August 9, 1925

Shy Charlie Chaplin Opens His Heart

By MORDAUNT HALL

ollywood. When it comes to talking for publication, Charlie Chaplin rivals Sir James Barrie in shyness. It seems probable, however, that the famous Scottish author enjoys, in London, a greater degree of personal safety than does America's screen hero in Hollywood. For out here every one knows Charlie Chaplin by sight, and many consider themselves thereby privileged to call him by his first name.

Being so shy, Charlie Chaplin naturally dodges interviewers whenever it is possible to do so. Sometimes he is caught off his guard-- at a dinner, perhaps -- and, in a moment of generous enthusiasm, makes an engagement with a writer. The next morning he remembers the matter with dismay. What seems feasible at 8 o'clock in the evening may appear impossible at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Nothing can hold Chaplin to what he does not feel like doing-- not even work on a picture. I heard the other day that while he was deep in the making of his latest film, "The Gold Rush," be became so fascinated with playing the violin that he neglected his brain-child for the instrument.

Charlie Chaplin is a man of moods -- a sort of composite, one might call him, of Barrie, O. Henry and Thomas Burke. There isn't a fraction of pose about him, and if one gains his confidence he will open his heart with the frankness of a child. But shyness largely rules; and while he has no difficulty at all in facing the eye of the camera, facing an interviewer primed with questions is another proposition entirely.

The Chaplin Properties

So if, after having made an appointment at dinner, dismay the next morning prove very acute, he will skip off to Catalina Island, where he can forget the world and its cares in the delights of angling. If, on the other hand, he should feel that the ordeal could somehow be seen through, then, with a resigned sigh, he will show up at the studio. As it happened, I was fortunate.

I called punctually at the studio and was received by Alfred Reeves, who has been with Chaplin since the old music hall days. Mr. Reeves, obviously uncertain in his mind whether Charlie would put in an appearance, kept apprehensions on my part at bay by showing me around the place. We entered Charlie's combination office and dressing room, where I was invited to examine two pairs of extremely large shoes, a little tail-coat, some loose- waisted, shapeless trousers and the familiar little derby.

As I sat, leaning comfortably back in Chaplin's favorite chair, with Reeves getting rough figures on that day's matinee of "The Gold Rush" over the telephone, a prepossessing, active man, his hair well touched with gray, sprang up a few steps and threw open the screen door. It was Charlie Chaplin.

He asked, the first thing, about the matinee; was delighted to learn that the theatre where his new film was showing had been sold out. I could not but think how young he looked. He was dressed in a faultlessly cut gray-striped coat, with white trousers and shoes. Only when he smiled did this immaculate person resemble the character one has come to know and love so well on the screen.

"Where shall we go?" he asked, mentioning that he had not yet lunched. The Montmartre was decided upon, and presently a uniformed Japanese chauffeur was opening the door of Charlie's little runabout.

Chaplin was in high spirits -- jubilant over the simple fact that the "Gold Rush" matinee was sold out. For the new picture means much to him. He had labored at it untiringly for many months. As we ate he discussed little intimate details; felt that a few more old-fashioned airs such as "After The Ball Is Over" would be effective in the musical score; that cuts here and there might be made in the film.

"What I have done in 'The Gold Rush,'" he said, "is exactly what I wanted to do. I have no excuses, no alibis. I have done just as I liked with this picture. If people do not like it, you see I haven't a word to say.

"Back of it all-- back of the funny clothes, the mustache and the big feet-- I wanted to produce something that would stir people. I was after the feeling of Alaska, with a sweet, poetic, yet comic, love story. When I started on this film I sweated hard to keep the original thought. That is where many of us go wrong. We sell ourselves an idea and then leave it flat-- with the result that we have nothing in the end but hodge-podge.

"I wanted the audiences to cry and laugh. Whatever may be the public's opinion of this effort, I have at any rate been successful in clinging to my original idea.

"If I go fishing," he enlarged, "I have always the idea of a story in my mind. I can think it over while the line is in the water. Often I stay away from the studio hoping that a new situation may occur to me. When I go out for recreation in the evening it is the same. I see a different kind of life and it makes me think all the harder about my idea. I never get away from the notion that I am watching myself in the passing show. As I eat I think of changes in situations. I work while I play, with the result that I become myself, a piece of film.

