Sunbathing with May Reeves in Juan-les-Pins, Summer 1931

Chaplin in Juan-les-Pins, summer 1931

With May Reeves in Juan-les-Pins, summer 1931

Photo courtesy of Stephen Lovegrove

There has been a bit of a debate over whether or not the woman next to Charlie (with her straps down) is May. I believe that it is. Her body shape, her long nose, and her short, dark hair, all resemble May, in my opinion. Plus there are other photos of May with her bathing suit straps hanging down (here and here).

I have not been able to ID the other people in the photo.

Swimming at Pickfair, c. 1922

Mary, Doug, and Charlie are in the water. Mary's brother, Jack, & his wife, Marilyn, are sitting on the lawn in the background.

At the beach, c.1922

Front row: Claire Windsor, Lila Lee, Ruth Wightman
Back row: CC, Sam Goldwyn, Gouverneur Morris

Both Claire Windsor and Lila Lee were linked romantically with Chaplin in the early 1920s

Welcome to summer

Charlie has the right idea.

"A little off-stage comedy stuff" with Charlie and Mabel

The Day Book (Chicago, IL), August 15, 1915

Chaplin swimming off of William Randolph Hearst's yacht, c. 1920s

source: http://boobyfish.blogspot.com/2012/06/treasure-trove.html

At the beach with Edna, c.1916

Chaplin & others with Spanish painter Federico Beltrán-Masses, 1925

L-R: Louella Parsons, Marion Davies, Beltran-Masses, CC, Rudolph Valentino.

Surfer boy

I don't have a date for these photos but they may have been taken during Charlie's trip to Hawaii in 1917.

Charlie at his studio swimming pool, c. 1926

Charlie is in the middle with dyed black hair (for The Circus).

"The real and the shadow Charlie Chaplin"

("The Unknown Charlie Chaplin," Jim Tully, New Movie Magazine, July 1930)

Pool party, c. 1929

Clockwise from top left: CC, Lili Damita, Norma Shearer,
Harry d'Arrast, George K. Arthur.

Aboard the SS President Coolidge, 1936

Charlie with wrestler Nick Lutze

This photo may have been taken on the same day as the one below of Charlie & Thelma Todd (Hal Roach & Mervyn Leroy are the other two men in the photo):

World Tour Revisited: Catching up with Charlie & May in the Riviera

Charlie and May spent most of the summer of 1931 in Juan-les-Pins. In early July, a Paris newspaper reported that Charlie was negotiating to buy a piece of property in Juan to convert into a movie studio. He also considered building May a home there as well, but all of these plans eventually fell through for one reason or another. Probably because Charlie lost interest. Here are some pics from his summer on the Riviera.

Sunbathing:

May is on the right.

 

Playing tennis:

 Out on the town:

May is at far right.

Hanging out with their Siamese cat:

The cat belonged to May and was called "Kitty II," she also had a Siamese cat named "Kitty I"
but it was killed after jumping out of a seventh floor window.
Charlie loved cats, especially Siamese cats, and owned several of them over the years.

World Tour Revisited: Juan-les-Pins

Charlie & May sunbathing in Juan-les-Pins.
Like most European women of her day, May has armpit hair. 

Sometime in early May, Charlie & his traveling companion, May Reeves, arrived in Juan-les-Pins, France, where they would remain for most of the summer. At one point, Charlie even considered building a home & a movie studio there.

Not long after he arrived, it was reported in the press that Charlie refused to participate in a command vaudeville performance for the King of England. He immediately denied the allegations saying he had not received a command from the King but a request from a music hall manager asking him to appear in a charity show. He refused, stating it would be in "bad taste" for him to appear on stage & that he had made it a principle not to do so since he became associated with films. Instead he sent a donation of $1,000 ("about as much as I earned in my last two years on the English stage.")

Charlie was irritated by the incident and poured out his feelings to a young man he met on the tennis court in Juan, unaware that he was a reporter:

Europe has misunderstood me, bullied me & misrepresented me to such an extent that, being a moderately rich man, I don't care a hang whether I ever make another film.

They say I have a duty to England. But I wonder what duty? I sometimes think my countrymen are the world's greatest hypocrites. Nobody wanted or cared for me in England 17 years ago. I was just as good an artist then and I slaved and starved for a few shillings weekly.  I had to go to America for my chance and I got it.  Only then did England take the slightest interest in me.

Why are people bothering their heads about me? I am only a movie comedian. They made a politician out of me, a material sort of fellow which I am not.

Charlie went on to vent his feelings on patriotism:

I have been all over Europe in the past few months & patriotism is rampant everywhere. The result is going to be another war. I hope they send the old men to the front the next time because the old men are the real criminals of Europe today.*

Thirty-three years later in his autobiography, Charlie's views on patriotism remained unchanged:

How can one tolerate patriotism when six million Jews were murdered in its name?

Sources:
*Chicago Tribune & The Washington Post, May 11th, 1931

World Tour Revisited: Charlie & May Reeves (left) in Algeria, April 1931

Charlie posing coyly in his bathing suit