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Chaplin with Borrah Minnevitch, leader of the Harmonica Rascals, outside Grauman's Chinese Theater which is decorated for the premiere of The Circus, c.January 1928


Rare posed photos of Chaplin from 1914

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Chaplin's costume is similar, except for the tie, to the one he wears in Getting Acquainted, so perhaps these photos were going to be used for publicity purposes. No photographer is given. All I can say is: where have these photos been hiding for the last 100 years?





Source: www.invaluable.com (three of the originals were flipped the wrong direction, so I corrected them)

Update on the newly found photos

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First of all, I want to thank Dominique Dugros for his great detective work. It's truly amazing (and I don't use that overused word often) what we can find out about 100 year old photos in the space of 24 hours.

According to Chaplin collector, Shunichi Ohkubo the photos I posted yesterday were evidently taken by Tom Bones, who was a photographer at the Keystone studios in those days. There was some speculation as to whether the photos were from the time of the filming of The Star Boarder but this might not be the case (Bones also took some photos of CC & Minta Durfee from that film). Dominique exhaustively compared Chaplin's outfit (right down to the white tip on his cane) to practically every Keystone film and the only one that matches every detail is Those Love Pangs. The only element that isn't clear is whether he is wearing a striped shirt. Chaplin also has the watch chain attached to the safety pin. This was something that was missing from Getting Acquainted, plus the fact that he was wearing a striped tie. TLP was filmed around mid-September 1914.




Dominique also discovered that the photo from the cover of Stephen Weissman's book, Chaplin: A Life, which is something that has always puzzled me because it didn't seem to belong to the Witzel or Hartsook collection, may have been taken at the same time as these newly found photos. Like the photos I posted yesterday, Chaplin is standing on a platform that is covered with a sheet, he is also holding a cigarette (behind his back). Another similar aspect is that the original is flipped the wrong direction (below I am showing the photo in its original (left) and flipped form for the sake of comparison). Three of the original photos from yesterday were flipped the wrong way (the jacket pocket should be on the right).

Photo copyright: Jeffrey Vance

There is still a mysterious aspect to these photos even with all of this new information. Nevertheless, it seems fitting that most of us are seeing these rare and beautiful photos for the first time during the Tramp's centennial year.



"The Private Life Of Chaplin" by Mildred Harris

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Charlie's first wife, Mildred Harris, wrote this series of articles, "The Private Life Of Chaplin" which were published in the Winnipeg Tribune in 1936. They are longer and somewhat more in-depth than the series she wrote in 1927, "Mildred Harris' Own Story," that I posted here about two years ago. In this 1936 series, she offers some interesting tidbits about their life together (i.e. he called her "Millie") and the birth and death of their infant son, some of which were new to me, as well as her own insight into Chaplin the man. See for yourself. I have uploaded a pdf of the articles to my Google Drive site (let me know if you have any problems with the link):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_WD97DQGM4IRUZzWnlyZkJMZFE/edit?usp=sharing

("The Private Life Of Chaplin" by Mildred Harris, printed in 6 installments in the Winnipeg Tribune, March 14-April 18, 1936)

Florence Deshon

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Florence Deshon, c.1918

In the summer of 1919, Charlie was introduced to a budding actress named Florence Deshon.1 At the time she was the girlfriend of his friend, writer Max Eastman.2  She was not only beautiful, but intelligent, free-spirited, and witty. She may have been one of the few women Charlie ever truly loved yet little has ever been written about her.

Max Eastman met Florence at a Masses3 ball in December 1916 and soon after they began living together in Eastman's house in Croton-on-Hudson in upstate New York. In July 1919, Florence was offered a contract with the Sam Goldwyn studio. She moved to Hollywood and took an apartment on De Longpre Ave., not far from the Chaplin Studios. A few months later, Max joined her. It was during this time that Max introduced her to Chaplin. The trio became fast friends, often playing an elaborate version of charades they had devised at Chaplin's home. According to Max, Chaplin's wife, Mildred, was never present at these parties any longer than to say hello to the guests. "You didn't ask why, but you got the impression that she thought his friends had too many ideas and would expect her to say something."

