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omy of means, rare for the period, Chaplin taught her to suggest a wide range of emotions.
Edna Purviance became Chaplin's leading lady without signing a contract. Over a period of nine years she played in thirty-five of his films. Away from the studio she and Chaplin became inseparable and the "gossip columnists" assumed imminent bridals. Even after Chaplin's sudden marriage to Mildred Harris in 1918, Edna continued to work for him, turning down offers for fifteen times the hundred dollars a week she received from the Chaplin Company. Chaplin rewarded her loyalty by making a dramatic actress of her in "A Woman of Paris" (1923). Today she is on his pension roll.
Cross-eyed Ben Turpin, an Essanay veteran, proved an excellent butt for Charlie. Leo White, specializing in the "excitable Frenchman," was also picked up at the Chicago studio and became a Chaplin "regular." White was a graduate from the musical-comedy stage (for several years he supported Fritzi Scheff in "Mile. Modiste"). The giant Bud Jamieson's only training had been amateur magic when Chaplin met him in San Francisco and added him to his troupe. Detectives later became Jamieson's specialty and he was to continue sleuthing through countless sound films.
Others in the company included Billy Armstrong, an English player from the Karno Company, who turned in his best performance in "The Bank," John Rand, a onetime circus performer, Marta Golden, who did character types, Paddy McGuire, Charles Insley, Carl Stockdale, Ernest Van Pelt, Charlotte Mineau, and James T. Kelley. A number of them were to be with Chaplin for a quarter of a century. Wesley Ruggles, now a prominent director, played small parts for Chaplin at Essanay. Rollie Totheroh, who began as Chaplin's cameraman in 1915, has continued with him up to "Monsieur Verdoux" 0947)