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| Paris Match, January 1978 |
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Chaplin sitting by the fire a few weeks before his death, 1977
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Lovely color photo of Charlie & Oona
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Lita Grey Chaplin in Honolulu, 1926
In November 1926, Lita spent three weeks in Hawaii with her mother and Charlie, Jr. A few days after their return, she separated from Chaplin and moved out of his house. According to Lita, Chaplin suggested that she take the trip to think things over. However in cross complaint for divorce, Chaplin states that he sent Lita to Hawaii to get her away from the car salesman with whom he believed she was having an affair. The cross complaint also states that while she was on the boat to and from Honolulu "she so conducted herself and engaged in such a course of conduct as to cause passengers on the boat both to notice and to comment upon her conduct and to make uncomplimentary remarks of and concerning her and her said conduct." Lita's behavior caused Chaplin, according to his cross-complaint, "extreme mental anguish and sorrow and great humiliation."1 He also accused her of spending hours away from Charlie, Jr. during the course of the trip. These allegations were nothing more than an attempt, and an unsuccessful one at that, by Chaplin's lawyers to paint Lita as an unfit mother.
See photos of Charlie posing with Lita and Charlie, Jr. prior to their departure for Honolulu here and here.
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1Chaplin divorce documents reprinted in Wife Of The Life Of The Party by Lita Grey Chaplin & Jeffrey Vance, 1998
See photos of Charlie posing with Lita and Charlie, Jr. prior to their departure for Honolulu here and here.
1Chaplin divorce documents reprinted in Wife Of The Life Of The Party by Lita Grey Chaplin & Jeffrey Vance, 1998
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Bookplates
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| Chaplin's personal bookplate created by Rob Wagner, c.1918 |
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| Another personal bookplate, c.1930s (?) |
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| Paulette Goddard's bookplate, designed by Chaplin |
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With (blonde) Paulette on Catalina Island, 1932
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Chaplin with the French cartoonist, Cami, (left) at the Hotel Claridge in Paris, 1921
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Rare images from the set of SUNNYSIDE (1919)
These photos show Chaplin & the "wood nymphs" during a break in location filming. The nymphs were played by Olive Burton, Willie Mae Carson, Olive Ann Alcorn, and Helen Kohn.
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| Chaplin's friend, Rob Wagner, is at far left. Rollie Totheroh is behind the camera. |
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Charlie's JFK Connection
Originally posted 11/22/2013
In the early stages of the screenplay for A Countess From Hong Kong, the character of Ogden Mears, played by Marlon Brando, was loosely based on President John F. Kennedy (in the original story, Mears was planning to run for president.) After Kennedy was assassinated, however, Chaplin revised the story because he didn’t want to offend the Kennedy family, especially Mrs. Kennedy.
Several years after Countess was released, producer and Chaplin family friend, Jerry Epstein, met Pierre Salinger, Kennedy’s press secretary. Epstein recalled their conversation in his book, Remembering Charlie:
In the early stages of the screenplay for A Countess From Hong Kong, the character of Ogden Mears, played by Marlon Brando, was loosely based on President John F. Kennedy (in the original story, Mears was planning to run for president.) After Kennedy was assassinated, however, Chaplin revised the story because he didn’t want to offend the Kennedy family, especially Mrs. Kennedy.
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| Charlie with Marlon Brando on the set of A Countess From Hong Kong |
"He said that Kennedy had planned to do something about Chaplin’s exile. Salinger was supposed to visit him and invite him back to the United States. But of course in the meantime Kennedy had been killed. Salinger also mentioned that he’d seen A Countess From Hong Kong. ‘I know who that picture was based on’ he told me. ‘Mr. Chaplin captured it very accurately.' So I guess we didn’t disguise the Kennedy aspect too well."
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Charlie at Jack Pickford's wedding at Pickfair, 1922
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| Charlie is in the center. Jack Pickford and his new wife, Marilyn Miller, are in front of him walking down the steps. Douglas Fairbanks is inside the door (hard to see) and Mary Pickford is right outside the door wearing a white hat with her head turned away from the camera. |
See footage of the wedding here.
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Don't miss A DOG'S LIFE tonight on TCM (USA)--in prime-time (8pm EST)!