CC, Max Eastman, and Isaac McBride at the Chaplin Studios, 1919

Max eventually returned to his home in New York and it was in the interim that a romance began between Charlie and Florence.

Although Max and Florence had agreed to be mutually independent, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on since Charlie was the only man she ever mentioned in her letters:
Charlie is always very sweet to me.
I dined with Charlie on Christmas Eve, and he gave me a Christmas present.
Beloved, Charlie came to dinner last night and I gave him your book. He was so happy to get it. I saw his picture The Kid in the projection room. I was wonderful, wonderful. I cried and laughed and smiled and worried. It was the most exciting thing I ever saw. 
Charlie is all excited about buying a yacht. He said, "Let's you and Max and Elmer [Ellsworth?] and I go off together." I said we would make movies in all the countries we touched, and he is enthusiastic about your acting in them. Well, we had a wonderful time. Anyhow, as soon as he finishes this picture he asked if I would take a trip in his car. We all the the wanderlust very strongly and were flying all over the world.4

Max recalls that he was never really jealous of Charlie. "Perhaps because we had all three been good friends together--my thoughts of him were not disturbing. I read with a tranquil mind the interesting things she told me about him."
Charlie speaks ever of going away, but it all depends on his picture and at the rate he is working, he will never finish it. I know I am naughty, but I become tired of Charlie's matrimonial troubles. He stays in that frightful situation at this home, and his powerlessness to move wears me out. I did not go with him to meet [Jascha] Heifetz as there were too many people there. I would rather meet Heifetz with Dagmar Godowsky. 
Did I tell you that I met the French comedian, Max Linder? I spent the day at Charlie's studio, and he had a lot of callers that day. Linder is smaller than Charlie and very good looking and well dressed. He is a very sweet little fellow and Charlie was quite jealous of him for a few minutes. Then he went into his dressing room, and Charlie pulled off his cap and roughed his hair and you know he always looks charming that way. He caught a fleeting vision of himself in the glass and all was right with the world again, not because he is striving for perfection, but because something in him refuses to go forward. 5
Another reason for Max's calm may have been his budding relationship with dancer Lisa Duncan, who had moved into his house in Croton. When Florence learned of Max's new relationship, the "Black Panther" (as he called it) side of her personality came out. Although Max was still in love with Florence, he was not capable of being with just one woman.

Florence Deshon and Max Eastman

A month later, sometime in the late summer of 1920, Max received a letter from Florence stating that she had been "sick in bed for a month." This made Max uneasy. He had a low opinion of Hollywood doctors ("those I knew were a little on the occult side"). He wanted to get her into the hands of a doctor he could trust--"Ignoring the fact that she was living in the bonds of true love with another man." Florence wrote again that she was not getting better and was coming east with Charlie as far as Chicago where he had business. Max believed that neither of them realized how sick Florence really was. Florence traveled on to Croton and Max met her at the train station. They returned to their little house on Mount Airy. Eastman contacted a friend who was a gynecologist who examined Florence and discovered that she had been pregnant for three months and the fetus was dead but he didn't know for how long. An immediate operation was needed to save her from blood poisoning.

Florence recovered within a few days & Chaplin eventually arrived in New York to see her, first staying at the Astor Hotel and then taking a room at a fashionable roadhouse in Croton."And there ensued a period," Max later wrote, "in which Florence, to put it crudely, commuted between two lovers. Neither of us was jealous, or at least not troublesomely so. In Hollywood Charlie had ever since midwinter been coming to her apartment each day after work, and for the most part dining and spending the evenings with her--and how soon also the nights, I don't know. They were as close, almost, as she and I had been. But there had been no arrogance in his courtship or his love. He used to tell her--astutely as well as modestly--that he was satisfied to have sneaked in where a better man belonged."6

Nevertheless, the three-way romance had to eventually come to an end. Charlie was going back to Hollywood, Florence would follow a few weeks later. "Had there been an element of scheming in her love for him," wrote Max, "she would have gone back with him. All Hollywood expected them to marry, and marriage to Charlie Chaplin was then the making of a movie star...But Florence's ambition, however, 'abnormal,' was too proudly high to be satisfied with a triumph bought at the price of her inmost self.

