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Charlie & Douglas Fairbanks, c. 1918


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Composite photograph of Chaplin, Upton Sinclair (left) & Egon Erwin Kisch, 1929

From "Working With Charlie Chaplin" by Egon Erwin Kisch:1

"Chaplin? We can stop in on him on the way, if you'd like."
 Of course I'd like; he's one of the righteous  for whose sake America must be spared the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Another of the righteous is the one who's asking me if we want to stop by Chaplin's place. His name is Upton Sinclair.... 
Sinclair stops his car at the corner of Longpré Avenue and La Brea Avenue in front of a small group of red-roofed houses. The last thing you'd take from them was a film studio, since film studios in Hollywood are gigantic walled complexes with iron-barred gates and gatekeepers, and with every gable wall plastered with film posters. Here, however, "Chaplin's Studio" is engraved  on a tiny metal plaque. We go into an office, that is, to a young woman who alternated between answering the phone and taking care of correspondence. We walk past her into a courtyard that really is a courtyard and where film sets are located. Elsewhere it wouldn't be a courtyard, and if it were it would be called "Stage No. 35," entry would be prohibited, and a watchman would be majestically posted in front of it. 
Plaque on Chaplin Studio door.

Two men greet Sinclair. There really was a film being shot, they tell him, and one of them says, "The boss is coming!"
The boss! The old man! The chief! We turn around to the boss. To Charlie Chaplin. Were he at least dressed in the appropriate attire of a boss, a chief, the "old man," he could at any other time--when he is not the boss, chief, or "old man"--be that sad vagabond with the comic routines whom we love so much. But now he approaches in the loose-fitting, mended trousers, the patched up oversized shoes, the disarranged necktie, and the worn-out jacket. He is in fact coming from work; he is a boss who works.
"Hello, Upton," he calls from afar. "Good to see you again!" Sinclair says something about the guest he's brought along. "That's fine," replies Charlie Chaplin in the flesh, and we shake hands. He curses; his work isn't moving ahead. He's shooting a new film, City Lights. But "damn it, we've hit another dead end, and can't go on. You want to help me, boys?"
Yes, we boys want to help Charlie Chaplin. 
He's not entirely the Charlie Chaplin of the movies. It's true he's coming straight from work, or better said, he's no longer playing a role. His hat, that crushed, melon-shaped little hat, is missing, and so too are the bamboo cane and the small black toothbrush under the nose. Besides, his boots are not so overwhelmingly large and not so overwhelmingly funny as they seem on film; they are misshapen, patched-up, torn, somewhat too big, but still ordinary shoes, and only the art of their boss invested them with their cosmic proportions. Now, rushing to the projection room with us, who are supposed to "help" him, his boots are unobtrusive and the boss is anything but flat-footed. He is wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Without them, he ca't even sign his own name, he's so farsighted. 
Chaplin & Kisch
From his hair two streams of a fountain of silver cascade over the middle of his brow. Even the hair growing on his neck is gray, where it's growing out.  ("You ought to have it cut, Charlie," I said to him cautiously a few days later. But he makes no secret of his dyed hair. "You see, I'm not bothering with it anymore. What gets white isn't going to be colored anymore. That's the end of it. At forty, I'll be entirely white again, the way I was at thirty-five.""And what is your wife doing now?""I don't know," he remarks with a gesture of indifference," but I've got two children, and they're both with her.")
Now we're in the projection room. While the reel is being loaded, Charlie Chaplin plays the song "Violetara" on the harmonium and sings Spanish words to it that he makes up. Then he invites me to come to his house, where he'll play the organ for me till my eyes and ears give way. "Eh, Jungens?"2
The Jungens confirm, as the boss wishes, that he indeed has a powerful organ at home that he knows how to play in an ear-shattering way, whether his visitor likes it or not. 
"I play fantastically well," laughs Chaplin. "But you don't know crap about my music."
The Jungens, who by the way, address the boss as "Charlie," are in fact two men named Harry Crocker and Henry Clive.3 Harry Crocker is a young American with a sweater and a sense of humor. In Circus he played the tightrope dancer in evening dress and Charlie's lucky rival; also the clown that Charlie lathers up and other roles as well. Henry Clive is older, forty-eight, and has a serious career as a magician in American provincial variety shows behind him. The third of the Jungens is calls Heinrich, much like the other two (Harry, Henry), but isn't here today, but that's an exception. We're not going to have any further visit to Chaplin's studio without Mister Henry Bergman sitting, pot-bellied and broad-gauged, in an appropriate chair. At night Bergman-ur4 (as we prefer to call him, since he's a real Magyar) is himself a boss, the owner of a Hollywood Boulevard restaurant for the prominent and those who want to see them. Chaplin made the restauranteur Henry and also endows him with a regular evening visit, for which Bergman-ur returns the favor by visiting Chaplin every day. 
