My Autobiography

by Charles Chaplin

  ‘Modesty forbids,’ I said squirmishly. This sort of ribbing was most embarrassing, especially in the presence of Ford. But he graciously took me off the hook with a remark. ‘Didn’t you catch him at the Empress playing the drunk? Very funny.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t made me laugh yet,’ said Ellsworth.

  He was a big, cumbersome man, and looked glandular, with a melancholy, hangdog expression, hairless face, sad eyes, a loose mouth and a smile that showed two missing front teeth. Ford whispered impressively that he was a great authority on literature, finance and politics, one of the best-informed men in the country, and that he had a great sense of humour. However, I did not appreciate it and would try to avoid him. But one night at the Alexandria bar, he said: ‘Hasn’t this limey got started yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I laughed uncomfortably.

  ‘Well, you’d better be funny.’

  Having taken a great deal from the gentleman, I gave him back some of his own medicine: ‘Well, if I’m half as funny as you look, I’ll do all right.’

  ‘Blimey! A sarcastic wit, eh? I’ll buy him a drink after that.’

  *

  At last the moment came. Sennett was away on location with Mabel Normand as well as the Ford Sterling Company, so there was hardly anyone left in the studio. Mr Henry Lehrman, Keystone’s top director after Sennett, was to start a new picture and wanted me to play a newspaper reporter. Lehrman was a vain man and very conscious of the fact that he had made some successful comedies of a mechanical nature; he used to say that he didn’t need personalities, that he got all his laughs from mechanical effects and film-cutting.

  We had no story. It was to be a documentary about the printing press done with a few comedy touches. I wore a light frock-coat, a top hat and a handlebar moustache. When we started I could see that Lehrman was groping for ideas. And of course being a newcomer at Keystone, I was anxious to make suggestions. This was where I created antagonism with Lehrman. In a scene in which I had an interview with an editor of a newspaper I crammed in every conceivable gag I could think of, even to suggesting business for others in the cast. Although the picture was completed in three days, I thought we contrived some very funny gags. But when I saw the finished film it broke my heart, for the cutter had butchered it beyond recognition, cutting into the middle of all my funny business. I was bewildered and wondered why they had done this. Henry Lehrman confessed years later that he had deliberately done it, because, as he put it, he thought I knew too much.

  The day after I finished with Lehrman, Sennett returned from location. Ford Sterling was on one set, Arbuckle on another; the whole stage was crowded with three companies at work. I was in my street clothes and had nothing to do, so I stood where Sennett could see me. He was standing with Mabel, looking into a hotel lobby set, biting the end of a cigar. ‘We need some gags here,’ he said, then turned to me. ‘Put on a comedy make-up. Anything will do.’

  I had no idea what make-up to put on. I did not like my get-up as the press reporter. However, on the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. I wanted everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large. I was undecided whether to look old or young, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small moustache, which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression.

  I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on to the stage he was fully born. When I confronted Sennett I assumed the character and strutted about, swinging my cane and parading before him. Gags and comedy ideas went racing through my mind.

  The secret of Mack Sennett’s success was his enthusiasm. He was a great audience and laughed genuinely at what he thought funny. He stood and giggled until his body began to shake. This encouraged me and I began to explain the character: ‘You know this fellow is many-sided, a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. He would have you believe he is a scientist, a musician, a duke, a polo-player. However, he is not above picking up cigarette-butts or robbing a baby of its candy. And, of course, if the occasion warrants it, he will kick a lady in the rear – but only in extreme anger!’

  I carried on this way for ten minutes or more, keeping Sennett in continuous chuckles. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘get on the set and see what you can do there.’ As with the Lehrman film, I knew little of what the story was about, other than that Mabel Normand gets involved with her husband and a lover.

