Authors: Charles Chaplin
At the suggestion of Douglas and Mary, Honest Joe, as we called Joseph Schenck, joined United Artists with his wife Norma Talmadge, whose films were to be released through our company. Joe was to be made president. Although I was fond of Joe, I did not think his contribution was valuable enough to justify his presidency. Although his wife was a star of some magnitude, she could not match the box-office receipts of Mary or Douglas. We had already refused to give Adolph Zukor stock in our company, so why give it to Joe Schenck, who was not as important as Zukor? Nevertheless, Douglas and Mary’s enthusiasm won the day, and Joe became president and an equal stockholder in United Artists.
Shortly after, I received an urgent letter requiring my presence at a meeting concerning the future of United Artists. After the formal and optimistic remarks of our president, Mary solemnly addressed us. She said that she was alarmed at what was going on in the industry – she was always alarmed – theatre circuits were merging, and, unless we took measures to counteract these moves, the future of United Artists would be in jeopardy.
This pronouncement did not bother me, because I believed that the excellence of our films was the answer to all such competition. But the others would not be reassured. Joe Schenck warned us gravely that, although the company was fundamentally healthy, we should insure our future by not taking all the risks ourselves, but letting others participate a little in our profits. He had approached Dillon Read and Company of Wall Street, who were willing to put up $40,000,000 for an issue of stock and an interest in our company. I said frankly that I was opposed to Wall Street having anything to do with my work, and again contended that we had nothing to fear from mergers as long as we made good pictures. Joe, repressing his irritation, said in a calm, lofty way that he was trying to do something constructive for the company and that we should take advantage of it.
Mary again took over. She had a reproving way of talking business, addressing me not directly but through the others, that made me feel guilty of gross selfishness. She extolled the virtues of Joe, stressing how hard he had worked and to what trouble he had gone in building up our company. ‘We must all try to be constructive,’ she said.
But I was adamant, maintaining that I did not want anyone else participating in my personal efforts; I was confident and willing to invest my own money in those efforts. The meeting developed into a heated discussion – more heat than discussion – but I stood my ground, saying that if the rest wished to go ahead without me, they could do so and I would retire from the company. This brought about a solemn avowal of loyalty among us all, and an affirmation from Joe that he did not wish to do anything that would disrupt our friendship or the harmony of our company. And so the matter of Wall Street was dropped.
*
Before starting on my first picture for United Artists, I intended launching Edna Purviance in a star role. Although Edna and I were emotionally estranged, I was still interested in her career. But, looking objectively at Edna, I realized she was growing rather matronly, which would not be suitable for the feminine confection necessary for my future pictures. Besides, I did not wish to confine my ideas and characters to the limits of a comedy stock company, for I had vague, ambitious ideas about feature comedies which would require more general casting.
For months I had toyed with the idea of doing
The Trojan Women
with Edna, using my own adaptation of it. But the more research we did, the more it developed into an expensive production, so the idea was abandoned.
Then I began to think of other interesting women that Edna might portray. Of course, Josephine! The fact that it would involve period costumes and cost twice as much as
The Trojan Women
was of little consequence. I was enthusiastic.
We began extensive research, reading Bourrienne’s
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
and the Memoirs of Constant, Napoleon’s valet. But the further we delved into the life of Josephine, the more Napoleon got in the way. So fascinated was I with this flamboyant genius that a film about Josephine ended in a pale cast of thought, and Napoleon loomed up as a part I might play myself. The film would be a record of his Italian campaign: an epic story of the will and courage of a young man of twenty-six, overcoming stupendous opposition and the jealousies of old, experienced generals. But, alas, my enthusiasm subsided and so the enterprise of both Napoleon and Josephine went away.
About this time Peggy Hopkins Joyce, the celebrated matrimonial beauty, appeared on the Hollywood scene, bedecked in jewels and with a collected bank-roll of three million dollars from her five husbands – so she told me. Peggy was of humble origin: a barber’s daughter who became a Ziegfeld chorus girl and had married five millionaires. Although Peggy was still a beauty, she was a little tired-looking. She came direct from Paris, attractively gowned in black, for a young man had recently committed suicide over her. In this funereal chic, she invaded Hollywood.
