The Truth about Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin had an extraordinary life: from the workhouses of Victorian London to the glamorous films sets of Hollywood's Golden Age. He revolutionised the art form, but he wasn't without his scandals. So much so that he was monitored by the FBI and eventually exiled from America. Joining Kate today is Charlie Chaplin expert Dr. Lisa Stein Haven, Professor of English at Ohio University Zanesville, to help us find out more about the man and his controversies. This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

  Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:35Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. I think you know the drill by now, but I'm going to give it to you again, anyway. We call it the Fair Do's Warning, because if you keep listening and you get offended, tough tits, that one was on you, fair do's. Right, here it is. This is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things, adulty way, covering range of some things you should be an adult too. Right, let's crack on.

• 1:00Kate Lister?

  Join me for a stroll through Victorian London where the fog sits low and you can taste the soot in the air. Honestly, where's a cold can of Coke to clear your throat when you need one? In a workhouse down the road, lives a child called Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. Amongst his life of poverty, he's studying everything: the stagger of a local drunk, the sway of a labourer, and the dignity people have in the hardest of environments. He doesn't know it yet, but he's collecting for a character that will one day make his fortune. His life takes some extraordinary and pretty dark twists and turns, and we're going to find out all about him today.

• 2:01Kate Lister?

  Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me, Kate Lister. Charlie Chaplin is an icon, maybe the icon of Hollywood's golden age, and his life is fascinating. From the filthy cobbled streets of Victorian London to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood's film sets. It was a life filled with drama and controversy, almost as much off the screens as there was on it. To unpack some of the major moments of his story and to find out if his moustache really did influence Hitler is Dr Lisa Steinhaven, Professor of English at Ohio University's Danesville, and an expert on all things Charlie Chaplin. And whilst I'm here, I wanted to let you know once again about the two Betwixt

• 2:43Kate Lister?

  the Sheets live shows that are happening in May, one in Edinburgh and another in London. Tickets are available at fame.co.uk, just search for Betwixt and I'd love to see you there. But a word to the wise, there's only about 20 tickets left for Edinburgh and London is getting towards 80% sold out, so move quickly. Get on with it, don't be waiting. Right, on with the show.

• 3:11Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Dr Lisa Steinhaven. How are you doing?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  I'm doing excellent. How are you?

• 3:21Kate Lister?

  Well, I'm beyond happy to be talking to you because you, I mean, we've got to say you're a Charlie Chaplin expert, right? You've written, how many books have you written on him?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Um, about four.

• 3:32Kate Lister?

  That's a lot of books, Lisa.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  I know, it is a lot.

• 3:36Kate Lister?

  Do you remember when you first encountered him? I mean, he must be such a huge presence in your life, but do you remember when you first saw a film, heard his name?

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Right, in middle school here, when I was growing up in the 70s, we had an hour for lunch, half an hour was eating, half an hour was watching old silent films. So that's where I came across him.

• 3:59Kate Lister?

  He's, he's iconic in a way that, well, very few Hollywood stars become absolutely iconic, isn't it? He is old school Hollywood, right?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Right. Well, he was one of the first is the reason. I mean, you know, with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and William Hart. I mean, they all became like these huge stars that everybody should remember, but I'm not so sure that most of them are remembered today. Charlie is, Charlie still is.

• 4:27Kate Lister?

  Yeah. I love that you're on first name terms with him.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 4:32Kate Lister?

  But I don't know how much people actually know about his, his background. I mean, obviously his character of the tramp is hugely famous. And he went on to dominate Hollywood, but his origins are decidedly less humble than that.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Right, right. So he grew up in the, on the south side of London.

• 4:51Kate Lister?

  London boy.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yes. Kennington area, if you know that. And his mother and father were both in the music hall business. His father was actually quite famous as a singer. Their marriage only lasted like a year, I think.

• 5:06Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  And Charlie had an older half brother, Sidney, who became very instrumental in his later life in Hollywood and such, also in his musical life, to be honest. But they were destitute. His mother was put into an insane asylum when he was seven years old. And I think Sidney was able to get training on, on a ship. But when he came back, he found Charlie roaming the streets. You know, it's just a really, really sad, sad thing.

• 5:38Kate Lister?

  Can you tell me about his mother Hannah? Cause I'm, I've been long fascinated with her. I read somewhere, and I don't know if this was just, just a myth that people make up, but that she was a sex worker. Is that untrue? Is that?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  That's for, up for debate.

• 5:51Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  She was, she was a single mother who was trying to put money together as best she could. I mean, the traditional story is that she did piecework in the apartment, you know, and also she was a singer in the music halls for as long as she could do that. But she, she did have health problems. So whether those came from doing other things is not clear. So.

