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Lita Grey by Melbourne Spurr, 1924
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Charlie & Paulette at a Hollywood dinner dance in honor of British author, H.G. Wells, December 1935
Wells was the houseguest of Charlie and Paulette during his visit. When Charlie would be busy with work (he was finishing up Modern Times at this point), Paulette would escort Wells to the movie studios and nightclubs. Paulette later recalled an eccentric gift that Wells gave to her:
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1 Julie Gilbert, Opposite Attraction: The Lives Of Erich Maria Remarque & Paulette Goddard, 1995
He stayed at my house and when he'd burned enough midnight oil talking, he said to Charlie, "I have nothing more to say." So, he went to Palm Springs and spent a few days there, and he came back and said, "I have something you're going to love. I have a sackful of stones for you. I found them outside in the desert while I was walking." And I said, "well, what am I going to do with it?" And he said, "You can use it as a doorstop, but if you love stones, here they are." Wasn't that sweet? 1
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Christmas card from Chaplin, c. mid-1920s
Note the "CC" monogram at the top of the card. Below is another monogram that appeared on Chaplin's Christmas cards, c. 1917.*
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*Tiny thumbnails of the entire card can be seen at the Charlie Chaplin Archive website. This enlargement of the monogram is from the BFI Chaplin site.
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Chaplin with his musical collaborators for Modern Times, 1935
L-R: Charles Dunworth (asst. to Alfred Newman), Alfred Newman (conductor, uncle of Randy Newman), CC, David Raksin (arranger), Paul Neal (recording engineer), and Edward Powell (arranger). Photo by Max Munn Autrey.
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Charlie with a young Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
From: https://www.facebook.com/DouglasFairbanksJr
Charlie is painting a mustache on his face--very cute. Doug, Jr. was born on this day in 1909.
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Christmas With Charlie, Vol. 12
Last year, I began a series called "Christmas With Charlie" in which I presented stories from family & friends (or Charlie himself) about the Christmas holidays. I thought I would continue the series this year, and in keeping with tradition, I will kick off the festivities with Charlie's famous "orange story." This was an incident from Charlie's impoverished childhood that affected him for the rest of his life. His son, Michael, remembered that his father, who would notoriously become depressed and morose around the holidays, would complain: "If I got an orange as a child at Christmas, I'd be lucky." Last December, I posted Charlie's version of the story from "A Comedian Sees The World." This year's version is from an interview with Charlie by Benjamin de Casseres that appeared in the New York Times on December 12th, 1920. The story is basically the same except Charlie changed the orange to an apple:
As part of my childhood was passed in a London orphanage. When Christmas time came around a big table was spread, and on it were laid little presents--tin watches, bags of candy, picture books, and other trivial things--for the inmates.
On this particular Christmas I was seven years old. We all formed in line, and long before it was my turn to reach the table and select what I wanted I had picked out with my eye a big, fat red apple for my present. It was the biggest apple I had ever seen outside of a picture book.
My eye and stomach got bigger and bigger as I approached that apple.
When the line had moved up so that I was fifth from the table a housekeeper, or somebody in authority, pounced on me, pushed me out of line and took me back to my room with the brutal words. "No Christmas present for you this year, Charlie--you keep the other boys awake by telling pirate stories."
I have always found that red apple of happiness just within reach of my hand when some invisible presence or force drags me away just as I am about to grab it.
--"The Hamlet-Like Nature of Charlie Chaplin" by Benjamin de Casseres, New York Times Book Review & Magazine, December 12th, 1920)
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Geraldine & Josephine with their sister-in-law, Noelle Adam (Sydney's wife). In the background, Charlie is choking Oona.
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Young Charlie as Billy, the page boy, in Sherlock Holmes, 1903
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The following photos from 1924 show Charlie in costume for THE GOLD RUSH & his brother, Sydney, in costume for his film, CHARLEY'S AUNT
These may be the only photos of the brothers in costume for different films.
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RIP Douglas Fairbanks (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939)
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| Charlie & Douglas on the set of Douglas' film, His Majesty, The American, 1919 |
Over the years, Charlie spent many weekends at Douglas' home in Beverly Hills where they would go for early morning horseback rides to watch the sunrise ("Doug was the only man who could get me on a horse") or indulge in "cliché philosophizing." According to Doug, he and Charlie had a connection, not only off-screen but on-screen as well. During a joint interview in 1919, Douglas told him: "I'm an admirer of yours, Charlie, even if you are a friend. And when I see you on the screen, there's something goes from you to me. I feel an interchange."2
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| Sketch of Charlie by Douglas, 1921 |
Charlie came to depend on Douglas’ enthusiasm & reassurance when he made his films. For instance, he was so discouraged with his film Shoulder Arms that he considered "throwing it in the ash can." He changed his mind after he showed the film to Doug during a special screening: “From the beginning Fairbanks went into roars of laughter, stopping only for coughing spells. Sweet Douglas, he was my greatest audience. When it was over and we came into the daylight, his eyes were wet from laughing."3
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| early 1920s |
A month before he died, Doug visited the set of The Great Dictator:
Near the completion of The Dictator, Douglas Fairbanks and his wife, Sylvia, visited us on location. Douglas had been inactive for the last five years and I had rarely seen him, or he had been traveling to and from England. I thought he had aged and grown a little stouter and seemed preoccupied. Nevertheless, he was still the same enthusiastic Douglas. He laughed uproariously during the taking of one of our scenes. "I can't wait to see it," he said.