Besides the harmonium, a black leather armchair and four wooden easy chairs make up the furnishings of the projection room. Chaplin insists on my taking the armchair, but seems very pleased when I decline. He squats on it with legs folded; it must be his usual place. 
And now we're going to let the film roll. For the moment, only a quarter of it is ready, four hundred feet, some of which will be reshot and some cut. The film starts. 
I burst out laughing at the place with the watch chain. But someone puts his hand on my knee and tells me to be quiet. Who is it who disputes my natural right to laugh madly at one of Charlie Chaplin's mad moments? It's none other than Charlie Chaplin, and he's sitting right next to me. The film isn't ready yet, and since we're supposed to "help," my laughter is out of place, just as when poor Charlie laughs in Circus when he's supposed to be learning the clown's jokes. 
"Terrific," we whisper, after this section of film has been run through and the lights in the projection room come on. 
The boss parries: "Can you tell me what you just saw?" 
Of course. With pleasure. A girl is selling flowers on a street corner. Then Chaplin comes along....
"Oh, not yet."
First a man comes accompanied by his wife and buys a flower. 
"A man? What man?"
A man who looks a little like Adolphe Menjou. 
"Yes, an elegant gentleman with a lady. That's important. What else?"
Then Chaplin rounds the corner. He sees a fountain on the wall and takes off his gloves in order to have a drink. That is, not the gloves all at once, but one finger at a time. One finger is missing, and Charlie looks for it without success. 
"See, Charlie!" shouts Harry Crocker triumphantly. 
"No, it's not clear. "We'll shoot it all over again..."
Now Charlie takes the drinking glass in front of the wall...
"Did you recognize what I represent?"
???
"Am I not this time something different from before?"
Yes, you have a small bow tie and the gloves. This time you want to be a rather foppish tramp, isn't that so? The business with the cup indicates the same thing. 
"Would you please explain that too?"
Chaplin takes the cup that's hanging on the chain. As the chain comes to rest on his stomach, Chaplin notices that it would make a splendid watch chain  and tries to free it from the wall while he drinks. But he fails and, in resignation, waddles over to the flower girl. She offers...
"Stop, stop. There's something else going on."
Chaplin looks at me piercingly, anxiously, almost imploringly. "There's something else going on."
No, I absolutely can't recall anything else in that scene.
"A car comes, don't you see?"
Yes, a car comes. A man emerges from it and goes over to Chaplin. Chaplin greets him as usual.
"And what is the car doing?"
"I don't know," I confess. 
And Upton Sinclair ventures: "I think it's going away." 
"Damn, damn," Chaplin mutters, "the whole thing is ruined." His colleagues are also depressed. 
I relate what else happens. The girl hands Chaplin a flower, it falls to the ground, both bend over to retrieve it, Chaplin picks the flower up, but the girls continues to look for it despite that fact that he holds it out to her. Then he realizes the girl is blind. He buys the flower and goes on his way. 
In order to convince himself that he wasn't wrong, he sneaks back again...
"No, no, he doesn't sneak."
He returns the second time very quickly, as if hurrying by, but draws to a halt while gradually muffling the sound of his steps. Then he turns around, slowly, on tiptoe and sits down next to the girl. But she had just sprinkled the flowers and empties the bucket--right in Chaplin's face. He creeps away and then comes back a third time. And again buys a flower. The blind girl wants to pin it on him and in doing so feels the flower he bought before in his buttonhole. She understands that the man has come back because of her. Chaplin explains to her that his other buttonhole is free, but she insists that a person can't wear flowers in both buttonholes. Then he asks her to keep the flower. She fastens it to her bosom....
"...and..."
...she's in love!
"With whom?"
With Chaplin!
"Damn, damn!"
??
"Doesn't anyone pass by?"
Not that I know. 
"Damn, damn! You mean to say you still don't notice a car and a man?"
No
"And you, Upton?"
Didn't notice a thing. 
Despairing, Chaplin buries his head in his hands, a picture of abject misery against a black leather background. His colleagues are also sad. But what happened? What are they all so upset over if I, a stranger who just dropped by, doesn't get the gag?
Oh, but it's more than a gag; it's the basic idea of the film that's fallen flat because it's absolutely  unclear--my summary means nothing less. 
_________________________________________________________________________________

1 This version of the article is from Egon Erwin Kisch: The Raging Reporter: A Bio-Anthology (ed. by Harold B. Segel, Purdue Univ. Press, 1997). A slightly edited version of the article originally appeared in the October 15th, 1929 issue of The Living Age.
2 "Jungens" is German for "boys."
3 Henry Clive was originally cast as the millionaire but was fired when he balked at doing the suicide scene complaining that the water was too cold. He was replaced by Harry Myers.
4Ur in Hungarian, placed after the name, means "mister."

