Charlie Chaplin

“ The crowds accumulate. I am getting very much concerned. Sooner or later they are going to come up, and I am alone, defenceless. What folly this going out alone, and along Lambeth Walk!
Eventually I see a bobby, a sergeant—or, rather, I think him one, he looks so immaculate in his uniform. I go to him for protection.
"Do you mind?" I say. "I find I have been discovered. I am Charlie Chaplin. Would you mind seeing me to a taxi?"
"That's all right, Charlie. These people won't hurt you. They are the best people in the world. I have been with them for fifteen years." ”

“ I speak up rather loudly. "Give them all a drink." I feel a bit vulgar to-night. I want to spend money like a drunken sailor. Even the customers are shocked. They hardly believe that it's Charlie Chaplin, who always avoids publicity, acting in this vulgar way.
I am sure that some of them don't believe despite many assurances. A stunt of my cousin's. But they drink, reverently and with reserve, and then they bid me good night, and we depart quietly, leaving Bayswater as respectable as ever.
To the house for dinner, after which some one brings forth an old family album. ”

“ Straton has been thus engaged in debasing the ideals of mankind, Charlie Chaplin has brought to great masses of people some glint of things which are eternal. He has managed to show us beauty and, better than that, he has contrived to put us at ease in this presence. We belong to a Nation which is timorous of beauty, but Charlie has managed to soothe our fears by proving to us that it may also be merry. ”

“ We only laugh the more when, having had his ears boxed by the fair, he retaliates with double strength. And there is one of his plays in [Pg 195] which every audience becomes practically helpless, as after, with great difficulty, extricating a lady in evening dress from a fountain, he deliberately pushes her in again. It required a Charlie Chaplin to make this tolerable; but such is his radiant unworldliness that we accept it as quite legitimate fun. ”

“ My face scratched. But I still retained the smile, "prop" one though it was. Whenever I could think of it I tried to raise 24 it above the level of a "prop" smile and was always rewarded with a policeman's fist. I kept insisting that I was Charlie Chaplin and that I belonged inside. It was absolutely necessary that I should see "The Three Musketeers."
Insistence won. As though on a prearranged signal I felt myself lifted from my feet, my body inverted until my head pointed toward the centre of the lobby and my feet pointed toward an electric sign advertising the Ziegfeld Roof. ”

“ At the bow of the Billington, and apparently suspended in the sky, gigantic black and white figures capered grotesquely, high above the deck.
"It does look funny off here," Steve admitted. "It's the movies. We have 'em every night. It's Charlie Chaplin just now; we get all the old favorites."
"I never saw any in my life,” said Garth, gazing spell-bound at the ridiculous gyrations of Charlie against the stars.
"Really," Elspeth said, "seeing a moving-picture for the first time would be quite amazing enough, without its being cut out of mid-air on the bosom of the sea! ”

“ As a matter of fact, a great deal could be done with a pail and shovel. We do not try because we have lost our nerve. Nobody will ever get it back again by listening to Dr. Straton. He seems solely intent upon detailing the limitations and the frailties of man. We think he has outgrown his soul a little. He has sold his birthright for a mess of potterism.
But Charlie Chaplin moves through the world which he pictures on the screen like a mischievous child. He confounds all the gross villains who come against him. His smile is a token and a symbol that man is too merry to die utterly. ”

“ These newsy nuggets sum up our monthly gossip from the inside circles of Hollywood and Universal City.
By RICHMOND
Lest anyone imagine that Charlie Chaplin is wearing mourning weeds as a result of his recent and widely advertised marital tribulations, forget it! Charlie has been busy making much over a dainty frail of seventeen or eighteen, who came west to work in an Anita Loos picture. It is said that Charles finds a delightful communion of spirit in the acquaintanceship which has developed between himself and the pretty girl.
Does Chaplin care for wild women? ”

