My Autobiography Charles Chaplin (best books to read ever TXT) 📖

At this time I saw a great deal of Hearst and Marion as I enjoyed the extravagant life they lived, and having an open invitation to spend every week-end at Marion’s beach-house I often took advantage of it, especially as Doug and Mary were in Europe. One morning, at breakfast, with several others, Marion asked my advice about her script, but what I said was not to W.R.’s liking. The theme of the story was feminism, and I mentioned that women chose their men and that men had little to do about it.

W.R. thought otherwise. ‘Oh, no,’ said he, ‘it is always the man who makes the choice.’

‘We think we do,’ I replied, ‘but some little damsel points her finger at you and says: “I’ll take that one” and you’re taken.’

‘You’re entirely wrong,’ said Hearst confidently.

‘The trouble is,’ I went on, ‘their technique is so well hidden that we are made to believe we do the choosing.’

Hearst suddenly slammed the table with the palm of his hand, making all the breakfast things jump. ‘If I say a thing is white, you say it’s black!’ he shouted.

I believed I paled slightly. The butler happened to be serving my coffee. I looked up and said: ‘Will you please have someone pack my things and order me a taxi?’ Then without a word I got up and went into the ballroom and began strutting up and down, speechless with rage. A moment later Marion appeared. ‘What’s wrong, Charlie?’

My voice quivered. ‘No man can shout at me like that. Who does he think he is? Nero? Napoleon?’

Without answering she turned and hurriedly left the room. A moment later W.R. appeared, pretending nothing had happened. ‘What’s the matter, Charlie?’

‘I am not used to being shouted at, especially when I am a guest in the house. So I’m leaving. I –’ My voice disappeared into my throat and I could not finish my sentence.

W.R. thought a moment, then he too began pacing the floor. ‘Let’s talk it over,’ he said, his voice also tremulous.

I followed him into the hall to a recess where there was an antique Chippendale double chair. Hearst was six foot four and quite large. He sat in it and pointed to what space was left. ‘Sit down, Charlie, and we’ll talk it over.’ I sat beside him, but it was a tight squeeze. Without a word he suddenly extended his hand which, although unable to move in my seat, I managed to shake. Then he began to explain, his voice still tremulous. ‘You see, Charlie, I really don’t want Marion to do this script – and she respects your opinion. And when you approved of it – well, that’s probably why I was a little short with you.’

Immediately I melted and was all placating, insisting that it was all my fault; as a final gesture we managed to shake hands again, then started to rise, but found ourselves wedged in the Chippendale, which began to creak alarmingly. After several efforts, we eventually released ourselves with the chair intact.

It appears that after Marion left me she had gone straight to Hearst and upbraided him for being so rude and told him to go and apologize. Marion knew when to choose her moment and when to keep silent, as she sometimes did. ‘In his ugly mood,’ said Marion, ‘the storm comes up like th-th-thunder.’

Marion was gay and charming; and when W.R.’s business called him to New York, she would gather all her friends at her house in Beverly Hills (this was before the beach-house was built), and we would have parties and play charades into the small hours. Then Rudolph Valentino would reciprocate at his house and I would do the same at mine. Sometimes we hired a public omnibus and stacked it with victuals and hired a concertina-player, and ten or twenty of us would go to Malibu Beach, where we built a bonfire and had midnight picnics and caught grunnion.

Invariably Louella Parsons, the Hearst columnist, would come along, escorted by Harry Crocker, who eventually became one of my assistant directors. After such expeditions we would not get home until four or five in the morning. Marion would say to Louella: ‘If W.R. hears about this, one of us is going to lose his job, an-an-and it won’t be me.’

During our merry dinner party at Marion’s house, W.R. telephoned from New York. When Marion returned from the phone she was furious. ‘Can you imagine?’ she said indignantly. ‘W.R. has had me watched!’

Over the phone Hearst read her a detective’s report of what she had been doing since he had been away, saying that she had been seen leaving subject A’s house at four in the morning and subject B’s house at five, and so forth. She told me later that he was returning immediately to Los Angeles to settle up all his affairs with her and that they would part. Of course Marion was indignant, because she had done nothing but enjoy herself among friends. The detective’s report was true in effect, but distorted to give the wrong impression. At Kansas City W.R. sent a wire: ‘I have changed my mind and will not return to California because I cannot face going back to those places where I have had so much happiness in the past, so I am returning to New York’. But soon after he sent another wire saying that he was arriving in Los Angeles.

It was a tense moment for all concerned when W.R. returned. However, Marion’s interview with him had a salutary effect which resulted in an enormous banquet to welcome W.R. back to Beverly Hills. Marion built a temporary dining-room on to her rented house to seat one hundred and sixty guests. It was completed in two days – decorated, electrically lit, including the building of a dance floor. Marion had only to rub the magic lamp and it was done. That evening she appeared with a new $75,000 emerald ring – a present from