Page 69 - All About History - Issue 33-15

The fall of Charlie Chaplin

Charges against Charlie

Charlie’s dream of a career was countered by a number of forays into courtrooms
and a host of media-fuelled accusations about his political sympathies
Paternity suit Anti-capitalist Sympathiser Eloquent Un-American
Joan Barry, after The story of Monsieur Chaplin was friends protester Chaplin’s choice to
separating from Verdoux offers a with suspected Chaplin made a public never naturalise as
Charlie in 1943, came critique of capitalism communists and declaration of protest an American citizen
back on to the scene and the military- attended events about the House Un- despite spending
claiming she was industrial complex, hosted by Soviet American Activities much of his career
pregnant by him. and it received diplomats. In 1947 the Committee, which had there was enough for
Chaplin denied this. a controversial FBI investigated him, been established to some to consider him
The incident was reception. The film and continued to for identify communists in a threat who should
exploited by the press. was a flop in America. the next five years. America. be deported.
GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY

On 27 September 1991, Oona O’Neill died. She filmmaker found a way to give expression to the
had been married to Charlie Chaplin. Her obituary complicated relationship with the country where
in the New York Times described her as “…wife his career had flourished. Chaplin biographer
of one of the screen’s greatest comic geniuses.” In Simon Louvish has made the point that with this
1943, Oona O’Neill had married Chaplin. He was film, in which Chaplin portrays King Shahdov,
54 years old. So appalled was Oona’s father, the “Chaplin knows well, as we do, that Shahdov is
playwright Eugene O’Neill (also aged 54), that he still Charlie the Tramp, grown older, shorn of his
disinherited his 18-year-old daughter. When asked old clothes and toothbrush moustache, the mask
once about the age difference between her and of the eternal vagrant who had last been seen in
Charlie, Oona had once replied that: “He is my the traditional from Modern Times in 1936.”
world. I’ve never seen or lived anything else.” In the promotional programme accompanying
For most of their marriage, Chaplin and Oona the film’s UK premiere of Modern Times, an
lived at Lake Geneva, extract from the film’s
and the New York Times “Chaplin’s later life final speech is included,
obituary said that: “Their and tellingly it is
home became a kind encapsulates the not described as the
of intellectual watering character’s speech in
hole; Pablo Casals, Nikita tensions that can the film but as Charlie
Khrushchev, Jawarhal Chaplin’s. As such, it
Nehru and Zhou Enlai emerge between art distils so much of what
were among those who and commerce” Chaplin was committed
visited the Chaplins.” to, deploying his popular
Every life has it critical appeal to wake people
days and dates: for Chaplin, 17 September 1952 up to the dangers inherent in the world. With
was especially so. Charlie and Oona, with their his talent, he sought to enliven the audience; a
four children, sailed from the US to London for heroic ambition for sure. Was it a form of heroism
the premiere of Chaplin’s movie Limelight. En without a home, though?
route, Chaplin’s re-entry visa to the US (he was Chaplin’s later life encapsulates the tensions that
always a British citizen working in the States) can emerge between art and commerce in the film
was rescinded. It was the summation of the industry (that latter word tells you so much that
unease around Chaplin’s political sympathies, you need to know as a place to start from); cultural
and after this date he would only set foot in the values around marriage and parenting and the
US once more. Since 1923, the FBI had monitored ease with which a widely recognised figure can
Chaplin and Chief of the FBI J Edgar Hoover had a be used as a scapegoat in terms of a bigger picture
particular focus on him. The FBI’s mission was to around certain kinds of paranoia.
prove that Chaplin was a communist. Let’s end, then, with an anecdote that speaks to
In the 1940s and 1950s, the anti-communists the immutable power of comedy and playfulness
in the US pointed to what they considered hard to subvert authority: when the House Un-American
evidence of Chaplin’s left-wing politics: his WWII Activities Committee were due to call Chaplin to
speeches supporting the American ally Russia. testify, they made a last-minute decision not to.
Of the communist ‘witch hunt’, Hollywood film Chaplin had planned to attend dressed as The
star Burt Lancaster noted: “Can anything be more Tramp. Chaplin was a trickster figure, seeking to
un-American than the Un-American Committee?” puncture the self-aggrandising aura of those with a
The emotional strain on Chaplin of his ejection lust for power. In The Tramp, Chaplin’s hero stood
from the US in 1952 was immense, and in his late for the powerless, and that was his power. There is
film A King In New York, this hugely accomplished no tragedy in making that stand.
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