‘You know, Charlie,’ he said, ‘the outstanding memory I have of you as a little boy was your gentleness.’
*
It is a mistake to dally long in the public’s adulation; like a soufflé, if left standing, it bogs down. So with this welcome of mine: it suddenly cooled off. The first draught came from the Press. After their hyperboles of praise they took an opposite slant. I suppose it made interesting reading.
The excitement of London and Paris had taken its toll. I was tired and needed a rest. While recuperating in Juan-les-Pins I was asked to appear at a Command Performance at the Palladium in London. Instead, I sent a cheque for two hundred pounds. That started a rumpus. I had offended the King and slighted the Royal Command. I did not regard a note from the manager of the Palladium as a royal edict. Besides, I was unprepared to perform at a moment’s notice.
The next attack came a few weeks later. I happened to be waiting on the tennis court for my partner, when a young gentleman introduced himself as a friend of a friend of mine. After an exchange of pleasantries, we drifted on to mutual opinions. He was an engaging young man and extremely sympathetic. Having a weakness for taking a sudden liking to people – especially if they are good listeners – I talked on many subjects. On the state of world affairs, I wallowed pessimistically, telling him that the situation in Europe was leading up to another war.
‘Well, they won’t get me in the next one’ said my friend.
‘I don’t blame you,’ I replied. ‘I have no respect for those who get us into trouble; I dislike being told whom to kill and what to die for – and all in the name of patriotism.’
We parted in a cordial way. I believe I made a date with him to dine the next evening, but he never showed up. And lo! instead of talking to a friend, I discovered I had been talking to a news reporter; and the next day a front-page spread was in the newspapers: ‘Charlie Chaplin no patriot!’, etc.
This is true, but at the time I did not want my private views aired in the Press. The fact is I am no patriot – not for moral or intellectual reasons alone, but because I have no feeling for it. How can one tolerate patriotism when six million Jews were murdered in its name? Some might say that was in Germany; nevertheless, these murderous cells lie dormant in every nation.
I cannot vociferate about national pride. If one is steeped in family tradition, home and garden, a happy childhood, family and friends, I can understand this feeling – but I have not that background. At best patriotism to me is nurtured in local habits; horse-racing, hunting, Yorkshire pudding, American hamburgers and Coca-Cola, but today such native yams have become worldwide. Naturally, if the country in which I lived were to be invaded, like most of us, I believe I would be capable of an act of supreme sacrifice. But I am incapable of a fervent love of homeland, for it has only to turn Nazi and I would leave it without compunction – and from what I have observed, the cells of Nazism, although dormant at the moment, can be activated very quickly in every country. Therefore, I do not wish to make any sacrifice for a political cause unless I personally believe in it. I am no martyr for nationalism – neither do I wish to die for a president, a prime minister or a dictator.
A day or so later Sir Philip Sassoon took me to Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan’s house for lunch. It was a beautiful place in the South of France. One guest stands out, a tall, lean man, dark-haired with cropped moustache, pleasant and engaging, to whom I found myself addressing my conversation at lunch. I was discussing Major Douglas’s book, Economic Democracy, and said how aptly his credit theory might solve the present world crisis – to quote Consuelo Balsan about that afternoon: ‘I found Chaplin interesting to talk to and noted his strong socialist tendencies.’
I must have said something that particularly appealed to the tall gentleman, for his face lit up and his eyes opened so wide that I could see the whites of them. He seemed to be endorsing everything I said until I reached the climax of my thesis, which must have veered in a direction contrary to his own, for he looked disappointed. I had been talking to Sir Oswald Mosley, little realizing that this man was to be the future head of the black-shirts of England – but those eyes with the whites showing over the pupils and the broad grinning mouth stand out in my memory vividly as an expression most peculiar – if not a little frightening.
I also met Emil Ludwig in the South of France, voluminous biographer of Napoleon, Bismarck, Balzac and others. He wrote interestingly about Napoleon, but he over-applied psychoanalysis to the point of detracting from the interest of the narrative.
