 |
| Melba is on Charlie's left, on his other side is Lady Susan FitzClarence. Source. |
Melba described the meeting in her memoir, Melodies and Memories (1926):
I had long had a great desire to meet Charlie Chaplin, and as soon as we arrived at Los Angeles, on my long-delayed journey home, I set out for his studio in company with Lady Susan Fitzclarence (now Lady Susan Birch), my great friend.
No celebrity whom I have ever met so completely falsified my preconceived notions of them as Charlie Chaplin. He was then at the pinnacle of his fame as a comedian--a pinnacle which he still occupies in solitary state. But how little the world knew of the real man who was hidden behind the mask of humour!
I had expected, first of all, to meet an ugly, grotesque figure. Instead there advanced towards me a smiling, handsome, young man, small, but perfectly made, with flashing eyes and beautiful teeth. He was dressed quietly and well, and he spoke in a low musical voice that seemed to belong more to an English public schoolboy than to a knockabout comedian.
But it was not the superficial Charlie Chaplin that most surprised me, but the character of the man as revealed by his conversation. Instead of a brilliant clown, I found myself face to face with a philosopher, with a serious, almost melancholy attitude to life.
That is one of the most beautiful descriptions of Charlie I have EVER read! I did love "perfectly made". :)
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, Louise Brooks described him almost the exact same way in her 1966 article "Charlie Chaplin Remembered":
Delete"Small, perfectly made, meticulously dressed, with his fine grey hair and ivory skin and white teeth, he was as clean as a pearl and glowed all over."
http://www.discoveringchaplin.com/2013/08/charlie-chaplin-remembered.html