Thursday, April 29, 1999
women and minorities in film
Dan Boujoulian
Take Home Questions
COM 373
2) Overview of representation of blacks and gays from 1930 and beyond:
In the 1930s and even into the 1940s, Hollywood sought to ìbe awfully careful that the Negroes come out on the right side of the ledger.î [Cripps] This came from David O. Selznick during the pre-production process of Gone With The Wind (1939.) One technique, as used in Gone With The Wind was to factor blacks almost completely out of the equation. Their intentions were noble enough, Selznick did not want to have the KKK element of the novel portrayed in the film at all, to give it a ìharmonious monochrome movie culture that diluted cultural density and muted political debate.î [Cripps] In doing so, it robbed slavery of itís horrors, while giving popular culture a look into the Southern ìlost cause.î
Enough about the blacks absent from film, there are plenty of whom did entertain us. Blacks on film were primarily comical or used as gimmicks, Bill ìBojanglesî Robinson danced with Shirley Temple in The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel (both 1935.) The critic Donald Bogle, provides use with the insight that in many 1930s movies black servants and subordinates are used as the source of comfort and sympathy for an abandoned master or mistress. [Guerrero] Not until Sidney Poitier came along would a black be taken seriously, and not asked to dance or over-emphasize stereotypes. Sidney was unlike any other, the image of blacks in film and TV were still mostly stereotypical.
Gays have always been used, much like blacks, as a source of comedy. Iíve seen plenty of gags and ìhumorousî situations where the entire ìfunnyî part of the bit is simply that the person is gay. When Hollywood became so anal about itís on-screen portrayals, gays were all but eliminated. Clever directors could still utilize gay characters if they could hide them from the censors. Gays in the audiences picked up on this right away. Gays would widely resurface later in the 60s as an underground movement in film.
The momentum of this movement was over by 1968. The attitudes toward mass culture, and sexual, social, and political protest that converged in the underground had dissolved, but each of these components survived separately in other arenas of discourse. [Suarez] Gays began to branch off into different strains of gay culture, social realism/activism, spirituality, drag and punk. [Greyson] Parts of this would reach maintstream entertainment through the glamour punk scene of the 70s and 80s.
The NAACP kept continuous pressure on the film industry to upgrade the cinematic image of blacks and to employ more blacks in all capacities within the film industry. [Guerrero] Since the mid-60s, blacks found a sharpened perspective on American racism and became more organized and empowered by a wide resurgence of black nationalism. Enter Shaft in 1971, which spawned a whole movement of look-a-likes. Superfly (1972) and Black Caesar (1973) had themes which followed the plights of black men overcoming white oppression.
In the late 80s Hollywood found Spike Lee. Spike Lee depicts the plight of black people in every film. Leeís films can be enjoyed by a range of individuals from all sorts of backgrounds. They are humorous, they are serious, they are always conveying a message that you take with you once you leave the theatre.
Spike Lee is not alone in this day and age, Black film and television has come a long way from the 30s, when characters were dry and the writing was lacking. Depth entered the frame about the same time as Sidney Poitier, it may have taken the rest of the film community 40 years to catch up to him, but they arenít running out of steam anytime soon.
3) These two groups were represented these ways because whites, who were in power, were only comfortable with on-screen stereotypes. They didnít want depth. Eventually, it was beyond their control and the images of these groups would not take a backseat to mainstream corporate ideas of who should be portrayed in films. Gay men want to see gay men on the screen. Black men want to see black men on the screen, etc.
4) The future of black cinema could go anywhere. I am willing to bet the hip-hop mentality of today will carry into the future and spawn a whole new way of looking at film and television. The Fresh Prince, Will Smith, has a new film coming outÖ itís an action film, which comes out on the first weekend of July. Does that ring a bell? Can you say mainstream blockbuster?
Underground films had gay protagonists, but gays were never in the mainstream until, perhaps, Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. Now theyíre all over the place, at Sundance, Cannes, even at your local theatre, hugging, kissing and living on the screen, just like they should be in the rest of society, free from the hindrance of heterosexual, white oppression. Which will evolve first? Society or film? I think there will be a few high-grossing gay and black orientated films in the future, but we wonít see an explosion of them until society realizes and accepts that everyone isnít just white and heterosexual.
