 |
| L-R: Geraldine, Oona (holding Victoria), Josephine, CC, & Michael, who is mimicked by his father. |
↧
Family photo, c. 1952
↧
Twelve-year-old Lita Grey (then Lillita MacMurray) photographed as The Age Of Innocence, 1920
"After the [screen] test [for The Kid] was completed. Rollie [Totheroh] had some still photographs taken, as well as a special photograph Charlie had requested. Following Charlie's instructions, I was posed like the girl in Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous portrait The Age Of Innocence, for I had reminded him of the little girl in the oil painting. He thought it would make a memorable photograph." --Lita Grey Chaplin, Wife Of The Life Of The Party, 1998
 |
| From Wife Of The Life Of The Party by Lita Grey Chaplin & Jeffrey Vance |
 |
| The Age Of Innocence by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1788) |
↧
↧
If you live in the U.S., don't forget!
.jpg)
↧
Autographed photo with sketch, 1944
↧
With Josephine and Victoria, French Riviera, c. 1956
↧
↧
Dish Network president threatens to blackout TCM and Turner Networks "forever"
(This might be of interest to others like me who have been without TCM the last two weeks due to the dispute between Dish Network and Time Warner).
Will McKinley sums up some recent comments by Dish Network chairman and soulless cretin, Charlie Ergen, who says that the blackout of TCM and other Turner networks is a "non-event":
http://willmckinley.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/dish-threatens-to-blackout-tcm-turner-networks-forever/
Will McKinley sums up some recent comments by Dish Network chairman and soulless cretin, Charlie Ergen, who says that the blackout of TCM and other Turner networks is a "non-event":
http://willmckinley.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/dish-threatens-to-blackout-tcm-turner-networks-forever/
↧
Seldom seen photo of Chaplin & violinist Jascha Heifetz on the set of THE KID, 1920
At far right is Syd Chaplin. I believe the woman is Dagmar Godowsky (daughter of Leopold), who had been romantically involved with both Heifetz and Chaplin.
Around the time of this visit with Chaplin, Godowsky flew to San Diego with Heifetz on an airplane from Syd Chaplin's airfield. The pilot was Syd's business partner, Emery Rogers. It was Heifetz's first flight. See photo here.
↧
His Musical Career hits a snag
 |
| Filming this scene held up traffic for hours on a busy L.A. street. |
Filming on location was the norm in the early silent days. But given its distractions, Charlie was often at odds with these expeditions. In fact, he loathed them.1 Therefore it's not surprising to find the following clipping about a problem Charlie encountered during location shooting for His Musical Career, which was released 100 years ago today.
 |
| Moving Picture World, October 24th, 1914. ("The Song Shop" = "His Musical Career") |
According to Chaplin by Denis Gifford: "only Charlie's fame saved him from arrest."
For a closer look at the filming locations for His Musical Career see this post on John Bengston's "Silent Locations" blog.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
↧
Charlie on a high-wheel bicycle, c. 1919
↧
↧
Happy 100th birthday, Norman Lloyd!
Costume test photos of Norman Lloyd as Bodalink in Limelight (1952)
Lloyd met Chaplin sometime in the l940s through Tim Durant. He became a regular visitor to Chaplin's home, mostly due to their mutual love of tennis.
One of my favorite Lloyd anecdotes involves the time he tried to steal Chaplin's cane out of a closet at the studio:
One night we went down to the studio and we went into the cottage that had his dressing room and I just couldn't resist it. I opened the closet and I saw one of the canes. And I thought, "Well, Norman, this is the time you're going to steal this cane." I reached in and began to lift it out. I hadn't figured a way of getting it out of there when Charlie came up beside me and said, "Ah, yes," and gently took it from me and just put it back. I had the feeling I wasn't the first one who had tried that. As he put it back, I looked down and came upon one of his secrets. There were the oversized shoes, the most famous shoes in the world. But in the oversized shoes was another pair of shoes, which were the correct size for Charlie's feet, so that when he walked the most famous walk in the world, in the oversized shoes, he actually was in another pair of shoes which gave him control. (interview with Lloyd for Unknown Chaplin)
In the early 1950s, Chaplin and Lloyd came close to making the first film version of They Shoot Horses Don't They? Chaplin revealed to Lloyd that he had been to dance marathons and they fascinated him. He knew about the book, written by Horace McCoy, and had ideas about it long before Lloyd had read it. Around 1950, they purchased the screen rights. The deal was that Chaplin would write and produce and Lloyd would direct. Chaplin wanted his son, Sydney, for the male lead. Marilyn Monroe, a newcomer at the time & friend of Charlie, Jr. and Sydney, was considered for the role of Gloria Beatty. Lloyd recalled that Chaplin's ideas for the film were "so moving, so Chaplinesque. The leading character took on the flavor of Chaplin." (Lloyd, Stages Of Life) Sadly, the project fell through after Chaplin was barred from returning to the States in 1952. A film was eventually made in 1969, directed by Sydney Pollack with Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin in the leading roles.
