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| Charlie with his eldest sons, Charlie, Jr. (left) and Sydney, c. 1930 |
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Happy Father's Day...
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Playing polo, 1921
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Ad for THE IMMIGRANT from Moving Picture World, June 1917
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Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin poses with some of the cast and crew of A WOMAN OF PARIS, 1923
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World Tour Revisited: With Maurice Chevalier in the south of France, summer 1931
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| Top & bottom photos: Voila, May 26th, 1934 |
We were often in the company of Maurice Chevalier & once we spent an entire day with him and Yvonne Vallée in his luxurious villa at Cannes .... Behind his villa, Maurice had installed a bowling alley and established as a rule of the game that the person who lost must present himself before an altar erected in the back of the garden and press a button. A double door then opened, and one had to kiss the statue of the saint who emerged. Having lost in my turn, I saw the magic door open: a fat woman lifted her skirt and offered me her backside to kiss, and, to satisfy the taste of the master of the house, I had to comply.
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With Harold Lloyd & Douglas Fairbanks, June 1932
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On the set of MONSIEUR VERDOUX
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With British Major General Ian Hay Beith, 1918
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Charlie inspects a plum tree on the grounds of the Manoir de Ban, c. 1953
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With British artist the Marchioness of Queensbury, New York, Feb. 1927. Her portrait of him is in the background.
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| close up of the top photo |
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Welcome to summer!
Charlie balancing himself on the rail of his yacht, Panacea, summer 1933.
(From Alistair Cooke's home movie, All At Sea)
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Random Excerpt
From "The Man Who Knows Charlie Chaplin Best: Pal and aid, Henry Bergman Has Been In Every Chaplin Picture For 15 Years--And He Runs A Famous Cafe Besides" By Mayme Ober Peak, Boston Globe, Feb. 22nd, 1931:
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*Henry's Cafe opened in the 1920s. It became one of the most popular lunch spots in Hollywood. Charlie was a regular customer.
Henry's huge figure had been familiar to me for some time. But not until I looked into his kindly eyes did I realize what a definite quality of sympathetic understanding radiated from his tremendous strength. One can appreciate how the high-strung artist--the world's playfellow, but the loneliest man in it, has grown to rely upon Henry Bergman.
At first he was reluctant to talk of his association with Chaplin. So, to draw him out, I asked him to talk about himself, knowing it would be impossible for Henry to do this without talking about Charlie.
The first thing I learned was surprising--that Henry is a native of California, as are three generations of Bergman farmers. Bergman's father was a breeder of fine horses, his mother a former grand opera singer, who as "Aeolla" was well-known in Europe. Henry inherited his mother's talent and sang on the same stages on which she appeared. He studied in Germany and Italy, making his operatic debut in a small role in Faust.
"I got my histrionic training in Wagnerian roles," he told me.
"Twenty years ago I came into pictures. Before that I had been with Augustin Daly's company for nine years in New York. I was catapulted from stage to screen by a music comedy flop. I had been rehearsing for it many weeks without pay and when it closed a few days after it opened I was disgusted. 'This is no business for me,' said I."
"One day I ran into a player I had known in Germany. When I asked him what he was doing he said. 'Sh-h-h, don't let anyone know, I'm working in pictures. Doing pretty well, too, making $5 a day.'
"He suggested he might be able to fix me up at a studio. The idea rather appealed to me, that when you don't get paid, you don't need to work, so I went out with him to the Pathe. There I got my first job as heavy with Pearl White in The Perils Of Pauline. An introduction to Paul Panzer led to my association with Henry Lehrman with whom I came to Hollywood with the Elco Company in 1914.
"We did a series of pictures after which I went to Mr. Chaplin and stayed with him. I had known Mr. Chaplin personally. We used to be quite friendly at dinners, etc. and when I mentioned to him that I was looking for a job, he said: 'Why don't you come with me? You can work with me when I start a company of my own.' That's the way it was."
As simply as that, Henry tried to dismiss his long association with the Napoleon of the movies. But the reporter pressed him for details.
"Just how do you assist Mr. Chaplin in directing?" I asked.
Henry shrugged a protesting shoulder at the word "directing."
"What I really do is cueing. I stand in Mr. Chaplin's place cueing while he enacts the scene. Then he takes my place and I do his part while he directs."
"Is Mr. Chaplin difficult to work with?" I inquired.
"The easiest man, never abusive, never impatient. I don't believe anyone else could get out of people what he does. At first they are a little overawed by such a big man. But he soon puts them thoroughly at ease. He always reassures them like this: 'I don't know much more about this than you do. Instead of telling you what to do, perhaps I can show you better.' If the player doesn't respond properly, instead of saying 'No, no, that's wrong!' he very quietly says: 'Maybe I didn't show you right. I will do it again.'
"He always likes the most dramatic scenes best. When he did the last scene in City Lights, where the flower girl recognizes him. I was sitting alongside the camera. Gradually I could feel my eyes fill up. 'That's funny I'm affected that way.' I thought. I turned around and the script girl had tears rolling down her face. I looked at the cameraman, Mr. Totheroh, who had been with Charlie for 15 years, and he was weeping."
"When Charlie saw the reaction, he was like a child. He looked at me and said, 'All right, Henry?' Then he got a little cocky and said, 'I'll do it again.' 'Oh, don't spoil it, Charlie.' I urged. But he did the scene twice again and better each time."
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"A few hours after the Hollywood opening of City Lights, I was just leaving the studio in my car when Charlie drove up. At once he came to me and said in all seriousness: 'Henry, I don't know so much about this picture, I'm not sure.' And I said to him: "I'm telling you, Charlie, I've never failed you yet, have I? If this isn't right you will quit the business and go live abroad on what you've got. Nobody can do what you've done."