• 6:17Kate Lister?

  Oh, I mean, she wasn't a very well lady. I mean, how much do we even know about? It must have been so traumatic for those children, but she get, they, they spend time in the workhouse and then, and then she gets institutionalized? Is that the order of things?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  So she checks them into the workhouse, I think around 1897, something like that. When they leave, then she's, she's not well enough to do anything. So she's, she's put into the asylum at that point. Yeah. So they spent many years in different workhouses, the one in Kennington for sure, which is now the Cinema Museum and Hanwell, which is out in the country someplace. They were, they were there for a while. So, yeah.

• 6:59Kate Lister?

  Do we know much about Hannah's illness? Like, I know it sounds, it's such a silly question maybe, but why was she institutionalized?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Well, that's part of the thing that we're unclear about because her records do say syphilis.

• 7:12Kate Lister?

  Oh, oh, I see. Right. The dots have been right.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is written on her records. So it could be that.

• 7:20Kate Lister?

  Okay, it could be that. Oh, this must have had a profound effect on young Charlie Chaplin.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's, it's being poor like that. I mean, he got a lot of flack in his later life for being such a cheapskate in many regards. But it's because when you're poor, you want to make sure that you have enough, you know?

• 7:41Kate Lister?

  This isn't just poor, is it? This is homeless in the workhouse.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Destitute. Yeah.

• 7:46Kate Lister?

  Really destitute, right? I'm trying to think, like, how do you go from that then to, you said that his parents, where's his father, by the way?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yes, I was gonna mention that. His father was successful and was actually brought up on charges for not supporting his sons. He was also responsible for Sydney and brought the boys into his household for a little bit. That didn't work out with the new girlfriend or whatever. And he died in 1901 anyway from alcoholism. So he wasn't around for very long to help out. Yeah.

• 8:18Kate Lister?

  This is bleakly. So this is not a good start, is it?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  No, it's not. But it's the entertainment business. I just want to point that out.

• 8:28Kate Lister?

  Oh, Lord. So what happens and how do you go from this level of destitution? How does he get his break? How does he start on the stage? What's his career trajectory?

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Well, um, actually, I want to blame Sidney for that because Sidney was a bugler on ships for a while. This is, I don't know, where the entertainment aspect came in again. And when he got done with that, then they went into Music Hall and they started very, very small, but ended up with the Carno London Comedians. Sidney was hired first. Charlie was very, very young at that point.

• 9:08Kate Lister?

  How old?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Let's see. I think Sidney started in 1908. Oh, no, I'm sorry, 1906. He was born in 1884. So Charlie wasn't then hired on until 1908 or a little bit later than that. And it was Sidney who got him the job because he was a skinny kid. You know, he was obviously malnourished and all this sort of thing and didn't really have much to offer Carno. But it was Sidney's expertise and reputation at that point that got his younger brother on. And that was, is where it steamrolled because he became a huge headliner for Carno. He came over here in 1910 and by 1913, he had the Keystone contract because Max Senate saw him in a,

• 9:55Speaker 01

  one of his, you know, Music Hall shows, Night and.

• 9:58Kate Lister?

  That's wild.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  It was Club or what it was called.

• 10:01Kate Lister?

  To go from nothing at all in a few years to suddenly, I mean, did he just land in America and in Hollywood at the right time as things were?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 10:12Kate Lister?

  Yeah, it was, I'm not saying that he's not very talented, he clearly is and we'll talk about that. But like, he just like, you know, the talk about America as the land of opportunity. It sounds like he just got off the boat and they were like, here, have a Hollywood contract.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  That's right. No, no, it doesn't happen that way. He was touring around. I think, I think it was his second or third American tour.

• 10:30Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Um, before he was discovered by Max Senate. And it wasn't until he went to the West Coast to perform, actually, so.

• 10:39Kate Lister?

  And what kind of acts is he doing to even get noticed?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  It was called. Mumm-ing Birds in England, you may have heard of it, and I'm not sure, but it's what the show consists of is a stage within a stage. So you have acts on the stage and then you have the second stage where it's the unruly audience member who's really the focus. And that's that was Charlie's part, the inebriate, he was called. So all of the little shenanigans that he gets up to in watching the pseudo entertainment on the stage is where his brilliance came in. So.

• 11:15Kate Lister?

  I wonder how the rest of that troupe felt about him getting the big break and them not.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  No, there were others. I mean, this was a long, long going show. So others were in that spot, but he had worked up to it, kind of. But I think there's always going to be jealousies, too.

• 11:35Kate Lister?

