The New Movie Magazine (Jan-Sep 1935)

too. He made her laugh with Arthur. He was so happy, was Charlie, so gay and kind and thoughtful. Suddenly the Kelly sisters and Arthur left England for the Continent. For two long years Charlie did not see them. Then one day as he was walking along Piccadilly, wondering whether to accept an offer to go to America with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company, he heard his name called from the depths of a large limousine. "Hetty!" "Charlie! It is good to see you again." All the ache of absent years fell from him and his blood warmed as he looked at her. She was beautiful. More beautiful even than he remembered. They rode and talked. The limousine? Her expensive clothes? She laughed at his timorous question. No, she wasn't married; but sister was — to an American millionaire. He told her he was going to America, to the land of fulfilled hopes, the land of realized dreams. "I'll see you in America," she said. "Yes?" Charlie struggled to appear casual, was too successful. She bit her lip and the deep brown eyes looked into his. In a moment the gay of two years was bridged. "I — I mean it, Charlie." Her voice was sincere as she laid her hand upon his. "I've thought often — a great deal — of you these past months." CHARLIE'S heart sang a glad song. Hetty had thought of him ! A great deal! Often! Perhaps ... she might even ... he once thought she did . . . well, maybe not love, but awfully close to it ... in time . . . everything was possible. He glowed and expanded during that evening in her apartment. She showed so plainly that she liked him. Liked him a lot. True he was a clown, a music-hall comedian, but he was also a man and she a woman. And when a man cries to woman and woman to man, all else, all stations in life, become forgotten. Charlie abandoned himself to the thrills of a man in love. They enveloped him and provoked a mood of tenderness surpassing any he had ever experienced. He was going to ask Hetty to marry him, to come as his wife to America. Forever and a day to be side by side, meeting with laughs the turns of life. The full vision of the years of happiness — together — stretching before them overwhelmed him. This, the mere anticipation, was bliss beyond his highest hopes. "Hetty. . . ." His eyes must have told her what was in his heart. She smiled, and the smile was for him alone. "Yes, Charlie." "Hetty, dear. I . . ." This was the moment when the gates of heaven were to be thrown wide to admit two souls to paradise. The door opened and Arthur burst into the room. "Charlie ! Do the monkey in the zoo for me? Will you? Be a monkey in the zoo after fleas?" A monkey in the zoo after fleas! THE magic moment passed. His tenderness was enclosed in a shell of disappointment more bitter than gall. He could not ask her, now, he had to wait. She knew what he had been about to say. She could recreate that moment if she wished before he left. But perhaps she, too, felt that Fate had suddenly confronted them with an edict more potent than human desire. She, too, made no effort to recapture the tenderness that had been theirs when Arthur interrupted them. Charlie Chaplin was a monkey in the zoo after fleas. Arthur guffawed and cheered the impersonation. Hetty smiled as she looked from one to the other. Charlie's heart was breaking. Telling his story in Leon Gordon's Ambassador Hotel studio as the stars dimmed before the coming streaks of dawn, Charlie Chaplin made but one mention of his first years in America. "Hetty promised to write to me — and did," he said. "I did not answer the letter." Time and again he sat down to that which he wanted above all things to do — pour forth his deepest emotions to the girl he loved. But each time he tore the resulting notes to shreds and hurled them to the floor. He could not express all he felt upon the cold, impersonal paper. The words he sought did not come to him and those that did were weak and insipid. One might as well describe a crow with an eagle in mind. Charlie's thoughts soared to the heights, his ability to convey them through words remained earthbound. futile. His very handwriting, thanks to no schooling, was a scrawl about which he was sensitive. It seemed to bear out, to prove in the most elemental way, what Hetty sister had said; that he was unworthy of Hetty. "You will be sorry you do not want me to marry Hetty," Charlie had told that sister before leaving England. "One day I am going to be a great man and rich." Was he in that moment gifted with foresight? Or was it merely the fearful boasting, the attempt to convince self against odds, of a boy denied his love? Betty's sister smiled and agreed with him, but insisted Hetty was destined for richer things than he could give her. After some months in America Charlie was still a vaudeville comedian. He was not yet a rich man nor great. He had not yet proved, even to himself, his worthiness. He had conquered no worlds, had no glowing tales to report. He did not hear from Hetty again after that first unanswered letter. HTHEN Charlie Chaplin came to Hol*• lywood. We know he started making two-reel pictures, his large, unwieldly shoes, baggy pants, cane, mustache and bowler hat, his comical antics sweeping the country into gales of laughter and forgetfulness. We know children skidded around corners on one foot, as he did. to make their playmates laugh, as he did. We know that wealth and fame came to him in an unending stream. We know he was, as he promised he would be, a great man and rich. And we know he was a lonely man. Like the characters in his pictures, who came from nowhere and go nowhere, who are always alone, apart, even in the midst of crowds. He knew many people, yes. And women. There began the saga of his loves which has so puzzled Hollywood and has on occasion brought him criticism. But even as the strain of pathos under all his comedy was apparent, so too the loneliness could be seen even as he glided about a dance floor with a beautiful woman in his arms. Charlie Chaplin was living only an inch deep, his fun was surface fun, his gaiety superficial; the core of him remained untouched, harboring his dream. This lowly English music-hall comedian rose in the film world until he was offered a million-dollar contract. It was a stupendous sum. No entertainer in history had been offered that kind of money. It was news. It was a big thing, a milestone that should be passed and recorded in an impressive way. Would Charlie take the contract? He (Please turn to page 64) WITH A FEW STIRS "reject Aiaifownaue! EAGie BRAND NVA Ea^e Brand Sweetened $^&s**» ?< cup ka£le , -\'A\\c Vpw erains ^*j v/ „„ti vinegar U1 ^,1 Gutter _ u^ter • ButB whcr forms of mi* MAGIC! PRCC! World's most amazing Cook Book! 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