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| Charlie strikes a Napoleonic pose with his birthday cake on the set of A Countess From Hong Kong, April 16, 1966 |
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Happy Birthday, Sir Charles!
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Letter from Charlie to a “Mr. Müller” on his 75th birthday
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From Moving Picture World, May 3rd, 1919
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With Jinx Falkenburg at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, 1941
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Photos by Nickolas Muray, New York City, 1927
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World Tour Revisited: Charlie & May Reeves (left) in Algeria, April 1931
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Article 3
(From Unknown Chaplin)
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TWENTY MINUTES OF LOVE, released April 20th, 1914
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| Charlie mocks the couple making out on the bench by hugging & kissing a tree. |
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| Charlie steals the watch from the pickpocket (Chester Conklin) who had just stolen it from someone else. |
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| From Chaplin: His Life & Art by David Robinson |
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Cover of LIFE magazine, April 21st, 1972
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Playing golf, 1923
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Article 1
"In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.”
— Charles Chaplin, The Great Dictator, 1940
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With ballerina Anna Pavlova at the Chaplin Studios, c. 1922
“The sublime is rare in any vocation or art. And Pavlova was one of those rare artists who had it. She never failed to affect me profoundly....As she danced, every move was the center of gravity. The moment she made her entrance no matter how gay or winsome she was, I wanted to weep, for she personified the tragedy of perfection.” (CC, My Autobiography, 1964)
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Here Pavlova performs her signature ballet, "The Dying Swan," in 1925. This is so hauntingly beautiful, it's easy to see why her dancing had such an impact on Charlie.
Here Pavlova performs her signature ballet, "The Dying Swan," in 1925. This is so hauntingly beautiful, it's easy to see why her dancing had such an impact on Charlie.
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RIP Paulette Goddard (June 3, 1910 - April 23, 1990)
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Charlie & Paulette in MODERN TIMES (1936)
According to Paulette, she learned everything about acting from Chaplin. He would tell her, “Baby, don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Because when you make a mistake, they love you." She always said the best movie she ever made was Modern Times. Here Paulette remembers her first day on the set:
I was about to start the picture of Modern Times. I’d been a showgirl and a model and all those things were wrong with me. The way of walking and everything. And I walk in and I’m wearing a Valentina—you know the Russian dressmaker. A plain little dress but so expensive! It cost five hundred dollars then! You know, a day dress. And I had my hair done to be beautiful and eyelashes on and came walking in—the Goddard Walk. I’ve lost it, thank God. I had to….I’ll tell you what he did that absolutely cured me—you see, working with Charlie was the greatest school for acting that anyone could ever, ever have. I mean, he knew it all. But anyway, this day that I walked in he said, “That isn’t it, baby."And he took a bucket of water and threw it on me and that’s how I got my hairstyle in Modern Times. It broke my heart. And I cried and cried and cried. And he said, “Cry, damn it, cry! Camera!” And he called Rolley [sic] Totheroh over, who loved me so much—you could tell by the camera. He’d bring it like a kiss, a caress. And he was just a plain cameraman but such a dear man. And Charlie’d say, “Rolley, get the camera in here! CRY! God damn it, get down on your knees and look up at me!” And tears were running and it was the best shot I ever had! And that’s how my hairstyle came. It was never set after that. (Gilbert, Opposite Attraction )
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On the set of City Lights, c. 1929
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Charlie with actress Mary Thurman
Before and after...
Click here to see more photos of Ms. Thurman's transformation.
I know there are people out there who say this is not Mary Thurman, but the Chaplin estate believes it is her.
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With Lita, November 1926
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World Tour Revisited: Charlie arrives in Marseilles from Algiers, April 26th, 1931
(Forgive me for not posting this on the exact day, I didn't have a chance to type this up yesterday)
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Charlie was suffering from an attack of lumbago when he arrived in Marseilles. His immediate plan, according to contemporary news reports, was to return immediately to Nice and finish a scenario for a film.1
There is no mention of Marseilles in Charlie's travel memoir, "A Comedian Sees The World," perhaps because he wanted to forget the unpleasant events which followed his arrival.
Before Charlie and May Reeves, who had accompanied him, disembarked, the plan to break them up was already underway. Syd and his wife, Minnie, felt that Charlie's relationship with May would ruin him financially & would create a scandal worse than the Lita Grey debacle. They felt that immediate action was needed to rescue Charlie from the clutches of the dark-eyed, Austrian dancer. Syd placed the job of breaking up Charlie & May on the shoulders of Carlyle Robinson, his press agent.
Robinson tried every recourse possible to break up Charlie & May, but in the end had to use his trump card (a decision that would end up costing him his job). The trump card was that Syd and May had been lovers in Nice before Charlie met her. Charlie became "pale with amazement" and immediately said it was "a filthy lie." May herself denied any involvement with Syd, but eventually agreed to leave Marseilles & go to Paris with Robinson.
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1May states in her memoir that Charlie was writing a gypsy film for her.
2 "The Private Life Of Charlie Chaplin" by Carlyle Robinson (I am quoting from the unedited version of the memoir that was translated by Constance Kuriyama and included in the appendix of The Intimate Charlie Chaplin by May Reeves, pub. 2001)
4 The Intimate Charlie Chaplin by May Reeves (translated by Constance Kuriyama).
5 According to Robinson, Syd became enraged when he found out that Robinson told Charlie about his affair with May. "I let him vent his rage and then reminded him that I had only carried out his orders. He resumed howling."