“ Everybody who amounts to anything has to touch earth now and again to be revitalized. Chaplin has the right attitude toward vulgarity. He can take it or let it alone. Children who don't see Charlie Chaplin have, of course, been robbed of much of their childhood. However, they can make it up in later years when the old Chaplin films will be on view in the museums and carefully studied under the direction of learned professors in university extension courses. ”

“ Inquisitive society dames raised their very proper eyebrows as they passed and the mournful looking girl appeared as lonesome as any girl could feel, even though Earl had, through his lawyers, handed over a settlement admitted to be at least $40,000.
Charlie Chaplin has all the earmarks of a rather distraught young man. He lives at the Los Angeles Athletic club. ”

“ It is Al Kaufman of the Lasky Corporation and manager of the Famous Players studio in Berlin.
"Come over to our table. Pola Negri wants to meet you."
Again I come into my own. The Germans look on, wondering. I have created attention at last. I discover that there is an American jazz band in the place. In the middle of a number they stop playing and shout:
"Hooray for Charlie Chaplin!"
The proprietor shrugs his shoulders and the 168 band resumes playing. I learn that the musicians are former American doughboys. I feel rather pleased that I have impressed the Germans in the place. ”

“ While out at the Elko studio Charlie Winninger, with all his brilliant and sustaining background, had so disastrously flopped, at Mack Sennett’s studio another Charlie was very busy thinking out stunts that would make people laugh. For the more people laughed, the more dollars could Charlie Chaplin add to the savings for the rainy day, against which, if he ever got the chance, he would make himself fool-proof. ”

“ Dick loved it—he wanted to fly on and on. It is a great privilege to be born in an age when one can get up and leave the earth the moment one is bored with it.
October 31, 1921. Los Angeles.
Charlie Chaplin arrived in Los Angeles today at noon, on his return from Europe. I met him at dinner. We were just a party of four at the Lehrs. It has been a wonderful evening—I seem to have been talking heart to heart with one who understands, who is full of deep thought and deep feeling. He is full of ideals and has a passion for all that is beautiful. A real artist. ”

“ He is also the first droll to conquer the whole world. I suppose that it is no exaggeration to say that at any moment of the day and night—allowing for divergences of time—it would be safe to maintain that ten million people are laughing at the Chaplin antics somewhere or other on this planet of ours. For wherever there is a township of more than two thousand inhabitants, there, I imagine, is a cinema; and wherever there is a cinema there is Charlie; not always quite up to date, of course, for managers are wily birds, but in some film, even though an ancient one. ”

“ Everyone is so pleasant, especially those left behind. Handkerchiefs are waving. The boat is off. We start to move, the waters are churning. Am feeling very sad, rather regretful—think what a nice man my lawyer is.
We turn around the bend and get into the channel. The crowds are but little flies now. In this fleeting dramatic moment there comes the feeling of leaving something very dear behind.
The camera man and many of his brothers are aboard. I discover him as I turn around. I did not want to discover anyone just then. I wanted to be alone with sky and water. But I am still Charlie Chaplin. ”

“ The teacher was giving the class a natural history lecture on Australia. "There is one animal," she said, "none of you have mentioned. It does not stand up on its legs all the time. It does not walk like other animals, but takes funny little skips. What is it?" And the class yelled with one voice, "Charlie Chaplin!"
Eight-year-old Robert had been ill for nearly a month with tonsilitis, and nothing kept him contented but pictures of his favorite, Charlie Chaplin, clipped from the pages of the motion-picture pictorials. ”

“ It has been quite noticeable that the object of Chaplin’s recent devotion bears none of the eye, ear or leg marks generally supposed to feature the extra smart ladies. This girl is modest appearing and, what is more, modest acting. She doesn’t smoke, nor drink; and, so far as anyone knows, doesn’t chew nor swear. She goes about with Charlie but indulges in none of the frivolities.
Not to swear is regarded as remarkable among the movie dames. ”

