Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

26 Adrienne Truex ended her career as an extra when she came East to play a leading role in "Dance Magic. " M anhattan Intimate glimpses of movie folk with all the news of their pro By Aileen There is bitterness and the stamp of an indomitable will which knows no law, and brooks no interference of right or wrong. There is the intolerance of a man who calls himself — himself alone — master; who feels he has earned that right because he has suffered, deeply, savagely, and now sees only the futility of it all. But a genuine love of art and literature, and a quick perception of the beautiful, share the despot's throne. Chaplin may be harassed by his own shortcomings, but he finds solace in the outpourings of other groping souls. In lonely hours he has taught himself, by means of a phonograph, haunting, old melodies of the Arabs and Turks. Recently, he sang some of these songs to a gathering of musicians who, one and all, felt the poignant beauty of these outpourings of the little comedian with the big shoes and the shuffling feet. Then, suddenly, he becomes the quipster. He's laughing at life, though it has hurt him — and still hurts him. The poverty, the struggle, the beauty that he senses, but misses, all have hurt him, and he has got to laugh, or go mad. So he bursts into a screamingly funny parody of Italian, French, and Spanish operatic arias, and his little audience, so near tears a few moments ago, is in fits of laughter. The entertainment over, he is chatting volubly of current affairs, proving himself to be a well-informed young man on all the topics of SOLITARY, aloof, unrecognized, Charles Spencer Chaplin occupied box No. 13 at the opening of the circus. He is to be seen lunching alone in out-of-the-way restaurants, strolling by himself on Fifth Avenue — a silent, introspective man whose face brightens when a friend strikes a responsive chord. There is something very hard, yet at the same time yielding, about the little comedian with the gloomy face and sad eyes, but it is only the yielding of an artist's spirit in a man wrapped up in his own world — his own kingdom, complete within itself, in which Chaplin himself reigns supreme, and all ye who enter there must have a special cachet. It is a kingdom where you find much that is fine and noble, much that is unworthy — in which there is no great struggle of might against right, but where the despotic impulses of the czarist regime sway each cause. One discerns in Chaplin's face keen and penetrating intelligence and a melancholy interest in human affairs, banished fitfully by the desire to make people laugh. Charles Chaplin attended the opening of the circus, but was not recognized. Photo by Apeda ' the day. And then again that silence, that veil of introspective melancholy descends upon him, and quietly he gets his little cane and, leaving the merry throng behind him, slips into the night. The End of "Jack Gilbert." They sought the motive, but could find none. Seemingly he had everything that life could offer. Yet one bright morning, when all the world was gay, he leaped from the roof of his hotel, and the records read, "Jack Gilbert, suicide." There was weeping and wailing and lamenting in the hotel corridors, for Jack had many friends who loved him. A vagabond at heart, he had wandered over the wide world, and his brown eyes, tender and true, had won him stanch admirers. H. P. Somerville, with whom he had lodged, was inconsolable over the loss.