"As she told me the story, she took a late train to Croton one night after spending the day with Charlie in New York. There was no need of her taking that train, and he had demurred. He came to the train with her, and said goodbye with tears in his eyes.

"'Don't mind these tears," he said. 'I'll be all right.'

"And in that mood he went back to Hollywood."7

Florence stayed with Eastman for two months and they renewed their romance for a brief time. One evening after having a few drinks, Florence told him that she could never marry any man but Charlie Chaplin, and if she did marry Charlie, 'I would have a child by you before I married him.'"

When Florence returned to Hollywood, she struggled to revive her career. "She had gradually to face the humiliating fact that not her talents or beauty, but her association with Charlie had given her the sudden rise toward her stardom of the previous winter." Charlie was friendly to her now but impersonal. Max felt that Charlie "was not one who, having been hurt once, would permit himself to be hurt again."8 Charlie was also not one to stay alone for long, he was now involved with actress May Collins.

Florence returned to New York in the autumn of 1921 with hopes of landing a part in a Broadway play. One night in early February 1922, Max bumped into Florence as he was coming out of a subway on 42nd St. They exchanged pleasantries and Max went on his way. He didn't tell her he was  on his way to Scribner's on Fifth Avenue to pick up a copy of his recent book The Sense Of Humor which he had had bound in leather for her. He was going to bring it to her apartment later in the afternoon and surprise her with it but he went home and fell asleep. When he awoke, he decided he would bring it to her the next morning and then met some friends at the theater.  In the middle of the first act someone touched his shoulder and whispered that Florence had been taken to the hospital. When he reached St. Vincent's a woman was in the corridor waiting for him. A neighboring tenant had smelled gas coming from Florence's apartment and forced the locked door open. The doctor in charge told Max that Florence was dying but that a blood transfusion might save her. Max's blood was a match and Florence was wheeled in next to him for a direct transfusion. "She was not pale; she was still vivid, but her breathing was raucous and rapid, a fierce noisy effort of her body to get air, reminding me...what a concrete real violent enginelike thing we mean when we say so abstractly, 'the will to live.'"

Max couldn't help but feel guilty about not bringing her his book. "In her presence, my little personal regret about the book seemed trivial and sentimental, as I so often had seemed trivial and sentimental beside her bold, heroic, uncompromisingly passionate way of living a life."9

Florence died on February 4th, 1922. The true circumstances of her death remain unknown. Many believed, including Eastman, that it was a suicide. However the medical examiner ruled her death an accident since a window in her apartment had been open and there was no suicide note.

There is some speculation whether the opening scenes of Chaplin's 1952 film Limelight, where Terry is found unconscious in her apartment due to gas poisoning, were inspired by Deshon's possible suicide. Who knows if this is true, but suicides were part of Chaplin's films long before Limelight (Sunnyside, A Woman Of Paris, etc.)

Years later, Eastman admitted that it was difficult to write about the triangular affair between Charlie, Florence, and himself. "There was a three-way reticence about the details of this triangular attachment which makes it difficult for me to tell the story now. Charlie was still reticent when I reminded him of it thirty-five years later, inquiring whether he would mind my telling about it in this book [Love & Revolution]."

"You ought to see what I'm telling here!" he answered, holding up the manuscript of his own autobiography. But he did not offer to help me with the task. He only contributed one heartfelt exclamation: "Florence was a noble girl."10

____________________________________________________________________________________________

1Florence's real last name was Danks, She invented the name Deshon, with an accent on the last syllable, because she thought it sounded French.
2Chaplin was introduced to Eastman in February 1919 by their mutual friend Rob Wagner after one of Eastman's "Hands Off Russia" lectures in Los Angeles.
3The Masses was a monthly socialist magazine edited by Eastman.
4Max Eastman, Love & Revolution, Random House, 1964
5ibid
6ibid
7ibid
8ibid
9ibid
10ibid

Chaplin with Hollywood French instructor, Georges Jomier

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Possibly at the Hearst castle in San Simeon, circa late 1920s.



