My Autobiography (66 page)

We had been months arranging the twelve minutes of ballet music and had recorded it with a fifty-piece orchestra and I was anxious to get their reaction. Eventually Melissa Hayden, the ballerina, and André Eglevsky flew out to Hollywood to hear it. I was extremely nervous and self-conscious as they sat and listened, but, thank God, both approved and said it was balletique. It was one of the thrilling moments of my film career to see them dance to it. Their interpretation was most flattering and gave the music a classic significance.

In casting the girl’s part I wanted the impossible: béauty, talent, and a great emotional range. After months of searching and testing with disappointing results I eventually had the good fortune to sign up Claire Bloom, who was recommended by my friend Arthur Laurents.

Something in our nature makes us forget hate and unpleasant things. The trial and all the acrimony that went with it evaporated like the snows. In the interim Oona had had four children: Geraldine, Michael, Josie and Vicki. Life in Beverly Hills was now pleasant. We had also established a happy ménage and everything worked well. We had open house on Sunday and saw many of our friends, among them Jim Agee, who had come to Hollywood to write a script for John Huston.

Will Durant, author and philosopher, was also in Hollywood lecturing at U.C.L.A. He was an old friend and occasionally dined at our house. They were amusing evenings. Will, an enthusiast, who needed no stimulant to intoxicate himself but life itself, once asked me: ‘What is your conception of beauty?’ I said I thought it was an omnipresence of death and loveliness, a smiling sadness that we discern in nature and all things, a mystic communion that the poet feels – an expression of it can be a dustbin with a shaft of sunlight across it, or it can be a rose in the gutter. El Greco saw it in our Saviour on the Cross.

We met Will again at a dinner at Douglas Fairbanks Jr’s house. Clemence Dane and Clare Boothe Luce were there. I first met Clare many years before in New York at W. R. Hearst’s fancy dress ball. She was ravishingly beautiful that night in an eighteenth-century costume and a white wig, and was quite charming until I heard her wrangling with my friend George Moore, a cultured and sensitive man. In the midst of her coterie of admirers, she was dressing him down quite audibly: ‘You seem to be a bit of a mystery: how do you make your money?’

This was rather cruel, especially in the presence of others. But George was sweet and answered laughingly: ‘I sell coal, play a little polo with my friend Hitchcock, and here’ (I happened to be passing), ‘my friend Charlie Chaplin knows me.’ My impression of her changed from that moment. And I was not surprised to hear that later she had become a Congresswoman - and had
bestowed on American politics that profound philosophical aphorism: ‘globe-baloney’.

That night I listened to Clare Luce’s oracular preachments; of course the subject turned to religion (she had recently joined the Catholic Church), and in the mêlée of discussion I said: ‘One is not required to wear the imprint of Christianity on one’s forehead; it is manifest in both saint and sinner alike; the spirit of the Holy Ghost is in everything.’ That night we parted with a slight feeling of estrangement.

*

When
Limelight
was finished I had fewer qualms about its success than any other picture I had ever made. We had a private showing for our friends and everyone was enthusiastic. So we began thinking about leaving for Europe, for Oona was anxious to send the children to school there, away from the influence of Hollywood.

I had made an application for a re-entry permit three months previously but had received no reply. Nevertheless, I went about arranging my business affairs in preparation for leaving. My taxes had been filed and they had all been cleared. But when the Internal Revenue Service heard that I was leaving for Europe, they discovered I owed them more money. And now they concocted a sum that went into six figures, demanding I put up $2,000,000, which was ten times more than they were claiming. My instinct told me to put up nothing and to insist on the case coming to court immediately. This brought about a quick settlement for a very nominal sum. Now that they had no further claim, I again applied for a re-entry permit and waited for weeks, but without answer. So I sent a letter to Washington, notifying them that if they did not wish to give me a re-entry permit I intended leaving in any case.

A week later I received a telephone call from the Immigration Department saying that they would like to ask me a few more questions. Could they come to the house?

‘By all means,’ I answered.

