My Autobiography (38 page)

Off-stage he was a philosopher. When Ford Sterling went to him weeping about his wife having double-crossed him, said Sam: ‘So what? They double-crossed Napoleon!’

Frank Tinney I saw when I first came to New York. He was a great favourite at the Winter Garden, and had a gregarious intimacy with his audience. He would lean over the footlights and whisper: ‘The leading lady’s kind of stuck on me,’ then surreptitiously look off-stage to see that no one was listening, then back at the audience and confide: ‘It’s pathetic; as she was coming through the stage door tonight I said “good-evening”, but she’s so stuck on me she couldn’t answer.’

At this point the leading lady crosses the stage, and Tinney quickly puts his finger on his lips, warning the audience not to betray him. Cheerily he hails her: ‘Hi, kiddo!’ She turns indignantly and in a huff struts off the stage, dropping her haircomb.

Then he whispers to the audience: ‘What did I tell you? But in private we are just like that.’ He crosses his two fingers. Picking up her comb, he calls to the stage-manager: ‘Harry, put this in
our
dressing-room, will you, please?’

I saw him again on the stage a few years later and was shocked, for the comic Muse had left him. He was so self-conscious that I could not believe it was the same man. It was this change in him that gave me the idea years later for my film
Limelight
. I wanted to know why he had lost his spirit and his assurance. In
Limelight
the case was age; Calvero grew old and introspective and acquired a feeling of dignity, and this divorced him from all intimacy with the audience.

Among the American actresses I most admired were Mrs Fiske, ebullient, humorous and intelligent, and her niece, Emily Stevens, a gifted actress with style and lightness of touch. Jane Cowl had projection and intensity, and Mrs Leslie Carter was equally arresting. Among the comediennes, I enjoyed Trixie Friganza and, of course, Fanny Brice, whose great talent for burlesque was enriched by her sense of histrionics. We English had our great actresses: Ellen Terry, Ada Reeve, Irene Vanbrugh, Sybil Thorndike and the sagacious Mrs Pat Campbell – all of whom I saw except Mrs Pat.

John Barrymore stood out as having the true tradition of the theatre, but John had the vulgarity of wearing his talent like silk socks without garters – a nonchalance that treated everything rather contemptuously; whether it was a performance of
Hamlet
or sleeping with a duchess, it was all a joke to him.

In his biography by Gene Fowler there is a story about him getting out of a warm bed after a terrific champagne binge and being pushed on to play Hamlet, which he did between sporadic vomitings at the side of the wings and alcoholic restoratives. The English critics were supposed to have hailed his performance that night as the greatest Hamlet of the age. Such a ridiculous story insults everyone’s intelligence.

I first met John at the height of his success sitting broodingly in an office in the United Artists building. After being introduced, we were left alone and I began to talk about his triumph as Hamlet. I said that Hamlet gave a greater account of himself than any other character of Shakespeare.

He mused a moment. ‘The King is not a bad part either. In fact, I prefer it to Hamlet.’

I thought this odd and wondered how sincere he was. Had he been less vain and more simple he could have been in line with the greatest actors: Booth, Irving, Mansfield and Tree. But they had the noble spirit and the sensitive outlook. The trouble with Jack was that he had a naïve, romantic conception of himself as a genius doomed to self-destruction – which he eventually achieved in a vulgar, boisterous way by drinking himself to death.

*

Although
The Kid
was a great success my problems were not yet over: I still had four pictures to deliver to First National. In a state of quiet desperation, I wandered through the property room in the hope of finding an old prop that might give me an idea: remnants of old sets, a jail door, a piano or a mangle. My eye caught a set of old golf-clubs. That’s it! The tramp plays golf –
The Idle Class
.

The plot was simple. The tramp indulges in all the pleasures of the rich. He goes south for the warm weather, but travels under the trains instead of inside them. He plays golf with balls he finds on the golf-course. At a fancy-dress ball he mingles with
the rich, dressed as a tramp, and becomes involved with a beautiful girl. After a romantic misadventure he escapes from the irate guests and is on his way again.

