A Peep into the Private Office at the Chaplin Studio

The four walls within which a man spends most of his time, which are witness of his mental struggles, victories and self-communings, are part of himself, and share something of the soul of his own living personality.

The first time I visited Chaplin’s private office at his beautiful studio was in the company of Charlie himself. He had show me every detail of his model plant and concluded the round on his own private sanctum, where he writes his stories, receives his visitors, and changes for the screen, as one portion of this quiet spacious apartment is curtained off as a kind of dressing-room.

Everything in that room breathes of restfulness and quiet. The tranquil soul seeks its inspiration in sunlight and gay colours. Chaplin’s restless spirit, with its vivid enthusiasms, its eternally unappeased ideals, turns to soft grey twilights and the intimate companionship of books and music.

A man’s library is the revelation od his inmost self. Chaplin relies very largely in his comedies on the element of surprise in “ putting across ” a big laugh. It will possibly be something of a shock, however, to the more frivolous of his admirers to learn that the following works apparently go to the making of a great comedy artist; at any rate, I found them on his office table:

(1) More’s “ Utopia.”

(2) Paine’s “ Political Economy.”

(3) The Tragedies of William Shakespeare.

(4) “ The Bomb,” by Frank Harris, with the author’s dedication.

The only works on his book-shelf suggestive of any spirit approaching levity are “ Denry the Audacious,” with the personal inscription of Arnold Bennett, and Irvin Cobb’s “ Speaking of Operations.”

Chaplin is entirely a self-educated man, and two bookcases containing the “ Encyclopedia Britannica,” and well-thumbed edition of the American “ Book of Knowledge,” show how eagerly and untiringly he has pursued his eternal quest of beauty and truth.

You will notice on a table near the window his violin case with his old David Mantegna, the companion of many an hour when inspiration lies dormant and is lured into being with the sweet strains of Dvorak’s “ Humoresque ” or Tchaikovsky’s sky’s “ Chanson Triste.” Individual in all things, Chaplin is a left-handed player and strings his violin from E to G. He likes to play with muted strings; he thinks it sounds “ less harsh.”

His Treasures

With one exception the pictures on his walls are all photographs, mostly personal dedications of world celebrities who have visited the studio or otherwise been brought into contact with him. Nellie Melba, Queen of Song, hangs close to Mrs. Fiske, America’s Queen of Tragedy; the Earl of Dunmore rubs shoulders with Godowsky, wizard of the piano, and, a very human little touch this, amongst them all, a “ snap ” of a smiling Charlie in a disreputable old suit, photographed with a big fish he once landed on a holiday off Catalina Island.

On a stand in one corner of the room there are the huge piled up volumes of newspaper cuttings. Charlie himself rarely reads a press notice, and I think the only one of those volumes that he would ever miss is the one which contains the “ notices ” of his early successes on the vaudeville stage. On the occasion of my first visit to the studio, he unearthed it after some trouble, handling it with something like real affection. It is still preserved in the old binding with its gaudy reds and golds, the sort of album in which, as kiddies, we all used to stick scraps and transfers on a wet Saturday afternoon. It contains some highly interesting records of genius in the adolescent stage, and one can imagine with what pride the fifteen-year old boy pasted into his precious book that first glowing notice of “ Sherlock Holmes,” in which “ one of the brightest bits of acting in the play was given by Mr. Charles Chaplin who as Billy Holmes’ page boy, displayed immense creativity as well ad dramatic appreciation.”

In an alcove overlooking the studio grounds is Charlie’s modest dressing-room. There is a little white table with a mirror and every accessory just in its proper place, thought it must be owned that the general scheme looks somewhat different of an evening when Mr. Chaplin has finished the day’s work.

With its quiet subdued colour scheme, its books and his pictures, Charlie’s sanctum conveys as little of the general atmosfere of a movie comedy as the Chaplin of private life. But now that I have seen Chaplin at work, not once, but many times, I have learnt to realise that as much logical deduction and mental travail go to the creation of a true comedy as to any problem play.

But if you stand in that quiet room of his and have any aptitude for conjuring up a mental picture of a man, judging him by the things with which he likes to surround himself, you will begin to realise the influences that have made him what he is and which have given his little epics of golden laughter that immortal touch of genius which is all his own.

(The Picture Show Nov. 15, 1919)

by Charlie Chaplin

Most of the little plays in which I have appeared in moving pictures I have written myself. I learn something new every day. All there is in moving picture comedy is to study the fundamentals. After all, that’s all there is in life, and it takes a lifetime to find them out. If I were to attempt to explain the method by which my share of success in moving pictures has been obtained, they would not apply for someone else to work out. My methods are my own, created and developed to reflect my personality, and what is best for me and my work. There may be technical rules in comedy, but I don’t think you could standardize them. Comedy is the most serious study in the world.

There is no study in the art of acting that requires such an accurate and sympathetic knowledge of human nature, as comedy work. To be successful in it, one must acquire the gift of studying men at their daily work.

When I write a new play for the screen, I lay out my plot first, then I put it aside, and I start out to find my characters in real life. First of all, of course, I search for the man I am going to represent myself.

When I find that man, I follow him, watch him at his work, and his fun, at the table, and every other place I can see him. Often, I will study one man for a week before I am ready to go on with the play. Generally, the best situations in a play, the funniest, will either be an exaggeration of such action in real life that I have seen my counterpart pass through, but which was not at all funny in itself.

I have always tried to avoid burlesque, or at least not to depend upon it. I strive for naturalness in all my action. One of the best instances of how I put a play together and how I worked to develop it, is in the story of one of my plays called “The Tramp.”

The inspiration for it came from an aceidental meeting with a hobo in a street in San Francisco. He had the usual symptoms of his class, he was suffering a little from !ack of food, and intensely from lack of drink. I made a cheerful proposition to him, offering him both, and asking him which he would have first.

“Why,” he said, “if I get hungry enough, I can eat grass. But, what am I going to do for this thirst of mine. You know what water does to iron? Well, try to think what it will do for your insides.”

We went into a barroom, be got the drink, and we sat right down then and there to have a bite of lunch. The food and the drink warmed him and brought to the surface the irresponsible joy of life possessed by the nomad and the ne’er-do-well. He told me the story of his life. Of long jaunts through the beautiful country, of longer rides on convenient freights, of misfortunes which attend the unfortunate who are found stealing a ride on a “side-door pullman,” and of the simplicity of the farmers who lived only a short distance from the city. It was a delight to hear him talk, to gather from it the revelations of his character, to watch his gestures, and his trick of facial expression. All these elements were carefully watched by me, and noted for future reference. He was rather surprised when we parted, at my profuse thanks. He has given me a good deal more than I had given him, but he didn’t know it. He had obtained a little food and drink and a chance talk from me. From him, I had a brand new idea for a picture.
(The Theatre, September 1915)