Three men and a woman arrived, the woman carrying a shorthand typewriter. The others carried small square brief-cases-obviously containing tape-recording machines. The head interrogator was a tall lean man of about forty, handsome and astute. I
was aware that they were four to one and I should have had my lawyer present, but I had nothing to hide.

I led them into the sun-porch and the woman brought out her shorthand typewriter and placed it on a small table. The others sat on a settee, their tape-recording cases before them. The interrogator brought out a dossier a foot high, which he placed neatly on the table beside him. I sat opposite him. Then he began looking over his dossier page by page.

‘Is Charles Chaplin your real name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Some people say your name is –’(here he mentioned a very foreign name) ‘and that you are from Galicia.’

‘No. My name is Charles Chaplin, the same as my father, and I was born in London, England.’

‘You say you’ve never been a Communist?’

‘Never. I have never joined a political organization in my life.’

‘You made a speech in which you said “comrades” – what did you mean by that?’

‘Exactly that. Look it up in the dictionary. The Communists have no priority on that word.’

He continued this line of questioning, then suddenly asked: ‘Have you ever committed adultery?’

‘Listen,’ I answered, ‘if you’re looking for a technicality to keep me out of the country, tell me and I’ll arrange my affairs accordingly, because I don’t wish to stay
persona non grata
anywhere.’

‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘this is a question on every re-entry permit.’

‘What is the definition of “adultery”?’ I asked.

We both looked it up in the dictionary. ‘Let’s say “fornication with another man’s wife”,’ he said.

I deliberated a moment. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ I said.

‘If this country were invaded, would you fight for it?’

‘Of course. I love this country – this is my home, I’ve lived here for forty years,’ I answered.

‘But you have never become a citizen.’

‘There’s no law against that. However, I pay my taxes here.’

‘But why do you follow the Party line?’

‘If you’ll tell me what the Party line is, I’ll tell you whether I follow it or not.’

A pause followed and I broke in: ‘Do you know how I got into all this trouble?’

He shook his head.

‘By obliging your Government.’

He raised his brow in surprise.

‘Your Ambassador to Russia, Mr Joseph Davies, was to speak in San Francisco on behalf of Russian war relief, but at the last moment was taken with an attack of laryngitis; and a high representative of your Government asked me if I would oblige and speak in his place and I’ve had my knuckles rapped ever since.’

I was interrogated for three hours. A week later they telephoned again and asked if I would go down to the Immigration Office. My lawyer insisted on going with me, ‘in case they want to ask any further questions,’ he said.

When we arrived I could not have been greeted more cordially. The head of the Immigration Department, a kindly middle-aged man, spoke almost consolingly: ‘I’m sorry we’ve delayed you, Mr Chaplin. But now that we have established a branch of the Immigration Department in Los Angeles, we shall act more quickly without having applications going to and from Washington. There is just another question, Mr Chaplin – how long will you be away?’

‘Not more than six months,’ I answered. ‘We’re just going on a holiday.’

‘Otherwise, if you’re away longer, you must ask for an extension.’ He placed a document on the table, then left the room. Quickly my lawyer looked at it. ‘That’s it!’ said he. ‘That’s the permit!’

The man returned with a pen. ‘Will you sign here, Mr Chaplin? And of course you will have to get your sailing papers.’

After I had signed it, he patted me affectionately on the back. ‘Here is your permit. I hope you have a very nice holiday, Charlie – and hurry back home!’

It was Saturday, and we were leaving on Sunday morning by train for New York. I wanted Oona to have access to my safe-deposit box in case anything should happen to me, as it contained most of my fortune. But Oona kept putting off signing the papers at the bank. And now it was our last day in Los Angeles, and the banks would be closed in ten minutes. ‘We have just ten minutes
to go, so let’s hurry,’ I said. About such matters Oona is a pro-crastinator. ‘Why can’t we wait until we get back from our holiday?’ she said. But I insisted. And a good thing I did, because otherwise we might have spent the rest of our lives in litigation trying to get our fortune out of the country.