During one of the scenes I had a slight accident with a blowtorch. The heat of it went through my asbestos pants, so we added another layer of asbestos. Carl Robinson saw an opportunity for publicity and gave the story to the Press. That evening I was shocked to read headlines that I had been severely burnt about the face, hands and body. Hundreds of letters, wires and telephone calls swamped the studio. I issued a denial, but few newspapers printed it. As a consequence amongst my English mail was a letter from H. G. Wells, stating that it affected him with a great deal of shock to read of my accident. He went on to say how much he admired my work and how regrettable it would be if I were unable to continue. I immediately wired back stating the true facts.

At the completion of
The Idle Class
I intended starting another two-reeler and toyed with an idea of a burlesque on the prosperous occupation of plumbers. The first scene was to show their arrival in a chauffeured limousine with Mack Swain and me stepping out of it. We are lavishly entertained by the beautiful mistress of the house, Edna Purviance, and after she wines and dines us we are shown the bathroom, where I immediately go to work with a stethoscope, placing it on the floor, listening to the pipes, and tapping them as a doctor would a patient.

This was as far as I got. I could concentrate no further. I did not realize how tired I was. Besides in the last two months I had developed an insatiable desire to visit London – I had dreamed about it, and H. G. Wells’s letter was an added inducement. And after ten years I had received a letter from Hetty Kelly. She wrote: ‘Do you remember a silly young girl’.… She was now married and living in Portman Square, and if ever I came to London would I look her up? The letter was without tone and could arouse little, if any, emotional resurgence. After all, in the interim of ten years I had been in and out of love several times. However, I would certainly look her up.

I told Tom to pack my things, and Reeves to close the studio and give the company a holiday. I intended going to England.

T
HE
night before sailing from New York, I gave a party at the Élysée Café for about forty guests, among them Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Madame Maeterlinck. We played charades. Douglas and Mary acted the first one. Douglas, a street-car conductor, punched a ticket and gave it to Mary. For the second syllable they pantomimed a rescue, Mary screaming for help and Douglas swimming to her and bringing her safely to the side of the river. Of course, all of us yelled: ‘Fairbanks!’

As the evening grew merry Madame Maeterlinck and I did the death scene from
Camille
, Madame Maeterlinck playing Camille and I playing Armand. As she was dying in my arms, she started coughing, slightly at first, then with increasing momentum. Her coughing became so infectious that I caught it from her. Then it became a coughing contest between us. Eventually it was I who did the dying in Camille’s arms.

The day of sailing I was painfully awakened at eight-thirty in the morning. After a bath, I was rid of all dissipation and filled with excitement, leaving for England. Edward Knoblock, my friend, author of
Kismet
and other plays, was leaving on the
Olympic
with me.

A crowd of newspaper men came aboard and I had a depressing feeling that they were going to remain with us throughout the voyage – two of them did, but the others got off with the pilot.

At last I was alone in my cabin which was stocked with flowers and baskets of fruit from my friends.… It had been ten years since I had left England, and on this very boat with the Karno Company; then we had travelled second class. I
remember the steward taking us on a hurried tour through the first class, to give us a glimpse of how the other half lived. He had talked of the luxury of the private suites and their prohibitive price, and now I was occupying one of them, and was on my way to England. I had known London as a struggling young nondescript from Lambeth; now as a man celebrated and rich I would be seeing London as though for the first time.

A few hours out and the atmosphere was already English. Each night Eddie Knoblock and I would dine in the Ritz restaurant instead of the main dining-room. The Ritz was
à la carte
, with champagne, caviar, duck
à la presse
, grouse and pheasant, wines, sauces, and crêpes suzette. With time on my hands I enjoyed the nonsense of dressing each evening in black tie. Such luxury and indulgence brought home to me the delights of money.

I thought I would be able to relax. But there were bulletins on the
Olympic
notice board about my anticipated arrival in London. Half-way across the Atlantic an avalanche of telegrams with invitations and requests began piling up. Hysteria gathered like a storm. The
Olympic
bulletin quoted articles from the
United News
and the
Morning Telegraph
. One read: ‘Chaplin returns like a Conqueror! Progress from Southampton to London will resemble a Roman triumph.’

