Charlie Chaplin (1951)

$10,000 a week from Mutual 63 Purviance, supplementing her natural endowments of beauty and charm with expressiveness and style. They continued to be the best of friends. Around Hollywood they would be seen arm in arm; and inevitably their names were linked. Edna, the eternal mother type, ministered to Chaplin's needs, was playful when he was in the mood, consolatory when he was depressed. She was his adviser for many years. Her phlegmatic temperament remained unruffled by his wildest moods. She is said to have been able to do more with him than any other girl. Those who knew them thought she would have made him an ideal mate; but their close and serene companionship failed to reach that consummation. More troubled loves were to come to Chaplin. 1916-1917 saw the steady rise of Chaplin's fame. Worldfamous figures visited his studios, musicians, opera stars, and stage celebrities, among them Paderewski, Leopold Godowsky, Nellie Melba, and Harry Lauder. Numbers of intellectuals, following the lead of Mrs. Fiske, began writing serious appreciations of his art. The war, too, according to some, boosted his popularity. His pictures, old and new, did much to cheer the British and French at the battle lines and in the hospitals, and on the home front as well. An anecdote, illustrating the international spread of his fame among fellow artists, is told by Dorothy Gish, who during her "black wig" period (1918-1921), was often called the female Chaplin. She accompanied Chaplin to the Nijinski ballet when it visited Los Angeles, in 1916. Catching sight of Chaplin in the audience the dancers stopped the show, invited him backstage, and made the audience wait a half hour, while each member of the company, in turn, embraced him. Later the entire troupe visited him at the studio during the showing of "Easy Street." Such adulation was enough to turn any