6 It should be noted that Sydney "swore" to May Reeves that he had no involvement in the separation plot and that the whole thing was Robinson's idea.
7 In the press, May was often referred to (incorrectly) as "the myterious Mary."
Charlie was suffering from an attack of lumbago when he arrived in Marseilles. His immediate plan, according to contemporary news reports, was to return immediately to Nice and finish a scenario for a film.1
There is no mention of Marseilles in Charlie's travel memoir, "A Comedian Sees The World," perhaps because he wanted to forget the unpleasant events which followed his arrival.
Before Charlie and May Reeves, who had accompanied him, disembarked, the plan to break them up was already underway. Syd and his wife, Minnie, felt that Charlie's relationship with May would ruin him financially & would create a scandal worse than the Lita Grey debacle. They felt that immediate action was needed to rescue Charlie from the clutches of the dark-eyed, Austrian dancer. Syd placed the job of breaking up Charlie & May on the shoulders of Carlyle Robinson, his press agent.
[Syd] ordered me to separate the lovers. His instructions were many and explicit...It was a gigantic undertaking. I knew that Sidney wouldn't have attempted it for anything in the world. As for me, judging from past experience, I genuinely doubted my ability to tear Charlie from the arms of his mistress. And because I admitted as much, Sidney decided to tell me a secret which I am sure he would have preferred, in any other circumstance, to keep to himself. But for him, it was worth the risk. By telling me this secret, he hoped to arm me with an unanswerable argument which would force Charlie to break off with May. 2Robinson met the ship that brought Charlie and May from Algiers. The moment the gangplank was lowered, he jumped onto the boat & told the two lovers they would have to disembark separately. Charlie walked out alone and May disembarked on the arm of Robinson, who told the reporters she was his secretary. Robinson's task was far from over.
The last act of the drama had yet to be played. It was staged in a room in a Marseilles hotel--a scene I should not care to reenact. It was certainly the most disagreeable half hour I have ever spent. 3
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| May & Carlyle Robinson before the Marseilles plot. |
Charlie asked me to go to Paris for several days and rejoin him later in Juan-les-Pins. Robinson exulted. He imagined our relationship was finished...
An hour later I was on the express train to Paris. When they came to take my bags, Charlie wept bitterly. He accompanied me to the elevator and embraced me in front of all the hotel personnel, unable to restrain his sobs. 4Sydney was initially thrilled that the separation plot had been successful until he found out that Robinson told his secret.5, 6 But Charlie and May did not separate at all & were reunited less than a week later in the Riviera. In the end, the person who suffered the most from this unpleasant situation was Carlyle Robinson, who was eventually fired, after sixteen years of employment, for his attempt to sabotage Charlie's love affair with the "mysterious" May.7
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1May states in her memoir that Charlie was writing a gypsy film for her.
2 "The Private Life Of Charlie Chaplin" by Carlyle Robinson (I am quoting from the unedited version of the memoir that was translated by Constance Kuriyama and included in the appendix of The Intimate Charlie Chaplin by May Reeves, pub. 2001)
4 The Intimate Charlie Chaplin by May Reeves (translated by Constance Kuriyama).
5 According to Robinson, Syd became enraged when he found out that Robinson told Charlie about his affair with May. "I let him vent his rage and then reminded him that I had only carried out his orders. He resumed howling."
6 It should be noted that Sydney "swore" to May Reeves that he had no involvement in the separation plot and that the whole thing was Robinson's idea.
7 In the press, May was often referred to (incorrectly) as "the myterious Mary."
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World Tour Revisited: Sister Aimee
During Charlie's brief stay in Marseilles in April 1931, he was visited at his hotel by Los Angeles-based evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who had always wanted to meet him. They went to dinner where Charlie "twitted her good-humoredly about the mental age of her audiences (she inquired if he was aware of the mental age of a motion-picture audience), her success as an evangelist, and declared that she would have made a great actress."* They toured the city together before Aimee left for the Holy Land and Charlie returned to Paris to meet May Reeves.
The above story comes from Gerith Von Ulm's Charlie Chaplin: King Of Tragedy (with information supplied by Chaplin's valet/secretary Toraichi Kono). Years later, Charlie told Orson Welles a vastly different version of his visit with Sister Aimee. The following is from Orson Welles by Barbara Leaming, who spent hours interviewing Welles a few years before his death:
[Chaplin] told Orson all about his amorous encounter in London with the famous evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who used to wear immense white angel’s wings on stage. In the audience at one of her melodramatic appearances, Chaplin began to fantasize about having sexual intercourse with her still hooked into the white wings. Later, Chaplin couldn’t resist calling on the aging evangelist backstage to invite her out with him for the evening. After several hours in London’s nightclubs, he found himself alone with her in her hotel room, but since, up close, her face seemed to Chaplin “like a quilted bedspread” he wasn’t sure he could go any further. Telling himself to concentrate on the wings, he requested that she put them on. After which—as he told Orson—“I managed to thumb it in”.
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Update
My cross-country trip has been postponed until later this month. I am having some problems with one of my eyes and am not seeing very well out of it right now. I am hoping it will be better in a few weeks and we can finally take off. Long story short, I guess I will be hanging around a little while longer.
Jess
Jess
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