Another read: ‘The daily bulletins on the ship’s run and Charlie’s activities on board have been superseded by hourly flashes from the boat, and special editions of the newspapers are on the streets telling about this great little man with the preposterous feet.’

Another read: ‘The old Jacobite song,
Charlie is My Darling
, epitomizes the Chaplin madness that has run through England this last week, becoming more acute every hour as the
Olympic
shoves the knots behind her, bearing Charlie home.’

Another read: ‘The
Olympic
was fog-bound outside Southampton tonight and in the city there waited a huge army of worshippers come to welcome the little comedian. The police were busy making special arrangements to handle the crowd at the docks and at the civic ceremony in which Charlie is to be received by the Mayor.… The newspapers, as in the days
preceding the victory parade, are pointing out the best points from which the people may see Chaplin.’

*

I was not prepared for this kind of welcome. Wonderful and extraordinary as it was, I would have postponed my visit until I felt more equal to it. What I yearned for was the sight of old familiar places. To go around quietly and look about London, to look around Kennington and Brixton, to look up at the window at 3 Pownall Terrace, to peer in at the darkened wood shed where I had helped the wood-choppers, to look up at the second-floor window of 287 Kennington Road where I had lived with Louise and my father; this desire had suddenly developed almost into an obsession.

At last we reached Cherbourg! Many were getting off and many getting on – cameramen and newspaper men. What message had I for England? What message for France? Would I visit Ireland? What did I think of the Irish question? Metaphorically, I was being devoured.

We left Cherbourg and were on our way to England, but crawling, crawling ever so slowly. Sleep was out of the question. One, two, three O’clock and I was still awake. The engines stopped, then started in reverse, then completely stopped. I could hear hollow footsteps running up and down the passage outside. Tense and wide awake, I looked through the porthole. But it was dark, I could see nothing; nevertheless, I could hear English voices!

The dawn broke and from sheer exhaustion I fell asleep, but only for two hours. After the steward had brought me some hot coffee and the morning papers, I was up like a lark.

One headline stated:

HOMECOMING OF COMEDIAN TO RIVAL

ARMISTICE DAY

Another:

ALL LONDON TALKS OF CHAPLIN’S VISIT

Another:

CHAPLIN GOING TO LONDON ASSURED MIGHTY

WELCOME

And another in big type:

BEHOLD OUR SON –

Of course there were a few critical comments:

A CALL FOR SANITY

In heaven’s name, let us recover our sanity. I daresay Mr Chaplin is a most estimable person, and I am not much interested to inquire why the home-sickness which so touchingly affects him at this juncture did not manifest itself during the black years when the homes of Great Britain were in danger through the menace of the Hun. It may be true, as has been argued, that Charlie Chaplin was better employed playing funny tricks in front of a camera than he would have been doing manly things behind a gun.

At the dockside I was greeted by the Mayor of Southampton. then hurried on to the train. Eventually, we were on our way to London! Arthur Kelly, Hetty’s brother, was in my compartment. I remember looking out at the revolving panorama of green fields as Arthur and I sat together trying to make conversation. I told him that I had received a letter from his sister inviting me to dinner at their house in Portman Square.

He looked at me strangely and seemed embarrassed. ‘Hetty died, you know.’

I was shocked, but at that moment I could not assimilate the full tragedy of it; too many events were crowding in; but I felt I had been robbed of an experience. Hetty was the one audience from the past I should have liked to meet again, especially under these fantastic circumstances.

*

We were coming into the suburbs of London. Eagerly I looked out of the window, trying vainly to recognize a passing street. Mingling with my excitement lurked a fear that perhaps London had greatly changed since the war.

Now the excitement intensified. Nothing seemed to be registering but anticipation. Anticipation of what? My mind was chaotic. I could not think. I could only see objectively the roof-tops of London, but the reality was not there. It was all anticipation, anticipation!