Bibliography
Cripps, Thomas, Making Movies Black, Oxford Press, 1993
Guerroro, Ed, Framing Blackness, Temple University Press, 1993
Greyson, John, Queer Looks, Routledge Press, 1993
Suarez, Juan, Bike Boys, Drag Queens and Superstars, Indiana University Press, 1996
Take Home Questions
COM 373
2) Overview of representation of blacks and gays from 1930 and beyond:
In the 1930s and even into the 1940s, Hollywood sought to ìbe awfully careful that the Negroes come out on the right side of the ledger.î [Cripps] This came from David O. Selznick during the pre-production process of Gone With The Wind (1939.) One technique, as used in Gone With The Wind was to factor blacks almost completely out of the equation. Their intentions were noble enough, Selznick did not want to have the KKK element of the novel portrayed in the film at all, to give it a ìharmonious monochrome movie culture that diluted cultural density and muted political debate.î [Cripps] In doing so, it robbed slavery of itís horrors, while giving popular culture a look into the Southern ìlost cause.î
Enough about the blacks absent from film, there are plenty of whom did entertain us. Blacks on film were primarily comical or used as gimmicks, Bill ìBojanglesî Robinson danced with Shirley Temple in The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel (both 1935.) The critic Donald Bogle, provides use with the insight that in many 1930s movies black servants and subordinates are used as the source of comfort and sympathy for an abandoned master or mistress. [Guerrero] Not until Sidney Poitier came along would a black be taken seriously, and not asked to dance or over-emphasize stereotypes. Sidney was unlike any other, the image of blacks in film and TV were still mostly stereotypical.
Gays have always been used, much like blacks, as a source of comedy. Iíve seen plenty of gags and ìhumorousî situations where the entire ìfunnyî part of the bit is simply that the person is gay. When Hollywood became so anal about itís on-screen portrayals, gays were all but eliminated. Clever directors could still utilize gay characters if they could hide them from the censors. Gays in the audiences picked up on this right away. Gays would widely resurface later in the 60s as an underground movement in film.
The momentum of this movement was over by 1968. The attitudes toward mass culture, and sexual, social, and political protest that converged in the underground had dissolved, but each of these components survived separately in other arenas of discourse. [Suarez] Gays began to branch off into different strains of gay culture, social realism/activism, spirituality, drag and punk. [Greyson] Parts of this would reach maintstream entertainment through the glamour punk scene of the 70s and 80s.
The NAACP kept continuous pressure on the film industry to upgrade the cinematic image of blacks and to employ more blacks in all capacities within the film industry. [Guerrero] Since the mid-60s, blacks found a sharpened perspective on American racism and became more organized and empowered by a wide resurgence of black nationalism. Enter Shaft in 1971, which spawned a whole movement of look-a-likes. Superfly (1972) and Black Caesar (1973) had themes which followed the plights of black men overcoming white oppression.
In the late 80s Hollywood found Spike Lee. Spike Lee depicts the plight of black people in every film. Leeís films can be enjoyed by a range of individuals from all sorts of backgrounds. They are humorous, they are serious, they are always conveying a message that you take with you once you leave the theatre.
Spike Lee is not alone in this day and age, Black film and television has come a long way from the 30s, when characters were dry and the writing was lacking. Depth entered the frame about the same time as Sidney Poitier, it may have taken the rest of the film community 40 years to catch up to him, but they arenít running out of steam anytime soon.
3) These two groups were represented these ways because whites, who were in power, were only comfortable with on-screen stereotypes. They didnít want depth. Eventually, it was beyond their control and the images of these groups would not take a backseat to mainstream corporate ideas of who should be portrayed in films. Gay men want to see gay men on the screen. Black men want to see black men on the screen, etc.
4) The future of black cinema could go anywhere. I am willing to bet the hip-hop mentality of today will carry into the future and spawn a whole new way of looking at film and television. The Fresh Prince, Will Smith, has a new film coming outÖ itís an action film, which comes out on the first weekend of July. Does that ring a bell? Can you say mainstream blockbuster?
Underground films had gay protagonists, but gays were never in the mainstream until, perhaps, Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. Now theyíre all over the place, at Sundance, Cannes, even at your local theatre, hugging, kissing and living on the screen, just like they should be in the rest of society, free from the hindrance of heterosexual, white oppression. Which will evolve first? Society or film? I think there will be a few high-grossing gay and black orientated films in the future, but we wonít see an explosion of them until society realizes and accepts that everyone isnít just white and heterosexual.
