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Jack Oakie (November 12, 1903 – January 23, 1978)

January 24, 2013, 7:40 am
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Yesterday (the 23rd) marked the 35th anniversary of the death of Jack Oakie. His performance as Benzino Napaloni in The Great Dictator is absolutely brilliant & is one of my favorite things about the film. It was also the role he liked best:

Saturday Evening Post, November 6th, 1948



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Photos of Charlie in Cairo from the cover of Egyptian magazine Al Lataif Musawara, 1932

January 24, 2013, 12:43 pm
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Brother Syd can be seen in a couple of of the photos as well.
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Photo by Hartsook, c. 1914-15

January 24, 2013, 2:02 pm
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Quote of the week

January 25, 2013, 9:30 am
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"Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing."

Charlie recalled that this was a favorite saying of his mother's. He also used the quote in Monsieur Verdoux.
I try not to get too personal on this page, but considering recent events in my life, I think this is great advice to adhere to moving forward.

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Tennis at San Simeon, c. late 1920s

January 25, 2013, 11:41 am
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Familiar faces include Marion Davies, Bebe Daniels, Harry Crocker, Ralph Barton, Harry D'Arrast, and (of course) Charlie, among others.
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Charlie & Paulette at Players in Hollywood, September 1943

January 25, 2013, 2:24 pm
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This was Charlie's first meeting with his ex following his remarriage to Oona O'Neill. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Stein Haven).

I posted this picture earlier in the week but took it down due to some hostile comments that were left by a couple of fools trying to hide behind anonymity. Hopefully we'll have better luck this time around.
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100 years ago today

January 26, 2013, 7:38 am
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Source: Linda Wada @ Edna Purviance--Chaplin's Leading Lady
"Sunday, January 26, 1913 - Fred Karno Company, with Charles Chaplin, were in San Francisco getting ready to perform a Sunday afternoon program at the Empress Theater. This was Chaplin's fourth trip to San Francisco and was one of his favorite cities.

Chaplin first came here in 1911 (not 1910, as he said in his Autobiography). Unlike London, San Francisco (like the other western cities) all looked new to him. Especially San Francisco, since they were just in the first few years of their recovery from the April 1906 earthquake and getting ready for the 1915 World Exhibition. 

Chaplin also said, San Francisco was a great place for cheap prices and food. It was the city that introduced him to Frog's Legs, Avocado pears (known as just Avocados today) and Strawberry Shortcake. 

The food is still there, but the cheap prices are long gone..."


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Photo by Apeda Studios, NYC, c. 1925

January 26, 2013, 11:12 am
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With Rosalind Russell at the Trocadero, c. 1941

January 27, 2013, 1:43 pm
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On tour with the Fred Karno Co., Butte, MO, c. 1912-13

January 28, 2013, 8:56 am
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Seated next to Charlie is Stan Laurel.

In his autobiography, Charlie recalled that the prettiest prostitutes in the West were in Butte:
Butte boasted of having the prettiest women of any red-light district in the West, and it was true. If one saw a pretty girl smartly dressed, one could rest assured she was from the red-light quarter, doing her shopping. Off duty, they looked neither right nor left and were most respectable.
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Footage from the Hollywood premiere of THE CIRCUS at Grauman's Chinese Theater, January 27, 1928

January 28, 2013, 10:46 am
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Charlie appears around the :50 mark with his guests Ambassador Moore & Will Hays.

Apparently the crowds lining the sidewalk to see Charlie were so enormous that members of the National Guard had to be brought in to help bring it under control. When Charlie arrived, he stepped from his car, locked arms with Syd Grauman, and paraded up and down the street for two blocks with one of the big spotlights, which you can see in the background, following them.
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Premiere of THE CIRCUS Party for Marion Davies, 1928

January 28, 2013, 11:17 am
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I had always been under the impression that the above photos of Charlie with Gloria Swanson, Marion Davies & Harry Crocker were taken at a party following the Hollywood premiere of The Circus, but I recently discovered that that is evidently not the case. These photos, plus the one below, were taken at a welcome home party that was given for Marion Davies at the Ambassador Hotel following her return from Europe in October 1928.