  Yeah, of course. So what did they love about him? I mean, now, you know, that character of the tramp is iconic. But what do you think it was about Charlie Chaplin that just made early Hollywood and the early film producers go, yes, him, we want him?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  I think there's several things. First of all, the character itself, the little tramp character is quite charismatic. I mean, he appeals to everybody. He can appeal to you if you're a mother because you want to mother him. You know, he's got so many problems. He appeals to the working class because he kicks the policeman or the boss in the pants. You know, he doesn't take that kind of stuff. He's very anarchic, kind of. And he's got incredible body control. I mean, you know, what he can do with his body is funny, it's balletic, artistic, all kinds of things, you know. So that little tramp character was really.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Golden in terms of being able to attract popularity.

• 12:37Kate Lister?

  If anyone hasn't watched his films or isn't familiar with it, can you just describe who the tramp is and where he came from?

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Okay, so The Little Tramp was developed during his Keystone contract, where he was told to go into the dressing room and come up with something, right? So he.

• 12:56Kate Lister?

  Just like that?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, he chose a mismatched costume. Now, he had, he modeled the walk and certain parts of the behavior on people he'd seen in England when he was there. But the costume itself was just a matter of a too small waistcoat, two big shoes, two small hat, two big jacket, things like that. So very mismatched kind of an outfit, but also a jacket that would have belonged to a more wealthy person that is, you know, a little frayed at the elbows and that sort of thing. The mustache was to make him look older because, you know, he was in his twenties and he looked very, very young with that pretty face of his. So he had to ugly up a little bit.

• 13:39Kate Lister?

  He was in his twenties. I just, I watched The Kid last night. You can watch it all retouched up online, because I knew I was going to come and talk to you. And I was looking at him thinking, how old would I think that he is there?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Okay, so The Kid, he would have been, it's always the year, twenty-one plus eleven, so he would have been thirty-two.

• 14:02Kate Lister?

  Thirty.

• 14:05Kate Lister?

  Oh, it's such, it's such a lovely picture, that one as well.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yes, it is wonderful.

• 14:11Kate Lister?

  It's just, it's, and do you know what? I was, because we were talking to another film historian, William J. Mann, about the Hollywood Hayes Code and about how pre-code films were markedly different. And as I was watching it, I was noticing, I was like, he's absolutely right. There's themes of adultery in it, there's themes of sex before marriage in it, there's lots of like broad, yes. And I was like, that's, and this was like nineteen twenties. I mean, it's not explicit, but I was noticing, that is quite raunchy, maybe not raunchy, suggestive.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, body is what they called it.

• 14:48Kate Lister?

  Body.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  There was a lot of press against it. You know, this body humor is what they referred to it as. Until a woman named Minnie Matternfist came out in The Atlantic or something with this article about the fact that Chaplin's, you know, screen persona was art and not body humor. So that kind of changed things for him.

• 15:12Kate Lister?

  When you know about his past and how he grew up in extreme poverty, you can't help but wonder how that shaped this character of the tramp.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, he, as I said, he kind of modeled his gait on one of the street peddlers that he was familiar with in London.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  I'm sure he saw plenty of inebriates there and here that he could model himself after. I mean, that was a really popular comedy back then was being inebriated. We don't care for that so much anymore, but back then it was the, it was the thing, you know?

• 15:51Kate Lister?

  And something that's often said about the tramp is that there's a lot of, there's the dignified, the dignity of that character in poverty. And people have been tempted to draw that parallel as well, that, that he's bringing dignity back to poverty. What do you think about that?

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Well, in that the, the little tramp character is so self-assured. He has a lot of confidence. He's not like a victim at all.

• 16:15Kate Lister?

  No, no, not no.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  And the beauty of the films is that he comes in without any backstory and he goes out without leaving any relationships or anything, you know, he's, he's almost like a metaphorical character in a way. He's not real. He's, he doesn't belong anywhere and he belongs everywhere, kind of a thing.

• 16:37Kate Lister?

  And how did audiences react to the, to these early films? I think I know what you're going to say, but tell me anyway.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  They loved them. They were very violent. I don't know if you've watched The Keystone's. They're a whole different animal than the kid, for instance. There's a lot of

• 16:52Kate Lister?

  Tell us how.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Beating up people, spitting, pulling clothes off, you know, you name it. And if there had been words, there would have been body language too, I'm sure.

• 17:07Kate Lister?

  Were people shocked by those ones?

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Um, initially, until it became a thing, I mean, and there's so many Keystone comedians that became famous after that, you know?

• 17:18Kate Lister?

  Still, still a thing, isn't it? Violent?

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 17:21Kate Lister?

  So he's, oh, I've got to ask you, because I was thinking this last night. Where did that mustache come from?