He sent me a telegram saying how much he admired City Lights and that he would like to meet me. He was entirely different from what I had imagined. He looked like a refined Oscar Wilde, with rather long hair and a feminine curve to a full mouth. We met at my hotel, where he presented himself in a rather florid, dramatic manner, handing me a bay leaf, saying: ‘When a Roman had achieved greatness he was presented with a laurel crown made of bay leaves. I therefore present one to you.’
It took a moment to get adjusted to this effusion; then I realized he was covering a shyness. When he came to I met a very clever and interesting man. I asked him what he considered most essential in writing a biography. He said an attitude. ‘Then a biography is a biased and censored account,’ I said.
‘Sixty-five per cent of the story is never told,’ he answered, ‘because it involves other people.’
During dinner he asked what I considered the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. Off-handedly I said the movement of Helen Wills playing tennis: it had grace and economy of action as well as a healthy appeal to sex. Another was a newsreel scene, soon after the Armistice, of a farmer ploughing a field in Flanders where thousands had died. Ludwig described a sunset on a Florida beach, an open sports car lazily travelling along filled with pretty girls in bathing suits, one perched on the back fender, her leg dangling, her toe touching the sand and making a continuous line as they drove along.
Since then I can recall other beautiful sights: Benvenuto Cellini’s ‘Perseus’ in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. It was night, with the square lit up, and I was drawn there by the figure of Michelangelo’s ‘David’. But as soon as I saw ‘Perseus’, all else was secondary. I was enthralled by its impalpable beauty of grace and form. Perseus, holding high the head of Medusa with her pathetic twisted body at his feet, is the epitome of sadness, and made me think of Oscar Wilde’s mystic line: ‘For each man kills the thing he loves.’ In the combat of that eternal mystery, good and evil, his cause was ended.
I received a telegram from the Duke of Alba inviting me to Spain. But the following day large headlines appeared in all the newspapers: ‘Revolution in Spain’. So instead I went to Vienna – sad, sensuous Vienna. My predominant memory of it is a romance I had with a beautiful girl. It was like the last chapter of a Victorian novel: we made passionate vows of affection and kissed good-bye, knowing that we would never see each other again.
After Vienna, I went on to Venice. It was autumn and the place was deserted. I like it better when the tourists are there, because they give warmth and vitality to what could easily be a graveyard without them. In fact I like sightseers because the people seem more agreeable on holiday than when banging through revolving doors into office buildings.
Although Venice was beautiful it was melancholy, and I stayed only two nights, having nothing to do but play phonograph records – and that under cover, as Mussolini forbade dancing or playing records on Sunday.
I should have liked to return to Vienna to enact a sequel to my amour there. But I had an engagement in Paris that I did not want to miss, a lunch with Aristide Briand, implementer and patron of the idea of the United States of Europe. When I met him, Monsieur Briand seemed delicate in health, disillusioned and embittered. The luncheon took place at the house of Monsieur Balbi, publisher of the Paris l’intransigeant, and was most interesting although I did not speak French. Countess Noailles, a bright, birdlike little woman, spoke English and was extremely witty and charming. M
onsieur Briand greeted her by saying: ‘I see so little of you these days; your presence is as rare as that of one’s discarded mistress.’
After lunch I was taken to the Elysée and there made a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur.
*
I shall not describe the wild enthusiasm of multitudinous crowds that attended my second arrival in Berlin – although the temptation is almost irresistible.
Apropos of this I am reminded of Mary and Douglas showing a film record of their trip abroad. I was all prepared to enjoy an interesting travelogue. The film started with Mary and Doug’s arrival in London with enormous enthusiastic crowds at the station and enormous enthusiastic crowds outside the hotel, then their arrival in Paris with even more enormous crowds. After being shown the exterior of hotels and railroad stations of London, Paris, Moscow, Vienna and Budapest, I innocently asked: ‘When are we going to see a little of the town and country?’ They both laughed. I confess I have not been overly modest in describing my own welcoming crowds.