Bibliography
Cripps, Thomas, Making Movies Black, Oxford Press, 1993
Guerroro, Ed, Framing Blackness, Temple University Press, 1993
Greyson, John, Queer Looks, Routledge Press, 1993
Suarez, Juan, Bike Boys, Drag Queens and Superstars, Indiana University Press, 1996
Friday, April 16, 1999
LADY AND THE TRAMP
Dan Boujoulian
April 16, 1999
Women & Minorities in Film/TV (COM 373)
George and Gracie.Lucy and Ricky. Greg and Dharma. Sam and Rebecca. To list off the names of on-screen couples would fill this paper twice over. Of all the couples we have known in pop culture entertainment, none had chemistry quite like Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance (rhymes with reliance). They did it without dialogue, they did it when only their faces and body language were used to tell us that the boy likes the girl. The Tramp fell for this girl and we ate it up, begging for more.
Born in Paradise Valley on October 21, 1896, Edna moved as a youngster to Lovelock where she and her sisters Bessie and Myrtle helped their mother keep a boarding house after their parents divorced. She was locally noted as a pianist who played a solo at the 1911 high school graduation. In August of that year she was among the entrants in a popularity contest sponsored by the Lovelock Review-Miner. Unfortunately, she was not the winner. She graduated from high school herself in 1913, and wasted no time leaving Lovelock behind, aspiring to live in San Francisco.
Charlie Chaplin, meanwhile, was a promising young comedian from England who had taken to the music hall stage as a youngster. He made two American tours with a vaudeville show and landed in Hollywood, at Mack Sennettís Keystone Studios. He started making two-reelers and, in 1914 he signed a contract with the Essanay movie company at Niles, California near the southeastern shore of the San Francisco Bay.
Early in the following year Charlie and Broncho Billy Anderson drove over to San Francisco in search of a leading lady for their new stock company. Charlie had been gathering individuals for the company; the most difficult would be the leading lady. The requirements for this individual were most critical for him, as he was hoping she would also fill the void in his personal life. This unlikely pair inspected every chorus girl in the city, but failed to find just the right combination of sexy nymphet, mature calm and zany eccentricity that Charlie especially liked. Broncho Billy began ìasking around for a girl who would fit Chaplin.î It was Fritz Wintermayer who remembered a secretary he met in a cafÈ.
Although she was not involved in show business, Edna was suggested Wintermeyer, who knew her as a girl who frequented Tateís CafÈ on Hill Street in San Francisco. The girl was traced and it was found her name was Edna Purviance. Tate , the cafÈ owner, was quite well acquainted with her, he told the boys how she lived with her married sister and she hailed from a little gold-mining town in Nevada called Lovelock. She had a special quality. Perhaps it was her smile, with its hint of mischief. Perhaps it was the duck she sometimes walked on a leash. Whatever it was that made Edna special, Charlie liked it.
Chaplin had his doubts as to her comical ability. In his autobiography he recalled their first meeting at the St. Francis Hotel. "She was more than pretty, she was beautiful. At the interview she seemed sad and serious. I learned afterward that she was just getting over a love affair. I doubted whether she could act or had any humor, she looked so serious.î Edna convinced him of her sense of humor at a party the night before she started work, when she bet him $10 that he could not hypnotize her, and then played along with the gag, pretending to fall under his spell. In doing this, she proved to him that she could follow his lead. Charlie was captivated. This was THE girl.
Could she be what changed Chaplin during the Essanay period? Charlie altered the portrayal of relationships with heroines in the films. During the Keystone period, Charlie was most often at odds with women, at least in part because of the on-screen persona of Mabel Normand. Watch Getting Acquainted, you will see Charlie unhappily married to a demanding wife, flirting with the wife of another man until a policeman breaks up the affair.
Beginning with his second Essanay film, Chaplin was paired with Edna, who would appear with him in thirty-five films during the next eight years. Edna was not a great actress, indeed part of her attraction lies in the fact that she didn't appear to have any pretensions about the craft of acting... she was just enjoying herself and got on with playing the part - as The Girl, The Maid, The Daughter, or more often than not, just as Edna. This resulted in her being fairly natural in front of the camera, an acting style that Charlie helped to popularize in the silent era. Add to that her physical appearance - very beautiful eyes, an attractive, natural smile that always seemed to break through any character she put up and then a charisma that somehow got fused onto the film with the rest of it, and you have what can only be described as... Edna!
Edna was a great success as Charlie's leading lady and they became very close quite quickly. Throughout 1916 and well into 1917, Edna saw Chaplin more often than any other woman. "It was inevitable that the propinquity of a beautiful girl like Edna Purviance would eventually involve my heart" said Chaplin in his autobiography, "When we first came to work in Los Angeles [in 1915], Edna rented an apartment near the Athletic Club, and almost every night I would bring her there for dinner. We were serious about each other, and at the back of my mind I had an idea that some day we might marry..." Sadly, the love affair died after a number of incidents, including infidelity on both sides, and Charlie's eventual sudden and unhappy marriage to Mildred Harris.