• 17:26Speaker 01

  He just cut down a mustache in the Keystone dressing room and stuck it on. It came from anywhere, except he just wanted a little something up there to suggest that he was older than he was.

• 17:38Kate Lister?

  Is it true that Hitler modeled his mustache on Charlie Chaplin?

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's the question.

• 17:44Kate Lister?

  That's what they say.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  They say, because Charlie was popular, he wanted the same popularity in a sense. I mean, I can see that.

• 17:50Kate Lister?

  That's so weird.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  You realize they were born four days apart in the same year?

• 17:54Kate Lister?

  No.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yes. Charlie's born on the sixteenth of April and Hitler on the twentieth of eighteen eighty-nine.

• 18:03Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:06Kate Lister?

  That, that, it just, that's blown my mind, but just the idea that Hitler modeled himself on a comedian, that's so bizarre.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  It's not, we don't know for sure, but it's a possibility.

• 18:17Kate Lister?

  No, we don't. Okay, right, so moving past that one then. So we've got a young Charlie Chaplin, who, and when you look at photos of him as a young man, he's good looking.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yes, he's very good looking.

• 18:27Kate Lister?

  Looking chap, he is, and he's got this newfound fame and the world is at his feet. How does he react to this?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  He lives very simply initially.

• 18:39Kate Lister?

  Oh.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  He lives in the various hotels and finally the, oh gosh, I'm not gonna be able to think of it, the one downtown that everybody lived in, the Los Angeles Athletic Club. He had a suite in there for many, many years, including on up until he got married for the first time in nineteen eighteen. He was living in the Los Angeles Athletic Club, so.

• 19:03Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  He was, you know, not someone to go out and buy a Cadillac or something, you know.

• 19:08Kate Lister?

  No.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  In fact, he didn't drive for a long time, so.

• 19:12Kate Lister?

  Where was his mother during all of this?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  They put her in increasingly better homes.

• 19:18Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  But she was still in a home at this point. They did try to start bringing her over, but it was during the war, the First World War, and that wasn't going to happen. So I don't think she was over here until the early 1920s.

• 19:33Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  But she did come over.

• 19:43Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Lisa and Charlie after this short break.

• 19:51Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right. It took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there, and the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that.

• 20:20Kate Lister?

  Right, let's get on with it.

• 20:33Kate Lister?

  So we've sort of spoken about the good stuff. Comedic genius and early film star and icon, cultural icon, changed the layout of cinema forever. Let's talk about some of the not so great stuff. You mentioned there his first marriage.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 20:50Kate Lister?

  Let's, let's talk about the, I was going to say the women, but maybe girls is a better word in his life.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Well, yes, but the first one was, I checked on this, she was actually 17. So they got married in November of 1918. She claimed she was pregnant. Oh, she was not.

• 21:07Kate Lister?

  Shotgun marriage. Oh, she wasn't?

• 21:09Speaker 01

  No, he, he met her at Sam Goldwyn's house at a party or something like that. And so they were hideously ill matched for many, many reasons. She did end up becoming pregnant later, and this is another sad story is that the child only lived three days. His name was Norman, but that was Charlie's first child, and he is buried in Hollywood. And that kind of was the last straw in terms of that marriage. And so they ended up getting divorced in 1920.

• 21:44Kate Lister?

  How long were they? Only for like a year that they were together?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  About two years.

• 21:48Kate Lister?

  Two years?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:49Kate Lister?

  Was it, and you said that they were very ill matched. What was it about them that was, that was ill matched?

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Well, Charlie was trying to pretend that he was an intellectual on two years of public school education.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  But he was hanging out with intellectuals. They loved him, you know?

• 22:06Kate Lister?

  Oh, that's interesting. Okay.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  He would invite them to the house. Of course, young, young Mildred is not going to be able to participate in those conversations and Charlie couldn't either, but he was listening, you know, he was in, he was learning.

• 22:19Kate Lister?

  Ah, why'd you think he was doing that? Where'd you think that came from?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  This was something that was a goal for him to become, to raise himself up in terms of his abilities, reading and writing and, and thinking, you know?

• 22:33Kate Lister?

  Of course, he wouldn't have had access to reading and writing when he was, he was growing up, would he?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Um, he, as I said, only went to a couple of days of school in second grade or something. Yeah. Very spotty. In fact, I think Sidney had to teach him how to read, his brother. Sidney was well read.

• 22:53Kate Lister?

  Where is Sidney, by the way, at this point?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Um, Sidney continued in, uh, when Charlie came over here in 1914, Sidney was continuing with the musical because he was a headliner for Carno, but

• 23:06Kate Lister?

  So he's doing good.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then he comes over here himself in 15 and he stays over here. So he also gets a contract with Keystone. He's like the consolation prize for Senate because Charlie left after a year. And I said, here's my brother.