In Berlin I was the guest of the democratic government, and Countess York, a very attractive German girl, was assigned my attaché, as it were. It was 1931, soon after the Nazis had emerged as a power in the Reichstag, and I was not aware that half the Press was against me, objecting that I was a foreigner and that the Germans were making themselves ridiculous by such a fanatical demonstration. Of course that was the Nazi Press, and I was innocently oblivious of all this, and had a wonderful time.
A cousin of the Kaiser kindly conducted me around Potsdam and Sans Souci. To me all palaces are preposterous, a tasteless, dreary expression of ostentation. In spite of their historic interest, when I think of Versailles, the Kremlin, Potsdam, Buckingham Palace, and the rest of those mausoleums, I realize what pompous egos must have created them. The cousin of the Kaiser told me that Sans Souci was in better taste, small and more human; but to me it had the feeling of a vanity case and left me cold.
Frightening and depressing was my visit to the Berlin Police Museum – photographs of murder victims, suicides, degenerates and human abnormalities of every kind. I was thankful to leave the building and to breathe the fresh air again.
Dr von Fulmuller, author of The Miracle, entertained me at his house, where I met German representatives of the arts and the theatre. Another evening I spent with the Einsteins in their small apartment. Arrangements were made for me to dine with General von Hindenburg, but at the last moment he was indisposed, so I went to the South of France again.
*
Elsewhere I have said that sex will be mentioned but not stressed, as I can add nothing new to the subject. However, procreation is nature’s principal occupation, and every man, whether he be young or old, when meeting every woman measures the potentiality of sex between them. Thus it has always been with me.
During work, women never interested me; it was only between pictures, when I had nothing to do, that I was vulnerable. As H. G. Wells said: ‘There comes a moment in the day when you have written your pages in the morning, attended to your correspondence in the afternoon, and have nothing further to do. Then comes that hour when you are bored; that’s the time for sex.’
So, having nothing to do on the Côte d’Azur, I had the good fortune to be introduced to a very charming girl who had all the requisites to alleviate that blue hour of boredom. She was footloose like myself and we accepted each other at face value. She confided in me that she had just recovered from an unhappy love affair with a young Egyptian. Our relationship, though not discussed, was understood; she knew that eventually I would return to America. I gave her a weekly allowance and together we went the rounds of casinos, restaurants and galas. We dined and tangoed and did all the usual foru-foru. But propinquity caught me in the meshes of her charm and the inevitable happened, my emotions became involved; and thinking about returning to America, I was not too sure about leaving her behind. The mere thought of leaving her excited my pity; she was gay, charming and sympathetic. Nevertheless, there were occasions that provoked my mistrust.
One afternoon at a thé dansant at the casino, she suddenly clutched by hand. There was ‘S—’, her Egyptian lover, whom she had told me so much about. I was nettled; however, a few moments later we left. As we neared the hotel, she suddenly discovered that she had left her gloves behind and must go back for them, telling me to go on ahead. Her excuse was too obvious. I put up no resistance and made no comment but went on to the hotel. When she had not returned after two hours, I came to the conclusion that there was more than a pair of gloves involved. That evening I had invited some friends for dinner, and when the time drew near she was still missing. As I was about to leave the room without her, she showed up, looking pale and dishevelled.
‘You’ve left it too late for dinner,’ I said, ‘so you’d better go back to your nice warm bed.’
She denied, pleaded, implored, but could give no plausible excuse for being absent so long. I was convinced that she had been with her Egyptian lover, and after a tirade of invectives I went off without her.
