Groucho Marx‘s final years were plagued by horrific abuse at the hands of those close to him. According to Entertainment Weekly, Groucho had been left “helpless” by a stroke and hip surgery in his final days, when a major legal battle broke out in which lurid details of his final years were laid bare to the public.

Six years earlier, Marx had begun a relationship with 36-year-old Erin Fleming (Marx was entering his ninth decade at the time), a former actress who originally became close with the comedian as his secretary but who then became conservator of his vast estate, worth up to an estimated $4 million. Fleming now became the central figure in a wrangle over the elderly man’s estate versus Marx’s three children, Arthur, Melinda, and Miriam. Marx’s nurses claimed Fleming was abusive, had drugged him with tranquilizers, and referred to him as a “pig” and a “crazy old man.”

But Groucho’s children didn’t come out of the affair well, either. The comedian had, in fact, sued his son Arthur for the way he was portrayed in the latter’s memoirs, according to PBS, while he had also had a rift with Miriam over her alcoholism.

The judge decided that the ailing Marx should be put in the protection of his grandson, Andrew, the son of Arthur. He died four months later. Meanwhile, Fleming was ordered to repay $221,000 to the bank of America –- funds she was deemed to have taken from Groucho.