Autographed photo from Chaplin to Major General Ian Hay Beith, February 1918

From the collection of Cecil Jones. Used with permission.

The inscription reads: "To Capt I. H. Beith, In Sincere Admiration, Charlie Chaplin, Feb. 24th, 1918"

Another photo exists of Chaplin & Beith with Jesse Lasky standing in front of the same wall which is from the dance hall set of A Dog's Life. 

In addition to being a decorated British soldier, Beith, whose real name was John Hay Beith, was also a successful author who used the pen name, Ian Hay.

According to a diary entry by British author John Evelyn Wrench, Beith visited Chaplin again in July of the following year. The entry dated September 7th, 1919 reads:

...Dined with Ian Hay who is just back from America, where he has been since the Armistice, travelling [sic] all over the place. I do like him. He spent 6 weeks with the film ring at Los Angeles and saw quite a lot of Charlie Chaplin, who is a very nice little man he says. He was there when the latter's wife lost her little baby and Charlie Chaplin was much cut up about it. (Wrench, Struggle, 1914-1920, London, 1935)

Mystery photo

This photo shows Chaplin and Jinx Falkenburg (right) talking to a mystery couple. Any idea who the man and woman on the left might be? The date is probably circa 1941. I'm not completely convinced that the woman with Charlie is Jinx although it does look like her.

THE IMMIGRANT, released 100 years ago today

The release date for The Immigrant is often given as June 17th, 1917 but trade publications & newspapers from the era say the 18th. Michael Hayde's recent book on the Mutuals, Chaplin's Vintage Year, also says the 18th, so that's the date I'm going with.

This was Chaplin's second to last film for the Mutual Film Corporation. The day before its release, he signed his first million-dollar contract with First National.

The rocking of the boat for the opening scenes was achieved by attaching a pendulum to the tripod head of the camera.

There is a very similar scene between Bugs Bunny and Christopher Columbus in the 1951 cartoon Hare We Go.
  Chaplin built the dining hall set on rockers so it would tilt back and forth.
These boat rocking tricks had previously been used in Shanghaied (1915)

Charlie sees Edna for the first time when she enters the dining room.

The gun-through-the-leg gag was recycled from The New Janitor (1914).

The immigrants see the Statue Of Liberty for the first time.

The part of the waiter was originally played by Henry Bergman but Chaplin didn't feel he was menacing enough so he replaced him with Eric Campbell and his diabolic eyebrows. 

The story goes that Chaplin did so many takes of Edna eating beans that she became ill.
According to Grace Kingsley, Edna told him: "It’s no use Charlie. I simply can’t swallow another one.'
‘Great Scott!’ retorted Charlie, ‘how am I going to get my gagging over, then?’
‘I give it up,’ replied Edna. ‘If you’d been gagging as much as I have for the past five hours you wouldn’t want to gag any more!’" (L.A. Times, May 20th, 1917)

Chaplin wrote in My Life In Pictures (1974):
"The Immigrant touched me more than any film I've made. I thought the ending had quite a poetic feeling"

Marilyn Monroe, Lita Grey Chaplin, and Charlie Chaplin, Jr at the Henrietta Awards, January 1952

That evening Marilyn was presented with the Best Young Box Office Personality Award.

Charlie, Jr dated Marilyn in the late 1940s when she was still Norma Jean Dougherty.

Chaplin & his friend, artist Ralph Barton, photographed by Nickolas Muray, NYC, 1927

In a strange series of coincidences, Barton was married from 1923-1926 to Carlotta Monterey, who in 1929 married Eugene O'Neill, who in 1943 became Chaplin's father-in-law.

Nickolas Muray was a close friend of Barton's and often attended what he described as "very lavish parties" at Barton's New York City apartment. Among the guests at one such gathering was Chaplin, recalled Muray:

"And at one party Charlie Chaplin, who was an intimate friend of Ralph’s...arrived and took over. He did double-talk in half a dozen languages....He played a number of instruments—violin, trombone, clarinet, piano, among others." (New Yorker, Feb. 20th 1989)

Working With Charlie Chaplin: Vol. 8: Paulette Goddard

Chaplin's "Gamine" recalls what she learned at "the greatest school of acting anyone could ever have":

"He told me you can't be clever. If you just be your own self, it comes through more than anything. And then they're kind to you. They love you. One thing I learned from Charlie--I learned many things, but when I was first learning to act he said, 'Baby, don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Because when you make a mistake, they love you.' And they did! I didn't know what I was doing. I was crawling around in circles And he said. "Forget it. Don't criticize. Don't analyze. Be it and if you're wrong, they will love you.' And that's the secret of performance. You cannot be clever. People hate cleverness. They despise it. And irony and--all of it. But if you make a mistake, they say, 'Oh, isn't she real!'

"I was about to start the picture of Modern Times. I’d been a showgirl and a model and all those things were wrong with me. The way of walking and everything. And I walk in and I’m wearing a Valentina—you know the Russian dressmaker. A plain little dress but so expensive! It cost five hundred dollars then! You know, a day dress. And I had my hair done to be beautiful and eyelashes on and came walking in—the Goddard Walk. I’ve lost it, thank God. I had to….I’ll tell you what he did that absolutely cured me—you see, working with Charlie was the greatest school for acting that anyone could ever, ever have. I mean, he knew it all. But anyway, this day that I walked in he said, “That isn’t it, baby."And he took a bucket of water and threw it on me and that’s how I got my hairstyle in Modern Times. It broke my heart. And I cried and cried and cried. And he said, “Cry, damn it, cry! Camera!” And he called Rolley [sic] Totheroh over, who loved me so much—you could tell by the camera. He’d bring it like a kiss, a caress. And he was just a plain cameraman but such a dear man. And Charlie’d say, “Rolley, get the camera in here! CRY! God damn it, get down on your knees and look up at me!” And tears were running and it was the best shot I ever had! And that’s how my hairstyle came. It was never set after that." (Recorded & transcribed reminiscences of Paulette Goddard, c.1973-74 via Opposite Attraction by Julie Gilbert)

Happy birthday, Paulette.