Various views of 1085 Summit Drive, c.1939

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These photos are marked as publicity for The Great Dictator, so they were probably taken sometime between 1938-1940.

The first real home Chaplin ever owned was built in 1922 on 6 acres of land on a hillside next door to Pickfair. The story goes that Chaplin used studio carpenters to build the house and that it eventually began to fall apart, thus its nickname "The Breakaway House." The original address was 1103 Cove Way but due to a reassignment of addresses sometime in the 1930s, the address became 1085 Summit Drive. The grounds included a pool, in the shape of the inside of a bowler hat, and a tennis court (built in 1929).

See more photos of the inside and outside of Chaplin's home here.


Playing pool with Doug and Edward Knoblock, c. 1920


THE FIREMAN, released June 12, 1916

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"I was passing a firehouse one day, for example, and heard a fire alarm ring in. I watched the men sliding down the pole, climbing onto the engine, and rushing off to the fire. At once a train of comic possibilities occurred to me. I saw myself sleeping in bed, oblivious to the clanging of the fire bell. This point would have a universal appeal, because everyone likes to sleep. I saw myself sliding down the pole, playing tricks with the fire horses, rescuing the heroine, falling off the fire engine as it turned a corner, and many other points along the same lines. I stored these points away in my mind and some time later, when I made The Fireman, I used every one of them. Yet if I had not watched the firehouse that day the possibilities in the character of a fireman might never have occurred to me." (Charles Chaplin, "What People Laugh At,"American, November 1918)
Certain scenes in The Fireman were filmed at an actual Los Angeles fire house. The two burning houses shown in the film were studio-created facades, not real condemned houses which Mutual claimed in its publicity at the time. However it's remarkable to watch Chaplin climb the three-story set in one take.



Chaplin with visitors at the Lone Star Studio, c. 1916

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Sydney Chaplin is second from left.

World Tour Revisited: Charlie arrives in Vancouver, eh?

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After a short stay at the William Head quarantine station near Victoria, the Hikawa Maru docked in Vancouver on the morning of June 13th, 1932. Sometime later, a weary Chaplin, who hadn't been to Vancouver since his vaudeville days, spoke to reporters in the smoking lounge of the ship. He had been unable to sleep the night before, finally going to bed around 6:00am to catch a few hours' rest. "There was too much excitement for me, I'm afraid, and I couldn't get a wink. People rushing about, anxious to catch a first glimpse of the British Columbia skyline."

More than anything, including his next picture which he insists will be silent, Charlie was anxious to discuss his economic theories. "I am reputedly a comedian, but after seeing financial conditions of the world I have decided I am as much an economist as financiers are comedians, if you know what I mean." He continued, "People everywhere want more material benefits and the privileges that go with wealth. Financiers will have to take less profit and they will have to get on a basis of larger volume of business and smaller return."

Chaplin said that depression "hangs like a pall of smoke over every country I visited. Wait, perhaps I shouldn't say every country. There was one place where the people, semi-civilized to our western understanding, didn't know there was a depression. That was in the island of Bali." Chaplin thought the place was lovely but he wouldn't want to live there. "The depression depresses me but I wouldn't want to be out of it at any cost.  I must be in the milieu of life. I like being where things happen."

Photo of Chaplin supposedly taken at Nanaimo Harbor, B.C.,
June 1932

Here a reporter for the Vancouver Sun describes Chaplin's offscreen appearance and relates a story he told of being chased around Japan by the paparazzi:
Chaplin doesn't  look much like his motion picture self. The hair of his broad, finely modeled head is almost white. His large, luminous blue eyes are serious. Sartorially, he was a "rhapsody in blue." A double-breasted serge suit of navy blue. Blue tie. Blue shirt. Small blue veins show in the skin of a rather pallid face.  
But he displayed one characteristic gesture when he was telling of how reporters and photographers chased him everywhere in Japan. 
"It was really embarrassing," he said. "I'd be looking in a shop window, or I'd stop a moment on the street and there they would be." He jumped from his chair and pantomimed the figure of a press cameraman, crouched over his camera. 
"Being trailed that way makes me terribly self-conscious."
After spending the day in and around Vancouver, Charlie will sail for Seattle in the evening, arriving the next morning. So more on that tomorrow.