Original photograph caption dated October 31,1928 reads: "Photo shows a distinguished group of filmland notables at a welcome party honoring Marion Davies, famous star just returned from a three-month trip abroad. Standing, left to right, Lorraine Eddy, Matt Moore, Aileen Pringle, Louis B. Mayer, Gloria Swanson, Harry D'Arrast, Miss Davies, Louella O. Parsons, Ricardo Cortez, Charlie Chaplin, Norma Shearer, Irving G. Thalberg, Harold Lloyd and Robert Z. Leonard. Seated in foreground are Harry Crocker, left, and William Haines. The French room of the Ambassador was transformed into likeness of a Parisian cafe for the surprise party greeting Miss Davies." (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Collection)
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Charlie with a very young admirer, Hawaii, 1917

January 29, 2013, 8:26 am
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From Pictures & Picturegoer, 1918

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CITY LIGHTS

January 30, 2013, 7:32 am
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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!"* 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."
Charlie with Professor Einstein and his wife, who were noticeably bewildered by the large crowd. Georgia Hale is at far right. 
A rarely-seen shot from 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."

This film is among my personal favorites and it was also a favorite of Chaplin's. In 1966, he told Richard Meryman, "I think I like City Lights the best of all my films."

*"Oh, that's wonderful! It's beautiful!"

Sources:
My Autobiography
A Comedian Sees The World 
Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-ups by Georgia Hale

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"La Violetera"

January 30, 2013, 10:53 am
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Charlie was so taken with Spanish singer Raquel Meller's interpretation of Jose Padilla's "La Violetera" that he used the song in City Lights. I have a feeling he was probably a little taken with Raquel herself and like Charlie did with many of his female friends/companions, he offered her the role of Josephine in his never-to-be-made Napoleon movie.

Chaplin & Raquel Meller on the set of The Circus, 1926
Charlie met Raquel again in 1931 when City Lights premiered in the south of France. Meller performed the song as part of the opening program. May Reeves recalls the event: "During our stay at Juan-Les-Pins, City Lights premiered at Antibes. It was a great event for all the Côte d'Azur, heightened by the presence of Chaplin & Raquel Meller, who sang "La Violetera" with immense success. She admired Chaplin very much and asked him to write a scenario for her."

France, 1931. Charlie & Raquel are on the left. May Reeves is on the right. 
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Jean Harlow in CITY LIGHTS

January 30, 2013, 2:00 pm
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Source: Charlie Chaplin: Artistry In Motion by Dan Kamin

Still from the nightclub scene in City Lights. Jean Harlow is at far left. She was hired to be an extra in this scene, but her appearance didn’t make the final cut of the film. According to his press agent, Charlie was evidently quite taken with the blonde bombshell:
While City Lights was in the making, Charlie became interested in a young woman, an extra. The peculiar color of her hair attracted him. She was provocatively alluring. 
At the same table at which this extra girl was seated was an older woman. I learned they were mother and daughter. He instructed me to have the older woman promoted! She should play the bit of the indignant matron who sits upon the burning cigar in that sequence. It was only when he discovered that the woman her hair cut in a boyish bob that he changed his mind. 
At the time I made a note that the name of the mother and daughter was Pope--a Mrs. Pope and Jean Pope. Later I discovered that the girl had blossomed forth--in Hell's Angels - as Jean Harlow! The mother was now Mrs. Marino Bello.  ("The Private Life Of Charlie Chaplin" by Carlyle Robinson, Liberty, 1933)
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HIS NEW JOB, released Feb. 1st, 1915

February 1, 2013, 6:40 am
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This was Charlie's first (and appropriately titled) film for Essanay and the only film he made at their Chicago studio. Although seen today as one of the lesser Chaplin Essanays, the film was received with enormous enthusiasm at the time. Said one reviewer: "He is just as funny a Charlie Chaplin as he has ever been. It is hard to conceive of him being any funnier."

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VANITY FAIR gathering in New York, December 1920

February 1, 2013, 12:13 pm
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From Vanity Fair, January 1921
Next to Charlie is French actress Alice Delysia. His friend, playwright Edward Knoblock, is at bottom right. Boxer Georges Carpentier is standing second from left. Another photo from this event is in Charlie's autobiography.
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Buster Keaton (October 4th, 1895 - February 1st, 1966)

February 1, 2013, 7:18 pm
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Portrait of Buster's character in Limelight (1952)
Rest In Peace...
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99 years ago today

February 2, 2013, 7:07 am
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On February 2nd, 1914, Charlie made his first ever film appearance in Making A Living. Chaplin had not yet adopted his famous wardrobe. Instead, he sported a top hat, monocle & droopy, Fu Manchu mustache. Charlie added his own bits of comedy business to the film, but director Henry Lehrman cut out the best ones. “Lehrman confessed years later that he had deliberately done it,” Chaplin wrote in his autobiography, “because, as he put it, he thought I knew too much.”


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