"It really is a supreme achievement of histrionic art. Finer ln construction than A Woman Of Paris or The Kid. It has more comedy and one of the most dramatic moments that has ever appeared on the screen."
"Did you ever see such a world of drama?" said Henry, now appealing to me, "when the flower girl recognizes in the tramp the man she had visualized as being wealthy and charming? Charlie realizing that he would break the spell lf he walked away, did the only thing there was to do--left it to your imagination. It is your business to figure out what you would like to happen."
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I made a futile attempt to get some admission from Mr. Bergman as to whether he played any part in assisting Mr. Chaplin to compose the score for City Lights. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if he hasn't had something to with the comedian's love of music. Music and travel are his only relaxations.
"When Chaplin left Hollywood" (on his world tour), remarked Henry, "he said: 'I won't be long. I'll come back and go to work after I've relaxed and played around a little bit.' He took his Japanese valet with him, and his secretary, Carlyle Robinson.
"Until he returns, I'll not hear a solitary word. Charlie never writes to anybody. He never even wires about business. That's why he has to have someone with him all the time."
"Mr. Chaplin is interested financially in your cafe is he not?"*
"That's just a story," said Henry, "but I haven't bothered to deny it. When I found myself, seven and eight months at a time, walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard between Chaplin pictures, I said to myself, "this won't do. I'm getting to the age where my mind must be occupied. I've been a bachelor all my life, eaten in restaurants in all parts of Europe. I thought it would be a good idea to create in Hollywood a place where people could feel at home, sit around and chat with their friends. The kind of cafe they have in every country in Europe."
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As I passed out of the cafe, by the deaf and dumb newsboy who maintains the front of Henry's as his special right, and walked down the gayly lit boulevard, I thought how strange it was that in Hollywood, obsessed by self-aggrandizement, I should find in the heart of a cafe proprietor such unselfish allegiance and devotion to the world-famous clown with whom he works and weeps.
In a way, Henry Bergman can be likened to a piano tuner who keeps the unique instrument that is Charlie Chaplin in shape to play upon the world's emotions.
*Henry's Cafe opened in the 1920s. It became one of the most popular lunch spots in Hollywood. Charlie was a regular customer.
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Charlie & Paulette with Mary Pickford at her wedding to Buddy Rogers, 1937
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Still from THE ADVENTURER (1917)
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Charlie with members of the Shochiku Cinema Company, 1925
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Charlie & LIta Grey during location filming for THE GOLD RUSH in Truckee, CA, 1924
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Happy Birthday, Georgia Hale (June 25, 1900 - June 7, 1985)
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| Motion Picture magazine, June 1925 |
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Georgia Hale's screen test for CITY LIGHTS, November 1929
My edit from the original which can be found on the Warner/MK2 edition of City Lights.
Music: "Reunited" from City Lights: New Recording of the Original 1931 Score, cond. by Carl Davis.
Almost a year into the production of the City Lights, Chaplin fired his leading lady, Virginia Cherrill, for lateness and planned to replace her with Georgia Hale, who was his co-star in The Gold Rush, as well as his constant companion at the time.
That night we went to the Double Eagle Restaurant and he said, "I'm going to redo "City Lights" with you, just the way I did 'The Gold Rush.'" And I was overjoyed because I loved that story and I knew I could have done the part so well.
The following day I donned the clothes of the blind girl. Charlie and I shot many scenes together...When it was over, Charlie almost crying saying, "This is what I've been trying to get for weeks." He grabbled me and embraced me. He said, "The part is yours. I'll reshoot the entire picture with you as the blind girl."Chaplin soon realized it was going to be far too costly to reshoot everything with Georgia as the blind girl, so he rehired Cherrill.
Out of the clear sky he comes back to me and calls me over to the studio and tells me off in the most vicious manner that I'm not going to do "City Lights" and to get it out of my mind that it was all a mistake. I just cried and cried because I couldn't understand. Then a week or two passes and he calls me again and apologizes. He said his publicity man (Carlyle Robinson) had come to him and poisoned his mind against me. He told him that I was going to sue him if I didn't play that part and he believed him--and he says, "How I ever believed it I'll never know." And then he just simply got down on his knees and asked for forgiveness.*
*Interview with Georgia from Unknown Chaplin & Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-ups by Georgia Hale
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World Tour Revisited: Catching up with Charlie & May in the Riviera
Charlie and May spent most of the summer of 1931 in Juan-les-Pins. In early July, a Paris newspaper reported that Charlie was negotiating to buy a piece of property in Juan to convert into a movie studio. He also considered building May a home there as well, but all of these plans eventually fell through for one reason or another. Probably because Charlie lost interest. Here are some pics from his summer on the Riviera.
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Playing tennis:
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Out on the town:
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Hanging out with their Siamese cat:
Sunbathing:
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| May is on the right. |
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| May is at far right. |
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| The cat belonged to May and was called "Kitty II," she also had a Siamese cat named "Kitty I" but it was killed after jumping out of a seventh floor window. Charlie loved cats, especially Siamese cats, and owned several of them over the years. |
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On a film set, c.1916
This photo was in a magazine I recently purchased (Illustrated, Oct. 1952). The original caption states that it was taken on a film set in 1916. The dining room in the back might be the one from The Count. The sofa on the left can be seen in Behind The Screen, but the room Charlie is standing in doesn't look familiar to me at all. It might be time to watch these films again.
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