Where was Charlie twelve months before?

Hanging out with H.G. Wells in the south of France:
http://discoveringchaplin.blogspot.com/2013/06/world-tour-revisited-charlie-may-visit.html

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Sources:
New York Times, June 14, 1932
Seattle Times, June 13, 1932
Vancouver Sun, June 13, 1932

World Tour Revisited: Back in America, June 14th, 1932

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Charlie poses on the deck of the Hikawa Maru in Seattle.
Seattle at last! I am interviewed by the press. Everyone seems warm and friendly. Something has happened to America since I've been away. That youthful spirit born of prosperity and success has worn off and in its place there are a maturity and sobriety. 1

Chaplin awoke aboard the Hikawa Maru in Seattle on the morning of June 14th. Wearing yet another double-breasted blue suit, a checkered tie, and his favorite button-up shoes, he "smiled and shook hands with immigration and  transportation officials--he'd kept them waiting almost two hours while he slept in." * He assured everyone that he was "terribly glad to be back in America." He added that besides rubbing shoulders with Gandhi, the Prince of Wales, and some "gorgeous European woman," he has been studying the state of the economy during his world tour. "I have a suggestion for the financiers of this country," he said. "Every fool, you know, has an idea. Mine is about international currency. I'm writing it now and I'm going to turn it over to them." However, perhaps more importantly, he was worried about the state of his own financial affairs. "The red side of my own ledger probably will give me spots before my eyes. You know, I've simply got to get to work and make some money for Charlie Chaplin, as well as worry about the world. They say I only work when I feel like it, but I certainly feel like it now," Charlie said, as he handed over a hundred-dollar check to his secretary Kono for their train tickets to Los Angeles.

"Get the best train, Kono," he said. "Let's be comfortable."2

Next Charlie was asked, as he was many times during his tour, "Will he make a talkie?"

"I can express more with a gesture than hundreds of words. A lot of actors talk too much. Maybe they want to prove they can. There are a hundred talkies to one silent picture. You have to distinguish yourself some way, you know."

He mentioned that he had been working out the plot for his new picture and writing some of his own music for it. He had not selected a leading lady but he saw "a couple of peaches" in Europe.

"Will you ever marry again, Charlie?"

"Well," he smiled, "I wouldn't get myself all dressed up and go out with that idea in mind. After all, there's no sense in being too deliberate about a thing...You can't tell what might happen. I'm glad I'm still young enough for these romantic rumors."3


Charlie is "interviewed by the press"
Charlie mentioned that the last time he was in Seattle, twenty years ago, he was doing a pantomime act ("A Night In An English Music Hall") five times a day at a theater (the Empress).

What was he going to do until his train left at noon?

"Well," Charlie said, "I think I'll take a drive around this lovely city of..." he hesitated & looked at Kono.

"Seattle," Kono said, "Lovely Seattle!"4

Charlie arrives back in Los Angeles on June 16th. Stay tuned for his homecoming...
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*Kono's recollection of events is slightly different than what is found in contemporary articles. According to him, Chaplin would not leave his cabin because he was in the throes of writing out his economic plan and insisted that Kono find him a stenographer. When Kono told him that the immigration officials were waiting to see him, Chaplin told him to have them come to him. The long-suffering Kono eventually persuaded an officer to come to his cabin after he convinced him that the man inside was Charlie Chaplin. Kono then went hunting for a stenographer--the "homeliest" one he could find. A few hours later, Kono returned to the cabin after visiting with friends (Kono lived & went to school in Seattle for several years) and basically stuffed the stenographer's pile of typed sheets in a briefcase and pushed Charlie off the boat and into a taxi so they could get to the train station in time. (Gerith Von Ulm, Charlie Chaplin: King of Tragedy, 1940)

1Charles Chaplin, "A Comedian Sees The World,"Woman's Home Companion, January 1934
2Seattle Times, June 14, 1932
3Bellingham Herald, June 14, 1932
4Seattle Times, June 14, 1932

Happy Father's Day...