  In all comedy business an attitude is most important, but it is not always easy to find an attitude. However, in the hotel lobby I felt I was an imposter posing as one of the guests, but in reality I was a tramp just wanting a little shelter. I entered and stumbled over the foot of a lady. I turned and raised my hat apologetically, then turned and stumbled over a cuspidor, then turned and raised my hat to the cuspidor. Behind the camera they began to laugh.

  Quite a crowd had gathered there, not only the players of the other companies who left their sets to watch us, but also the stage-hands, the carpenters and the wardrobe department. That indeed was a compliment. And by the time we had finished rehearsing we had quite a large audience laughing. Very soon I saw Ford Sterling peering over the shoulders of others. When it was over I knew I had made good.

  At the end of the day when I went to the dressing-room, Ford Sterling and Roscoe Arbuckle were taking off their make-up. Very little was said, but the atmosphere was charged with crosscurrents. Both Ford and Roscoe liked me, but I frankly felt they were undergoing some inner conflict.

  It was a long scene that ran seventy-five feet. Later Mr Sennett and Mr Lehrman debated whether to let it run its full length, as the average comedy scene rarely ran over ten. ‘If it’s funny,’ I said, ‘does length really matter?’ They decided to let the scene run its full seventy-five feet. As the clothes had imbued me with the character, I then and there decided I would keep to this costume whatever happened.

  That evening I went home on the street-car with one of the small-bit players. Said he: ‘Boy, you’ve started something; nobody ever got those kind of laughs on the set before, not even Ford Sterling – and you should have seen his face watching you, it was a study!’

  ‘Let’s hope they’ll laugh the same way in the theatre,’ I said, by way of suppressing my elation.

  *

  A few days later, at the Alexandria Bar, I overheard Ford giving his description of my character to our mutual friend Elmer Ellsworth: ‘The guy has baggy pants, flat feet, the most miserable, bedraggled-looking little bastard you ever saw; makes itchy gestures as though he’s got crabs under his arms – but he’s funny.’

  My character was different and unfamiliar to the American, and even unfamiliar to myself. But with the clothes on I felt he was a reality, a living person. In fact heignited all sorts of crazy ideas that I would never have dreamt of until I was dressed and made up as the Tramp.

  I became quite friendly with a small-bit player, and each night going home on the street-car he would give me a bulletin of the studio’s reactions that day and talk of my comedy ideas. ‘That was a wonderful gag, dipping your fingers in the finger-bowl, then wiping them on the old man’s whiskers – they’ve never seen that kind of stuff around there.’ And so he would carry on, having me stepping on air.

  Under Sennett’s direction I felt comfortable, because everything was spontaneously worked out on the set. As no one was positive or sure of himself (not even the director), I concluded that I knew as much as the other fellow. This gave me confidence; I began to offer suggestions which Sennett readily accepted. Thus grew a belief in myself that I was creative and could write my own stories. Sennett indeed had inspired this belief. But although I had pleased Sennett I had yet to please the public.

  In the next picture I was assigned to Lehrman again. He was leaving Sennett to join Sterling and t
o oblige Sennett was staying on two weeks longer than his contract called for. I still had abunddant suggestions when I started working with him. He would listen and smile but would not accept any of them. ‘That may be funny in the theatre,’ he would say, ‘but in pictures we have no time for it. We must be on the go – comedy is an excuse for a chase.’

  I did not agree with this generality. ‘Humour is humour,’ I argued, ‘whether in films or on the stage.’ But he insisted on the same rigmarole, doing what the Keystone had always done. All action had to be fast – which meant running and climbing on top of the roofs of houses and street-cars, jumping into rivers and diving off piers. In spite of his comedy theories I happened to get in one or two bits of individual funny business, but, as before, he managed to have them mutilated in the cutting-room.

  I do not think Lehrman gave a very promising report to Sennett about me. After Lehrman, I was assigned to another director, Mr Nichols, an oldish man in his late fifties who had been in motion pictures since their inception. I had the same trouble with him. He had but one gag, which was to take the comedian by the neck and bounce him from one scene to another. I tried to suggest subtler business, but he too would not listen. ‘We have no time, no time!’ he would cry. All he wanted was an imitation of Ford Sterling. Although I only mildly rebelled, it appears that he went to Sennett saying that I was a son of a bitch to work with.