During a quiet dinner together, she confided to me that she
hated notoriety. ‘All I want is to marry and have babies. At heart I’m a simple woman,’ she said, adjusting the twenty-carat diamond and emerald bracelets that mounted up her arm. When not in a serious mood, Peggy referred to them as ‘my service stripes’.
Of one husband, she said that on her bridal night she had locked herself in her bedroom and would not let him in unless he put a $500,000 cheque under the door.
‘And did he?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said petulantly and not without humour, ‘and I cashed it the first thing in the morning before he was awake. But he was a fool and drank a lot. Once I hit him over the head with a bottle of champagne and sent him to the hospital.’
‘And that’s how you parted?’
‘No,’ she laughed, ‘he seemed to like it, and was even more crazy about me.’
Thomas Ince invited us on to his yacht. There were just three of us, Peggy, Tom and I, sitting at a table in the stateroom drinking champagne. It was in the evening and a champagne bottle was in close proximity to Peggy. As the night wore on, I could see Peggy’s interest veering from me over to Tom Ince, and she began to grow a little ugly, reminding me that what she had done to her husband with a champagne bottle she might do to me.
Although I had drunk a little champagne, I was sober, and told her gently that if I saw the slightest suspicion of such a notion cross her pretty brow, I would toss her overboard. After that I was dropped from her coterie, and Irving Thalberg of M.G.M. became the next focal point of her affection. For a while, her notoriety dazzled Irving, for he was very young. At the M.G.M. studios there were alarming rumours of marriage, but the fever left him and nothing came of it.
During our bizarre, though brief, relationship, Peggy told me several anecdotes about her association with a well-known French publisher. These inspired me to write the story
A Woman of Paris
for Edna Purviance to star in. I had no intention of appearing in the film but I directed it.
Some critics declared that psychology could not be expressed on the silent screen, that obvious action, such as heroes bending
ladies over tree-trunks and breathing fervently down into their tonsils, or chair-swinging, knock-out rough stuff, was its only means of expression.
A Woman of Paris
was a challenge. I intended to convey psychology by subtle action. For example, Edna plays a
demi-mondaine
, Edna’s girl-friend enters and shows her a society magazine which announces the marriage of Edna’s lover. Edna nonchalantly takes the magazine, looks at it, then quickly casts it aside, acting with indifference, and lights a cigarette. But the audience can see that she has been shocked. After smilingly bidding her friend adieu at the door, she quickly goes back to the magazine and reads it with dramatic intensity. The film was full of subtle suggestion. In a scene in Edna’s bedroom, a maid opens a chest of drawers and a man’s collar accidentally falls to the floor, which reveals her relationship with the leading man (played by Adolphe Menjou).
The film was a great success with discriminating audiences. It was the first of the silent pictures to articulate irony and psychology. Other films of the same nature followed, including Ernst Lubitsch’s
The Marriage Circle
, with Menjou playing almost the same character again.
Adolphe Menjou became a star overnight, but Edna did not quite make the grade. Nevertheless, she got an offer of $10,000 for five weeks’ work to make a film in Italy, and asked my advice about accepting it. Of course, I was enthusiastic; but Edna was reluctant to sever her ties completely. So I suggested that she should take the offer, and, if it did not work out, she could return and continue with me and still be $10,000 to the good. Edna made the picture, but it was not a success, and so she returned to the company.
*
Before I completed
A Woman of Paris
, Pola Negri made her American début in true Hollywood fashion. The Paramount publicity department went beyond even its usual asinine excesses. In a mélange of cooked-up jealousies and quarrels, Gloria Swanson and Pola were publicized and glamorized. Headlines announced: ‘Negri demands Swanson’s dressing-room.’ ‘Gloria Swanson refuses to meet Pola Negri.’ ‘Negri accedes to Swanson’s request for a social visit.’ And so the Press went on,
ad nauseam
.
Neither Gloria nor Pola was to blame for those invented stories. In fact, they were very good friends from the start. But the twisted feline angle was manna to the publicity department. Parties and receptions were given in Pola’s honour. During this cooked-up festival I met Pola at a symphony concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She was seated next to my box with her suite of publicity men and Paramount executives.
