He was forced out of school at 12 with dreams of becoming a doctor, yet he made his living with a painted-on mustache, a hunched chicken-walk, and a relentless barrage of insults. His proudest achievement wasn’t a movie or a joke, it was having his letters preserved in the Library of Congress.

This episode strips off the greasepaint to reveal Julius Henry Marx, the brilliant shape-shifter who reinvented himself again and again to survive. From vaudeville poverty to radio failure to television triumph, we trace how a man who desperately craved intellectual validation became the blueprint for modern irony.

• The Texas night the brothers bombed as singers and accidentally discovered they were comedians
• Why he dropped his German accent overnight after the sinking of the RMS Lusitania
• The lazy origin of the iconic mustache and the 1880s aristocratic walk he parodied
• How a 40-minute wait on Bob Hope’s show led to his hit You Bet Your Life
• The truth behind the famous cigar quote he always denied ever saying