Edna always stayed close to Charlie, however, and remained his leading lady through four film companies. At one time Chaplin had wanted her to play Josephine to his Napoleon, and considered adapting The Trojan Women for her to star in. Eventually he conceived and wrote a dramatic film specifically for Edna, in the hope that it might launch her into a successful film career in her own right. The film, A Woman of Paris, was an artistic triumph, but a commercial failure. It was instrumental in bringing naturalistic acting to the foreground of screen performance, and the critics loved it. The public, however, saw Chaplin's name and expected the type of film his name defined - they were disappointed to find what would now be considered an 'art film', rather than the unique brand of the Trampís comedy
The 20s represented a peak for the purely escapist romantic film. Women had acquired the vote, Hollywood was seeing more and more films about women. The 20s love story had advantages that talkies did not. Dialogue, emotions and motivations were not spelled out. Skilled directors left it to the audience to see it however it meant to themselves. Audience involvement in silent film was a major factor in its success; it called for both imagination and participation on the part of the beholder. In return it offered a kind of universality. [Everson]
A Woman Of Paris gave Chaplin the chance to take a long look at his seven years with Edna. With the completion of the film, he planned to discard her as his leading lady, hoping that her performance would be good enough to launch her on a new career as a serious actress at some other studio. As for the two men in the triangular story, Chaplin regarded them as mirrors in which he could examine his own divided self. [Lynn] Chaplinís intention was to combine the melodramatic plot of A Woman of Paris with psychologically suggestive acting. This catapulted Adolphe Menjou to stardom. Would Edna be far behind?
Ernst Lubitsch said that A Woman of Paris set the precedent for laconic touches that would mark all of his hollywood made comedies about marital and extramarital tensions. Chaplin claimed that A Woman of Paris was ìthe first of the silent pictures to articulate irony and psychology.î
The parallels between Chaplin and Purviance in A Woman of Paris are quite apparent. In the film, Marie spend her formative years in an obscure French village, an allusion to Edna in Nevada. In the film, Marie finds out that Pierre Revel has become engaged to a socially prominent heiress, just as Edna found out about Charlieís marriage to Mildred Harris in 1918, through reading a newspaper.
Two months after the premiere of A Woman of Paris, Chaplin copyrighted a script ofThe Lucky Strike, which was to become The Gold Rush. Even before A Woman of Paris, Charlie noted that Edna had grown too ëmatronlyí for comedy roles. As he started his work on The Gold Rush, Edna was involved in one of those Hollywood. Never wholly explained, the incident entailed the shooting of Courtland Dines. Edna had spent all day in his apartment, a chauffer arrived. A fight ensued and the chauffeur drew a revolver and shot. Dines lived, however after courtroom proceedings, A Woman of Paris was banned in several cities. Edna withdrew from the limelight and settled into an apartment away from the mess that had become her Hollywood life.
Ednaís failing confidence was shattered even more without being a part of Charlieís films. Charlie announced there was no truth in the rumors of Edna being alienated from the studios, but he was looking for a new leading lady.
Although Edna and Charlie drifted, she was considered for the part of Madame Grosnay, in Monsieur Verdoux. (1947) She arrived at the studio, almost unchanged since the 20s.Chaplin rehearsed her and then bluntly informed her that she was not right for the part. Assistant Director, Robert Florey walked with her around the studio afterwards. ìThere were tears in her eyes, knowing that she would never come back.î
Charlie quoted from two of her letters at the end of My Autobiography - he never replied to them, but it is obvious, his affection for her never died. ìShortly after I received this letter she diedî wrote Chaplin, ìAnd so the world grows young. And youth takes over.î Edna died in 1958 from cancer at the age of 63.
It is easy to think of her as having had a sad life in the end, but she's still there on the screen, laughing, flirting and getting out of trouble with Charlie. Forever remembered as a very important part of his development as an artist and a leading performer who starred along side the greatest figure in film history.
.