• 23:22Kate Lister?

  Were they on good terms, the brothers?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yes, very, very, very close.

• 23:27Kate Lister?

  Oh, okay, that's good. So we have this first marriage, it sounds like it ends badly for everybody involved. Was there any sources or any records for you to sort of get a feeling of how Charlie felt about that marriage? And because this is still nineteen twenties, thirties, divorce is still a big deal by this point.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yes, it is. Um, I think he, once he found out Mildred was not pregnant to begin with, he was angry.

• 23:53Kate Lister?

  Did she, did she tell that lie on purpose to get married?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm assuming, yes.

• 23:57Kate Lister?

  Oh, I see. Okay. Oh, okay.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Since that point, I mean, it was, there was no hope really. And I truly believe that Charlie wasn't ready for marriage until he married Una in nineteen forty-three, so.

• 24:10Kate Lister?

  Is she, she's not the second?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  She's the fourth.

• 24:14Kate Lister?

  Charlie. All right. Okay, let's talk about wife number two.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Wife number two is the biggest scandal. Wife number two is Rita Gray, she was sixteen, and they met at fourteen or thirteen. She was in The Kid. She played one of the angels in The Kid, so you saw her last night.

• 24:32Kate Lister?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  That's when he met her and her mother pushed and pushed for that marriage. And Charlie was an idiot, basically, ends up marrying her. He was, let's see, they got married in twenty-four, he would have been thirty-five. And she was sixteen.

• 24:53Kate Lister?

  Isn't that illegal?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  No, it's still not illegal. It's still not illegal here.

• 24:58Kate Lister?

  I suppose that you were saying there that her parents, her mother was pushing for this.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:03Kate Lister?

  Is that right?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 25:05Kate Lister?

  Because he's famous, I guess?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Because he's famous and he has a lot of money. She wanted a good life for her child. And she ended up giving her the worst life.

• 25:13Kate Lister?

  Tell me why. Tell me what happened.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  So, so twenty-four, they married in Mexico. He almost tried to push her off the boat on the way back. That's, that's a myth.

• 25:22Kate Lister?

  What? What? Oh, okay.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  That was in the papers, though.

• 25:27Kate Lister?

  But that was in, that was in the papers, but that didn't actually happen. Was this a violent relationship, though?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Um, not violent, just, just two people who didn't like each other um at all. But they had two children. They had Charlie Junior and Sydney. And I think she might have been pregnant with Charlie Junior when they got married, not sure about that. But he wanted to put her in the Gold Rush and that didn't work out. He ends up putting in um Georgia Hale. As the main character, but they lived in um, you know, not Beverly Hills, but close by the Hollywood Hills someplace. It was a rented house. He had not built his house yet. And he basically left her alone all the time. Um, so he would go out and socialize with whomever.

• 26:12Kate Lister?

  Like Elvis and Priscilla?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  And in fact, he was having an affair with, you know, Marion Davies. He was having an affair with her during this marriage.

• 26:20Kate Lister?

  Oh, this isn't good. And you, you said that it was, that it was scandalous. So I guess that means that this attracted negative press at the time.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. This is the first negative press that he gets. He doesn't really get any for the first marriage, but um.

• 26:33Kate Lister?

  What were the kind of headlines?

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Mainly it was because when she filed for divorce in twenty seven, I'm talking Lita. She uh, her lawyer published a pamphlet, and I used to own a copy, I don't think I own any anymore, of the proceedings that was passed out on street corners and stuff, you know what I mean? So it's like a eighteen to twenty page paper pamphlet, amplit with all of the, the testimony and everything. So it's like today we would go to YouTube, you know, and back then they

• 27:04Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  published it. So it had everything like his, you know, supposed weird sexual predilections and things like that.

• 27:13Kate Lister?

  Can you tell us what those were?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  I, I think it was just oral sex, to be honest. That's all I remember from reading it.

• 27:20Kate Lister?

  I was expecting, I was expecting much more than that, but it was the nineteen thirties, I suppose.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 27:25Kate Lister?

  That's that. So that was printed and handed around? That's kind of wild.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Yes, and worth a lot of money today.

• 27:33Kate Lister?

  I say that. And then you think about the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial, which was publicized like around the world and everybody couldn't get enough of it, so I guess. I guess we haven't changed all that much.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:44Kate Lister?

  So what happens to Lita then? They finally have this divorce. She's a child, really. And then she's kind of thrown into this marriage by her mother. She has children, a husband who is absent and having affairs as well.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 27:57Kate Lister?