‘Chaarlee! Why haven’t I heard from you? You never called me up. Don’t you realize I have come all the way from Germany to see you?’
I was flattered, even though I could hardly believe her last remark, for I had seen her only once in Berlin for twenty minutes.
‘You are very cruel, Chaarlee, not to have telephoned. I have been waiting so long to hear from you. Where is it you work? Give me your number and I will call you,’ she said.
I was sceptical about all this ardour, but attention from the beautiful Pola had its effect on me. A few days later, I was invited to a party she gave at her rented house in Beverly Hills. It was a magnificent affair even by Hollywood standards, and in spite of the presence of other male stars she concentrated most of her attention on me. Sincere or not, I enjoyed it. This was the beginning of our exotic relationship. For several weeks we were seen together in public, and, of course, this was aphrodisiac to the columnists. Very soon there were headlines: ‘Pola engaged to Charlie.’ This was most upsetting to Pola, and she said that I should make a statement of some kind.
‘That should come from the lady,’ I answered.
‘What should I tell them?’
I shrugged non-committally.
The following day I received a message to say that Miss Negri could not see me, giving no explanation. But the same evening her maid frantically telephoned to say that her mistress was very ill and would I come at once? When I arrived, I was ushered by a tearful maid into the drawing-room, and found Mistress Pola supine upon a settee, her eyes closed. When she opened them, she moaned: ‘You are cruel!’ And I found myself in the role of a Casanova.
A day or so later, Charlie Hyton, manager of the Paramount
studios, telephoned. ‘You are causing us a lot of trouble, Charlie. I’d like to talk to you about it.’
‘By all means. Come on up to the house,’ I said.
So up he came. It was almost midnight when he arrived. Hyton, a heavy-set, prosaic type of man, who would have looked at home in a wholesale warehouse, sat down and without any preliminaries started: ‘Charlie, all these rumours in the Press are making Pola ill. Why don’t you make a statement and stop them?’
Confronted in such a blatant manner, I looked at him squarely. ‘What do you want me to say?’
With humorous audacity he tried to hide his embarrassment. ‘You’re fond of her, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t think that’s anyone’s business,’ I answered.
‘But we have millions invested in this woman! And this publicity is bad for her.’ He paused. ‘Charlie, if you’re fond of her, why don’t you marry her?’
At the moment I saw little humour in this incredible affront. ‘If you think I am going to marry someone just to safeguard Paramount’s investment, you’re very much mistaken!’
‘Then don’t see her again,’ he said.
‘That’s up to Pola,’ I answered.
The conversation that followed ended on a dry, humorous note to the effect that as I had no stock in the Paramount Company, I did not see why I should marry her. And as suddenly as my relationship with Pola had begun, so it ended. She never called me again.
During this hectic association with Pola, a young Mexican girl arrived at the studio; she had walked all the way from Mexico City to meet Charlie Chaplin. Having had several experiences with nuts and cranks, I told my manager to ‘get rid of her in a nice way’.
I thought nothing more about it until a telephone message from the house informing me that the lady was sitting on the front-door step. This made my hair stand on end. I told the butler to get rid of the girl and that I would wait at the studio until the coast was clear. Ten minutes later a message came that she had gone.
That evening Pola, Dr Reynolds and his wife dined at my
house and I told them of the incident. We opened the front door and looked around to make sure the girl had not returned. But half-way through dinner the butler came bursting into the dining-room, looking white. ‘She’s upstairs in your bed!’ He said that he had gone to prepare my room for the night and had discovered her in bed in my pyjamas.
I was at a loss what to do.
‘I’ll see her,’ said Reynolds, getting up from the table and hurrying upstairs. The rest of us sat awaiting developments. A little later, he came down. ‘I’ve had a long talk with her,’ he said. ‘She’s young and good-looking – and talks quite intelligently. I asked her what she was doing in your bed. “I want to meet Mr Chaplin,” she said. “Do you know,” I told her, “your conduct might be considered insane and possibly you could be put in a mental institution for it?” She was not in the least perturbed. “I’m not insane,” she said, “I’m just an admirer of Mr Chaplin’s art and I’ve come all the way from Mexico to meet him.” I told her that she had better take off your pyjamas and get dressed and leave at once, otherwise we’d call the police.’