Bibliography
Basinger, Jeanine, A Womanís View, Knopf New York, NY, 1993
Chaplin, Charlie, My Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1964
Everson, William, Love In The Film, Citadel Press, Secaucus, N.J., 1979
Lynn, Kenneth, Charlie Chaplin and His Times, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1997
Robinson, David, Chaplin His Life And Art, Da Capo Press, New York, NY, 1985
Dan Boujoulian
April 16, 1999
Women & Minorities in Film/TV (COM 373)
George and Gracie.Lucy and Ricky. Greg and Dharma. Sam and Rebecca. To list off the names of on-screen couples would fill this paper twice over. Of all the couples we have known in pop culture entertainment, none had chemistry quite like Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance (rhymes with reliance). They did it without dialogue, they did it when only their faces and body language were used to tell us that the boy likes the girl. The Tramp fell for this girl and we ate it up, begging for more.
Born in Paradise Valley on October 21, 1896, Edna moved as a youngster to Lovelock where she and her sisters Bessie and Myrtle helped their mother keep a boarding house after their parents divorced. She was locally noted as a pianist who played a solo at the 1911 high school graduation. In August of that year she was among the entrants in a popularity contest sponsored by the Lovelock Review-Miner. Unfortunately, she was not the winner. She graduated from high school herself in 1913, and wasted no time leaving Lovelock behind, aspiring to live in San Francisco.
Charlie Chaplin, meanwhile, was a promising young comedian from England who had taken to the music hall stage as a youngster. He made two American tours with a vaudeville show and landed in Hollywood, at Mack Sennettís Keystone Studios. He started making two-reelers and, in 1914 he signed a contract with the Essanay movie company at Niles, California near the southeastern shore of the San Francisco Bay.
Early in the following year Charlie and Broncho Billy Anderson drove over to San Francisco in search of a leading lady for their new stock company. Charlie had been gathering individuals for the company; the most difficult would be the leading lady. The requirements for this individual were most critical for him, as he was hoping she would also fill the void in his personal life. This unlikely pair inspected every chorus girl in the city, but failed to find just the right combination of sexy nymphet, mature calm and zany eccentricity that Charlie especially liked. Broncho Billy began ìasking around for a girl who would fit Chaplin.î It was Fritz Wintermayer who remembered a secretary he met in a cafÈ.
Although she was not involved in show business, Edna was suggested Wintermeyer, who knew her as a girl who frequented Tateís CafÈ on Hill Street in San Francisco. The girl was traced and it was found her name was Edna Purviance. Tate , the cafÈ owner, was quite well acquainted with her, he told the boys how she lived with her married sister and she hailed from a little gold-mining town in Nevada called Lovelock. She had a special quality. Perhaps it was her smile, with its hint of mischief. Perhaps it was the duck she sometimes walked on a leash. Whatever it was that made Edna special, Charlie liked it.
Chaplin had his doubts as to her comical ability. In his autobiography he recalled their first meeting at the St. Francis Hotel. "She was more than pretty, she was beautiful. At the interview she seemed sad and serious. I learned afterward that she was just getting over a love affair. I doubted whether she could act or had any humor, she looked so serious.î Edna convinced him of her sense of humor at a party the night before she started work, when she bet him $10 that he could not hypnotize her, and then played along with the gag, pretending to fall under his spell. In doing this, she proved to him that she could follow his lead. Charlie was captivated. This was THE girl.
Could she be what changed Chaplin during the Essanay period? Charlie altered the portrayal of relationships with heroines in the films. During the Keystone period, Charlie was most often at odds with women, at least in part because of the on-screen persona of Mabel Normand. Watch Getting Acquainted, you will see Charlie unhappily married to a demanding wife, flirting with the wife of another man until a policeman breaks up the affair.
Beginning with his second Essanay film, Chaplin was paired with Edna, who would appear with him in thirty-five films during the next eight years. Edna was not a great actress, indeed part of her attraction lies in the fact that she didn't appear to have any pretensions about the craft of acting... she was just enjoying herself and got on with playing the part - as The Girl, The Maid, The Daughter, or more often than not, just as Edna. This resulted in her being fairly natural in front of the camera, an acting style that Charlie helped to popularize in the silent era. Add to that her physical appearance - very beautiful eyes, an attractive, natural smile that always seemed to break through any character she put up and then a charisma that somehow got fused onto the film with the rest of it, and you have what can only be described as... Edna!
Edna was a great success as Charlie's leading lady and they became very close quite quickly. Throughout 1916 and well into 1917, Edna saw Chaplin more often than any other woman. "It was inevitable that the propinquity of a beautiful girl like Edna Purviance would eventually involve my heart" said Chaplin in his autobiography, "When we first came to work in Los Angeles [in 1915], Edna rented an apartment near the Athletic Club, and almost every night I would bring her there for dinner. We were serious about each other, and at the back of my mind I had an idea that some day we might marry..." Sadly, the love affair died after a number of incidents, including infidelity on both sides, and Charlie's eventual sudden and unhappy marriage to Mildred Harris.