Charlie meets the press following his nervous breakdown in New York, January 22nd, 1927

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Shortly after Chaplin arrived in New York City on January 14th, he suffered a nervous breakdown in the apartment of his attorney, Nathan Burkan. His secretary, Toraichi Kono, told cameraman Rollie Totheroh, that Chaplin had attempted to commit suicide by trying to jump out the window.1 His fragile mental state was caused not only by the scandalous details of Lita Grey's divorce complaint but also by an article that was printed in the newspaper on January 15th2 which included some private thoughts about his marriage that he had told a reporter on the train between New York and Chicago, not expecting to be quoted. When Chaplin saw his secrets printed on the front page of the paper, he became "violently ill." In addition to his marital problems, the I.R.S. claimed Chaplin owed over one million dollars in back taxes.

A week later, Chaplin agreed to a press conference. About 50 reporters crowded into the dining room of the apartment. Chaplin "lolled against a window sill & looked about in bewilderment. He sought the eyes of Mr. Burkan, who stood across the room with his arms folded."



Chaplin began the press conference by saying: "First, I want to thank the public and the press for their fairness in suspending judgement on me till the trial."

"How do you feel," asked a reporter.

"A little wobbly," replied Chaplin. "I'm able to take rides now. In fact, I feel fine."

Regarding his income tax troubles, Chaplin said: "Why, that's a complete surprise to me. I have a lot of accountants and they didn't tell me anything about it. So it's sort of a surprise. I don't pay any attention to the monetary end. No, I don't know anything about it."

Chaplin sighed at the mention of his wife and begged to be excused from saying that he still loved her. "Under the circumstances, I don't think that's a fair question," he said.

"What do you think of women now, do you like them?" he was asked.

"Of course, naturally," Chaplin replied gazing out the window at Central Park. "If you didn't like them. Life wouldn't be worth living....What is one's art but a love letter to some fair woman. I am glad I am not through with women.

"Do you expect to fall in love again?"

"I hope so, unless senility overcomes me."

He denied that he had anyone in mind at this time.

Chaplin said that Lita's request for $4000 a month temporary alimony for support of the children was evidence of her "gold-digging.""I don't think she has the mature responsibility to realize what she is doing or saying. I don't see why she needs $4000 a month....she wants it for herself."

Chaplin expressed fear that his marital problems might react upon him in a professional way. "My ability as an actor is very aerial, very frail--you don't know whether the spark will die."


_________________________________________________________________________________

1"Roland H. Totheroh Interviewed," Timothy J. Lyons, ed. Film Culture, Spring 1972

2 The "breakdown" article can be read here. Scroll down to "Chaplin's Own Story": http://www.public.asu.edu/~ialong/Taylor46.txt 
According to the Gerith Von Ulm book, Charlie Chaplin: King Of Tragedy (and as per Kono), Charlie and the reporter played poker on the train for 6 hours while Charlie talked nonstop. I assume the reporter did not take notes during the interview because Charlie was under the impression that their conversation was "off the record," so one must question the accuracy of the content. To me, he doesn't say anything here that would lead to a nervous breakdown later, but he doesn't sound sane either. He rambles quite a bit and at times he lies through his teeth, i.e. his heartbreak over Lita falling out of love with him. It seems to me that his breakdown was a combination of everything that was happening in his life at the time.

Other sources:
January 23rd, 1927 issues of the New York Times, Boston Daily Globe, and Chicago Daily Tribune.

Out on the town with his ex, Paulette, 1942

Charlie dressed as the Tramp eating ice cream

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I have always wondered about these photos. I have no idea when or why they were taken. Given Charlie's appearance, I would date them circa mid-1920s, possibly around the time of The Circus.


The Slapstick Festival in Bristol, UK begins today featuring 100 years of Chaplin's Tramp

Charlie and Oona with Jack Oakie

Pickfair home movie, 1929

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From the documentary Unknown Chaplin (1983), narrated by James Mason.

Charlie is supposedly wearing one of Mary Pickford's dresses from Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm. The film also pinpoints the origin of Hynkel's dance with the globe in The Great Dictator.





Charlie, Marion Davies, and others at the Hearst Ranch, San Simeon, CA, 1933

"The Big Three" in Philadelphia during the Third Liberty Loan drive, 1918

Filmed January 15th-26th, 1914, Chaplin's long-lost short, A THIEF CATCHER

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This ten-minute short was only the third film Chaplin made for Keystone, but he had already adopted his Tramp mustache & makeup. Released February 19th, 1914, A Thief Catcher was considered lost for almost 96 years until it was discovered by chance at an antique sale in Michigan in 2010 by film historian Paul Gierucki. Chaplin makes a short 3-minute appearance as a cop in the film which also stars Keystone regulars Ford Sterling & Mack Swain. I had the privilege to be among the first to see this film in nearly a century when A Thief Catcher had a rare screening at the Charlie Chaplin International Conference in Zanesville, OH in October 2010. The plot was typical Keystone, but Charlie was unmistakable. A six-minute excerpt from the film can be seen on the Flicker Alley Chaplin At Keystone set.


