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World Tour Revisited: Charlie meets Gandhi, September 22nd, 1931
Gandhi had never heard of Charlie Chaplin before this meeting and afterward called him "a very charming man."
The following is Charlie's description of their meeting from his 1933 memoir "A Comedian Sees The World":
A message from Mahatma Gandhi stated that he would like to meet me, either at the Carlton Hotel or elsewhere. We eventually decided on the home of his friend, Dr. C.L. Catial, in Beckton Road, Canning Town.
Frankly I have not followed the ramifications of Hindu politics. My knowledge has come only through the occasional scanning of the headlines in the daily press. Nevertheless, Mr. Gandhi is a figure of the twentieth century, a dissenter and reactionary of a new kind who has utilized passive resistance, a modern method in warfare, which has proven a force almost equal to violence....
Mr. Gandhi greeted me warmly...holding onto his calico as he extended one hand to shake mine.
The crowd was still cheering, so he went to the window. One of the Hindu ladies pushed me also and the Mahatma and I stood smiling and waving. Afterwards a request was made for the press to leave, but before doing so they insisted Mr. Gandhi and I pose for pictures. When the room was cleared I finally found myself seated next to him He was talking over personal matters with one of his followers.
An admirer of Gandhi's--a young English girl--sat down beside me. "Don't you think Mr. Gandhi has a wonderful personality?" she asked. "After you've talked to him I feel sure he'll win you over."
For some reason I find it difficult to make conversation, what with the milling crowds cheering outside and a gaping audience inside. I become self-conscious. It all seems like a revival meeting.
Now Mr. Gandhi is free is sits alone. Suddenly a voice breaks in: "Look here young woman, Mr. Chaplin is here to talk to Mr. Gandhi, not you. So give them a chance."
Whereupon the young lady got up and excused herself, and Mr. Gandhi and I were left on the settee.
The woman's interrupting remark terrified me. I felt it was a challenge. I shifted uneasily, then giggled at Mr. Gandhi. They must be waiting for me to say something profound.
How on earth do I get myself into these situations? I thought. Here you are, a harmless actor on a vacation, striving to have a good time, and you get into this predicament. What do you know about India, politics, cabbages and kings, and what do you want to know about them anyway?
However, I pulled myself together and started. "I was just telling the young lady that I couldn't quite agree with all your principles. I should like to know why you’re opposed to machinery. After all, it’s the natural outcome of man’s genius and is part of his evolutionary progress. It is here to free him of the bondage of slavery, to help him to leisure and higher culture. I grant that machinery with only the consideration of profit has thrown men out of work and created a great deal of misery, but to use it as a service to humanity, that consideration transcending everything else, should be a help and benefit to mankind."
"What you say is very true, but in India conditions are different," said the Mahatma. "We are a people who can live without machinery. Our climate, our mode of living, make this possible. I wish to make our people independent of industry, which weapon the western world holds over us. When they discover that there is no profit in exploiting India they will leave it to us. Therefore we must be independent of your industry. We must learn agriculture, to grown our own rice and spin our own cotton. These are essentials necessary to the lives of our people. Their wants being modest and their demands few, they do not warrant the complexities of western machinery."
"But," I argued, "you cannot retrogress. You must progress like the western world. Sooner or later you will adopt machinery."
"When that time comes we shall use it," he said. "But before doing so we must make ourselves independent of it if we are to gain freedom."After the meeting, Chaplin was invited to stay for evening prayers.
It seemed strange and unrealistic, here in this small room in the East End of London with the milling crowds outside. As the bronze diffused sun sank over the begrimed housetops, four figures sat crosslegged in silent prayer--three Hindus and one Englishwoman--while an audience of twenty or more of us looked on.
And I came away wondering whether this was the man destined to guide the lives of over three million people. (Charles Chaplin, "A Comedian Sees The World, Part IV," A Woman's Home Companion, December 1933)
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Charlie with Mickey Rooney at a preview of the 1942 reissue of The Gold Rush
Happy Birthday to Rooney, who turns 93 today.
In this interview from 2001, Rooney briefly talks about meeting Charlie:
http://youtu.be/gzU_gwLXlF8?t=8m15s
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Charlie & Edna with visitors, Niles, CA, 1915
Chaplin made five films for Essanay at their studio in Niles, which was a block or so away from where this photo was taken.
Photo source: Silent Traces by John Bengston
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With Oona in Chicago, September 1952
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THE NEW JANITOR, released September 24th, 1914
According to Chaplin, this film convinced him that he could evoke tears as well as laughter. He recalled in his autobiography that the actress, Alice Davenport, (he mistakenly remembered her name as "Dorothy") watched the rehearsal of the firing scene from the sidelines and began to weep. This was a dimension of the Tramp character that audiences had not yet seen and one that Chaplin would develop in later films. It is also interesting to note that Chaplin's work at the time was catching on more quickly than his name. A review of the film in the September 26th, 1914 issue of Motion Picture News said "The New Janitor will arouse peals of laughter from any audience" but named its star as "Charles Chapman!"
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| Chaplin repeats this gag in 1917's The Immigrant. |
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Japanese postcard, c. 1930s
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Charlie with his mother, Hannah
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Chaplin & future Duchess Of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, (on his right), at the Hotel del Coronado, 1921
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On this day 100 years ago...