"A little off-stage comedy stuff" with Charlie and Mabel

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The Day Book (Chicago, IL), August 15, 1915

World Tour Revisited: Charlie comes home, June 16th, 1932

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Chaplin at the Southern Pacific Railroad station
in Los Angeles, June 16, 1932
The trail is nearly over and I am returning to Hollywood. Looking back on my holidays leaves me with an outstanding impression. Europe and the different countries I visited, embroiled in unrest, seem brewing a new epoch--theistic, sociological, and economical--unprecedented in the history of civilization. It animates me with a desire for accomplishment--not in the old way but in something new; perhaps another field of endeavor. ...
As I journey from Seattle to Hollywood. passing through the rich farmland of Washington, the dense pine forests of Oregon and on into the vineyards and orchards of California, it seems impossible to believe ten million people wanting when so much real wealth is evident. 
Nevertheless I am glad to be back in America. I'm glad to be home in Hollywood. Somehow I feel that in America lies the hope of the whole world. For whatever takes place in the transition of this epoch-making time, America will be equal to it.1
Charlie was met at the train station by his old friend and manager, Alf Reeves. He was briefly interviewed by the press although he had more questions for the interviewers than they had for him. He wanted to know about conditions in the motion picture industry and about certain friends, pointing out that he had been away for a long time. "It was the first good rest in twenty years," Charlie told them, "but I still feel sorry for a goldfish, for that's about how much privacy I got. But everywhere I went they were marvelous to me."2

Like before he was asked about his next picture and if it would be a talkie. "My screen character is famous for pantomime so why should I talk?" Charlie replied. He was also eager to discuss his new economic plan that would establish an international currency to help pay off Germany's war reparation debt and restore financial normality. "On my travels I talked my idea over with renowned economists and none was able to find a flaw," he said somewhat boastfully. "I think it can be made practical. I am now preparing a paper on the subject which I will release in a few days.3

Chaplin's reported love affairs in Europe were described by him as "affairs of the newspapers." He was not engaged, he said.4

From the train station, Charlie went directly to his Beverly Hills home. "I stood in the center of the living room," he wrote. "It was late afternoon and a carpet of long shadows lay across the lawn and streaks of golden sunlight streaked across the room. How serene it all looked. I could have wept. I had been away eight [sic] months, yet I wondered whether I was happy to be back. I was confused and without plan, restless and conscious of an extreme loneliness." Chaplin went on to say that he had had in Europe a "vague hope of meeting someone who might orient my life. But nothing came of it. Of all the women I met, few fitted into that category--those that might have done were not interested. And now back in California I had returned to a graveyard." Chaplin wrote that instead of dining alone that night at his house, he took a lonely stroll down Hollywood Boulevard.5

Before Charlie left Hollywood in January 1931, he had been seeing quite a bit of Georgia Hale, his leading lady from The Gold Rush. In fact,  he had given her the run of his Summit Drive house, especially his tennis court, while he was away. According to Georgia, she never heard from Chaplin the whole time he was gone and read about his various love affairs in the newspapers.6 Her version of Charlie's first evening home is different than the one he presents in My Autobiography.

Much to her surprise, Charlie called the moment he got home. "Though he had not written me one word in one year, he greeted me as if he had been in close contact every day." Charlie had brought back two large suitcases filled with gifts for her. He tried to show them to her one by one but she wasn't interested. "So I didn't write you for a year. You'll forget all about it once you see the pretty things I got you," he told her. Georgia replied hysterically, "I don't want things...you haven't explained your silence...you haven't said one loving thing.""What is there to say?" Charlie responded coldly. Not only did Charlie refuse to explain his silence, but he cruelly began comparing "simple Georgia" to all the smart, worldly women he'd met on his tour. Hurt, Georgia had his chauffeur take her home. "We met for this one ugly encounter after one year apart," she wrote. She didn't see him again for ten years.7

Chaplin returned from his travels a changed man both personally and as a filmmaker. Shortly after his return he put pen to paper and began writing "A Comedian Sees The World," his second travel narrative but the first written without the help of a ghostwriter. I will elaborate more on these topics and the aftermath of Chaplin's tour in my next, and final, "World Tour Revisited" post (either by the end of the week or early next week).

