Charlie Chaplins Own Story

by Charlie Chaplin

  their noses at every step. It takes the very

  qualities that make success and turns them into

  stumbling blocks, and when we go tumbling

  over them the only thing to do is to get up and

  laugh at ourselves. If I had not been a pre-

  cocious, self-satisfied, egotistic boy, able to

  imagine unreal things and think them true, I

  could never have been a success on the stage,

  and if I had been none of those things I would

  not have thrown away the opportunity Mrs.

  Kendall gave me and been a failure. That is

  an Irish bull, but life must have its little

  joke, and there you are.

  162

  At the end of the three weeks my burns were

  sufficiently healed, and one day the nurse came

  and told me that I could leave the hospital.

  "Very well," I said, "but how? I have no

  clothes."

  "My goodness !" she said. "I — but you can't

  stay here, you know."

  "Will you lend me a sheet?" I asked. "I

  must wear something."

  "Oh, no; we couldn't do that," she replied,

  and went away, dazed by the problem. I lay

  there grinning to myself and ate my supper

  with good appetite. The next day the doctor

  came and looked at me and scratched his head

  and said testily that I was well enough to go

  and must go ; I must get some clothes.

  "How can I get clothes unless I go and earn

  them, and how can I earn them if I don't have

  any?" I asked him.

  "Isn't there any way to get this lad any

  clothes?" he said to the nurse. She said she

  did not know, there had never been a case

  just like it before. She would ask the super-

  intendent. She came back with the superin-

  tendent, and all three of them looked at me.

  The superintendent said firmly that I must

  go, that it was against the rules for me to

  stay any longer. I replied firmly that I

  would not go into the streets of London

  without any clothes. The superintendent

  shut her lips firmly and went away.

  163

  There was a great sensation in the hospital.

  My own garments had been destroyed in the

  explosion. The rules demanded that I go, but

  the rules provided no clothes for me; I would

  not go without clothes, and no one could feel

  my position unreasonable. The hospital swayed

  under the strain of the situation.

  The next afternoon a representative of the

  Society for the Relief of the Deserving Poor

  called to see me. She asked a dozen questions,

  wrote the answers in a book and went away.

  Another day passed. The nurses were pale

  with suspense. No clothes arrived.

  Wild rumors circulated that I was to be

  wrapped in a blanket and set out in the night,

  but they were contradicted by the fact that

  the rules did not provide for the loan of the

  blanket. Friendly patients urged me to be firm,

  kindly nurses told me not to worry, the super-

  intendent was reported baffled by the rules

  of the charitable organizations, which did

  not provide for clothing patients in the

  charity hospitals.

  Some natural resentment was felt against me

  for not fitting any rules, but the food came

  regularly and I ate and slept comfortably. On

  the fourth day, when it was felt that something

  desperate must be done, the situation suddenly

  cleared. Sidney arrived.

  The representative of the S. R. D. P. had

  called at my mother's address in the course of

  her investigations as to my worthiness and

  found him there. He was playing in an East

  End theater and very much worried about my

  disappearance. On hearing of my plight he

  had hastened to the rescue and cut short my

  life of ease and plenty under the unwilling

  shelter of the hospital rules. He brought me

  clothes, and I departed, to the disappointment

  of the other patients who felt it an anti-climax.

  ...

  Well fed and rested, and with the stimulus

  of Sidney's encouragement, I started again my

  search for a part. Much as I had hated the

  Strand at times, it was like coming home again

  to be tramping up and down the agents' stairs

  and exchanging boasts with the other actors

  while I waited in the outer offices. Usually I

  waited long hours, only to he sent away at last

  with the office boy's curt announcement that

  the agent would see no one, and when some-

  times I did penetrate into the inner offices I

  met always the same, "Nothing in sight.

  Things are very quiet just now. Drop in

  again." Then I came out, with my old jaunty

  air hiding my bitter disappointment and

  tramped down the stairs and along the Strand

  and up to another office, to wait again.

  165

  Mrs. Dobbs, my mother's landlady, moved to

  Sweetbay, and being fond of my mother and

  her sweet gentle ways, had consented to take

  her there for a moderate rate. Sidney and I

  lived together in a bed-sitting-room in Alfred

  Place on very scant fare and I hated to face

  him at night.

  "Well, any news?" he always asked, pleas-

  antly enough, but I dreaded the moment and

  having to say, "No, not yet." It hurt my pride

  terribly, and after several months of it the

  misery of that first moment of meeting Sidney

  drove me into hurting my pride even more in

  another way.

