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Lita Grey — second marriage and divorce 201
ing to friends on the train, "Well, boys, this is better than the penitentiary but it won't last" — which Chaplin denied.
History repeated itself. The actor again found himself with a wife with whom he was completely incompatible. In addition, Lita's mother, on the grounds that Lita was still a child and could not manage, moved in with them and took over the household. Chaplin fled the house, leaving Lita to revel in her position as mistress of the Beverly Hills mansion, which became the stamping ground of the clan and their friends.
It was given out to the press that Lita Grey had retired as leading lady of "The Gold Rush" because she preferred to devote all her time to being Mrs. Chaplin. Approaching motherhood may have had something to do with it; but still more was Chaplin's resolve to return Lita to oblivion and frustrate his ambitious mother-in-law. This merely turned the mother's drive toward a new goal — to make the comedian pay for ruining her daughter's career. She was to make him pay plenty!
There was one humorous side to the marriage. Lita, being only sixteen, the Los Angeles school system forced her to continue her education. Tutors were hired and the mistress of the forty-room mansion and an army of servants made a desperate effort to complete the required schooling.
A son — Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr. — was born June 28, 1925. An attempt to keep the event out of the papers proved futile. Just two days after nine months later on March 30, 1926, a second son was born, named Sydney Earle Chaplin after Charles' brother, who by now had achieved success on his own in "Charley's Aunt" and other pictures. The spelling with the two "y's" caused another quarrel between the couple. Lita believed it more "chic."
For sympathy and escape Chaplin often went to Marion