The Chaplins receive a visit from Father Christmas, 1958

Happy holidays to you and yours.

Love,
Jess

Christmas Miscellanea

A few Chaplin-related Christmas bits:

Motion Picture News, Jan, 11, 1919

Washington Post, Dec. 25, 1926

Boston Globe, Jan. 2nd, 1930

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Dec. 30th, 1937

Boston Globe, Dec. 23rd, 1928

Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20th, 1936

Motion Picture Magazine, December 1923

Los Angeles Times, Jan. 7th, 1925

Christmas greeting from Chaplin, Photo-Play Journal, December 1917

With Count Lorenzo de Besa, Vice-Consul of Peru, & other foreign diplomats, Christmas Day, 1927

Chaplin died 50 years to the day after these photos were taken.

According to the Los Angeles Herald, his guests were treated to a sneak preview of The Circus.

See more pictures here.

photos.charliechaplin.com
Chaplin inscribed this photo: "Los Angeles 25th December 1927, To my friend Count L.S. de Besa,
 In remembrance of the lunch ? dedicated to you with the assistance of many foreign diplomats representing
 twenty two nations in Los Angeles, as a mark of my estimation and friendship. Sincerely, Charlie Chaplin"

This photo is inscribed: "To Joseph F. Triska, Consul of Czechoslovakia,
My Best Wishes, Charlie Chaplin, Christmas 1927"

Christmas greeting from Pour Vous magazine

Christmas card, 1942

The proceeds of these second front cards went to the Russian-American Society for Medical Aid To Russia.

chaplin.bfi.org.uk

The Chaplins, Christmas 1952

Charlie and his family spent the holidays that year at the Beau Rivage Hotel in Lausanne. They had just moved there from the Savoy Hotel in London where they had been living since Chaplin was refused reentry to the U.S. in September. In January 1953, he will purchase the Manoir de Ban in Corsier-Sur-Vevey. His final home.

At this time, the Chaplins had four children: Geraldine, Michael, Josephine, and Victoria. Oona is probably pregnant here with Eugene who will be born in August 1953.

Christmas card, c.1930s

Screenland magazine contest: Win a Christmas gift from Charlie Chaplin

Screenland, December 1928

According to the article: "Charlie's Xmas gift of the Graflex camera is a worthwhile present. There will be a silver plate on it with the winner's name inscribed thereon as presented from Charlie Chaplin." The winner, announced in the March 1929 issue, was Lucie Wiltshire of Washington, DC (there was no mention of which film she thought was Chaplin's best).

All the best to you and yours this Christmas,
Love,
Jess

World Tour (1931-32) Revisited: Photo of Chaplin at a Christmas party at the Palace Hotel, St. Moritz, 1931

Chaplin with Madame Jaucort & Madame Citroen.

The photos below were taken in St. Moritz and may have been taken the same evening (if not, they are great photos of Chaplin nonetheless). Photographer: Alfred Eisenstadt.

Syd is next to Charlie. The woman is most likely May Reeves.

Christmas card, c.1969

Christmas card, 1923

Motion Picture, December 1923

Chaplin family Christmas card, c. 1972

The greeting is in Oona's handwriting. Back row L-R : Josephine holding her son Charly, Jane, Nick Sistovaris (Josephine’s then-husband), Eugene, Sydney with his son, Stephan, in front of him, Noelle Adam (Sydney's then-wife), Victoria holding her daughter Aurelia, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée (Victoria’s husband). Front row L-R: Annette, CC, Oona & Christopher. Geraldine & Michael are absent. Charlie, Jr. died in 1968.

"Christmas Cards of Kinema Celebrities"

I'd like to have a set of these.

Pictures & Picturegoer, December 1924

Christmas card from Chaplin, c. mid-1920s

Note the "CC" monogram at the top of the card. Below is another monogram that appeared on Chaplin's Christmas cards, c. 1917.*

_________________________________________________________________________________

*Tiny thumbnails of the entire card can be seen at the Charlie Chaplin Archive website. This enlargement of the monogram is from the BFI Chaplin site.

Cover of Jours de France, December 1958

"O Come, All Ye Faithful" with Charlie & Alistair Cooke

I don't think Charlie knows the words!

From the home movie All At Sea (1933)**

I included the part that came after the song because I think it's cute. You can really see the curls in Charlie's hair.

**This version with musical accompaniment can be found among the extras on the Criterion edition of Modern Times.

Chaplin family Christmas card, 1966

From the book Charles Chaplin In Japan by Ono Hiroyuki

The message, written by Oona Chaplin, reads: “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Oona and Charlie, Josy and Vicky and all the other Chaplins”.

Charlie in A Year Without Santa Claus (1974)

I've never seen this movie, but a friend of mine told me she watches it every year just to see this part.

IBM Christmas card from the early 1980s.

In 1983, IBM bought the rights to the Tramp image from Bubbles, Inc.,* the Chaplin family organization that controls the rights to the Charlie Chaplin name and image. The company then hired Billy Scudder, a mime, to imitate Chaplin’s tramp in television commercials and advertisements for IBM computers.

*I read somewhere once that the origin of the name "Bubbles" came from the nickname of Charlie's grandson, Charly Sistovaris, the son of daughter, Josephine. When he was a child, his aunt, Annie Chaplin, christened him,  "Charlie Bubbles" because when Charly drank from his bottle he always blew milk bubbles.