Doug stayed about an hour. When he left I stood gazing after him, watching him help his wife up the steep incline; and as they walked away along the footpath, the distance growing between us, I felt a sudden tinge of sadness. Doug turned and I waved, and he waved back. That was the last I ever saw of him. A month later Douglas Junior telephoned to say his father had died in the night of a heart attack It was a terrible shock for he belonged so much to life.4
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| Their last meeting, Nov. 15th, 1939 |
Shortly after Doug's death, his ex-wife Mary Pickford phoned Charlie to discuss United Artists business. Knowing how much he disliked talking on the phone, she was surprised when Charlie himself answered. They spoke for an hour and reminisced warmly about all the happy times the three of them had spent together. Mary later wrote that she realized then, as she never had before, how deep the friendship of Charlie and Douglas had been:
"I've lost the inspiration to make pictures, Mary," he said.
"You mustn't say that, Charlie; Douglas would be furious with you."
"You know how much I depended on his enthusiasm. You remember how I always showed my pictures first to Douglas."
"Yes, Charlie, I can still hear Douglas laughing so heartily he couldn't look at the screen. Remember those coughing fits he'd get at that moment?"
"More than anything else I remember this, Mary: whenever I made a particular scene I would always anticipate the pleasure it would give Douglas."
It all came back to me how Douglas used to treat Charlie like a younger brother, listening patiently and intently, hours on end to his repetitious stories which frankly bored me to extinction. Charlie had a way of developing his scenarios by repeating them over and over again to his most intimate friends--testing them privately to people he had faith in. Only then would he put them on film....I heard a catch in Charlie's voice.
I couldn't bear to see them put that heavy stone over Douglas."5
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| Doug, Charlie, & Mary, 1924 |
Twenty-five years later in his autobiography, Charlie fondly remembered his friend: "I have missed Douglas--I have missed the warmth of his enthusiasm and charm; I have missed his friendly voice over the telephone, that used to call me up on a bleak and lonely Sunday morning: 'Charlie, coming up for lunch - then for a swim - then for dinner - then afterwards, see a picture?' Yes, I have missed his delightful friendship."6
In May 1941, a marble sarcophagus containing Douglas' body was dedicated at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. Below are photos of Charlie delivering the eulogy (a close-up and a long shot). Fairbanks’ widow, Sylvia, can be seen sitting behind the sarcophagus, weeping. Chaplin said of his late friend: "To the youth of a decade ago he was the epitome of knightly courage and romance… And as he worshiped heroes, so too did he worship those qualities a hero should possess." His final words, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, are also inscribed on Fairbanks’ tomb: “Good night sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” 7
1Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography, 1964
2 Interview with Chaplin & Fairbanks, Ray W. Frohman, Los Angeles Herald, Dec. 2, 1919
3 Chaplin, MA
4 ibid
5 "My Unpredictable Partner," Mary Pickford, The Legend of Charlie Chaplin, Peter Haining, ed.
6 Chaplin, MA
7 www.allanellenberger.com
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Paulette Goddard on What's My Line? (1959)
Paulette was 49 at this time and still glamorous as ever. The previous year, she had married her last husband, Erich Maria Remarque, and was splitting her time between their home in Porto Ronco, Switzerland and New York.
I believe Paulette is wearing the emerald bracelet (below, with matching earrings and brooch) that was given to her by Chaplin when she lost the role of Scarlett O'Hara.
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She is also wearing the bracelet on this 1941 cover of Screen Life & in this photo with Chaplin from 1943 (it is clipped to her dress).
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I believe Paulette is wearing the emerald bracelet (below, with matching earrings and brooch) that was given to her by Chaplin when she lost the role of Scarlett O'Hara.
She is also wearing the bracelet on this 1941 cover of Screen Life & in this photo with Chaplin from 1943 (it is clipped to her dress).
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Charlie & Pola Negri with author Gouverneur Morris and his secretary (right), at the Del Monte Golf Course, January 28th, 1923
This was the same day Charlie and Pola announced their engagement.
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"Christmas Cards of Kinema Celebrities"
I'd like to have a set of these.
