Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series)

by Georgia Hale, Heather Kiernan (Editor)

Many remember Charlie Chaplin's comic masterpiece, The Gold Rush, as the finest blend of comedy and farce ever brought to the screen. Far fewer remember its heroine, Georgia Hale (1900-1985).

Seventy years after the film's appearance, Heather Kiernan brings Georgia Hale back to life in this edition of her hitherto unpublished memoirs. Research work embodied in her perceptive introduction clears up many uncertainties about Hale's life and provides an outline of her most significant years.

Hale's own chief purpose was to describe her long and close relationship with Chaplin and his dual personality, which made the relationship at times a love-hate one. As Chaplin's constant companion during the years 1928-1931, she became a part of his social circle, meeting people as diverse as Marion Davies, Sergei Eisenstein, Ralph Barton, and Albert Einstein. The memoir effectively ends with Chaplin's marriage in June 1943 to Oona O'Neill.

This unique book contains illustrations from the Chaplin archive, most of which are published here for the first time.

Genres: Media Tie In

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1995

About the author

Georgia Hale competed in the Miss America pageant in 1922 and set her sights on the movies. Her appearance in The Salvation Hunters caught the attention of Charlie Chaplin who cast her in his film The Gold Rush. She was one of the many women that Chaplin strung along, and he considered her for parts in both The Circus and City Lights.

Reviews

[Samantha Glasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too many books on famous faces are filled with stories of their sexual exploits. Too many of these books lose their credibility due to bad writing, unrealistic situations, and a tell-all attitude which cheapens the information presented. This book is not like that. It is put together like an old movie that never showed sex but smartly implied it. Hale does not blatantly throw her longtime love affair with Chaplin in the reader's face; she forces one to read between the lines and to still realize that there were barriers like marriage that she did not cross.

Along with stories about Chaplin, Hale reminisces on her life before and during stardom. She tells of winning a beauty contest that took her to Hollywood and meeting Chaplin on the street one day. She tells about filming The Gold Rush and her passionate love for Chaplin ever after.

More than anything else, though, this book gives its reader total insight into Chaplin as a man. He was tempestuously moody and difficult, yet insanely insightful. This all comes from a woman who knew him well for much of his life. So many books dismiss his personality to dissect his genius as a film maker but only glance at his behavior outside of that. This book looks into what Chaplin was like socially by a woman who was not only close to him, but is representative of the many women in the comic's life.

Miss Hale comes off as an annoying know-it-all bragging about Chaplin having an attraction to her during The Gold Rush in the Unknown Chaplin series. However, reading this book gives a whole new perspective on her. It helps one to understand that she was not bragging about Chaplin's affections; she was simply reveling in a tiny glimpse of hope that he might feel even a fraction of the love she felt for him. This is an honest, emotional account.

[Cory Caprioli · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Me if I met Lorde