  What happens to her?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  She attempts to stay in entertainment or to go into entertainment. She does sing fairly well. I just saw a short with her in it the other day that featured Sammy Davis Jr when he was a child. And she was the main lead and she did, she did a great job. She sounded really good, but she didn't take off. You know, she kept the name Chaplin. She did get married later on again.

• 28:21Kate Lister?

  Was he blocking her at all? Picasso used to do that with the, the women that he kind of discarded. If they tried to get into the art world, he'd.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, I don't think so. Mm hmm.

• 28:30Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  I'm sure he wanted her to make money so he didn't have to think about giving her more. Cause he didn't give her that much. I, I forget how much, like 250,000 or something. I can't remember. But it didn't seem like a whole lot.

• 28:51Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Lisa and Charlie after this short break.

• 28:59Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I am jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right. It took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there and the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that.

• 29:28Kate Lister?

  Right, let's get on with it.

• 29:41Kate Lister?

  So we're two marriages in. We've got our first raft of scandals. Just, it's strange when you look back at these things in the past, like the things that they were actually angry about. And then you think about today.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  I know.

• 29:53Kate Lister?

  What the things that we would be angry about. Like, we would rightly be angry about the age, but at the time, they were angry about blowjobs. It's strange the way it works.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  There was no physical abuse that I know of. There was never reported any physical abuse. So I'm sure a lot of mental, though.

• 30:10Kate Lister?

  Yeah, that's nasty. So he's, he's having sex with other people as well. Do we know of who he was having affairs with? Who's having flings with?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Marion Davies, as I said, and also things here and there. Louise Brooks once.

• 30:26Kate Lister?

  Louise Brooks.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  A couple of other people, not very notable.

• 30:30Kate Lister?

  I've got a strange memory forming in my head. Tell me if I'm hallucinating, but didn't Louise Brooks say something about him having a big penis? Is that, have I hallucinated that?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Possibly. I don't remember.

• 30:42Kate Lister?

  Don't confirm this nonsense and things that go through my head. So people go and Google that. Don't listen to me. I might have just misremembered that one. Right. Tell me about wife number three.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Wife number three was pretty amiable compared to the other two. Wife number three was Paulette Goddard, who was born, her last name is Levy, actually. And she was actually 20 or 21 when they got married. She is the female lead in modern times.

• 31:13Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  And so they didn't marry until after the shooting was over and they married someplace in the, in Southeast Asia. So there's really no records. But the fact that they had an actual legal divorce suggests to me that they were actually married, you know?

• 31:30Kate Lister?

  Good point. Yes, that makes sense. So we don't have an overbearing mother flinging this one towards Charlie Chaplin. She's not lying and saying that she's pregnant.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:39Kate Lister?

  Could we maybe say that there was genuine affection this time around?

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Yes, I think so. Yes.

• 31:44Kate Lister?

  Okay. A happy marriage?

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Um, as long as it could be. She actually strayed possibly more than he did. He was working on The Great Dictator. Um, by the time they got to The Great Dictator, which is only four years later, three years, if you consider production starting, they were estranged by that point. Um, he did hire her as the female lead, but there was a lot of, uh, legal stuff going on about, you know, when she had to be on set and, you know, all this kind of thing.

• 32:17Kate Lister?

  Did they have children?

• 32:19Speaker 01

  They did not, and she never did. She's been noted to have been with George Gershwin, Diego Rivera.

• 32:28Kate Lister?

  Oh.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Lots of really big guys.

• 32:30Kate Lister?

  Go Paulette.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Ends up with, um, Eric Maria or Mark. That's who she ends up as her last husband. Um, and they live in Switzerland, actually just a few miles from where Charlie's house is in Switzerland. So they were living there at the same time.

• 32:43Kate Lister?

  This is like, they just grow apart?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Kind of.

• 32:46Kate Lister?

  Having sex with other people, it would seem.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  I think Paulette's argument is that he didn't spend enough time with her. He was too busy working.

• 32:55Kate Lister?

  That seems to be a pattern. A few of them have said that, right?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:59Kate Lister?

  Workaholic?

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Workaholic, definitely. In fact, they say that he didn't bother with women at all while he was working.

• 33:06Kate Lister?

  Really? That's interesting. Okay. But you wouldn't have said that he was cruel to Paulette? I was just interested because you said to like his first wife that those might have been.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  I don't, I haven't seen anything about him being cruel to her, except for, you know, not being around is kind of cruel.

• 33:21Kate Lister?

  That's true. That's true.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Spending time with her.

• 33:25Kate Lister?

  Wife number four.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Shall we talk about Joan Barry between wife number three and wife number four?

• 33:32Kate Lister?

