A Woman Clippings 8/72
Harry C. Carr, Photoplay Cover (Mae Marsh), New York, July 1915.
MOVING PICTURES (...)
CABANNE THEATER (...) Monday, Chas. Chaplin,
in „A Woman.“
NEW FAVORITE (...) Friday and Saturday, Charlie Chaplin
in „Women,“ newest Essanay release; two parts.
PLAZA THEATER (...) Monday, Chas. Chaplin in his latest
comedy, „A Woman.“
St. CHARLES THEATER (...) Monday and Tuesday, July 12 and 13, Charlie Chaplin as „A Woman,“ in a two-reel feature comedy.
THE QUEEN AIRDOME (...) Tuesday, July 20, Chas. Chaplin in his
new play, „The Woman.“
WARNER BROS. airdome and theater (...) Chas. Chaplin in his latest play, „The Woman,“ Saturday and Sunday, July 17 and 18.
(...) St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri, July 11, 1915
A Woman is released by Essanay July 12, 1915.
„I learned acting as I learned to read and write“
Editorial content. „Charlie Chaplin´s Story
As narrated by Mr. Chaplin Himself
To Photoplay Magazine´s Special Representative Harry C. Carr
Drawings by E. W. Gale
I am going to reconstruct, as far as possible, Charlie Chaplin‘s
story just as he told it to me, in various little lulls and calms
between pictures, or baths, or dinner engagements, or whatever
seemed to be coming interferingly between us. I found him
a quite, simple, rather lovable little chap, with no especial ambition except to be of entertaining service to the world. He balked
at the idea of writing his own autobiography or having it written
,to sign;‘ said he‘d read fifty autobiographies of more or less
well known people which were just full of words which they‘d never
heard in their lives, so what was the use? But as I said,
I will endeavor to tell his story as nearly in his own words as I can:
Actors trying to write autobiographies are like girls
trying to make fudge. They use up a lot of good
material – such as sugar and ink – and don‘t accomplish
much. Like fudge, the story of a fellow‘s life
ought really to be reserved for his immediate relatives.
If I were Lord Kitchener, doing things and
saying things that made history, I could understand why the
story of my life ought to be written; but I am just
a little chap trying to make people laugh. They are all
so anxious to be happy that they eagerly help me
make the laughs – the audiences, I mean. But they give me all
the credit – not taking any themselves for being so willing
to laugh. So I feel, in a way, that in telling this story, I am just
talking it over with my business partners – the end of the
firm that really makes the laughs.
Some day when I have made money enough out of my
share, I am going to buy a little farm and a good old
horse and buggy – automobile agents can read this part twice
– and retire; sometimes I will ride into town and go
to a moving picture show and see some other fellow making
them laugh.
In the circumstances, I guess you can just put
this story down to this: that Charley Chaplin gives an account
of himself to the firm.
When I was a little boy, the last thing I dreamed
of was being a comedian. My idea was to be a Member of
Parliament or a great musician. I wasn‘t quite clear
which. The only thing I really dreamed about was being rich.
We were so poor that wealth seemed to me the summit
of all ambition and the end of the rainbow.
Both my father and mother were actors. My father
was Charles Chaplin, a well known singer of descriptive ballads.
He had a fine baritone voice and is still remembered
in England. My mother was also a well known vaudeville
singer. On the stage she was known as Lillie Harley.
She, too, had a fine voice and was well known as a singer of the ,character songs‘ which are so popular in England.
She and my father usually traveled with the same vaudeville
company but never, as far as I know, worked in the
same act.
In spite of their professional reputations and their
two salaries, my earliest recollections are of poverty. I guess
the salaries couldn‘t have amounted to much in
those days.
My brother Syd was four years old when I was born.
That interesting event happened at Fontainebleau,
France. My father and mother were touring the continent
at that time with a vaudeville company. I was born
at a hotel on April 16, 1889. As soon as my mother was
able to travel, we returned to London, and that
was my home, more or less, until I came to America.
The very first thing I can remember is of being
shoved out on the stage to sing a song. I could not have been
over five or six years old at that time. My mother was
taken suddenly sick and I was sent on to take her place
in the vaudeville bill. I sang an old Coster song
called Jack Jones.
It must have been about this time that my father died.
My mother was never very strong and, what with
the shock of my father‘s death and all, she was unable
to work for a time.
My brother Syd and I were sent to the poorhouse.
English people have a great horror of the
poorhouse; but I don‘t remember it as a very dreadful place.
To tell you the truth, I don‘t remember much about it.
I have just a vague idea of what it was like.
The strongest recollection I have of this period
of my life is of creeping off by myself at the poorhouse and
pretending I was a very rich and grand person.
My brother Syd was always a wide-awake, lively,
vigorous young person. But I was always delicate and rather
sickly as a child. I was of a dreamy, imaginative
disposition. I was always pretending I was somebody else,
and the worst I ever gave myself in these daydreams
and games of ,pretend‘ was a seat in Parliament for life and
an income of a million pounds.
Sometimes I used to pretend that I was a great
musician, or the director of a great orchestra; but the director
was alway a rich man.
Music, even in my poorhouse days, was always a passion
with me. I never was able to take lessons of any kind,
but I loved to hear music and could play any kind of instrument
I could lay hands on. Even now, I can play the piano,
cello or violin by ear.
