Vandamm Studio · Public domain

A comedian who built an entire performing style around silence, playing the mute, curly-wigged Harpo across the Marx Brothers' films while his brothers Groucho and Chico worked in rapid-fire dialogue. He communicated through horns, whistles, and elaborate sight gags drawn from vaudeville and pantomime, and each film paused for a harp solo he played in a style entirely his own — a genuinely accomplished musician inside a comic persona.