FEW icons of the twentieth century seem so dated as Charlie Chaplin, at least in England, his homeland. His films are not seen on British television (apart from the occasional clip from Modern Times in social documentaries), and their theatrical showings seem to be confined to cinema clubs and retrospectives. Inquiry at video stores is met with a shake of the head and the reply that his feature films are in the catalogue, but . . . Of course the name is still a household word, and the image of the baggy-trousered tramp with cane and bowler presumably remains in the mind of everyone over forty, but it is the image of a relic.
It astonished me to learn that my grandchildren, aged from three to nine, had never heard of him. No hermits they, and well acquainted with Chaplin's contemporaries: they recognize Clark Gable, enjoy Laurel and Hardy, fall about in the presence of Tom and Jerry, have flown on Sabu's magic carpet, sit enthralled through the early Disneys, are so familiar with The Adventures of Robin Hood that they criticize Errol Flynn's table manners, and even quote from Olivier's Henry V.
All these people and films are from Chaplin's time -- though not, admittedly, from his heyday, except for Laurel and Hardy, whose appeal seems to be timeless -- but while they remain apparently evergreen, the little entertainer who was once the most famous man in the world is not even in the view of children of the 1990s.
The easy explanation is that he was a silent comedian, the greatest of all mime artists ("supermarionette," in Marcel Marceau's phrase), whose immense good fortune it was that he and his huge talents coincided with the infancy of the dazzling new medium of cinema and that his appeal was universal: not only the vast immigrant audiences of the United States but everyone everywhere could enjoy the mastery of a performer who needed no dialogue, exploited the moving picture as no one else has ever done, and was the first superstar -- until the coming of sound. He hated the talking picture as a despoiler of his art, "ruining the great beauty of silence." In time he would make brilliant use of sound in his own idiosyncratic way, but it was never his medium, and it would be easy to say that that, simply, was that.
But after reading this monumental biography, which deserves to be the last word on the subject, I suspect that there is another reason why his decline has been so complete with the public at large: he just isn't very funny. Of course it is a matter of taste and period, and I may be as the brutes that perish, but I submit that Chaplin stopped being amusing in the 1930s, when the euphoria of my parents' generation, who thought him the funniest thing ever seen on earth, was dying away.
I was born in 1925, the year of The Gold Rush, when the jaunty ragamuffin still o'erstrode the world. His antics must have aroused my infant admiration, for I once allowed myself to be decked out in tattered fancy dress as "The Kid" for a school concert, but though as an adolescent I quite enjoyed Modern Times and delighted in moments of The Great Dictator, it was in the knowledge that Chaplin was already old hat. Brilliantly clever, yes; an inspired inventor and innovator, a superb technician and a magnificent actor -- but, like Orson Welles's Falstaff, not hilarious.
The killing comparison is with Laurel and Hardy, who were much derided, in my youth, by the intelligentsia. (One critic actually confessed, in cold print, that he had despised Laurel and Hardy until he saw a man doubled up with laughter at one of their films; he realized that the man was Chaplin, and decided, then and there, that if Chaplin was amused, they must be funny, and he himself would laugh at them forthwith. There are such critics.) But whatever one's taste in comedy, the fact remains that Laurel and Hardy are still getting to the groundlings, and Chaplin is not. Can the reason be that the great partners were men whose sheer good-heartedness shines out through every frame of their films? They are innocents adrift in the world, inspiring an affection pretty close to love. Chaplin's tramp might have been excruciatingly funny to his generation, and pathetic, and capable of genuinely tugging the heartstrings (Einstein was not alone in weeping at City Lights), but he was no innocent. He inspired enormous sympathy, but I wonder if anyone loved him.
HOW far a performer's self invades his performance, how his nature, experience, upbringing, ambitions, and appetites influence his work, is the stuff of serious biography, and it has to be said that the Chaplin who emerges from Professor Lynn's book is a bit of a monster, on occasion tyrannical, cruel, selfish, tight-fisted, remarkably lecherous, and capable of treating colleagues and women abominably. On the other hand, he could be kind, patient, generous, and devoted, a delightful companion, and of a winning charm -- to that last I can testify personally. In the words of Marlon Brando: "As a human being he was a mixed bag, just like all of us."
He was indeed a complex creature, and it is not Professor Lynn's fault if, at the end of 544 meticulously researched and minutely detailed pages, one understands him little better than before: he was a human kaleidoscope. The author has done a first-rate job of fact-finding, clearing aside many myths, particularly about the London childhood, but it must have been a daunting task, for Chaplin's own versions of events differed widely, often for self-serving reasons but sometimes simply because he didn't know the truth himself. For example, was he Jewish? Apparently not, for although he felt he had what he called Semitic characteristics, he could find no formal evidence of Jewish ancestry. His uncertainty was compounded by doubts whether Charles Chaplin senior, a ne'er-do-well music-hall singer, was really his father.
Chaplin's beginnings were less Dickensian than he liked to make out. Born in the same week of 1889 as Hitler, he knew both poverty and comparative comfort; he was briefly in a workhouse and danced for pennies in the street, but the trauma of his childhood was the mental illness of his deeply loved and loving mother. Her memory was to echo in his films, as were the London back streets, Cruikshank's illustrations of Dickens, and the flower girls of Westminster Bridge.
Hannah Chaplin had been in show business, and although her son was variously employed by a barber, a doctor, a chandler, and a printer, he gravitated inevitably to the variety stage, first as one of "Eight Lancashire Lads" and later as a member of the famous Fred Karno company, with whom he toured the U.S., and so found his way to the infant film industry.
"It cawn't be. Is that possible? How extr'ordi'ry. Is it really me?" was his reaction to first seeing himself on film, according to Ben Conklin. The shy little Englishman who "liked to be lonely" was not popular with colleagues, especially directors; he knew nothing about films, but he saw his own potential with exquisite clarity, and he brought to film all his splendid music-hall training, his unquenchable energy, and the gifts of a born actor, handsome, graceful, and marvelously versatile.
Exactly when the tramp figure emerged is not clear, but once it did Chaplin's rise was meteoric. Suddenly he was internationally famous, the greatest entertainer of the age, mobbed in capital cities, adored by the public and admired by the great. Proust sported a Chaplin mustache, Shaw called him a genius, Nijinsky praised his dancing, world leaders were glad to receive him, and he was imitated by thousands, including the 11-year-old Laurence Olivier. It was upward all the way until the coming of sound and the unhappy decline -- the sex scandals, the left-wing activities, the exclusion from the U.S., exile in Switzerland -- followed by reconciliation with America, the knighthood, revered old age, and finally the bizarre grave robbery.
All this is recounted in detail, even to the plots of films and music-hall routines, and the result is surely The Compleat Chaplin. Of special interest to his admirers will be the parallels between Chaplin's life and his films, the incidents and influences which found their way into, and shaped, his work. Professor Lynn does this convincingly; only now and then does he seem to suggest that he knows Chaplin's mind better than Chaplin, as for example when he accuses the comedian of lying through his teeth when he expressed regret at not serving his country in the First World War. How does Lynn know?
My own memory of Chaplin is of a stout, twinkling old gentleman whom I didn't recognize at first when I was introduced to him in a London restaurant. He was kind and lively and radiating good humor, and having now read his biography I realize how lucky and privileged I was to meet the nicest of the many Chaplins who lived in that one person.
His fame may have faded, but when all the tributes to genius have been paid, and all the faults rehearsed, he remains one of the great men of the twentieth century for the excellent reason that he brought joy to so many millions. For a while, he made the whole world laugh.
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