Mack Swain, Chaplin, and an unidentified actor.
Edgar Kennedy & Mack Swain are on the left.


Chaplin with a Mrs. Marshall at the Arrowhead Springs Hotel, 1916

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Mrs. Marshall was probably the wife of the hotel's owner, Seth Marshall. This hotel may have been where Chaplin filmed the outdoor shots of Miss Moneybags' house in The Count.

Cover of Picture Show, October 20th, 1928

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Charlie's "loves" are (top-bottom): Mildred Harris, Edna Purviance, Merna Kennedy, Lila Lee (I think), Claire Windsor (I think), and Lita Grey.

Henry Bergman and continuity secretary, Della Steele, on the set of MODERN TIMES

Charlie is presented with a new pet, a Siberian bear cub, May 1943

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Chaplin was presented with the bear cub, marked with a white "V", by Captain Mihail Katzel (right), skipper of a Russian tanker, when he visited Charlie to enlist his endorsement of the national "Write to Russia" campaign.

Charlie, c. 1910-11

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Photo by the Sussman Studio, Minneapolis.

Chaplin with novelist Peter B. Kyne and his son, 1919

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Kyne's son, Marcel Dupuis-Kyne, was a French orphan whom he brought back to the States after the war and adopted. Marcel said to his father after his visit to the Chaplin Studios: "Father, you have been so nice to me all the time but when you bring me to play with Charlie Chaplin...Oh!...I think you are wonderful." (Photo-Play Journal, July 1919)

THE CENTENARY OF THE LITTLE TRAMP - Tuesday, February 4th, 6:20 pm, BFI Southbank, London

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via the Charlie Chaplin Official Facebook page:
This is the launch of David Robinson's fabulous new book on Charlie Chaplin, THE WORLD OF LIMELIGHT, published by the Cineteca di Bologna. David Robinson will make a presentation about the Little Tramp and his new finds, and there will be a few other goodies organised by Bryony Dixon of the BFI and Cecilia Cenciarelli of Cineteca di Bologna.
Click here for more info.



Charlie entertains his friend, writer and critic Maurice Bessy, at his home in Beverly Hills, 1947

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Chaplin included a couple of “in jokes” regarding Bessy in Monsieur Verdoux (1947):

A real estate sign in front of Mr. Varnay’s house says “M. BESSY”.


 His name also appears in one of the newspapers Charlie’s reading in the film (see the arrow).




Bessy was also one of the founders of Cinémonde magazine which also appears in the film (in the postman's bag).*
Click here to see a picture of Charlie reading a copy of the magazine during production of the film.


*Thanks to Dominique Dugros for pointing this one out to me. 

Hollywood premiere of CITY LIGHTS, January 30th, 1931

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City Lights premiered at the Los Angeles Theater on January 30th, 1931. Charlie's guests that evening were Albert Einstein and his wife, Elsa. Charlie recalled that the professor "laughed like a boy" and would nudge him and exclaim, "Ach, das ist wunderbar! Das ist schön!"1, 2 During the emotional last scene he  caught a glimpse of the great Einstein wiping his eyes and later noted that it was "further evidence that scientists are incurable sentimentalists."3

Charlie with Professor Einstein and his wife, who were noticeably bewildered by the large crowd.
 Georgia Hale, Charlie's date, is at far right. 
Chaplin & Einstein at the premiere.

Charlie was accompanied to the opening by Georgia Hale, his leading lady in The Gold Rush. "On the way to the theater, the closer it came to the time of the showing, the more apprehensive Mr. Chaplin became. He whispered something he'd never admit only under duress. 'I'm worried. I have an awful feeling the film isn't going to be received well...I don't care about being popular, wanting acclaim...but I do. I do care...I must have it...the applause of people. I love it...I live on it. But I'm afraid tonight.'" When the picture was only a quarter over, Georgia could tell that Charlie's fears were diminished and he was relaxed. "The audience was once again in the palm of his hand and he knew it."4

City Lights is not only a favorite film among fans, but it was also a favorite of Chaplin himself. In 1966, he told Richard Meryman, "I think I like City Lights the best of all my films."

1931 program for City Lights.






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1"Oh, that's wonderful! It's beautiful!"
2Charles Chaplin, A Comedian Sees The World, Part 1, Sept. 1933
3Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography, 1964
4Georgia Hale, Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-ups 
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