Chaplin's 1918 classic kicks off TCM's last night of their month-long salute to Silent Stars. The new French documentary The Birth Of The Tramp will follow at 8:45. The rest of the evening will include films by Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and others. I'm so glad I can watch TCM again after being without it for a month due to the Time Warner/Dish Network dispute. This is my go-to channel and I was lost without it.
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| Film Fun, July 1918 |
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90 years ago today: Chaplin marries Lita Grey in Mexico
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| The couple at a train station in Shorb, CA the day after their wedding. |
The ceremony was performed at 5:00 in the morning in Empalme, Mexico1 by a justice of the peace who spoke through an interpreter. Those in attendance were Chaplin’s valet, Toraichi Kono, his lawyer, Nathan Burkan, members of Lita’s family, Charlie's publicist Eddie Manson, and his friend, Chuck Reisner. Sixteen-year-old Lita, 2 who was three months pregnant and suffering from morning sickness, was flanked by her mother. Chuck Riesner stood next to the groom, who held a lit cigarette between his fingers and puffed on it nervously throughout the ceremony. "Words cannot describe how grim [it] actually was," recalled Lita. When it was over, Charlie awkwardly kissed his bride on the cheek. She was then congratulated by her mother and Chuck, who had tears in his eyes. Lita looked around for Charlie but he had already left.
Afterward, the wedding party gathered for breakfast, but Charlie was not in attendance. Lita remembered that "it felt as if we had gathered for a wake instead of a wedding." She did not see him again until that evening in the drawing room of the train headed back to Los Angeles. At one point, she overheard him tell his entourage, "Well, boys, this is better than the penitentiary but it won't last long."
When Lita finally entered their compartment, Charlie yelled loudly enough that others on the train heard him, "What are you coming in here for? You made me marry you."3
In her book, Wife Of The Life Of The Party, Lita described what happened next:
In our stateroom, Charlie said to me, "Don't expect me to be a husband to you, for I won't be. I'll do certain things for appearances' sake. Beyond that, nothing."
My throat was dry and I felt nauseated. "Please, would you get me a drink of water?"
"Get it yourself. You might later claim I tried to poison you." I staggered to my feet to get the water.
After watching me for several minutes, Charlie said, "Come on, I'll take you outside. The air will do you good." Standing on the platform of the observation car, I stared at the couplings of the train below, breathing deeply the cold night air. Charlie broke his aggressive silence and said to me, "We could put an end to this misery if you'd just jump."4At a deserted station in Shorb, CA, Charlie and Lita disembarked from the train and dodged the press as they moved quickly to an awaiting limousine. One exchange went like this:
"Charlie, how about the wedding?" asked a reporter.
Charlie replied: "I don't want any publicity."
"Are you going back to Hollywood?"
"I don't want any publicity."
"The public is yearning to know about your romance."
Charlie snapped back: "The public knows all about everything already. My life's an open book."5 & 6
The reporters followed Chaplin's car twenty miles to his Beverly Hills house. They were stopped only by his security gate. Once Charlie and Lita were inside, he issued the following statement:
"Just tell everybody we are happy, thankful, and glad to be home."
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| Charlie and Lita in Shorb. |
1 Charlie attempted to marry Lita in Mexico on October 14th, but when they filed the application, they were told that by Mexican law they had to wait 30 days before the marriage could take place.
2Lita falsely gave her age as 19 on her marriage certificate.
3 Lita Grey Chaplin's divorce complaint, reprinted in Wife Of The Life of The Party. Lita also states in her complaint that she and Charlie became engaged in May 1924 and that Chaplin "seduced" her under the promise of marriage and that is how she became pregnant.
4 Lita once told the "jump from the train" story in an interview and she said that she couldn't tell if Charlie was being serious or not.
5Chicago Daily Tribune, November 28th, 1924
6 I've never understood why Charlie schlepped Lita all the way to Mexico to marry her when he could have had the ceremony in the privacy of his home and avoided all the publicity and headaches. Lita herself wondered the same thing and said his behaviour reminded her of someone who was "deranged."
