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| L-R: Aviator Amy Johnson (standing arm in arm with Charlie), Lady Astor, George Bernard Shaw (petting a greyhound), Lord Astor, and Chaplin’s friend, Ralph Barton. |
Charlie originally planned to meet Shaw during his visit to London in 1921, but when he arrived at his doorstep, he suddenly felt "self-conscious and silly," so he changed his mind. Ten years later, Charlie admitted he was still nervous about meeting the great playwright but after a discussion on art and world economics, he decided that Shaw was "a benign gentleman who uses his intellect as a defensive mechanism to hide his sentimentality." *
Lady Astor was born in Virginia and was the first woman to sit as a member of Parliament in the British House of Commons. Charlie was very fond of her and thought she would have made a wonderful actress: "Toward the end of lunch, Lady Astor put in some comedy buck teeth that covered her own and gave an imitation of a Victorian lady speaking at an equestrian club. The teeth distorted her face with a most comical expression. She said fervently: "In our day we British women followed the hounds in proper ladylike fashion--not in the vulgar cross-legged style of those Western hussies in America. We rode sidesaddle hard and fast with dignity and womanly comeliness." **
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| Charlie remembered that during this post-lunch photo session a cameraman asked Shaw to "turn this side." He replied "good-naturedly": "I'll do nothing of the kind, this is the only side you'll get." * |
Two days later, Shaw and Lady Astor would be Charlie's guests at the London opening of City Lights. I will have more on that later this week.
*"A Comedian Sees The World, Part One," A Woman's Home Companion, September 1933
**My Autobiography, 1964