Chaplin signed a one-year contract with the Keystone studio for $150 per week. The contract was signed September 25th, 1913 in Portland, OR where Chaplin was performing with the Fred Karno Company. Not wanting to quit until the Karno tour was finished, he didn't report to Keystone until the end of November. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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THE IDLE CLASS, released September 25th, 1921
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| "An absent-minded husband" |
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| In his autobiography, Chaplin mentions having a "slight accident" with the blowtorch in this scene. "The heat of it went through my asbestos pants, so we added another layer of asbestos." |
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| Edna with Lillan (left) & Lillita McMurray (later Lita Grey), Chaplin's future wife and mother-in-law. |
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| Chaplin (and I believe Chaplin is wearing the costume here) struggling with the helmet of his knight suit is one of my all-time favorite scenes. |
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| However the identity of the person wearing the armor in this scene remains a mystery. |
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Chaplin at a party at Basil Rathbone's honoring Arthur Rubinstein, 1939
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| Charlie & Arthur Rubinstein. (Charlie's hair is dyed black for The Great Dictator) |
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| Basil Rathbone, Annabella, CC, & Arthur Rubinstein |
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| With Reginald Gardiner |
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90 years ago today, A Woman Of Paris premiered at the Criterion Theater in Hollywood
"A Woman of Paris was a courageous step in the career of Charles Chaplin. After seventy films in which he himself had appeared in every scene, he now directed a picture in which he merely walked on for a few seconds as an unbilled and unrecognisable extra – a porter at a railroad station. Until this time, every film had been a comedy. A Woman of Paris was a romantic drama." --David Robinson.By 1923 Chaplin felt that his leading lady, Edna Purviance, was growing too mature for comedy. A Woman Of Paris, was his attempt to launch her on a new career as a dramatic actress. Although the film received positive critical reviews, it failed at the box office. Chaplin was so disappointed by the public's rejection of his film that he removed it from circulation at the end of the 1920s--not to be seen again for nearly 50 years.
A Woman Of Paris is a unique film that every Chaplin fan should see. It's very sophisticated and unlike anything else Chaplin ever did. Even though he isn't in it (except for the very brief cameo), there is no doubt who is behind the camera. Chaplin's stamp is on every frame.
There are no photos of Edna Purviance at the premiere of her film-starring debut. I am not sure if she attended the Hollywood premiere of A Woman Of Paris, but she definitely did not attend the New York premiere on October 1st.
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| Edna. |
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| Edna Purviance, Nellie Bly Baker & Betty Morrissey. Baker was not an actress, but a secretary at the Chaplin Studios. Her scene-stealing performance in the film as a masseuse, led to more film roles during the 1920s. Betty Morrissey went on to appear in The Gold Rush& The Circus. She was subpoenaed for deposition during Lita Grey's divorce from Chaplin because Lita was suspicious of her relationship with Charlie. (Photo: Chaplin: Genius Of The Cinema/Vance) |
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| Edna Purviance and Adolphe Menjou. Although the film did not boost Edna's career as Chaplin had hoped, it did launch Menjou's. He was very impressed with Chaplin's direction: "Within a few days I realized that I was going to learn more about acting from Chaplin than I had ever learned from any director." Menjou recalled an unforgettable line that Chaplin always used when he thought the actors were hamming it up: "Don't sell sell it! Remember, they're peeking at you." This bit of advice stuck with Menjou: "Since then I have never played a scene before a camera without thinking to myself, "They're peeking at you; don't sock it." |
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| During a party in the Latin Quarter, the sheet around a "mannequin" is slowly unraveled. I read somewhere that Bess Flowers, who played the mannequin, was really naked underneath the cloth. |
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| Charlie directs Malvina Polo, who plays Paulette. I think it's interesting that Chaplin had a character in one of his films named Paulette, nearly ten years before he met Paulette Goddard. |
Trailer for A Woman Of Paris:
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Charlie & Paulette strolling the boardwalk on Catalina Island, 1934
According to the caption attached to the back of this press photo:
"Their usual routine includes a morning paper, a little fishing, a siesta on the yacht, a swim, a stroll and then a game of tennis."
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On the set of MODERN TIMES
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1919 & 1966
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Martha Raye cracks up Charlie in an outtake from Monsieur Verdoux
During the first days of filming, Martha had such hero worship for Chaplin that she found it difficult to do her work, so she decided to calm her fears by calling him “Chuck” and being a good sport, Charlie in turn called her “Maggie” (her real name was Margaret). The two became fast friends. She would also yell “lunch!” if she felt Charlie was keeping everyone past lunchtime--something nobody else on the set would have had the nerve to do. According to others in the cast, it was sometimes difficult for “Chuck” & “Maggie” to get much accomplished when they had a scene together because they were too busy laughing and joking around. Raye said many years later that she learned more from Chaplin than anyone else she had ever worked with and that working with him was like “working with God."
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Photo from Motion Picture News, 1916
I've never seen this particular shot before. It appears to be from the Hartsook session of c. 1914-15. Charlie is doing his famous gag where he turns his hat sideways to look like Napoleon (he was still doing this as an old man).
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Chaplin visits the set of The Rose Of The West, 1919
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| Chaplin with the film's star, Madlaine Traverse, and director Harry Millarde. |
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| With actress Minnie Devereaux. |
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His Trysting Place, released November 9th, 1914
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| Charlie plays husband (to Mabel Normand) and father in His Trysting Place |
Charlie once said in passing that he based this short on one of his father’s old vaudeville songs, but he never said which one. Harry Geduld, in his book Chapliniana, believes the song to be “Eh! Boys?” based on the sheet music illustrations:
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