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| Pictures & Picturegoer, December 1924 |
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Chaplin family Christmas card, c. 1972
The greeting is in Oona's handwriting. Back row L-R : Josephine holding her son Charly, Jane, Nick Sistovaris (Josephine’s then-husband), Eugene, Sydney with his son, Stephan, in front of him, Noelle Adam (Sydney's then-wife), Victoria holding her daughter Aurelia, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée (Victoria’s husband). Front row L-R: Annette, CC, Oona & Christopher. Geraldine & Michael are absent. Charlie, Jr. died in 1968.
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World Tour Revisited: Chaplin arrives in St. Moritz, Switzerland, mid-December, 1931
I've never been intrigued by Switzerland. Personally I dislike all mountainous country. I feel hemmed in and isolated from from the rest of the world. The ominous presence of mountains towering above me gives me a feeling of futility. I suppose I am indigenous to the lowlands near the ocean, for my Romany instincts tell me that here I'm better suited to survive. Life opens out on a wider vista.
Nevertheless having basked in the sunshine of the Riviera and enjoyed London's spring and survived its autumn fogs, I felt that a change of atmospheric diet would be beneficial. Besides Douglas Fairbanks was in St. Moritz enjoying the winter sports and that was a good excuse to go there.1
You leave London in the morning and arrive in St. Moritz the following afternoon. The air is bracing and the whole country is blanketed in snow. The sharp whiteness gives zest and life to your spirit.
But all this is knocked out of you on discovering the price of your rooms. But it's worth it. The answer is I intended to stay two weeks and remained two months. ("A Comedian Sees The World, Pt. 4," A Woman's Home Companion, December 1933)
Of course, Charlie's thoughts on Switzerland are ironic since he spent the last 25 years of his life there. One can assume by that time he was happy to be isolated from the rest of the world.
Chaplin was joined in Switzerland not only by Douglas Fairbanks, but also his on-again, off-again companion, May Reeves,2 and his brother, Sydney3. Both brothers were enthusiastic about skiing, although neither were very confident on skis (this was Charlie's first time skiing and Syd's second) and there are humorous stories about their misadventures on the slopes, which I will share in a later post.
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| May Reeves in St. Moritz. |
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| Charlie with Syd |
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| ...and Douglas Fairbanks. |
1 According to May, St. Moritz was her idea. Chaplin asked where they should go next. "I proposed St. Moritz," she replied. In My Autobiography, Chaplin states that he decided upon St. Moritz after receiving a telegram from Douglas Fairbanks inviting him there.
2 May arrived in St. Moritz a few days after Charlie because, according to her, she wanted to go to Paris first to buy the proper clothing and would meet him there a few days later. This differs from the account in Gerith Von Ulm's Charlie Chaplin: King Of Tragedy (and supposedly as per Kono) which states that Chaplin had become annoyed with May weeks before in London and summarily dismissed her and sent her to Paris. Now Chaplin wanted to "make amends," so he arranged for May to meet him in Switzerland.
3 In a letter to his friend, Jim Minney, Syd recalls, with his usual dry wit, his invitation to join Charlie in Switzerland: "I was just getting ready to hibernate for the winter and figuring out how I could reduce my debts by going off the Gold Standard or the end of the pier when I received a telegram from he of the quarter to three feet asking if I would care to join him in the solidified winter sports." (Syd Chaplin: A Biography by Lisa K. Stein)
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A DAY'S PLEASURE, released December 15th, 1919
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| This scene was filmed at the back entrance of Chaplin's studio office. |
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| This film has some great intertitles. (The Kid has a similar intertitle: "Awkward ass.") |
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Chaplin with Count de Besa & foreign diplomats, December 1927
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| Chaplin inscribed this photo: "To Joseph F. Triska, Consul of Czechoslovakia, My Best Wishes, Charlie Chaplin, Christmas 1927" |
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Photo by James Abbe, 1922
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Christmas with Charlie, Vol. 13
Pinnie, the Chaplin's nanny, describes Christmas 1962:
Christmas came and we all looked forward to a family lunch together, Kay Kay1 and I included, also Auntie Gypsy2 from Lausanne. Another relation came for Christmas--I had not met this one before. She was Betty Tetrick, Mr. Chaplin's cousin from London, a widow [sic] who took great interest in the children. The table was decorated in red with two candle displays. Traditional crackers were in abundance, supplying the paper hats and small toys and puzzles. It was lovely. Mary had excelled herself with all the traditional foods common in England, even sixpences hidden in the Christmas puddings. The meal lasted all afternoon until Mr. Chaplin went off for a rest but, in the evening, he insisted that we all went to the movie viewing room to see The Gold Rush. Not again, said the children, but reluctantly went. --Pinnie: Behind The Limelight by Michael Parrett. (Pinnie, aka Mabel Rose Pinnegar, began working for the Chaplins in 1953.)
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| From Pinnie: Behind The Limelight |
1 Aka Edith MacKenzie, the Chaplin's senior nanny who had been with the family since 1944.
2 Syd Chaplin's wife.
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"Some Expressions! Registered By Charles Chaplin"
| McClure's, July 1915 |
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