It was a poignant day when we left for New York. While Oona was making final household arrangements I stood outside on the lawn viewing the house with ambivalent feelings. So much had happened to me in that house, so much happiness, so much anguish. Now the garden and the house looked so peaceful and friendly that I felt wistful about leaving it.

After bidding good-bye to Helen, the maid, and Henry, the butler, I brushed by into the kitchen and said good-bye to Anna, the cook. I am exceedingly shy on these occasions, and Anna, a rotund, heavy woman, was slightly deaf. ‘Good-bye,’ I said again and touched her on the arm. Oona was the last to leave; later she told me that she had found the cook and the maid in tears. Jerry Epstein, my assistant director, was at the station to see us off.

The journey across the country was relaxing. We spent a week in New York before sailing. Just as I was preparing to enjoy myself, my lawyer, Charles Schwartz, called up to say that an ex-employee of United Artists was suing the company for so many millions. ‘It’s nothing but a nuisance action, Charlie; all the same I want you to keep from being served a summons, as it could mean your being called back from your vacation.’ So for the last four days I was confined to my room and denied the enjoyment of seeing New York with Oona and the children. However, I intended to show up for the Press preview of
Limelight –
summons or no summons.

Crocker, now my publicity man, had arranged a lunch with the editorial staff of
Time
and
Life
magazines, an occasion of having to jump through the proverbial hoop for publicity. Their offices with their barren white plaster walls were a fit setting for the frigid atmosphere of that lunch, as I sat labouring to be friendly and amusing facing a row of solemn, cropped-headed space-men – the
Time
staff. And the food was just as frigid as the atmosphere, consisting of tasteless chicken with sallow, starchy gravy. But as far as gaining good publicity for
Limelight
, neither my presence,
my attempts to be engaging, nor the food, did me any good; their magazine ruthlessly panned the picture.

Although at the Press preview unfriendliness was undoubtedly in the theatre, later I was agreeably surprised by the reviews in some of the important newspapers.

I
BOARDED
the
Queen Elizabeth
at five in the morning, a romantic hour but for the sordid reason of having to avoid a process-server. My lawyer’s instructions were to steal aboard, lock myself in my suite and not to appear on deck until the pilot disembarked. Being groomed for the last ten years to expect the worst, I obeyed.

I had been looking forward to standing on the top deck with my family, enjoying that stirring moment of a ship’s severance as it glides off and away into another life. Instead I was ignominiously locked in my cabin, peering through the porthole.

‘It’s me,’ said Oona, rapping on the door.

I opened it.

‘Jim Agee has just arrived to see us off. He is standing on the dock. I shouted that you were hiding from process-servers and that you’d wave to him from the porthole. There he is now at the end of the pier,’ she said.

I saw Jim a little apart from a group of people, standing in fierce sunlight scanning the boat. Quickly I took my fedora hat and put my arm through the porthole and waved, while Oona looked out of the second porthole. ‘No, he hasn’t seen you yet,’ she said.

And Jim never did see me; and that was the last I ever saw of Jim, standing alone as though apart from the world, peering and searching. Two years later he died of a heart-attack.

At last we were on our way and, before the pilot left, I unlocked the door and came out on deck a free man. There it was – the towering skyline of New York, aloof and magnanimous, racing away from me in sunlight, becoming ethereally more beautiful every moment… and as that vast continent disappeared into the mist it gave me a peculiar feeling.

Although excited with the anticipation of visiting England with
my family, I was pleasantly relaxed. The wide expanse of the Atlantic is cleansing. I felt like another person. No longer was I a myth of the film world, or a target of acrimony, but a married man with a wife and family on a holiday. The children were on the top deck engrossed in play while Oona and I sat in a couple of deck-chairs. And in this mood I had a realization of perfect happiness – something very near to sadness.

We talked affectionately of friends we were leaving behind. We even talked of the friendliness of the Immigration Department. How easily one succumbs to a small courtesy – enmity is difficult to nourish.

Oona and I intended taking a long vacation and devoting ourselves to pleasure, and with the launching of
Limelight
our vacation would not be aimless. The knowledge of combining business with pleasure was exceedingly pleasant.