  About this time the picture which Sennett had directed, Mabel’s Strange Predicament, was shown down-town. With fear and trepidation, I saw it with an audience. With Ford Sterling’s appearance there was always a stir of enthusiasm and laughter, but I was received in cold silence. All the funny stuff I had done in the hotel lobby hardly got a smile. But as the picture progressed, the audience began to titter, then laugh, and towards the end of the picture there were one or two big laughs. At that showing I discovered that the audience were not partial to a newcomer.

  I doubt whether this first effort came up to Sennett’s expectations. I believe he was disappointed. He came to me a day or so later: ‘Listen, they say you’re difficult to work with.’ I tried to explain that I was conscientious and was working only for the good of the picture. ‘Well,’ said Sennett, coldly, ‘just do what you’re told and we’ll be satisfied.’ But the following day I had another altercation with Nichols, and I blew up. ‘Any three-dollar-a-day extra can do what you want me to do,’ I declared. ‘I want to do something with merit, not just be bounced around and fall off street-cars. I’m not getting a hundred and fifty dollars a week just for that.’

  Poor old ‘Pop’ Nichols, as we called him, was in a terrible state. ‘I’ve been in this business over ten years,’ he said. ‘What the hell do you know about it?’ I tried to reason with him, but to no avail. I tried to reason with members of the cast, but they also were against me. ‘Oh, he knows, he knows, he’s been in the business much longer than you have,’ said an old actor.

  I made about five pictures and in some of them I had managed to put over one or two bits of comedy business of my own, in spite of the butchers in the cutting-room. Familiar with their method of cutting films, I would contrive business and gags just for entering and exiting from a scene, knowing that they would have difficulty in cutting them out. I took every opportunity I could to learn the business. I was in and out of the developing plant and cutting-room, watching the cutter piece the films together.

  Now I was anxious to write and direct my own comedies, so I talked to Sennett about it. But he would not bear of it; instead he assigned me to Mabel Normand who had just started directing her own pictures. This nettled me, for, charming as Mabel was, I doubted her competence as a director; so the first day there came the inevitable blow-up. We were on location in the suburbs of Los Angeles and in one scene Mabel wanted me to stand with a hose and water down the road so that the villain’s car would skid over it. I suggested standing on the hose so that the water can’t come out, and when I look down the nozzle I unconsciously step off the hose and the water squirts in my face. But she shut me up quickly: ‘We have no time! We have no time! Do what you’re told.’

  That was enough, I could not take it – and from such a pretty girl. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Normand, I will not do what I’m told. I don’t think you are competent to tell me what to do.’

  The scene was in the centre of the road, and I left it and sat down on the kerb. Sweet Mabel – at that time she was only twenty, pretty and charming, everybody’s favourite, everybody loved her. Now she sat by the camera bewildered; nobody had ever spoken to her so directly before. I also was susceptible to her charm and beauty and secretly had a soft spot in my heart for her, but this was my work. Immediately the staff and the cast surrounded Mabel and went into conference. One or two extras, Mabel told me afterwards, wanted to slug me, but she stopped them from doing so. Then she sent the assistant over to find out if I was going to continue working. I crossed the road to where she was sitting. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said apologetically, ‘I just don’t think it’s funny or amusing. But if you’ll allow me to offer a few comedy suggestions –.’ She did not argue. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘If you won’t do what you’re told, we’ll go back to the studio.’ Although the situation was desperate I was resigned, so I shrugged. We had not lost much of the day’s work, for we had been shooting since nine in the morning. It was now past five in the afternoon and the sun was sinking fast.

  At the studio, while I was taking off my grease-paint, Sennett came bursting into the dressing-room. ‘What the hell’s the idea?’ he said.

