My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

the company and wanted me to meet Mayer to straighten out the matter. I told her that under no circumstances would I meet him. But she had already invited him to dinner, telling me only a few moments before his arrival. I was outraged and indignant. ‘If you bring him here I shall insult him.’ I had no sooner said this than the front-door bell rang. Like a rabbit I jumped into the conservatory adjoining the living-room, a glassed-in affair from which there was no way out.

For what seemed an interminable time I hid there while Mildred and Mayer sat in the living-room a few feet away, talking business. I had a feeling he knew I was hiding there, for his conversation seemed edited and paternal. After a moment of silence I was alluded to, and Mildred mentioned that perhaps I would not be home, whereupon I heard them stir and was horrified they might come into the conservatory and find me there. I pretended to be asleep. However, Mayer made some excuse and left without staying for dinner.

*

After we were married Mildred’s pregnancy turned out to be a false alarm. Several months had passed and I had completed only a three-reel comedy, Sunnyside, and that had been like pulling teeth. Without question marriage was having an effect on my creative faculties. After Sunnyside I was at my wits’ end for an idea.

It was a relief in this state of despair to go to the Orpheum for distraction, and in this state of mind I saw an eccentric dancer – nothing extraordinary, but at the finish of his act he brought on his little boy, an infant of four, to take a bow with him. After bowing with his father he suddenly broke into a few amusing steps, then looked knowingly at the audience, waved to them and ran off. The audience went into an uproar, so that the child was made to come on again, this time doing quite a different dance. It could have been obnoxious in another child. But Jackie Coogan was charming and the audience thoroughly enjoyed it. Whatever he did, the little fellow had an engaging personality.

I didn’t think of him again until a week later when I sat on the open stage with our stock company, still struggling to get an idea for the next picture. In those days I would often sit before them, because their presence and reactions were a stimulus. That day I was bogged down and listless and in spite of their polite smiles I knew my efforts were tame. My mind wandered, and I talked about the acts I had seen playing at the Orpheum and about the little boy, Jackie Coogan, who came on and bowed with his father.

Someone said that he had read in the morning paper that Jackie Coogan had been signed up by Roscoe Arbuckle for a film. The news struck me like fork-lightning. ‘My God! Why didn’t I think of that?’ Of course he would be marvellous in films! Then I went on to enumerate his possibilities, the gags and the stories I could do with him.

Ideas flew at me. ‘Can you imagine the tramp a window-mender, and the little kid going around the streets breaking windows, and the tramp coming by and mending them? The charm of the kid and the tramp living together, having all sorts of adventures!’

I sat and wasted a whole day elaborating on the story, describing one scene after another, while the cast looked askance, wondering why I was waxing so enthusiastic over a lost cause. For hours I went on inventing business and situations. Then I suddenly remembered: ‘But what’s the use? Arbuckle has signed him up and probably has ideas similar to mine. What an idiot I was not to have thought of it before!’

All that afternoon and all that night I could think of nothing but the possibilities of a story with that boy. The next morning, in a state of depression, I called the company for rehearsals – God knows for what reason, for I had nothing to rehearse, so I sat around with the cast on the stage in a state of mental doldrums.

Someone suggested that I should try and find another boy – perhaps a little Negro. But I shook my head dubiously. It would be hard to find a kid with as much personality as Jackie.

About eleven-thirty, Carlisle Robinson, our publicity man, came hurrying on to the stage, breathless and excited. ‘It’s not Jackie Coogan that Arbuckle’s signed up, it’s the father, Jack Coogan!’

I leaped out of my chair. ‘Quick! Get the father on the phone and tell him to come here at once; it’s very important!’

The news electrified us all. Some of the cast came up and slapped me on the back, they were so enthused. When the office staff heard about it, they came on to the stage and congratulated me. But I had not signed Jackie yet; there was still a possibility that Arbuckle might suddenly get the same notion. So I told Robinson to be cautious what he said over the phone, not to mention anything about the kid – ‘not even to the father until he gets here; just tell him it’s very urgent, that we must see him at once within the next half-hour. And if he can’t get away, then go to his studio. But tell him nothing until he gets here.’ They had difficulty finding the father – he was not at the studio – and for two hours I was in excruciating suspense.

At last, surprised and bewildered, Jackie’s father showed up. I grabbed him by the arms. ‘He’ll be a sensation – the greatest thing that ever happened! All he has to make is this one picture!’ I went on raving in this inarticulate way. He must have thought I was insane. ‘This story will give your son the opportunity of his life!’

‘My son!’

‘Yes, your son, if you will let me have him