Syd had a lofty contempt for these dreams of mine.
What Syd wanted was to be a sailor. He was always pretending
he was walking the bridge of a great battleship, ordering
broadsides walloped into the enemy‘s ships of war.
We didn‘t stay long at the poorhouse. I am not sure
just how long, but my impression is of a short stay. My mother
recovered her health to some extent and took us
back home.
Syd went away from home immediately after we left
the poorhouse. He was really very anxious to be a sailor and
my mother sent him to the Hanwell school, in Surrey,
where boys are trained for the sea. Many boys from the
poorhouse went to this school. I dare say that is
where Syd got the idea.
My mother sent me to school in London. I don‘t
remember a great deal about it. The strongest recollection
I have of school is of being rapped over the knuckles
by the teacher because I wrote left-handed. I was fairly
hammered black and blue on the knuckles before
I finally learned how to write with my right hand. As a result
I can now write just as well with one hand as
the other.
On account of the random way we lived, I didn‘t go
to a regular school very much. Whatever I learned of books
came from my mother.
It seems to me that my mother was the most splendid
woman I ever knew. I can remember how charming
and well mannered she was. She spoke four languages
fluently and had a good education. I have met a lot
of people knocking around the world since; but I have never
met a more thoroughly refined woman than my mother.
If I have amounted to anything, or ever do amount to anything,
it will be due to her. I can remember very plainly how,
even as a very small child, she tried to teach me. I would have
been a fine young roughneck, slamming around the world
as I did, if it not had been for my mother.
I don‘t remember ever having had any definite ambition
to go on the stage or of being attracted to the life.
I just naturally drifted onto the stage. Just as the son of a
storekeeper begins tending to the counter.
With both my mother and father, however, it was
a definite intention to put me on the stage. I can‘t remember
when the talk of this began. It always seemed to be
a fact generally understood in the family that I should be
an actor. I can remember how carefully my mother
trained me in stagecraft. I learned acting as I learned to read
and write.
I don‘t remember when I began regularly as a
professional, but I remember that I was already working on the
stage when I had a narrow escape from drowning.
I remember that I was on tour with a show called
The Yorkshire Lads. It seems to me that I could not have been
much over five or six years old; but I suppose I must
have been a year or two older. Two or three of the boys of the
company were throwing sticks into the River Thames
and I slipped into the stream. I can remember how I felt as I was
swept down the river on the current. I knew that I was
drowning, when I felt a big, shaggy body in the water near me.
I had just consciousness and strength left to grab hold
of the fur and hang on, and was dragged ashore by a big black
woolly dog which belonged to a policeman on duty
along the river. If it hadn‘t been for that dog, there wouldn‘t
have been any Charlie Chaplin on the screen.
I don‘t remember anything about the show I was acting
in at that time. I suppose I must have been acting
or singing at intervals during these years, but the first show
I have any very definite recollection of was a piece
called Jim, the Romance of Cocaine, by H. A. Saintsbury, who
is a very famous playwright on the other side.
This was my first real hit on the stage. I had a part
called ,Sammy, the newsboy,‘ and I will have to admit that between
the part and myself we made a terrific hit.
I got some fine notices from the big London newspapers,
and from that time I began to go ahead.
I liked playing a regular part much better than I did
the vaudeville work. It seems to me that I had made up my mind
at this time to become a legitimate actor. I don‘t
remember that comedy appealed very much to me, either.
I think my parents both had the same ambition for me
that I had for myself. My vaudeville work with them was only
incidental. Both parents being in vaudeville, it was very
natural that I should occasionally be used in one capacity or
another in the show. This is the almost invariable fate
of children of the vaudeville. But, as I remember my mother‘s
training, it was all looking toward a career for me as a
legitimate actor.
The next important part I remember, after appearing
as Sammy the newsboy, was in Sherlock Holmes, in which I had
the part of Billy. I toured all over England in this part
and did well.
After this I began to encounter what Americans call ,hard
sledding.‘ The worst period in my life of a actor starts
as I did is the period between boyhood and maturity. I had
a hard time getting along then. I was too big to make
boys‘ parts convincing and too small and immature to take
men‘s parts.
I will reserve for another chapter my real start as
a grown up actor.
It seems that the story of nobody‘s boyhood is complete
without the account of his boyhood sweethearts. I am
afraid I have nothing thrilling to tell in this regard. I was not the
type of boy who was very strongly attracted to girls
in real life. I was too busy with the people of my games
of ,pretend.‘ Most of my boyhood sweethearts were
wonderful creatures of my daydreams. I have a vague
recollection of certain wonderful charmers of my
own age; but it is not quite clear in my own mind which were
the real little girls and which were the dream children.
The little boy-girl flirtations never appealed to me. The young
ladies available did not live up to the standard
of grandeur set by the young ladies that I imagined.
If, in some way, I have relegated to the mists
of unreality some little girl whom I really adored and whose
name I have forgotten, to her I present my profound
apologies. I will fall back on slang and say that she was
a dream anyhow, which ought to square it.“
Two photos. Seven drawings.
Harry C. Carr, Charlie Chaplin´s Story
Part I, Photoplay, July 1915
Part II, Photoplay, August 1915
Part III, Photoplay, September 1915
Part IV, Photoplay, October 1915
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