Edna always stayed close to Charlie, however, and remained his leading lady through four film companies. At one time Chaplin had wanted her to play Josephine to his Napoleon, and considered adapting The Trojan Women for her to star in. Eventually he conceived and wrote a dramatic film specifically for Edna, in the hope that it might launch her into a successful film career in her own right. The film, A Woman of Paris, was an artistic triumph, but a commercial failure. It was instrumental in bringing naturalistic acting to the foreground of screen performance, and the critics loved it. The public, however, saw Chaplin's name and expected the type of film his name defined - they were disappointed to find what would now be considered an 'art film', rather than the unique brand of the Trampís comedy
The 20s represented a peak for the purely escapist romantic film. Women had acquired the vote, Hollywood was seeing more and more films about women. The 20s love story had advantages that talkies did not. Dialogue, emotions and motivations were not spelled out. Skilled directors left it to the audience to see it however it meant to themselves. Audience involvement in silent film was a major factor in its success; it called for both imagination and participation on the part of the beholder. In return it offered a kind of universality. [Everson]
A Woman Of Paris gave Chaplin the chance to take a long look at his seven years with Edna. With the completion of the film, he planned to discard her as his leading lady, hoping that her performance would be good enough to launch her on a new career as a serious actress at some other studio. As for the two men in the triangular story, Chaplin regarded them as mirrors in which he could examine his own divided self. [Lynn] Chaplinís intention was to combine the melodramatic plot of A Woman of Paris with psychologically suggestive acting. This catapulted Adolphe Menjou to stardom. Would Edna be far behind?
Ernst Lubitsch said that A Woman of Paris set the precedent for laconic touches that would mark all of his hollywood made comedies about marital and extramarital tensions. Chaplin claimed that A Woman of Paris was ìthe first of the silent pictures to articulate irony and psychology.î
The parallels between Chaplin and Purviance in A Woman of Paris are quite apparent. In the film, Marie spend her formative years in an obscure French village, an allusion to Edna in Nevada. In the film, Marie finds out that Pierre Revel has become engaged to a socially prominent heiress, just as Edna found out about Charlieís marriage to Mildred Harris in 1918, through reading a newspaper.
Two months after the premiere of A Woman of Paris, Chaplin copyrighted a script ofThe Lucky Strike, which was to become The Gold Rush. Even before A Woman of Paris, Charlie noted that Edna had grown too ëmatronlyí for comedy roles. As he started his work on The Gold Rush, Edna was involved in one of those Hollywood. Never wholly explained, the incident entailed the shooting of Courtland Dines. Edna had spent all day in his apartment, a chauffer arrived. A fight ensued and the chauffeur drew a revolver and shot. Dines lived, however after courtroom proceedings, A Woman of Paris was banned in several cities. Edna withdrew from the limelight and settled into an apartment away from the mess that had become her Hollywood life.
Ednaís failing confidence was shattered even more without being a part of Charlieís films. Charlie announced there was no truth in the rumors of Edna being alienated from the studios, but he was looking for a new leading lady.
Although Edna and Charlie drifted, she was considered for the part of Madame Grosnay, in Monsieur Verdoux. (1947) She arrived at the studio, almost unchanged since the 20s.Chaplin rehearsed her and then bluntly informed her that she was not right for the part. Assistant Director, Robert Florey walked with her around the studio afterwards. ìThere were tears in her eyes, knowing that she would never come back.î
Charlie quoted from two of her letters at the end of My Autobiography - he never replied to them, but it is obvious, his affection for her never died. ìShortly after I received this letter she diedî wrote Chaplin, ìAnd so the world grows young. And youth takes over.î Edna died in 1958 from cancer at the age of 63.
It is easy to think of her as having had a sad life in the end, but she's still there on the screen, laughing, flirting and getting out of trouble with Charlie. Forever remembered as a very important part of his development as an artist and a leading performer who starred along side the greatest figure in film history.
.
Bibliography
Basinger, Jeanine, A Womanís View, Knopf New York, NY, 1993
Chaplin, Charlie, My Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1964
Everson, William, Love In The Film, Citadel Press, Secaucus, N.J., 1979
Lynn, Kenneth, Charlie Chaplin and His Times, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1997
Robinson, David, Chaplin His Life And Art, Da Capo Press, New York, NY, 1985
