Charlie Chaplin (1951)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

trip around the world; Paulette Goddard 243 sieges by reporters whom Chaplin at first refused to see. Finally, persuaded by Carl Robinson, he gave the demanded press interview. There were showers of letters and invitations. The first of a continuous procession of receptions was a dinner at Sir Philip Sassoon's house in Park Lane. There followed a luncheon at Cliveden, the famous salon-home of Lady Astor, the former Nancy Langhorne of Virginia and then a member of the House of Commons. Bernard Shaw was a fellow guest. Chaplin diffidently broached the subject of art and propaganda, relieved that Shaw did not take it up. Shaw had been quoted as saying that all art should be propaganda, and Chaplin, at that time at least, considered "the object of art is to intensify feeling, color, sound — if object it has — for this gives a fuller range to the artist in expressing life." But Chaplin did not feel equal to a controversy with Shaw. Politics from all angles and by members of all parties was discussed at Cliveden. After visiting his old haunts in London, Chaplin accepted an invitation from Alistair MacDonald, whom he had met in California, to meet his father, Ramsay MacDonald, then Prime Minister, at Chequers, his country home. After mentioning the changes he had observed in England since 1921, Chaplin tried to draw the Prime Minister into a political discussion, which the latter evaded. In this evasion and in other ways, MacDonald failed to impress Chaplin favorably. The following day, after a lunch at the House of Commons, Sir Philip Sassoon took him to tea with Lloyd George, who made a better impression. Lloyd George was patient and indulgent with the comedian's suggested projects for relief of the unemployed and London slum clearance. Later, at Cliveden, Chaplin made a speech proposing solutions for the depression. He touched on world trade, abolition of the gold standard, a reduction of working time, minimum wages, etc. His talk was received