_________________________________________________________________________________

1Charles Chaplin, "A Comedian Sees The World,"Woman's Home Companion, January 1934
2Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1932
3ibid. Chaplin's economic plan was published in the press on June 27th, 1933
4ibid
5Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography, 1964
6While Chaplin was away, Georgia told a fan magazine that she heard from him often. She was able to relate stories from his travels & knew where he had been and where he was going. It's possible that she may have fibbed to the reporter because she was embarrassed that she hadn't heard from him and the information about his travels had been gleaned from newspaper accounts she'd read.
7Georgia Hale, Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-ups, 1995

THE IMMIGRANT, released June 18th, 1917

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Some sources give the release date as the 17th but it's really the 18th.

This was Chaplin's second to last film for the Mutual Film Corporation. The day before its release, he signed his first million-dollar contract with First National.


There is a very similar scene between Bugs Bunny and Christopher Columbus
in the 1951 cartoon Hare We Go.

Charlie with sister-in-law, Minnie, on the set of CITY LIGHTS, c. 1930

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Minnie Gilbert Chaplin, a former Fred Karno Company performer, was the first wife of Charlie's half-brother, Sydney (although there is no legal record of their marriage). She appeared in five of Sydney's Keystone films and makes a brief appearance in one of the dancehall scenes in A Dog's Life. She died of cancer in 1936.






Round The Lot With Charlie

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The following quotes plus the first two photos are from "Round The Lot With Charlie,"Picture Show, September 20th, 1919 (the author's name is not given). The man in the photos with Charlie is boxer "Snowy" Baker (thanks to Dominique for the I.D.):
I was told before I met him that I should find him shy. He's nothing of the sort though possibly, not being an awe-inspiring sort of person, I didn't impress him that way. I only know him as a man of charming manners and very rare mentality who possesses a fund of interesting conversation and a social ease  which would place him on an equal footing with any man on earth. 
I told him of his reputation for shyness, and he smiled.
"No, I'm not shy," he said, "only timid; a big difference, you know."

The reporter went on to describe Charlie as
...a little chap, slender and beautifully proportioned, with small feet and exquisite, expressive little hands. His most striking feature are a pair of clear, deep-blue eyes, fringed with long, dark eyelashes — eyes that reflect every passing thought and emotion, that alternately dream and twinkle, eyes that have the candor and sincerity of a child, but also the fire of a real man's enthusiasm for real big things.
It is very grateful to English ears to listen to Chaplin's well-bred English voice and clear-cut speech in the midst of every variety of American accent. Beyond the use of an occasional transatlantic idiom, he talks like the average cultured Englishman who has just landed in the States.

Although Charlie was in the process of filming Shoulder Arms, the Sunnyside set, including the church from the opening shot, was still standing. [Correction: Charlie was not in the process of filming Shoulder Arms because SA was filmed after Sunnyside. This is my own error. However it appears from the photographs and the content of the article that parts of both sets were still standing.]
"We're keeping it up as long as we can, he explained. "It's so pretty that I hate to pull it down but I'm afraid that it will soon have to go to make room for another set."
"We're keeping it up as long as we can, he explained. "It's so pretty that I hate to pull it down but I'm afraid that it will soon have to go to make room for another set."

Charlie with the same man in a photo from the Chaplin Archive
Image Bank.

Charlie, Paulette, and others on Joseph Schenck's yacht, August 1933

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Charlie and Paulette met aboard Schenck's yacht the previous summer.
L-R: Alva Green, Harry Green, Grace Poggi, Joseph Schenck, Margaret LaMarr, & Paulette (who is tickling Charlie's feet in the top photo). Harry Green appears in Chaplin's 1957 film, A King In New York, as Shahdov's lawyer.

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