Who has not sat talking above the noise of sobbing saxophones and the humdrum and clatter of a night-club, depressed with sudden loneliness? You sit with others, acting the host, but you are inwardly tormented. When I returned to the hotel she was not there. This threw me into a panić. Had she gone already? So quickly! I went into her bedroom and to my great relief her clothes and other things were still there. She came in ten minutes later, bright and cheerful, and said she had been to a movie. Coldly I told her that as I was leaving for Paris the next day, I would settle up my accounts with her and this was definitely the end. To all this she acquiesced, but still denied having been with her Egyptian lover.
‘Whatever friendship there’s left,’ I said, ‘you kill it by keeping up this deception.’ Then I lied and told her that I had had her followed and that she had left the casino and had gone with her Egyptian friend to his hotel. To my surprise she broke down and confessed it was true, and made vows and promises that she would never see him again.
The following morning while I was packing and getting ready to leave, she began quietly to weep. I was going in the car of a friend who came up to announce that everything was ready and that he would be waiting downstairs. She bit her index finger and now began weeping bitterly. ‘Please don’t leave me, please don’t – don’t.’
‘What do you expect me to do?’ I asked coldly.
‘Just let me go with you as far as Paris; after that I promise never to bother you again,’ she replied.
She looked such an object of pity that I weakened. I warned her that it would be an unhappy journey and that it did not make sense, because the moment we arrived in Paris we would separate. She agreed to everything. That morning the three of us left for Paris in my friend’s car.
It started out a solemn journey, she quiet and subdued, I cold and polite. But this attitude was difficult to keep up, for as we travelled along something of mutual interest would catch our eye, and one of us would comment. But it was all outside of our previous intimacy.
We drove directly to her hotel, then said good-bye. Her pretence that this was her final farewell was pitifully transparent. She thanked me for all I had done for her, shook my hand and with a dramatic good-bye disappeared into the hotel.
The next day she rang up and asked if I would take her to lunch. I refused. But as my friend and I left the hotel, there she was outside all dressed in furs and what-have-you. So the three of us had lunch together and afterwards visited Malmaison, where Josephine had lived and died after Napoleon had divorced her. It was a beautiful house, in which Josephine had shed many tears; a bleak autumn day befitted the melancholy of our situation. Suddenly I missed my lady friend; then I found her in the garden sitting on a stone seat dissolved in tears – imbued, it seemed, with the spirit of the whole atmosphere. My heart would have relented had I allowed it, but I could not forget her Egyptian lover. So we parted in Paris and I left for London.
*
Back in Lo
ndon I saw the Prince of Wales several times. The first time I had met him was in Biarritz through a friend of mine, Lady Furness. Cochet, the tennis player, two others and myself were at a popular restaurant when the Prince and Lady Furness came in. Thelma sent a message over to our table asking if we would join them later at the Russian Club.
It was a perfunctory meeting, I thought. After we were introduced, his Royal Highness ordered drinks, then got up and danced with Lady Furness. When he came back to the table, the Prince sat down beside me and began to catechize: ‘You are an American, of course?’ he remarked.
‘No, I’m English.’
He looked surprised. ‘How long have you been in the States?’
‘Since 1910.’
‘Oh.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Before the war?’
‘I think so.’
He laughed.
In the course of conversation that night I said that Chaliapin was giving a party for me. Quite boyishly the Prince remarked that he would like to come along. ‘I am sure, Sir,’ I said, ‘Chaliapin would be honoured and delighted,’ and I asked permission to arrange it.
The Prince won my esteem that evening by sitting with Chaliapin’s mother, who was in her late eighties, until she retired. Then he joined the rest of us and had fun.
And now the Prince of Wales was in London and had invited me down to Fort Belvedere, his house in the country. It was an old castle that had been renovated and furnished in rather ordinary taste, but the cuisine was excellent and the Prince a charming host. He showed me over the house; his bedroom was simple and naïve with a modern red silk tapestry with the royal ensign at the head of his bed. Another bedroom quite bowled me over, a pink and white affair with a four-poster bed that had three pink feathers at the top of each post. Then I remembered; of course, the feathers were the Prince’s royal coat of arms.
My Autobiography Page 40