My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin (find a book to read .txt) 📗

Dan Leno, I suppose, was the greatest English comedian since the legendary Grimaldi. Although I never saw Leno in his prime, to me he was more of a character actor than a comedian. His whimsical character delineations of London’s lower classes were human and endearing, so Mother told me.

The famous Marie Lloyd was reputed to be frivolous, yet when we played with her at the old Tivoli in the Strand never was there a more serious and conscientious artist. I would watch her wide-eyed, this anxious, plump little lady pacing nervously up and down behind the scenes, irritable and apprehensive until the moment came for her to go on. Then she was immediately gay and relaxed.

And Bransby Williams, the Dickens delineator, enthralled me with imitations of Uriah Heep, Bill Sykes and the old man of The Old Curiosity Shop. The legerdemain of this handsome, dignified young man making up before a rowdy Glasgow audience and transforming himself into these fascinating characters, opened up another aspect of the theatre. He also ignited my curiosity about literature; I wanted to know what was this immured mystery that lay hidden in books – these sepia Dickens characters that moved in such a strange Cruikshankian world. Although I could hardly read, I eventually bought Oliver Twist.

So enthralled was I with Dickens characters that I would imitate Bransby Williams imitating them. It was inevitable that such budding talent could not be concealed for long. Thus it was that one day Mr Jackson saw me entertaining the other boys with an imitation of the old man of The Old Curiosity Shop. Then and there I was proclaimed a genius, and Mr Jackson was determined to let the world know it.

The momentous event happened at the theatre in Middles brough. After our clog dance Mr Jackson walked on stage with the earnestness of one about to announce the coming of a young Messiah, stating that he had discovered a child genius among his boys, who would give an imitation of Bransby Williams as the old man of The Old Curiosity Shop who cannot recognize the death of his little Nell.

The audience were not too receptive, having endured a very boring evening’s entertainment already. However, I came on wearing my usual dancing costume of a white linen blouse, a lace collar, plush knickerbocker pants and red dancing shoes, and made up to look like an old man of ninety. Somewhere, somehow, we had come into possession of an old wig – Mr Jackson might have bought it – but it did not fit me. Although I had a large head, the wig was larger; it was a bald-headed wig fringed with long, grey, stringy hair, so that when I appeared on the stage bent as an old man, the effect was like a crawling beetle, and the audience endorsed the fact with their titters.

It was difficult to get them quiet after that. I spoke in subdued whispers: ‘Hush, hush, you mustn’t make a noise or you’ll wake my Nelly.’

‘Louder! Louder! Speak up!’ shouted the audience.

But I went on feebly whispering, all very intimate; so intimate that the audience began to stamp. It was the end of my career as a delineator of Charles Dickens’s characters.

Although we lived frugally, life with the Eight Lancashire Lads was agreeable. Occasionally we had out little dissensions. I remember playing on the same bill with two young acrobats, boy apprentices about my own age, who told us confidentially that their mothers received seven and sixpence a week and they got a shilling pocket money put under their bacon-and-egg plate every Monday morning. ‘And,’ complained one of our boys, ‘we only get twopence and a bread and jam breakfast.’

When Mr Jackson’s son, John, heard that we were complaining, he broke down and wept, telling us that at times, playing odd weeks in the suburbs of London, his father only got seven pounds a week for the whole troupe and that they were having a hard time making both ends meet.

It was this opulent living of the two young apprentices that made us ambitious to become acrobats. So for several mornings, as soon as the theatre opened, one or two of us would practise somersaults with a rope tied round our waists, attached to a pulley, while one of us would hold the rope. I did very well turning somersaults in this fashion until I fell and sprained my thumb. That ended my acrobatic career.

Besides dancing we were always trying to add to our other accomplishments. I wanted to be a comedy juggler, so I had saved enough money to buy four rubber balls and four tin plates and for hours I would stand over the bedside, practising.

Mr Jackson was essentially a good man. Three months before I left the troupe we appeared at a benefit for my father, who had been very ill; many vaudeville artists donated their services, including Mr Jackson’s Eight Lancashire Lads. The night of the benefit my father appeared on the stage breathing with difficulty, and with painful effort made a speech. I stood at the side of the stage watching him, not realizing that he was a dying man.

When we were in London, I visited Mother every week-end. She thought I looked pale and thin and that dancing was affecting my lungs. It worried her so much that she wrote about it to Mr Jackson, who was so indignant that he finally sent me home, saying that I was not worth the bother of such a worrying mother.

A few weeks later, however, I developed asthma. The attacks grew so severe that Mother was convinced I had tuberculosis and promptly took me to Brompton Hospital, where I was given a thorough examination. Nothing was found wrong with my lungs, but I did have asthma. For months I went through agony, unable to breathe. At times I wanted to jump out of the window. Inhaling herbs with a blanket over my head gave little relief. But, as