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Chaplin delivers a Thanksgiving speech at Plymouth, England, November 15, 1931
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| Chaplin addressing the crowd at Plymouth. Photo courtesy of Dominique Dugros. |
Chaplin attended the open-air Thanksgiving service, held at the place where the Pilgrims embarked on their voyage to America, as the guest of Lady Nancy Astor, who represented Plymouth as a member of Parliament. So dense was the crowd to see Chaplin that women and children were pushed to the edge of the Fish Quay, the scene of the service, causing one ten-year-old boy to fall 20ft into the sea (he was quickly recovered by another man who jumped in to save him). Ten thousand people crowded around a truck bed that was used as a platform. On the truck stood, Chaplin, Lady Astor, and the Bishop of Plymouth. Astor asked Chaplin to address her constituents. Holding a megaphone, Chaplin told the crowd that he sympathized with fisherman in their arduous work. "Still, we all have our tribulations," he said. "Even millionaires have their tribulations, and we must just put up with them."1 Chaplin went on to tell his fellow countrymen that "the more I see of England,* the more I love her. But the only thing I can do for her is to make her laugh."2 After the speeches, Chaplin did some tricks with his bowler hat much to the delight of the audience. Later, he danced with Lady Astor, "enjoyed himself in a barn dance, and delighted several partners."3
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| Chaplin with Lady Astor, right, and Toraichi Kono, left, in Plymouth, November 1931. |
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1The Times (London), November 16, 1931
2Milwaukee Sentinel, November 16, 1931
3The Indian Review, Vol. 33, 1932
*This was Chaplin's second visit to England (and to Plymouth) during his 1931-32 world tour. He arrived in Plymouth from New York aboard the Mauretania on Feb. 19th, 1931. On February 27th, he attended the London premiere of City Lights (his guests were Lord & Lady Astor & George Bernard Shaw). After spending most of the year in the south of France, he returned to England in September 1931. It was during this second visit that he met Gandhi (on Sept. 22). Learn more about Chaplin's time in England (& other exotic locales) in my World Tour Revisited series or in the newly published A Comedian Sees The World, Chaplin's 1933 account of his world tour.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
To celebrate the holiday, here are a couple of past posts about gastronomical Charlie.
Enjoy the day, American fans. Don't eat too much!
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Enjoy the day, American fans. Don't eat too much!
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Charlie and Paulette at a dinner honoring Walt Disney, 1933
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Chaplin with Douglas Fairbanks and others, c.1918
At far left is Mary Pickford. The man in the tux might be Allan Dwan. I'm not sure of the identity of the man between CC and Doug. Any ideas?
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Hair
Like his bowler hat and cane, the Tramp's curly black hair has always been a distinct part of his character. Chaplin was aware of its significance early on and when getting into costume, his hair became just as important as his mustache. For instance, in How To Make Movies he can be seen fluffing up his hair before putting on his derby. He told Lita Grey during the filming of The Kid: "I never brush or comb my hair in the morning when I get up if I'm going to make up as the Tramp. I like the Tramp's hair to look unkempt under his bowler."1
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Dan Kamin noted that Charlie's tousled hair "reinforced his head movements such as his frequent gesture of shaking his head after a fall, and nicely counterpoints his carefully trimmed mustache."2
Chaplin always had an interest in hair. One of his first jobs was as a lather boy at a barber shop perhaps this experience sparked his interest in cutting hair. It's well-known that Chaplin preferred to cut his own hair, although he did go to barbershops occasionally.
He also enjoyed cutting and styling the hair of his leading ladies, as well as the coifs of family and friends, but not always with positive results. Some of the victims of his tonsorial experiments include:
King Vidor
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May Reeves
The results weren't always negative, however. Ivor Montagu told Kevin Brownlow that Chaplin gave his wife, Hell, "the most marvelous haircut she's ever had."7 And Chaplin seemed to go easy on his daughter Josephine in these photos of a haircut he gave her in the 1960s:
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He also put his hair-cutting skills to use in his films. He played a barber in The Great Dictator (1940) as well as in a deleted scene from Sunnyside (1919). He also becomes a barber to a bearskin rug in Behind The Screen (1916).