↧
HIS TRYSTING PLACE*, released 100 years ago today
Written and directed by Charlie Chaplin.
 |
| Mabel Normand is brilliant as the frazzled wife and mother. |
 |
| "Here, play with this (a gun!)" |
 |
| Although this is not the first film to show Charlie with a wife, it is the first to show him in a domestic situation. |
 |
| Charlie tries to shield himself from Mack Swain's sloppy eating. |
 |
| After a brawl with Mack Swain at the restaurant, Charlie accidently takes his coat, and vice versa. |
 |
| Due to the coat mix-up, Mabel thinks Charlie is "trysting" with Phyllis Allen. |
 |
| And Phyllis thinks her husband (Mack Swain) has a child. |
 |
| All's well that ends well... |
↧
Very short clip of Chaplin shaking hands with British tennis champion, Dorothy Round, 1933
↧
Happy birthday, Mabel (November 10, 1893)*
Chaplin on Mabel:
The ‘he-man’ atmosphere of the studio would have been almost intolerable but for the pulchritudinous influence. Mabel Normand’s presence, of course, graced the studio with glamour. She was extremely pretty, with large heavy-lidded eyes and full lips that curled delicately at the corners of her mouth, expressing humour and all sorts of indulgence. She was light-hearted and gay, a good fellow, kind and generous; and everyone adored her. (My Autobiography, 1964)
Mabel on Chaplin:
Comedy has the broadest appeal to children--including adults--especially comedy with
heart. That is why Charlie Chaplin may stay off the screen as long as he likes and yet always return to crowds. When you see Charlie you don't just laugh from the throat, you laugh from the heart. (Photoplay, July 1925)
*Mabel's birthday is incorrectly listed on Wikipedia as November 9th, 1892. According to Mabel Normand researcher Marilyn Slater, her birthday is actually November 10th, 1893.
↧
↧
Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and Roscoe Arbuckle, c.1914
↧
The eldest Chaplin boys during army induction and training
Charlie, Jr. at his army induction, 1943, (left) and during training at Camp Haan, CA, 1944
Sydney at his induction (left) and at the Ordnance Training Center in Flora, MS, 1944
View the enlistment records for Charlie, Jr. & Sydney here & here.
Both boys served in General Patton’s Third Army during WWII. Charlie, Jr. received two battle stars for his service.
He later remembered that his father was proud that he was in uniform.
He always lectured me about taking my duties seriously. I never left for camp that he didn’t put his arm around me and give me a pep talk.Once he even received a rare, personal letter from him.
"Charlie," he would say, "I want you to be a good soldier. If you don’t do anything else be a good soldier."(My Father, Charlie Chaplin, 1960)
He must have just seen a newsreel of soldiers working their way through mined houses, because the letter was full of warnings about booby traps. He was genuinely worried.
"Be careful where you walk, son," he wrote. "You might step on a mine and blow off your foot. It's not good to go through life maimed. Don't pick up strange objects, you might get a hand blown off."
He seemed especially concerned about pianos and singled them out for attention, warning me not to play on a strange one or to lift it or move it for fear the whole thing would blow up in my face. I suppose pianos troubled him so much because ever since I had shown an interest in music he had associated me with them. I had to laugh. Pianos were the least of my concern while bullets were flying overhead and shells were lobbing over and an occasional German plane was strafing us. (My Father, Charlie Chaplin, 1960)
↧
Charlie & Oona at the opening of "Galileo" starring Charles Laughton at the Coronet Theater, 1947
↧
Tennis at Summit Drive, c. 1952
Photos by Florence Homolka
![]()
![]()
↧
↧
BEHIND THE SCREEN, released November 13th, 1916
 |
| Goliath, the stage hand, and his assistant, David. |
 |
| Charlie manages to carry a dozen chairs and a piano at once. |
"Stage hands lunch hour." Charlie uses bellows to shield himself from Albert's smelly onions.