  "Look here, what's all this talk about play-

  ing lead and being with William Gillette worth

  to you?" an agent said to me one day. "You'll

  take anything you can jolly well get, no matter

  what it is, won't you? Well, Dailey, over at

  the Grand, is putting out a comedy next week

  with Casey's Circus. There's fifteen parts,

  none of 'em cast yet. Go and see what you

  can do."

  I came out of his office in an agony of inde-

  cision, for while it was true that I had said

  to myself many times that I would take any

  part I could get, I had never imagined myself

  acting in Casey's Circus. All the pride that

  had survived those months of discouragement

  writhed at the idea — I who had been a hit in

  a West End theater acting a low vulgar

  comedy in dirty fourth-rate houses — why,

  it was not so good a chance as my part in

  Rags to Riches! I said savagely that I

  would not do it. Then I thought of Sidney

  and bit my lips and hesitated.

  In the end, burning with shame and resentment,

  I went to see Dailey. At least a hundred third-

  rate actors packed the stairs to his office

  and more were blocking the street and sitting

  on the curbs before his door opened. I was

  crushed in the crowd of them, smothered by

  rank perfume and the close thick air of the

  dirty stairs, and I hated myself and the situa-

  tion
more every minute of the three hours I

  waited there, but I stayed, half hoping he

  would not give me a part. At least I could

  feel then that I had done all I could.

  ...

  At last my turn came. I straightened my hat,

  squared my shoulders and marched in, determined

  to be very haughty and dignified. Mr. Dailey,

  a fat red-faced man, with his waistcoat un-

  buttoned, sat by a desk chewing a big cigar.

  ...

  "Mr. Dailey," I said, "I ____ " I don't know

  how it happened. My foot slipped. I tried

  to straighten up, slipped again, fell on all

  fours over a chair, which fell over on me,

  and sat up on the floor with the chair in

  my lap.

  " ______ want a part," I finished, furious.

  ...

  Mr. Dailey howled and laughed and choked,

  and held his sides and laughed again and

  choked, purple in the face.

  "You'll do," he said at last. "Great entrance !

  Great! Ten shillings a week and railway

  fares; what do you say to that, my lad?"

  "I won't take it," I retorted.

  168

  CHAPTER XXII

  In which I attempt to be serious and am funny

  instead; seize the opportunity to get a raise

  in pay ; and again consider coming to America.

  ...

  MR. DAILEY would not let me go, but, still

  wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, began

  shilling by shilling to raise his offer. My

  entirely unintentional comedy entrance had

  pleased him mightily, and indeed, as soon as

  I saw he took it as a deliberate effort on my

  part, I began to be not a little proud of it

  myself. It was not every one, I said to myself,

  who could fall over a chair so comically as

  that!

  Cheered and emboldened by this reflection,

  I drove a shrewd bargain, and at last, per-

  suaded by the offer of a pound a week and a

  long engagement if I could keep on being

  funny, I consented to become a member of

  Casey's Circus, and returned whistling to our

  lodgings, able to face Sidney with some degree

  of pride because I had an engagement at last.

  170

  We began rehearsals next day in a very dirty

  dark room over a public house — fifteen

  ragged, hungry-looking, sallow-faced boys

  desperately being funny under the direction

  of a fat greasy-looking manager who smelled

  strongly of ale. It was difficult work for

  me at first. Being funny is at best a hard

  job, and being funny in those conditions,

  which I heartily detested, seemed at first

  almost impossible. More than once, when the

  manager swore at me more than usual, I felt

  like throwing the whole thing up and would

  have done so but for the dread of going back

  to the endless tramping up and down the

  Strand and being a burden on Sidney.

  Casey's Circus was putting on that season a

  burlesque of persons in the public eye, and I

  was cast for the part of Doctor Body, a patent-

  medicine faker, who was drawing big crowds

  on the London street corners and selling a

  specific for all the ills of man and beast at

  a shilling the bottle. Watching him one after-

  noon, I was seized with a great idea. I would

  let the manager rehearse me all he jolly well

  liked, but when the opening night came I

  would play Doctor Body as he really was — I

  would put on such a marvelous character de-

  lineation that even the lowest music-hall

  audience would recognize it as great acting and

  I would be rescued by some good manager and

  brought back to a West End theater.

  171

  The idea grew upon me. Despising with all my

  heart the cheap, clap-trap burlesque which the

  manager tried to drill into me, I paid only

  enough attention to it to get through rehear-

  sals somehow, hurrying out afterward to watch

  Doctor Body and to practise before the mirror

  in our lodgings my own idea of the part. I

  felt that I did it well and thrilled with

  pride at the thought of playing it soon with

  the eye of a great manager upon me.

