Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

90 Chaplin — the Genius The Raines family, aristocrats of Kentucky, blended with the descendants of the early Spaniards who had received immense grants of land from a grateful king. Back in the 70s, their rancho was near Chino, California. Following the custom of the time they had also a town house near the old plaza church in Los Angeles. They sent their servants to church on alternate Sundays, two hundred at a time, because there was insufficient space for the full retinue of four hundred assembled at Chaplin has often been pictured as a famous conquerer of feminine hearts. or other as cherishing a reciprocal affection for Chaplin, most have been talented women : Claire Windsor, Edna Purviance, Pola Negri — all women of vivid personalities and attainments. On the other hand, the two marriages of the comedian have been with young women, almost schoolgirls in years and experience. His unhappy marriage with Mildred Harris came to an abrupt end. And now he is married to Lita Grey, and is the father of a son. The Chaplin-Grey romance is one that could happen nowhere except in Hollywood — where the unusual is regular. Five years ago, a dark-haired child with starry eyes and the cream-velvet skin of a budding rose, was playing in the sequestered streets of that village. Aged twelve, Lollita Louisa McMurray gave evidences of being about to blossom into that early pulchritude typical of the Spanish beauty. Although her father's name was McMurray, behind her an intricate web connected this modern child, by blood and marriage, with those early times when the dons ruled in California — when these courtly gentlemen, in black velvet suits with silver buttons, riding horses on which the saddles had flowers woven in silver and gold, and on which silver bridles jingled, filled the places in the public life of Los Angeles now occupied by brusque men in horn-rimmed glasses and fuzzy fedoras, who carry brief cases crammed with blue prints of new subdivisions. The little girl's grandmother had been Louisa S. Carrillo before she married William E. Currv. She was a half sister of Fanny V. Raines, the same that was wed, in a burst of social splendor back in the '80s, to Henry G. Gage, afterward governor of California. The family ramifications take in the wealthy and exalted Lugos, the celebrated Chalmers Scott Greys, and the immortal line of Mrs. Bandini Baker, the Mrs. John Jacob Astor of Southern California. once. While Lollita, aged twelve, was playing in the sequestered Hollywood streets one day, nearly five years ago, a small, birdlike person came strolling by. 'Whose little girl are you?" he asked, pleasantly enough. "I live with fny mother, my Grandmother, and my Grandfather Curry, sir," replied the girl. "Please take me to them," said Charles Spencer Chaplin, for it was he. Rich, celebrated, acclaimed a genius, received with pride by titled members of the tribe of London, where he used to play before Kensington Cross, received with equal delight by all and sundry of the fairer and weaker sex whom he deigned to favor — this was the Charlie Chaplin who stood before Grandfather Curry, holding the hand of little Lollita and offering a year's contract for her to work in "The Kid." They did not like to let the child go. But Chaplin was insistent. And he was Chaplin. Lita Grey she was rechristened for screen purposes — the distinguished name of her relatives by marriage. The child actress worked for a year in the picture that made Jackie Coogan famous. Then she went back to school with the hope of returning to the screen after completing as much education as was deemed necessary. In the spring of 1924, she was about to leave town on a trip with her family. She went around to say goodby to Mr. Chaplin. She had just turned "sixteen— the early promise of precocious beauty was bursting ripe. Her former employer regarded her with even more interest than he had displayed previously. "I need you for my leading lady in the Alaskan picture I am going to make," said Charles Spencer Chaplin, decisively. Lita worked in the picture as leading lady but she never had the satisfaction of seeing herself on the screen. The scenes in which she appeared were remade with another in the principal role. If Charlie Chaplin has an inferiority complex it must surely be satisfied by now. The cockney urchin, nursing in his slender body the latent genius to make the world weep as it laughs — this cockney urchin, grown to the fullest stature of celebrity, can take as his bride — and favor in the taking — the daughter of the aristocracy of Kentucky and old Spain. But it is not likelv that Chaplin has given much thought to this phase of his achievement. He is thirtysix now and his wife is seventeen. He is primarily a genius — not a husband. His mind is already awhirl with new schemes. He would become an impresario, a theater owner, master of a new school of the theater in the land which he has chosen as his field of endeavor. Such a step is logical for Charley. Because, as Gilbert Seldes points out, he is above and beyond the actor.