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The Gold Rush Clippings 361/363

Jim Tully, Motion Picture, New York, July 1935.

Jim Tully

(...) Portrait, Motion Picture, March 1935

& Charles Chaplin as Tramp

with Jim Tully, Los Angeles, undated

& Lita Grey signing her contract

for The Gold Rush, behind her Charles Chaplin, Jim Tully,

Henry Bergman, undated,

Photo Paul J.Bauer/Mark Dawidziak

& A famous party – that celebrating the engagement

of Lita Grey Chaplin to Phil Baker, stage

comedian. Lita‘s former fiancé, Roy D‘Arcy, is to the left of the betrothed couple.

(...) Photoplay, Jan. 1930

„A Mexican girl arrived one morning“

Editorial content. „Can Chaplin Come Back?

      The most outspoken American writer of today asks

this question about the only star who has remained

silent. You may agree with what he says – or you may not.

But you won‘t skip a word of his article!“

      Three pages, four photos.

      Two paragraphs about Lita Grey and The Gold Rush.

      „THE time arrived to select a leading lady for

The Gold Rush. Dozens of screen tests were made

of ambitious young ladies. I often accompanied

Chaplin‘s higher salaried men to the projection room, where

we watched the faces of these insane beauties

flashed upon the screen.

      A Mexican girl arrived one morning. She had played

some years previously in The Kid. Chaplin was not

yet at the studio. The girl was about to depart, when, lo, – the

little jester met up with his destiny. A screen test was

made of the girl that day.

      Chaplin watched her features on the screen

the next day. In silence we watched him. He rose from

the chair.

      ,That‘s the girl,‘ he exclaimed. A silence filled the room.

      I walked to my office and allowed the others

to argue the great question. Chaplin joined me a few minutes

later. He entered my office as tragic as Hamlet, hands

held behind his back, a frown on his face, as though his next

decision would rattle the stars from the sky.

      ,WHAT do you think of her, Jim?‘ he asked me then.

      Knowing he would choose her anyhow, I parried with ,I don‘t

know, Charlie,‘ and said no more.

      Chaplin began to pace up and down, his hands still

behind his back.

      Suddenly the door opened. The girl entered. She was

cheaply dressed. Her eyes were bright, her teeth

were even, her body was so round and supple that one soon

forgot the ugly black dress which clothed it.

      Chaplin smiled benignly.

      She stood before him and asked, ,Well, what is it, Charlie?

Am I hired?‘ She was smiling.

      The comedian looked at her and then down at his spats,

which, actor-like, he always wore.

      The girl watched him, round-eyed, round-faced,

full of life.

      Chaplin answered at last, ,You‘re engaged.‘ Simply that.

      The girl leaped into the air with joy, even though, as a leading

lady, her salary was small.

      Together they walked out of my office – into matrimony.

But if his marriage was a farce, his divorce was tragic indeed.

      During her stay at the studio, the officials from the

Board of Education often called, but she had no interest in books.

And to this girl was given by the Fates in marriage,

Mr. Charles Spencer Chaplin, a complex human being.

      Just why he remembered Miss Grey from her childhood,

and insisted upon making her his leading lady is a

problem for Freud or some other prober of human actions.“

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