My Autobiography

by Charles Chaplin

  I still toyed with the idea of pulling up stakes and settling in China. In Hong Kong I could live well and forget motion pictures, instead of languishing here in Hollywood, rotting on the vine.

  For three weeks I dallied about, then one day Joe Schenck telephoned me to save the week-end for his yacht – a beautiful sailing boat, a hundred and thirty-eight feet long, that could comfortably accommodate fourteen people. Joe usually moored around Catalina Island near Avalon. His guests were seldom exciting, usually poker-players, and poker did not interest me. But there were other interests. Joe usually embarked with a bevy of pretty girls, and being desperately lonely, I hoped I might find a pretty little ray of sunlight.

  That is precisely what happened. I met Paulette Goddard. She was gay and amusing and during the course of the evening told me she was going to invest $50,000, part of her alimony from her ex-husband, in a film venture. She had brought aboard all the documents ready to sign. I almost took her by the throat to prevent her. The company was obviously a Hollywood gyp enterprise. I told her that I had been in the movie business almost since its inception and with my knowledge of it I would not invest one penny except in my own pictures – and even that was a risk. I argued that if Hearst, with a literary staff and access to the most popular stories in the States, had lost $7,000,000 investing in movies, what chance had she? Eventually I talked her out of it. This was the beginning of our friendship.

  The bond between Paulette and me was loneliness. She was just out from New York and knew no one. It was a case of Robinson Crusoe discovering Friday for both of us. During the week there was plenty to do, for Paulette was working in a Sam Goldwyn movie and I attended to business. But Sunday was a forlorn day. In desperation we would take long drives, in fact we combed the whole coastline of California. There seemed to be nothing to do. Our most thrilling adventure was to go to San Pedro harbour to look at the pleasure boats. One was for sale, a fifty-five-foot motor cruiser which had three state-rooms, a galley and an attractive wheel-house – the kind of boat I would have liked.

  ‘Now if you had something like that,’ Paulette said, ‘we could have lots of fun on Sundays, and go to Catalina.’ So I made inquiries about purchasing it. It was owned by a Mr Mitchell, manufacturer of the motion picture cameras, who showed us over the boat. Three times within a week we looked it over until our presence became embarrassing. However, Mr Mitchell said that until it was sold we were welcome to come aboard and look at it.

  Unbeknown to Paulette I bought the boat and provisioned it for a cruise to Catalina, taking aboard my own cook, and an ex-Keystone Cop, Andy Anderson, who had been a licensed captain. The following Sunday everything was ready. Paulette and I started out very early, as she thought, for a long drive, agreeing that we would just have a cup of coffee and go somewhere later for breakfast. Then she discovered we were on our way to San Pedro. ‘Surely you are not going to look at that boat again?’

  ‘I’d like to go over it once more just to make up my mind,’ I answered.

  ‘Then you’ll have to go alone, it’s too embarrassing,’ she said mournfully. ‘I’ll sit in the car and wait for you.’

  When we pulled up at the boat landing-stage, nothing would induce her to get out of the car. ‘No, you’ll have to go alone. But hurry – we haven’t had breakfast yet.’

  After two minutes I returned to the car and persuaded her much against her will to come aboard. The cabin was gaily decorated with a pink and blue table-cloth and pink and blue china to match. A delectable aroma of bacon and eggs frying came up from the galley. ‘The captain has kindly invited us to breakfast,’ I said. ‘We have wheat-cakes, bacon and eggs, toast and coffee.’ Paulette looked down into the galley and recognized our cook. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you wanted some place to go on Sunday so after breakfast we’re going to Catalina for a swim.’ Then I told her I had bought the boat.

  Her reaction was funny. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. She got up, left the boat and ran about fifty yards along the harbour and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Hey! Come and get your breakfast,’ I shouted.

  When she came aboard again she said: ‘I had to do that to get over the shock of it.’