“ One man, one man only can do it right, and I publicly appeal to him to absent him from felicity awhile, and though he do it but once, though but a small number of people may see it, to pay tribute to his one compeer in America, to the one creation equalling his own—I mean, of course, Charlie Chaplin. He has been urged to do many things hostile to his nature; here is one thing he is destined to do. Until then the ballet ought to have Johnny and Ray Dooley for its creators. ”

“ I was a little taken aback the next morning when the man at the petrol stores said, "My, but you wos a fair treat as Charlie Chaplin last night, Miss." (It must have been Corporal Coy's moustache that did it, not to mention lifting my bowler from the rear!)
The more local colour you get in a show of that sort the better the men like it, and we parodied all the latest songs as fast as they came out. ”

“ I want to get out and get on it—I want to go to Kennington. The bridge is so small; I always thought it was much wider. We are held up by traffic. The driver tells the bobby that Charlie Chaplin is inside. There is a change in the expression of the cop.
"On your way."
By this time the policemen have dropped off the side of the car and are on their way back. Once more I am a private citizen. I am just a bit sad at this. Being a celebrity has its nice points.
There is an auto with a motion-picture camera on top of it photographing our car. I tell the driver to put down the top. ”

“ Charlie Chaplin, M. Trotsky with Signor Mussolini, Einstein with Rutherford, and so on; but I should not have answered the question. No one can answer the question. We can all guess; but one thing is pretty certain. We shall all guess wrong. The most important man in the world is somewhere, but he will not be known until he is dead, and we are all dead with him; not until our posterity looks back upon this time and says with one voice, "Behold, the man," as we to-day look back to the great age of Elizabeth and say, "Lo! Shakespeare." ”

“ For early in life Chaplin took his seat in the parquet of life and ever since he has been watching the rest of us actors unfolding our drama. Do not be deceived because sometimes he vaults over the footlights and behaves just like the performers. Even when he is at his merriest pranks, even when he is talking most confidentially and affectionately to his friends, he is still the onlooker, detached from the rest of us by I know not what fastnesses of spirit.
The most intimate of Charlie’s friends in Hollywood166 are Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. ”

“ Or perhaps, starting off alone, he will wander into an orange-grove or tramp through the hills around Hollywood.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
The foremost figure of the entertainment world. The best known of all artists.
RUPERT HUGHES
Now as ardent a screen director as he is an author.
He suffers at such times—undoubtedly. But make no mistake. The blackness of the universe, the torturing puzzle of existence, which sometimes engulf so many of us, are never repudiated by Chaplin. He does not desire madly to lose himself in somebody or something apart from his own life. ”

“ Charlie Chaplin.” Slipping back will only be a balancing act for Mildred.
Charlie’s case is different. Charlie is one of the half dozen figures who mean and typify the motion picture to the general public. Charlie, with all his personal faults,{16} is so big as an artist that he can suffer; and so big a part of the motion picture, that the art can suffer.
Therefore, be it resolved and otherwise made known that we are about to take it upon ourselves to offer a little advice:
Take a tip from us, Charlie, slip her the coin. We don’t know the price, but it will be cheap at any price. Settle it. ”

“ Their invitation cheers me. I feel one of them. A spirit of adventure beckons. I leap over the rail and right into the midst of it.
I carry with me into the steerage just a bit of self-consciousness—there are so many trying to play upon me. I am looked upon as a celebrity, not a cricket player. But I do my part and try and we get into the game. Suddenly a motion-picture camera man bobs up from somewhere. What leeches! He snaps a picture. This gets sickening. 46
One of the crew has hurriedly made himself up as "Charlie Chaplin." He causes great excitement. ”

“ PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. Vol. 159. November 24, 1920.
[pg 401] CHARIVARIA.
No sooner had the League of Nations met at Geneva than news came of the pending retirement of Mr. Charlie Chaplin. We never seem to be able to keep more than one Great Idea going at a time.
"Have you read Mrs. Asquith's Book?" asks an evening paper advertisement. "What book?" may we ask.
"In our generation," says Dean Inge, "there are no great men." It is said that Sir Eric Geddes will not take this lying down. ”