Wants a Cheerful Motif

"To my mind, the underling motif of a story should be bright, not depressing. Motion-picture audiences like cheerfulness and don't like to see too much suffering. They really don't want the great truths brought home to them, and strongly resent having pessimism of any sort thrust in their faces.

"Yet I do believe in disappointments in a story, through which suspense may be obtained. Of course, what one is doing often falls far below one's expectations. After a picture is released, you think of better things that might have been done with it. Perhaps, in the final analysis, one's hopes have not been realized, after all."

What painstaking study and concentration Chaplin expends upon a sequence may be glimpsed from something Samuel Goldwyn told me. This producer said that he saw Charlie working on a part of "The Gold Rush" some time ago; then he went to New York. Later he returned to Hollywood and discovered Chaplin still engrossed with the same sequence. Goldwyn again left Hollywood, and months afterward, when he came back to California, he found Charlie still pondering over the same stretch of his picture.

Talk turned after a while upon the distant past. I was told about Charlie's first overcoat with an astrakhan collar, of which he was so proud. There were days when the future looked extremely precarious, and when the only way of persuading one's self that one had dined was to tighten the proverbial belt.

He spoke of his friend Thomas Burke, of Burke's latest book, "The Wind and the Rain," which the screen star described as "so full of bitter pathos."

"Do you know," said Charlie, "Burke and I went to school together? It was at Hanweil, in the Parish of Lambeth. Burke writes about himself in this book, and remembers how hard were those beginnings. I haven't forgotten, either, those early squalid surroundings in which I struggled. You will find something of me in 'The Gold Rush.'

"In one sequence of this picture, I am a millionaire. But I can't resist stooping down to pick up a cigar butt. I suppose this sort of impulse comes to many persons whose youth has been full of hardship. Think of the man of wealth who will go round his house at night to see that every light is out. The next day, perhaps, having to go on a journey somewhere, he will order a private railroad car just to get an extra quilt on his bed and a few additional comforts he can't do without any more!

"To this day," Charlie continued, "I resent extravagance in make-up on the stage, wherever I see it. For you see I can't but recall what it used to cost me to make up for a part in those music hall times, when a shilling was a shilling. I find myself economizing in the use of crepe hair for mustaches. When I throw away a bit of the stuff now as too far gone to be serviceable any longer, I remember that in years gone by I should have stuck it on again. Crepe hair costs about a nickel a yard, but there you are.

Familiar With Hunger

Familiar With Hunger "Naturally, I thought a great deal about such things while I was in London a little more than three years ago. I had lived in Lambeth and knew what it was to be hungry. Never did I imagine that I should darken doors of luxury. When I returned to the land of my birth I was entertained by Sir Philip Sassoon. I was tired out and nervous when I reached his country estate, and told Sir Philip that I must have a little rest. He asked me what color scheme I preferred, and I named one in an offhand way. Fancy my surprise upon being escorted up to a bedroom decorated in precisely the manner I had described! My meals were served there, and the breakfast table looked like a portable cafeteria. They knew that I liked an American breakfast and there were wheat cakes, cereals, fruit and everything. That, too, caused me to ponder on Lambeth."

Charlie, as we talked, jumped brightly from topic to topic. His thoughts reverted to an ancient stage production called "A Night in an English Music Hall"; the Karno comedians; to Phil May, the black-and-white artist.

"Do you remember May's drawing of the small musician with the great bass viol and the fat cabby? The musician has proffered one shilling and the cabby asks: 'What's this fur?' The little viol player, clinging to his instrument, replies: 'Your legal fare.' But the cabby snaps: "Yerce, yerce, but what abart the flute?'"

And then we got upon the subject of fishing. In the studio I had noticed a photograph showing him standing beside a huge fish. "What did that fish weigh?" I asked him.

"A hundred and thirty-nine pounds. And it was something to catch! After landing one of these fish you toss your hook back into the water actually hoping that you'll never catch another one as big!"

It was after 5 o'clock when we left our table at the Montmartre.

We drove to one of the Hollywood hotels, where Charlie greeted the Irish doorman with a jovial "Well, begorra, and how are you?"

"An' begorra, how are you, Mr. Chaplin?" came the quick response. "Faith, and I congratulate you on being a father!"

I saw Charlie again not long after that at a dinner. He created no end of amusement by telling stories and giving informal impersonations of many well-known characters, including Gypsy Smith and Billy Sunday.