Charlie and Hetty: The Story Concludes

From A Comedian Sees the World in Woman’s Home Companion (Sept. 1933), this continues from my previous post. When we last saw the infatuated Chaplin, Hetty had left her troupe and gone to the Continent. Charlie said goodbye but left us with a cliff-hanger: “...the next time we met was in a curious way.”

As Charlie tells it,

“I was crossing Piccadilly when the screech of an automobile made me turn in the direction of a black limousine which had stopped abruptly. A small gloved hand waved from the window. There must some mistake, I thought, when a voice unmistakably called, ‘Charlie!’

Piccadilly Circus, London circa 1929

“As I approached, the door of the car opened and there was Hetty beckoning me to get in. She had left the troupe and had been living on the Continent with her sister. Oh, yes, her sister had married an American multimillionaire. All this as we drove along.”

They exchange some pleasantries about how they’ve spent the past two years, and Chaplin says, “I think I shall try my luck in America.”

Hetty responds with, “Then I shall see you there.” She adds, “You know I’ve thought of you a good deal since the old days.”

We’ll never know whether or not Hetty actually said this, but if that’s what Chaplin remembered, or wished had happened, then so be it. I hope it’s true. Hetty leaves the following day for Paris and Charlie leaves for America and, eventually, Hollywood. While there, he hears that Hetty is in New York. 

“I  had arrived in New York to sign million-dollar contracts. Now is my opportunity to meet her, I thought, but somehow I cannot do it normally. I couldn’t go to her house or send a letter. I am too shy. However, I stayed on in New York hoping to meet her accidentally.”

He finds out from her brother that she has married and is living in England. Charlie immediately returns to his work in Hollywood, trying to forget her. Months later he receives a letter from her. “If you ever come to London,” she wrote, “look me up.” Which is what Chaplin does a few months later, after he completes the picture he is working on. He arrives in Southampton to a tremendous reception. Hetty’s brother, Sonny, is there on the dock, waiting for him. They climb into a carriage and head for the hotel.

“Sonny and I were alone in the carriage. I hadn’t noticed until then. There was something strange about his appearance. As usual, he avoided any mention of Hetty. There was a pause in the conversation. I looked out of the window at the revolving panorama of green fields. At last I ventured to remark: ‘Is your sister Hetty in town?’

“‘Hetty?’ he said quietly. ‘I thought you knew. She died three weeks ago.’”

“I was prepared for every disappointment but this. I felt I had been cheated out of an experience and my holiday had suddenly become aimless...My success I had looked upon as a bouquet of flowers to be addressed to someone and now the address was unknown.

“So I have made up my mind not to be disappointed this time. It is dangerous to depend too much on people. They grow up and become other persons or pass out of our lives.”

He concludes this section of his story with,

“London, I feel, will remain the same. What little change has taken place will not affect my general impression and if I can capture some fragments of my youth I shall feel simply rewarded.”

Burying flu victims in St. Louis, 1918

Some fragments he would never capture. This meeting probably took place in 1918.  Hetty had died that year as the great flu epidemic swept Europe and much of the world. Estimates on the number of victims range from 20 million to over 50 million. To close the book on this chapter of Chaplin’s life, the original theater where Charlie and Hetty first met was destroyed by one of Germany’s “flying bombs” (a V-1 or V-2) in 1944.

But Charlie would never forget Hetty Kelly. 

September Song

September brings, along with the end of summer, a wistful sense of time passing; a desire, almost a need, to look back and remember other summers, comforting days of promise now tinged with a sweet sadness.

So I turn to a September issue of Woman's Home Companion from 1933. Charlie wrote an article called "A Comedian Sees the World." (This was part 1. I haven't been able to find the October issue for part 2.) I like the freshness of Chaplin's recollections here, which came 30 years before he would write his autobiography. Here he talks about the impact stardom and living in L.A. had on him, and of his need to return to London. He also recalls his first glimpse of a young woman who would become the idealized love he carried with him all his life.

As Charlie wrote it:
"In the past twenty years I have made seven trips from Los Angeles to New York and one memorable visit to Europe. These excursion were for business reasons only and were without the sword of Damocles above my head. No wonder, when living in Los Angeles for twenty years, that in the interim of work, I became an easy victim to sentimental lapses. Hence all my troubles.

"The disillusion of love, fame and fortune left me somewhat apathetic. There seemed nothing to turn to outside of my work, and that, after twenty years, was becoming irksome. I needed emotional stimulus."

Here he is, at the age of 44, one of the most famous and beloved men in the world, rich beyond dreams, and yet.....

"I am tired of love and people and like all egocentrics I turn to myself. I want to live in my youth again, to capture the moods and sensations of childhood, so remote from me now - so unreal - almost like a dream. I need to turn back time, to venture into the blurred past and bring it into focus.

"Thrilled with this adventure I buy maps of London and here in my California home I retrace road lines, bringing back memories of places that affected me as a boy."

He writes about scenes from his childhood - high factory walls, bridges, the orphan asylum, cold bleak days on the playground. "I want to stand in the midst of them before it's too late." Then he takes us back to his youth when he was "nineteen earning a sporadic living as a vaudeville sketch artist.... In those days life was lonely."

"We were playing a suburban theater. I was standing in the wings waiting my turn to go on. A troupe of girls was dancing. One of them slipped and the rest smiled. One especially, a brunette with big brown laughing eyes. She turned to the wings and caught my gaze. Never had I beheld such beauty. I was enthralled. She was conscious of my admiration for her smile became a look of embarrassment.

"When she came off to change, however, she asked me to mind her wrap. It had a perfume of lavender. I have liked this perfume ever since. When they had finished she came for it.

"'Thank you,' she said and we both stood smiling, but the moment was interrupted by the manager of the troupe. 

"'Come on, girls, we're late.' They were working in another theater. She turned to pick up her things. 'Let me help you,' I exclaimed taking her make-up box and opening the exit door. 'See you tomorrow night,' she said eagerly.

"I could only nod, not trusting myself to speak. As she was leaving through the outer door she looked back over her shoulder 'Don't forget,' she said shyly.

"'I won't forget,' I replied.

So ends that scene in the article. But it was the beginning of Charlie's lifelong infatuation with Hetty Kelly.

"I went through the youthful misery of unrequited love. Later she left with the troupe for the Continent and I lost sight of her for two years, but the next time we met it was in a curious way."

I'll save that "curious" meeting for another time. He goes on for several more paragraphs about Hetty, his feelings about her, and what eventually became of her. The attraction he felt for her was so pervasive, he still felt the need to revisit it in this article 25 years after their meeting. 

September takes us back, whoever we are, to revisit those friends and times we've never left behind.