  Then Freddy, the Japanese cook, came up all grinning with the breakfast. And afterwards we warmed up the engines, cruised down towards the harbour and out into the Pacific Ocean towards Catalina, twenty-two miles away, where we moored for nine days.

  *

  Still no immediate plans for work. With Paulette I did all the witless things: attended race meetings, night spots and all the public functions – anything to kill time. I did not want to be alone or to think. But underlying these pleasures was a continual sense of guilt: What am I doing here? Why aren’t I at work?

  Furthermore, I was depressed by the remark of a young critic who said that City Lights was very good, but that it verged on the sentimental, and that in my future films I should try to approximate realism. I found myself agreeing with him. Had I known what I do now, I could have told him that so-called realism is often artificial, phoney, prosaic and dull; and that it is not reality that matters in a film but what the imagination can make of it.

  It was curious how by accident, and when I least expected it, I was suddenly stimulated to make another silent picture. Paulette and I went to Tijuana race-track in Mexico, where the winner of the Kentucky something or other was to be presented with a silver cup. Paulette was asked if she would present the cup to the winning jockey and say a few words with a Southern accent. She needed little persuasion. I was astonished to hear her over the loudspeaker. Although from Brooklyn, she gave a remarkable imitation of a Kentucky society belle. This convinced me that she could act.

  Thus I was stimulated. Paulette struck me as being somewhat of a gamine. This would be a wonderful quality for me to get on the screen. I could imagine us meeting in a crowded patrol wagon, the tramp and this gamine, and the tramp being very gallant and offering her his seat. This was the basis on which I could build plot and sundry gags.

  Then I remembered an interview I had had with a bright young reporter on the New York World. Hearing that I was visiting Detroit, he had told me of the factory-belt system there – a harrowing story of big industry luring healthy young men off the farms who, after four or five years at the belt system, became nervous wrecks.

  It was that conversation that gave me the idea for Modern Times. I used a feeding machine as a time-saving device, so that the workers could continue working during the lunch time. The factory sequence resolved itself in the tramp having a nervous breakdown. The plot developed out of the natural sequence of events. After his cure, he gets arrested and meets a gamine who has also been arrested for stealing bread. They meet in a police patrol car packed with offenders. From then on, the theme is about two nondescripts trying to get along in modern times. They are involved in the Depression, strikes, riots and unemployment. Paulette was dressed in rags. She almost wept when I put smudges on her face to make her look dirty. ‘Those smudges are beauty spots,’ I insisted.

  It is easy to dress an actress attractively in fashionable clothes, but to dress a flower-girl and have her look attractive, as in City Lights, was difficult. The girl’s costume in The Gold Rush was not such a problem. But Paulette’s outfit in Modern Times required as much thought and finesse as a Dior creation. If a gamine costume is treated without care, the patches look theatrical and unconvincing. In dressing an actress as a street urchin or a flower-girl I aimed to create a poetic effect and not to detract from her personality.

  Before the opening of Modern Times a few columnists wrote that they had heard rumours the picture was communistic. I suppose this was because of a summary of the story that had already appeared in the Press. However, the liberal reviewers wrote that it was neither for nor against communism and that metaphorically I had sat on the fence.

  Nothing is more nerve-racking than to receive bulletins informing one that the first week’s attendance broke all records and that the second we
ek fell off slightly. Therefore, after the premières in New York and Los Angeles, my one desire was to get as far away as possible from any news of the picture; so I decided to go to Honolulu, taking Paulette and her mother with me, leaving instructions with the office not to send messages of any kind.

  *

  We embarked at Los Angeles, arriving in San Francisco in pouring rain. However, nothing dampened our spirits; we had time for a little shopping, then returned to the boat. Passing by warehouses, I saw stamped on some of the freight the word ‘China’. ‘Let’s go there!’

  ‘Where?’ said Paulette.

  ‘China.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘Let’s do it now or we never will,’ I said.

  ‘But I haven’t any clothes.’

  ‘You can buy all you want in Honolulu,’ I said.