Since black hair was a well-defined part of his character, when Chaplin's own hair began going gray in the late 1910s, it became necessary to dye it for the screen. He was touching up his sideburns as early as The Kid 8 and must have been dyeing it all over by 1922, if one compares out-of-costume photos of the same period with the films. There is a long-running myth that Chaplin's hair went white overnight due to his divorce from Lita Grey in 1927. But this myth can easily be debunked by comparing photos of Chaplin from before his marriage to Lita and after. The difference is far from drastic:
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Charlie and his unkempt curls in The Kid
Dan Kamin noted that Charlie's tousled hair "reinforced his head movements such as his frequent gesture of shaking his head after a fall, and nicely counterpoints his carefully trimmed mustache."2
Chaplin always had an interest in hair. One of his first jobs was as a lather boy at a barber shop perhaps this experience sparked his interest in cutting hair. It's well-known that Chaplin preferred to cut his own hair, although he did go to barbershops occasionally.
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| Charlie’s hairdresser, Gabriele Di Rito, gives him a trim, 1960s. According to Di Rito, Charlie was a very good tipper. |
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| Chaplin fixes Paulette Goddard's hair on the set of Modern Times. |
He also enjoyed cutting and styling the hair of his leading ladies, as well as the coifs of family and friends, but not always with positive results. Some of the victims of his tonsorial experiments include:
King Vidor
"Once he said after tennis--he used to call me Buddy--"Come on up, Buddy, and I'll give you a haircut." So I sat on a high stool and he gave me a hair cut. A few weeks later I was down in Los Angeles and I went in the barber shop and the barber said, "Who cut your hair last time?" And quietly I said "Charlie Chaplin." The barber looked at me and said, "I ask you a civil question. I expect a civil answer."3May Collins
May Reeves
Since he didn't like my going to the hairdresser, he cut my hair himself, or rather slashed it, so I looked like a village child disfigured by the barber. Chaplin didn't like long hair; he preferred it almost shaved, like a boy's, so that one could see the shell at the nape of the neck. He abhorred curls and waves. "Hair should fall naturally," he lectured me as he made deep notches in mine.
I groaned, "Enough, enough, Charlie! No shorter!" But he cut with such fury that the newspapers the next day would surely proclaim me a refugee from a gypsy camp.4Oona O'Neill
"Oona had beautiful long hair," remembered Chaplin's second cousin Betty Chaplin Tetrick. "After Geraldine [the couple's second child] was born she couldn't decide whether or not to cut it. She was young, and like young girls she made a big thing of it. Charlie got the scissors and made the decision for her. He loved to cut hair. He started cutting but couldn't get it even, so he kept cutting. The poor thing ended up with this short and jagged haircut."5Sid Grauman
Sid Grauman, whose long, bushy locks have been for years the target for many good-natured gibes from friends and columnists, appeared on the scene one day as Charlie was engaged in feather-edging his own neckline. In the mirror, Charlie spied Sid's long bob. He talked fast to allay any suspicion of the foul intent in his mind, completing his work. Then, jumping down from the chair, he pounced upon the unwary Sid, urging him to let him "trim some of those uneven ends a little." Sid climbed into the chair, cautioning Charlie to "go easy." Charlie snatched up the electric clippers and, before Sid could stay his hand, buzzed a neatly mowed path through the forest of Sid's Fiji-Islanderish locks. Then whirling the chair so Sid could glimpse the havoc, and the picture of penitence, he explained that the clippers had "slipped." So there was nothing to do but cut the whole head to match. Sid took one despairing look and slumped speechless deeper into the chair, cursing himself silently for a trusting fool. 6Grauman didn't speak to Chaplin for months afterward.
The results weren't always negative, however. Ivor Montagu told Kevin Brownlow that Chaplin gave his wife, Hell, "the most marvelous haircut she's ever had."7 And Chaplin seemed to go easy on his daughter Josephine in these photos of a haircut he gave her in the 1960s:
He also put his hair-cutting skills to use in his films. He played a barber in The Great Dictator (1940) as well as in a deleted scene from Sunnyside (1919). He also becomes a barber to a bearskin rug in Behind The Screen (1916).
