointed temporary conservator for the estate of the enfeebled Groucho Marx; though running afoul of Groucho's live-in companion Erin Fleming, Perrin took pride in the fact that he helped reunite the octogenarian comedian with his long-estranged children. - Hal Erickson, Rovi

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