  The night of the opening came and I hurried

  to the dirty makeshift dressing-room in a

  cheap East End music-hall with all the sensa-

  tions of a boy committing his first burglary.

  I must manage to make up as the real Doctor

  Body and to get on the stage before I was

  caught. Once on the stage, without the bur-

  lesque make-up which I was supposed to wear,

  I knew I could make the part go. I painted

  my face stealthily among the uproar and

  quarrels of the other fourteen boys, who were

  all in the same dressing-room fighting over

  the mirrors and hurling epithets and make-up

  boxes at one another.

  172

  The air tingled with excitement. The dis-

  tracted manager, thrusting his head in at the

  door, cried with oaths that Casey himself was

  in front and he'd stand for no nonsense. We

  could hear him rushing away, swearing at the

  scene shifters, who had made some error in

  placing the set. The audience was in bad

  humor; we could faintly hear it hooting and

  whistling. It had thrown rotten fruit at the

  act preceding ours. In the confusion I man-

  aged to make up and to get into my clothes,

  troubled by the size of the high hat I was to

  wear, which came down over my ears. I stuffed

  it with paper to keep it at the proper angle on

  my head, and trembling with nervousness, but

  sure of myself when I should get on the stage,

  I stole out of the dressing-room and stationed

  myself in the darkest part of the wings.

  The boy who appeared first was having a bad

  time of it, missing his cues and being

  hissed and hooted by the audience. The man-

  ager rushed up to me, caught sight of my

  make-up and stopped aghast.

  173

  " 'Ere, you can't go on like that!" he said

  in a furious whisper, catching my arm.

  "Let me alone; I know what I'm doing!" I cried

  angrily, wrenching myself from him. My great

  plan was not to be spoiled now at the last

  minute. The manager reached for me again,

  purple with wrath, but, quick as an eel, I

  ducked under his arm, seized the cane I was to

  carry and rushed on to the stage half a minute

  too soon.

  Once in the glare of the footlights I dropped

  into the part, determined to play it, play it

  well, and hold the audience. The other boy,

  whose part I had spoiled, confused by my un-

  expected appearance, stammered in his lines

  and fell back. I advanced slowly, impressively,

  feeling the gaze of the crowd, and, with a care-

  fully studied gesture, hung my cane — I held

  it by the wrong end ! Instead of hanging on

  my arm, as I expected, it clattered on the s
tage.

  Startled, I stooped to pick it up, and my high

  silk hat fell from my head. I grasped it, put

  it on quickly, and, paper wadding falling out,

  I found my whole head buried in its black

  depths.

  A great burst of laughter came from the

  audience. "When, pushing the hat back, I went

  desperately on with my serious lines, the

  crowd roared, held its sides, shrieked with

  mirth till it gasped. The more serious I was,

  the funnier it struck the audience. I came

  off at last, pursued by howls of laughter and

  wild applause, which called me back again. I

  had made the hit of the evening.

  174

  "That was a good bit of business, my lad,"

  Mr. Casey himself said, coming behind the

  scenes and meeting me in the wings when

  finally the audience let me leave the stage

  the second time. "Your idea?"

  "Oh, certainly," I replied airily. "Not bad,

  I flatter myself — er — but of course not what

  I might do at that." And, seizing the auspicious

  moment, I demanded a raise to two pounds a week

  and got it.

  The next week I was headlined as "Charles

  Chaplin, the funniest actor in London," and

  Casey's Circus packed the house wherever it

  was played. I had stumbled on the secret of

  being funny — unexpectedly. An idea, going

  in one direction, meets an opposite idea sud-

  denly. "Ha! Ha!" you shriek. It works every

  time.

  175

  I walk on to the stage, serious, dignified,

  solemn, pause before an easy chair, spread my

  coat-tails with an elegant gesture — and sit

  on the cat. Nothing funny about it, really,

  especially if you consider the feelings of

  the cat. But you laugh. You laugh because it

  is unexpected. Those little nervous shocks make

  you laugh; you can't help it. Peeling onions

  makes you weep, and seeing a fat man carrying

  a custard pie slip and sit down on it makes you

  laugh.

  In the two years I was with Casey's Circus I

  gradually gave up my idea of playing great

  parts on the dramatic stage. I grew to like

  the comedy work, to enjoy hearing the bursts

  of laughter from the audience, and getting the

  crowd in good humor and keeping it so was a

  nightly frolic for me. Then, too, by degrees

  all my old self-confidence and pride came back,

  with the difference, indeed, that I did not

  take them too seriously, as before, but merely

  felt them like a pleasant inner warmth as I

  walked on the Strand and saw the envious looks