Since black hair was a well-defined part of his character, when Chaplin's own hair began going gray in the late 1910s, it became necessary to dye it for the screen. He was touching up his sideburns as early as The Kid 8 and must have been dyeing it all over by 1922, if one compares out-of-costume photos of the same period with the films. There is a long-running myth that Chaplin's hair went white overnight due to his divorce from Lita Grey in 1927. But this myth can easily be debunked by comparing photos of Chaplin from before his marriage to Lita and after. The difference is far from drastic:
Chaplin in 1924 (left) and in 1928
His changing hair color was so noticeable during his 1921 visit to London that he received a letter from a Liverpool "scalp specialist" offering to restore its color. "I shall be pleased to examine your scalp and give you a candid opinion," he wrote. "If nothing can be done I will state so frankly."9 However, Chaplin was never vain about his gray hair. He only dyed it for his films and once the film was over, he allowed his hair to return to its natural gray. In public and in photo shoots he often slicked down his graying curls with pomade. Perhaps this was an effort to distinguish himself from his screen character.
As Chaplin got older and began wearing his hair shorter, so did the Tramp. The tramp hair in later films, such as City Lights and Modern Times, is not as wild and bushy as it was in earlier films. Chaplin also began allowing a little of his gray hair to show through. In The Great Dictator, the barber returns to the ghetto with grayer hair suggesting the passage of time. Similarly, Monsieur Verdoux's hair is much whiter at the end of the film when he runs into the girl again after the death of his wife and child. The characters in two of his last films, Limelight and A King In New York, were, like their creator, completely white-headed.
To conclude this piece on hair, I'd like to present an article from 1925 in which Chaplin describes a haircutting episode in which he took things a bit too far:
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| Gaffney Ledger, Oct. 29, 1925 Click to enlarge |
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1Lita Grey Chaplin, Wife Of The Life Of The Party
2Dan Kamin, Charlie Chaplin: Artistry In Motion
3Kevin Brownlow, The Search For Charlie Chaplin
4May Reeves, The Intimate Charlie Chaplin
5Jeffrey Vance, Charlie Chaplin: Genius Of The Cinema
6Gerith Von Ulm, Charlie Chaplin: King Of Tragedy
7Brownlow, Search For Charlie Chaplin
8Lita Grey Chaplin, My Life With Chaplin
9Charlie Chaplin, My Trip Abroad
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THE RINK, released December 4th, 1916
To give an idea of The Rink's popularity with audiences, here is a clipping from a 1917 issue of Motography. It's hard to tell if the owner of the theater was being serious:
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The Rink was Chaplin's 8th film for Mutual. Much has been said about his skating talents. He no doubt honed these skills in the c.1909 Fred Karno sketch, Skating, which was co-written by Syd Chaplin (both brothers performed the sketch for different Karno touring companies). Chaplin employed another skating routine twenty years later in Modern Times, which revives some of the restaurant gags as well.
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The Rink was Chaplin's 8th film for Mutual. Much has been said about his skating talents. He no doubt honed these skills in the c.1909 Fred Karno sketch, Skating, which was co-written by Syd Chaplin (both brothers performed the sketch for different Karno touring companies). Chaplin employed another skating routine twenty years later in Modern Times, which revives some of the restaurant gags as well.
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Chaplin getting into costume for his cameo appearance as a seasick steward in his last film A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG (1967)
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Portrait of Chaplin by the Sussman Studio in Minneapolis, c. 1910-11
Chaplin was on his first American tour with the Fred Karno Company.
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| © Roy Export S.A.S. |
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Chaplin's final film for Keystone, HIS PREHISTORIC PAST, released 100 years ago today
Charlie plays Weakchin, a prehistoric man who wears a bearskin, a derby hat, and carries a cane. In My Autobiography, Charlie described how he came up with the idea: "I started with one gag, which was my first entrance. I appeared dressed as a prehistoric man wearing a bearskin, and, as I scanned the landscape, I began pulling the hair from the bearskin to fill my pipe. This was enough of an idea to stimulate a prehistoric story, introducing love, rivalry, combat and chase. This was the method by which we all worked at Keystone." Charlie also recalled that it was a "strain" to finish the film because there were so many business propositions requiring his attention. “I suppose that was the most exciting period of my career, for I was on the threshold of something wonderful.”
In 1982, silent film historian, Bo Berglund, identified Charlie's half-brother, Sydney, as the cop in the final scene. Syd had just begun his contract with the Keystone company & His Prehistoric Past was only his second film. As Syd's biographer, Lisa Stein Haven, noted, "It seems significant somehow that the brothers would work together in Charlie's final film for Keystone."
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