  I tried to explain. ‘The story needs gagging up,’ I said, ‘but Miss Normand will not listen to any suggestions.’

  ‘You’ll do what you’re told or get out, contract or no contract,’ he said.

  I was very calm. ‘Mr Sennett,’ I answered, ‘I earned my bread and cheese before I came here, and if I’m fired – well, I’m fired. But I’m conscientious and just as keen to make a good picture as you are.’

  Without saying anything further he slammed the door.

  That night going home on the street-car with my friend I told him what had happened.

  ‘Too bad. You were going great there for a while,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think they’ll fire me?’ I said cheerfully, in order to hide my anxiety.

  ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised. When I saw him leaving your dressing-room he looked pretty mad.’

  ‘Well, it’s O.K. with me. I’ve got fifteen hundred dollars in my belt and that will more than pay my fare back to England. However, I’ll show up tomorrow and if they don’t want me – c’est la vie.’

  There was an eight o’clock call the following morning and I was not sure what to do, so I sat in the dressing-room without making up. About ten minutes to eight Sennett poked his head in the door. ‘Charlie, I want to talk to you, let’s go into Mabel’s dressing-room.’ His tone was surprisingly friendly.

  ‘Yes, Mr Sennett,’ I said, following him.

  Mabel was not there; she was in the projection-room looking at rushes.

  ‘Listen,’ said Mack, ‘Mabel’s very fond of you, we all are fond of you and think you’re a fine artist.’

  I was surprised at this sudden change and I immediately began to melt. ‘I certainly have the greatest respect and admiration for Miss Normand,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think she is competent to direct – after all she’s very young.’

  ‘Whatever you think just swallow your pride and help out,’ said Sennett, patting me on the shoulder.

  ‘That’s precisely what I’ve been trying to do.’

  ‘Well, do your best to get along with her.’

  ‘Listen, if you’ll let me direct myself, you’ll have no trouble,’ I said.

  Mack paused a moment. ‘Who’s going to pay for the film if we can’t release it?’

  ‘I will,’ I answered. ‘I’ll deposit fifteen hundred dollars in any bank and if you can’t release the picture you can keep the money.’

  Mack thought a moment. ‘Have you a s
tory?’

  ‘Of course, as many as you want.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mack, ‘finish the picture with Mabel, then I’ll see.’ We shook hands in a most friendly manner. Later I went to Mabel and apologized, and that evening Sennett took us both out to dinner. The next day Mabel could not have been sweeter. She even came to me for suggestions and ideas. Thus, to the bewilderment of the camera crew and the rest of the cast, we happily completed the picture. Sennett’s sudden change of attitude baffled me. It was months later, however, that I found out the reason: it appears that Sennett intended firing me at the end of the week, but the morning after I had quarrelled with Mabel, Mack received a telegram from the New York office telling him to hurry up with more Chaplin pictures as there was a terrific demand for them.

  The average number of prints for a Keystone Comedy release was twenty. Thirty was considered quite successful. The last picture, which was the fourth one, reached forty-five copies, and demands for further copies were increasing. Hence Mack’s friendliness after the telegram.

  The mechanics of directing were simple in those days. I had only to know my left from my right for entrances and exists. If one exited right from a scene, one came in left in the next scene; if one exited towards the camera, one entered with one’s back to the camera in the next scene. These, of course, were primary rules.

  But with more experience I found that the placing of a camera was not only psychological but articulated a scene; in fact it was the basis of cinematic style. If the camera is a little too near, or too far, it can enhance or spoil an effect. Because economy of movement is important you don’t want an actor to walk any unnecessary distance unless there is a special reason, for walking is not dramatic. Therefore placement of camera should effect composition and a graceful entrance for the actor. Placement of camera is cinematic inflection. There is no set rule that a close-up gives more emphasis than a long shot. A close-up is a question of feeling; in some instances a long shot can effect greater emphasis.