  All boats should be called Panacea, for nothing is more recuperative than a sea-voyage. Your worries are adjourned, the boat adopts you, and cures you and, when finally she enters port, reluctantly gives you back again to the humdrum world.

  But when we arrived in Honolulu, to my horror I saw large posters advertising Modern Times, and the Press waiting on the dock ready to devour me. There was no escape.

  However, I was not apprehended in Tokyo, for the captain had obligingly registered me under another name. The Japanese authorities took it big when they saw my passport. ‘Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’ they said. Since there had just been a military coup in which several hundreds had been killed, it was just as well, I thought. During our stay in Japan an official of the Government never left our side. From San Francisco on through to Hong Kong we hardly spoke to a passenger; but when we arrived in Hong Kong the austerity thawed. It came about through a Catholic priest. ‘Charlie,’ said a tall, reserved-looking business man, ‘I want you to meet an American priest from Connecticut who’s been stationed out here for five years in ajeper colony. It’s pretty lonesome for the Father, so every Saturday he comes to Hong Kong just to meet the American boats.’

  The priest was a tall, handsome man in his late thirties with rosy cheeks and an ingratiating smile. I bought a drink, then my friend bought a drink, then the Father bought a drink. It was a small circle at first, but as the evening progressed it enlarged to about twenty-five people, everyone buying drinks. The party increased to about thirty-five and the drinks kept coming; many were carried aboard unconscious, but the priest, who did not miss a drink, was still smiling and soberly administering to everyone. Eventually I reared up to bid him good-bye. And as he held me up solicitously I shook his hand. It felt rough, so I turned it over and examined the palm. There were cracks and crevices and in the centre a white spot. ‘That’s not leprosy, I hope,’ I said jokingly. He grinned and shook his head. A year later we heard that he had died of it.

  We stayed away from Hollywood for five months. During this trip Paulette and I were married. Afterwards we returned to the States, boarding a Japanese boat in Singapore.

  The first day out I received a note which read that the writer and I had many mutual friends, that for years we had just missed meeting each other and that now, in the centre of the South China Sea, was an excellent opportunity. Signed ‘Jean Cocteau’. Then P.S.: perhaps he could come to my cabin for an aperitif before dinner. Immediately I suspected an imposter. What could this urbane Parisian be doing in the middle of the South China Sea? However, it was true, for Cocteau was doing an assignment for the French newspaper Figaro.

  Cocteau could not speak a word of English, neither could I speak French, but his secretary spoke a little English, though not too well, and he acted as interpreter for us. That night we sat up into the small hours, discussing our theories of life and art. Our interpreter spoke slowly and hesitantly while Cocteau, his beautiful hands spread on his chest, spoke with the rapidity of a machine gun – his eyes flashing an appealing look at me, then at the interpreter, who spoke unemotionally: ‘Mr Cocteau – he say – you are a poet – of zer sunshine – and he is a poet of zer – night.’

  Immediately Cocteau turned from the interpreter to me with a quick, birdlike nod, and continued. Then I would take over, getting deeply involved in philosophy and art. In moments of agreement we would embrace, while our cool-eyed interpreter looked on. Thus, in this exalted way, we carried on through the night until four in the morning, promising to meet at one O’clock for lunch.

  But our enthusiasm had reached a climax; we had had it! Neither of us showed up. In the afternoon our letters of apology must have crossed, for their contents were identical, both profuse with apologies but careful not to make any more dates – we had had more than a glut of each other.

  At dinner-time, when we entered the dining-room, Cocteau was seated in the far corner, his back towards us. But his secretary could not help but see us, and with a weak gesture indicated our presence to Cocteau, who hesitated, then turned and feigned surprise, and gaily waved the letter I had sent him; I gaily waved bis and we both laughed. Then we turned soberly from each other and became deeply engrossed in our menus. Cocteau finished dinner first, and as the stewards were serving our main course he discreetly passed our table in a hurry. However he turned before exiting and pointed outside, indicating ‘We’ll see you there.’ I vigorously nodded approval. But later I was relieved to find he’d vanished.

