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

That evening, I decided to stay at another hotel, in case, even at that hour, process-servers were hanging about, but every hotel in New York was filled. After driving round for over an hour, the taxi-driver, a rough-looking fellow about forty, turned and said: ‘Listen, you ain’t going to get into any hotel at this hour. You’d better come home to my place and sleep there until the morning.’

At first I had qualms, but when he mentioned his wife and family I knew it would be all right; besides, I would be safe from the process-servers.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said and introduced myself.

He was surprised and laughed. ‘My wife will get a kick out of this.’

We arrived somewhere in the Bronx in a congested neigh-bourhood. There were rows of brownstone houses. We entered one which was sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean. He led me to a back room where there was a large bed, in it a boy of twelve, his son, fast asleep. ‘Wait,’ he said, then lifted the boy and flopped him over to the edge of the bed, the boy sleeping soundly throughout. Then he turned to me. ‘Get in there.’

I was about to reconsider, but this hospitality was so touching that I could not refuse. He gave me a clean night-shirt and gingerly I crept into bed, terrified of waking the boy.

I never slept a wink. When eventually he awoke, he got up and dressed, and through my half-closed eyes I saw him give me a casual look and without further reaction leave the room. A few minutes later he and a young lady of eight, evidently his sister, crept into the room. Still pretending to be asleep, I saw them peering at me, wide-eyed and excited. Then the little girl put her hands to her mouth to muffle a giggle, and the two of them left.

It wasn’t long before audible murmurings were going on in the passage; then I heard the hushed whisper of the taxi-driver, who gently opened the door to see if I was awake. I assured him that I was.

‘We’ve got yer bath ready,’ he said. ‘It’s at the end of the landing.’ He had brought in a dressing-gown and some slippers and a towel. ‘What would you like for yer breakfast?’

‘Anything,’ I said apologetically.

‘Whatever you want – bacon and eggs, toast and coffee?’

‘Wonderful.’

They timed it perfectly. With the completion of my dressing, his wife came into the front room with a hot breakfast.

There was little furniture but a centre table, an armchair, and a couch; several framed photographs of family groups hung over the mantelpiece and upon the wall over the couch. While eating my breakfast alone I could hear a milling crowd of children and grown-ups outside the house.

‘They’re beginning to know you’re here,’ smiled his wife, bringing in the coffee. Then the taxi-driver entered, all excited. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s a big crowd outside and it’s getting bigger. If you let those kids get a peek at you, they’ll go away, otherwise the Press’ll get on to it and you’re sunk!’

‘By all means let them come in,’ I replied.

And so the children came in, giggling, and filed around the table while I sipped my coffee. The taxi-driver outside was saying: ‘All right, don’t get excited, line up, two at a time.’

A young woman entered the room, her face tense and serious. She looked searchingly at me, then burst into weeping. ‘No, it’s not him, I thought it was him,’ she sobbed.

It seems a friend had told her cryptically: ‘Who do you think is here? You’ll never believe it.’ Then she had been led into my presence, expecting to see her brother who was reported missing in the war.

I decided to return to the Ritz whether served with papers or not. However, I encountered no process-servers. But a telegram awaited me from my lawyer in California stating that everything had been settled and Mildred had applied for her divorce.

The next day the taxi-driver and his wife, all dressed up, came to visit me. He said the Press had been bothering him to write a feature story for the Sunday papers about my staying at his house. ‘But,’ he said resolutely, ‘I wouldn’t tell them a thing unless I had your permission.’

‘Go ahead,’ I said.

*

And now the gentlemen of First National came to me metaphorically with their hats in their hands. Said one of the vice-presidents, Mr Gordon, a large owner of theatres in the eastern states: ‘You want a million and a half dollars and we haven’t even seen the picture.’ I confessed they had something there, so a showing was arranged.

It was a grim evening. Twenty-five exhibitors of First National filed into the projection-room as though going to a coroner’s inquest, an aggregation of graceless men, sceptical and unsympathetic.

Then the picture started. The opening title was: ‘A picture with a smile and perhaps a tear.’ ‘Not bad,’ said Mr Gordon by way of showing his magnanimity.

Since the preview in Salt Lake City I had become a little more confident, but before the showing was half through that confidence had collapsed: where the picture had got screams at the preview there were only one or two sniggers. When it was over and the lights went up, there was a momentary silence. Then they began to stretch and blink and talk about other matters.

‘What are you doing tonight for dinner, Harry?’

‘I’m taking the wife to the Plaza, then we’re going on to the Ziegfeld show.’

‘It’s pretty good, I hear.’

‘Do you want to come along?’

‘No, I’m leaving New York tonight. I want to be back for my boy’s graduation.’

All through this chatter, my nerves were on razor edge. Eventually I snapped: ‘Well, what’s the verdict, gentlemen?’

Some stirred self-consciously, others looked down at the ground. Mr Gordon, who evidently was their mouthpiece, began slowly walking up and down. He was a thick-set, heavy man with a round, owlish face and thick-lensed glasses. ‘Well, Charlie,’ he said, ‘I’ll have to