 |
| Charlie discovers the new stage hand is really a girl (Edna). |
 |
| He promises to keep her secret. |
 |
| Eric gets the wrong idea when he sees Charlie kissing the new stage hand and then makes fun of him by doing an effeminate dance. These blatant references to homosexuality were very risqué at the time. |
 |
| "The comedy department rehearses a new idea"--a pie fight. |
 |
| After a fight with Charlie, Eric falls into the trap door that has been rigged with explosives by the striking stage hands. |
 |
| Charlie and Edna congratulate each other on their escape. |
↧
Interview clips
Here is a compilation I put together of rare interview excerpts, probably from c. 1979, featuring Jackie Coogan, Lita Grey Chaplin, and Sydney Chaplin. These clips were extracted from the documentary Great Romances Of the 20th Century: Charlie & Oona Chaplin (1998).*
Note: Eric James tells a different version of Sydney's bathroom story here (or maybe it happened twice!)
*Courtesy of my dear friend, Lucy.
Note: Eric James tells a different version of Sydney's bathroom story here (or maybe it happened twice!)
*Courtesy of my dear friend, Lucy.
↧
Random Excerpt
Journalist Sara Hamilton describes a day on the Chaplin lot during the filming of Modern Times:
A Chaplin picture conference is something that defies description. When the picture situations (they are never referred to as gags on the Chaplin lot) have been perfected in the mind of Chaplin--a long slow process that requires from two to four years--Della [Steele] and Henry [Bergman] are then summoned to a conference in Charlie's bungalow.
About the table they gather--and the situations are acted out one after the other. Charlie begins by taking his own role as the little tramp, closely watching their reactions to his every move. Henry, who weighs the better part of a ton, is then called upon to play Chaplin's role; Della takes Miss [Paulette] Goddard's role of the little street waif; Charlie is the factory foreman. Then swiftly they change parts again. Della is Charlie, the tramp; Henry is a policeman and Chaplin becomes the street waif.
 |
| Henry Bergman and Della Steele, c.1935. ©Roy Export S.A.S. |
It was his untiring striving for perfection in performance and his gentle patience with the clumsiest performer that impressed a titled visitor (and visitors are rare) at the Chaplin lot recently. Rehearsals began at ten that morning with extras and bit players ready and waiting. Then began one of the strangest phenomena every witnessed. Chaplin directing his own picture. In explaining the action to the owner of the delicatessen shop, Charlie became the character. In some manner he took on enormous proportions, his face rounded, his hands grew massive and clumsy as the tramp faded in the background.
In a flash he became the policeman, growing in stature before the eyes as he strutted, stormed and threatened. Then on to Miss Goddard's role. Prone on the sidewalk he wept, cried out in childish despair, "I didn't, please, please, I didn't steal the ham. Oh please, I didn't, Mister. Honest, I didn't." The voice, not Chaplin's, but the voice of the frightened waif--wept and cried and pleaded from the sidewalk. Now, in a flash, he was an extra tramp, weaving his gentle way in perfect rhythm in and out among the characters.
 |
| Directing Paulette Goddard. ©Roy Export S.A.S. |
From ten till four it went on without a moment's pause. And then, with the perspiration dripping down his face, he humbly thanked them all and with an apology for having carried them past the lunch hour, staggered off, tired and weary, to his little bungalow, his cane flipping a feeble staccato as he went.
There is little boisterousness around the Chaplin studio. The Chaplinites feel that unwarranted noise or crude language might offend "him.""Him" in case you haven't guessed, is the little tramp, the tattered ragamuffin, the gallant little gentleman with his absurdly defiant elegance who picks his teeth with such delightful savoir faire and belches with such charming daintiness.
To them this pathetic little creature who once, long ago, sprang from the forehead of Charles Spencer Chaplin, is a definite personality. He lives, he breathes, he thinks, he walks his troubled way alone. His name to all of them, is just "he."
In the midst of some hilarious bit of tragedy in which "he" finds himself involved on the set, Chaplin will figuratively stand aside and contemplate his little friend with an amused chuckle and a knowing wink that seems to say, "our little friend got himself into a fine pickle that time, didn't he?"
So it was when they showed Charlie the sweater knit by the loving hands of some dear old lady and sent over to the Chaplin studio with a note explaining it was for the little tramp when the wind blew cold. Chaplin's eyes grew misty as he said, "Write and thank her and tell her not to worry. "I'll always take care of 'him.'"
--Sara Hamilton, "The New Charlie Chaplin,"Baltimore Sun, September 1, 1935
↧