  Yes, yes.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Okay, so Joan Barry comes in, um, actually during the marriage to Paulette, but at the very end. So he's, uh, working on this project about a young Irish girl and he chooses Joan Barry because she has red hair and she really fits the part of a young Irish girl. But the problem is that she has really huge issues with, um, mental illness and he doesn't know it. You know? So, uh, she clamps onto him.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  And won't let go, kind of a thing. Now, at the same time, she's also seducing J. Paul Getty. And in fact, the child that Charlie is legally responsible for due to a paternity test that he actually showed that he was not the father, but they didn't include it.

• 34:23Kate Lister?

  What? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. He, what? He wasn't the father, but they said that he had to pay paternity?

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yes. They said that that test could not be entered into the proceedings. This is back in the 40s.

• 34:39Kate Lister?

  What lawyer did she have? That's amazing.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  I know. So he ended up paying for this child until she was 18, I believe. Quite a bit of money per year. He did do, he did pay that.

• 34:49Kate Lister?

  40s are wild. But why? That, that sounds crazy to me.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is crazy.

• 34:56Kate Lister?

  Okay, okay. All right. Okay.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Let's backtrack a little bit because first, he is arrested on the Mann Act. J. Edgar Hoover has Charlie in his sights by this point. He really wants to railroad him and get him out of the country. I don't know. I have no idea. So J. Edgar Hoover is gonna try to find something on Charlie, even if there's nothing there. And the first thing he finds, it's a kind of a trumped up charge that Charlie has transported Joan from California to New York for sexual purposes.

• 35:28Kate Lister?

  How old is Joan?

• 35:30Speaker 01

  She's in her 20s.

• 35:31Kate Lister?

  She's in her 20s. Right. Okay.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  That's called the Mann Act. You are not allowed to do that. That's the Mann Act. It's a very, very old piece of legislation. It was old then. So that's what he initially gets charged with. He is acquitted of that. And then Joan takes him to court for paternity of the child. After that, the child that's not even his.

• 35:54Kate Lister?

  His lawyers are busy, right?

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, Geisler was the lawyer's name, so.

• 35:59Kate Lister?

  Why do you think that Jared Hoover had his sights on Charlie Chaplin? Because that means to a modern ear, that sounds very strange. But obviously, this is, is it the start of McCarthyism and the panic around communism?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  It is the middle of McCarthyism.

• 36:14Kate Lister?

  It's the middle of it.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  And Charlie is called on the phone. He doesn't go to court. Um, I think they're afraid of him actually, but uh, he gets out of that. But it it's not lasting because when he leaves America for the limelight premiere, he's not, he's banned at that point. But anyway, that's getting ahead of myself.

• 36:35Kate Lister?

  So where's wife number four amongst all this?

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Okay, she's at the end of the Joan Barry thing, but just let me say this about J Edgar Hoover. The reason is that Charlie is mouthing off about stuff that he shouldn't be mouthing off about, including that we should be supporting the Soviets during World War Two, because they are our allies. So it's called the Second Front Initiative.

• 37:04Kate Lister?

  I see.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  And he also has a lot of communist friends and and all this kind of stuff, you know? I truly believe that Charlie doesn't understand the ramifications of some of what he's doing. But it's, it's uh, like giving the final great dictator's speech at certain events, which is, I don't know if you know that speech or not, but it's a very, it's a very political speech, you know? Um, so I think that's why he get comes into um, you know, J Edgar Hoover's purview kind of. Anyway, so at the end of the Barry trials, he's, he's defeated on the paternity, has to pay the paternity fees. And then during and someone round about this area, he meets Una Chaplin.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  She is trying to get a part. She is Eugene O'Neill's daughter. Um, she's Una O'Neill at this point, I'm sorry. Um, so our great, one of our greatest playwrights, she's his daughter. And O'Neill, the father, and Charlie are about the same age. Um, however, O'Neill has married a woman called Carlotta Monterey, who wants him to kind of disown his children. So Una and her brother Shane are kind of at loose ends. They're having to figure out a way on their own. Una decides to go into modeling first and then to try to get some parts in Hollywood. And running about there, Charlie meets her. And actually, their

• 38:33Speaker 01

  marriage occurs quickly, June 1943, amidst all this hubbub.

• 38:40Kate Lister?

  Is public opinion starting to turn against Charlie Chaplin?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 38:44Kate Lister?

  Oh, it is, right. It's not just the FBI and those people coming to get him. Like, this, he's getting bad headlines and is it the communist thing?

• 38:53Speaker 01

  It's the communist thing. It's also his, his film called Monsieur Verdoux, which came out in 1947, which in which he plays a serial killer.

• 39:04Kate Lister?

  Ah, right. I haven't seen that one. Okay.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  So that's his first big role af- after the tramp, you know?

