RETAIL TRADE: The Little King

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Brass, Beauty, Brains. In addition to collecting culture, Marx is frequently accused by competitors of "collecting" generals. Actually, he has known most of his brasshat friends since they were young officers. His love affair with the military started in the early '30s, when he was able to give a hard-to-get toy-train switch to the late Air Force General H. H. ("Hap") Arnold, who was then a major at Bolling Field. Arnold introduced Marx to General Walter Bedell Smith, now vice chairman of the American Machine & Foundry board, who was then a captain. Said "Beedle" Smith recently: "If anyone had asked me then if I would trade my chance at making brigadier general for a quarter, I would have grabbed the money."

When Marx sent Beedle Smith some caviar, Smith, who had no taste for caviar, passed it on to his next-door neighbor at Fort Myer, Brigadier General Eisenhower. Later, Ike dropped in to thank Marx. The toymakers other military friends include NATO's General Alfred Gruenther, Strategic Air Command's General Curtis LeMay, General Omar Bradley, now a Bulova top executive, and General George Catlett Marshall. Even after they leaped into the headlines in wartime, Marx says, he was sure that the generals would be "forgotten like Bliss and Pershing," worried about the generals' financial future. In 1946, when he formed a cosmetic company called Charmore, Marx decided to help out some of his military friends by selling them shares in the profitable company at a nominal price.

Political Coca-Cola. About the same time that the generals were returning from the war, Idella Ruth Blackadder, then 21 and an RKO starlet, came back from an overseas stint with a U.S.O. troupe and met Marx at a party the next day. Idella, who is Ecdysiast Lili St. Cyr's half sister, married Marx. When Marx took Idella, who is two inches taller and 28 years younger, to meet General Gruenther on a European trip, Gruenther greeted Idella with: "What on earth did you marry him for?" Declared Marx: "I'm the one with the brains." Although some acquaintances had predicted that the marriage would not last two minutes, Lou and Idella are now the happy parents of four sons. Each son has two generals as godfathers. The "second shift," as Marx calls them (to distinguish Idella's offspring from the four children by his first wife), boasts a total of 35 sponsoring stars. The eldest boy, six-year-old Spencer Bedell (the only second-shift Marx with a nonmilitary first name) is a godchild of President Eisenhower and Bedell Smith. Ike volunteered again when Emmett Dwight, now five, came along; his other godfather is Rosie O'Donnell. The other sons: Bradley Marshall, 3, and Curtis (for Curtis LeMay) Gruenther, 1.

Marx says he has never received one good idea for a toy from the generals. But Marx was one of the many who kept telling Ike about his political future. "You're on pages one, two and three of every newspaper," Lou told Ike in 1946. "You're the political Coca-Cola." His proudest possessions: an oil painting of the West Point chapel-Ike's first picture-and a portrait of Marx in a frame inscribed "Dwight D. Eisenhower-American-Born."