Back in 1985, Frank Ferrante gave a performance that changed his life. He was playing the title role--the only role--in "An Evening With Groucho" as a senior project at USC.

In the audience were some very special people: Miriam Allen Marx and Arthur Marx, Groucho's daughter and son, and writer Morrie Ryskind, who had collaborated on such Marx Brothers gems as "The Cocoanuts," "Animal Crackers" and "A Night at the Opera."

Miriam Allen Marx was charmed and wrote him a fan letter. They became fast friends who share holidays and a love of ice cream. Arthur Marx extended Ferrante an open invitation to play Groucho in any play he might write.

Within three months, they were working together on "Groucho: A Life in Revue," which subsequently played New York and London, garnering awards for its young star. And Ryskind, in one of his last public appearances, saluted Ferrante as "the only actor aside from Groucho who delivered my lines as they were intended to be."

Ferrante has been playing Groucho ever since, off and on: in the one-man show, which comes to the Yorba Linda Forum on Saturday; in Arthur Marx and Robert Fisher's play, which will be in San Bernardino on March 18-28; and in various other theatrical and television programs. But then, his fate has been tied up with Groucho Marx since childhood.

"I was a fan of Groucho's as a boy," Ferrante said during a recent phone interview from Denver, where he was playing "An Evening With Groucho."

"I loved him, Jack Benny, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin--all those guys. In fact, it was my hobby of researching these comedians' lives that led me to performing onstage in high school and college."

The Marx Brothers were 20-year stage veterans. Reared in vaudeville, even after their movie careers were well established they would take key scenes from films-in-progress and try them out on the road, performing live as a curtain-warmer before the daily feature.

When Ferrante learned that, he decided to emulate his heroes.

He since has played leads in well-known musical comedies on stages all over the United States. But it was the Groucho role that took him to London, where he won a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for "Comedy Performance of the Year," and it's Groucho to whom he returns to again and again.

So what's the appeal of this old-time comic, famous for his stogies and his insults?