• 39:12Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  So he leaves the tramp behind in The Great Dictator.

• 39:15Kate Lister?

  So imagine going to the cinema and thinking that you're gonna go and see Charlie Chaplin in his latest movie and you've just seen The Tramp and then suddenly he's a serial killer.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 39:25Kate Lister?

  Right, okay.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Of his wives. He's a blue beard.

• 39:27Kate Lister?

  Oh.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Of his wives.

• 39:30Kate Lister?

  All right. So public opinion is starting to turn against him.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:34Kate Lister?

  And you mentioned earlier about how he, he wasn't allowed back into the United States at one point. What happened there?

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Right. So his next film, Limelight, which is very endearing and sweet and all that sort of thing. He plays an aging music hall star in that one, who meets a young ballerina, you know, which is a kind of a, you know, play on his own situation with Una. When he goes to London for the premiere, he's blocked from ever returning to the US at that point. Unless he submits to a huge interrogation, which he's not gonna do. So he just, you know, gave him the five finger salute and found a new home.

• 40:15Kate Lister?

  How did he feel about that, about not being allowed back into America?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Oh, he was devastated. I mean, he was very angry to the press about it, but he was devastated. He loved America. So.

• 40:25Kate Lister?

  And that that was because of the communist thing? That can't have been because they didn't like his film, can it?

• 40:31Speaker 01

  No, it's that he was considered to be a communist. Yes, even though he wasn't.

• 40:38Kate Lister?

  So he's kind of, he's like, I was gonna say he's out in the wilderness, but he's actually out in Switzerland, but he's kind of isolated from Hollywood at this point. Does he continue making films?

• 40:47Speaker 01

  He does try to make, he makes two films over there, one in England. Actually, they're both in England, I think, both bombed.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  So the last one was with Sofia Lorenz and Marlon Brando, but it's, it's the worst of the worst.

• 41:01Kate Lister?

  Oh.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  I have to say that it's the favorite of some people that I know, so I shouldn't say that.

• 41:08Kate Lister?

  Does he get any kind of like rehabilitation into America during his lifetime?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Yes, the Oscars, which have just passed here. So in 1972, he's invited to come back to America to receive a lifetime achievement, achievement award at the Oscars. So he makes that, he actually doesn't want to do it. I think Una talked him into it. I'm not sure.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  But they go to New York.

• 41:35Kate Lister?

  Still with Una?

• 41:36Speaker 01

  She's with him to the death. Yes.

• 41:38Kate Lister?

  Ah, okay.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's the final, she's the one he's, he's finally ready for marriage by the time he marries her.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  So they start in New York, there are several events in New York. And then they go to Los Angeles for the Oscars and he does, goes to a lot of parties there and he's really kind of very feeble at this point. Cause he's in his eighties, you know. So he goes to the Oscars for the one and only time the lifetime achievement award is the last award of the night.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  And he receives a 12 minute ovation, which has not been surpassed to this day.

• 42:16Kate Lister?

  Oh, wow. So that sounds like they were ready to welcome him back in.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yep.

• 42:22Kate Lister?

  Wow. Okay. And then, and then he dies. 1977. There's this really weird story about how his coffin was stolen. Is that true?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yes, it is true.

• 42:33Kate Lister?

  That is true?

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yes.

• 42:35Kate Lister?

  What happened?

• 42:36Speaker 01

  These two, I believe they were from Eastern Europe. I can't remember what country dug him up and held the body for ransom. They reburied him in a cornfield in Switzerland, uh, which is now marked and people go to visit it.

• 42:49Kate Lister?

  That's deranged.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  I know. And held him for ransom and, um, they found out who these guys were and were able to, you know, put them into custody before any money changed hands or anything. And he was reinstated in this little tiny cemetery in Vevay, Switzerland, and now he's in lead. So.

• 43:14Kate Lister?

  That's insane. That's like something out of a Hollywood movie. That's just the maddest

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:20Kate Lister?

  thing to kidnap. And he'd been dead for a year, right? When they did that?

• 43:26Kate Lister?

  Oh, Charlie.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't think he would have found that funny somehow. I just don't think so.

• 43:31Kate Lister?

  I don't think so. No. Oh, Lisa, you have been fantastic to talk to. Thank you so much.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 43:38Kate Lister?

  If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Well, just look up Lisa Steinhaven.

• 43:44Kate Lister?

  Amazing. Thank you so much. You've been a treat.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 43:51Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Lisa for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up, we've got episodes on Victorian sex trafficking and another taking you inside the brothels of Storyville, New Orleans. If you want us to explore a subject, if you just wanted to say hello, you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Hannah Fyodorov and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt and Sheeds, The History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.