  The following morning I promenaded the deck alone. Suddenly, to my horror, Cocteau appeared around the comer in the distance coming towards me! My God! I quickly looked for an escape, then he saw me and to my relief darted through the main saloon door. That finished our morning promenade. Throughout the day we kept up a game of hide-and-seek avoiding each other. However, by the time we reached Hong Kong we had recovered enough to meet momentarily. Still there were four more days to go before reaching Tokyo.

  During the voyage Cocteau told an amazing story: he had seen in the interior of China a living Buddha, a man about fifty, who had lived his whole life floating in a jar of oil, with just his head exposed out of the neck of it. Through years of soaking in oil, the body had remained embryonic and was so soft that one could put a finger through it. In what part of China he saw this was never made clear, and eventually he admitted that he had not seen it himself but had heard about it.

  In the various stopping-off places we rarely saw each other, unless for a brief how-do-you-do and farewell. But when news broke that we were both sailing on the President Coolidge going back to the States, we became resigned, making no further attempts at enthusiasm.

  In Tokyo Cocteau had bought a pet grasshopper which he kept in a little cage and often brought ceremoniously to my cabin. ‘He is very intelligent,’ he said, ‘and sings every time I talk to him.’ He built up such an interest in it that it became our topic of conversation. ‘How is Pilou this morning?’ I would ask.

  ‘Not very well,’ he would say solemnly. ‘I have him on a diet.’

  When we arrived in San Francisco I insisted on him driving with us to Los Angeles, as we had a limousine waiting. Pilou came along. During the journey he began to sing. ‘You see,’ said Cocteau, ‘he likes America.’ Suddenly he opened the car window, then opened the door of the little cage and shook Pilou out of it.

  I was shocked and asked: ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘He gives him freedom,’ said the interpreter.

  ‘But,’ I answered, ‘he’s a stranger in a foreign country – and can’t speak the language.’

  Cocteau shrugged. ‘He’s smart, he’ll soon pick it up.’

  *

  When we arrived home in Beverly Hills, news from the studio was encouraging. Modern Times was a great success.

  But again I was faced with the depressing question: should I make another silent picture? I knew I’d be taking a great chance if I did. The whole of Hollywood had deserted silent pictures and I was the only one left. I had been lucky so far, but to continue with a feeling that the art of pantomime was gradually becoming obsolete was a discouraging thought. Besides, it was not easy
to contrive silent action for an hour and forty minutes, translating wit into action and creating visual jokes every twenty feet of film, for seven or eight thousand feet. Another thought was that, if I did make a talking picture, no matter how good I was I could never surpass the artistry of my pantomime. I had thought of possible voices for the tramp; whether he should speak in monosyllables or just mumble. But it was no use. If I talked I would become like any other comedian. These were the melancholy problems that confronted me.

  Paulette and I had now been married for a year, but a breach was widening between us. It was partly due to my being worried and absorbed in trying to work. However, on the success of Modern Times Paulette was signed up to make several pictures for Paramount. But I could neither work nor play. In this melancholy frame of mind I decided to go to Pebble Beach with my friend Tim Durant. Perhaps I could work better there.

  Pebble Beach, a hundred-odd miles south of San Francisco, was wild, baneful and slightly sinister. I called it ‘the abode of stranded souls’. It was known as the Seventeen-mile Drive; it had deer roaming through its wooded sections, and many pretentious houses unoccupied and for sale; there were fallen trees rotting in fields full of wood ticks, poison ivy, oleander bushes and deadly nightshade – a setting for banshees. Fronting the ocean, built on the rocks, were several elaborate houses occupied by millionaires; this section was known as the Gold Coast.

  I had met Tim Durant when someone brought him to one of our Sunday tennis parties. Tim was very good at tennis, and we played a lot together. He had just divorced his wife, the daughter of E. F. Hutton, and had come to California to get away from it all. Tim was sympathetic, and we became very good friends.