FILM STAR PUBLICITY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 307, 11 December 1931, Page 6

FILM STAR PUBLICITY

MR CHAPLIN SUED. WOMAN AGENT’S CLAIM. “Times” Cable. London, November 30. Some sidelights on film star publicity were provided in the Westminster County Court to-day when Miss May Shepherd sued Charles Chaplin for £lOO for services rendered as his publicity agent. Miss Shepherd gave evidence that she had acted as Miss Mary Pickford’s agent in 1919 at £5 a week. She received £4O from Master "Jackie” Coogan, and expected £25 from Mr Chaplin. She received £77 from Mr Chaplin in part settlement. Mr Chaplin’s last visit to England was a “publicity” trip to advertise the film “City Lights.” She arranged his visits to a gaol, to the Old ißailey and to “Charlie’s” old school. She arranged the luncheon with the Lord Mayor, when she intended Mr Chaplin to use the Lord Mayor's semi-Stare coach, but ho went in a taxi. Mr Chaplin went to Berlin, forgetting an engagement to dine with the Prim Minister. Mr MacDonald. She wrote to tho Primo Minister apologising for Chaplin’s “inability to attend.” Asked about an account published in London that Mr Chaplin had kept the Duke of Connaught waiting for an hour at a cinema in Nice, she said she secured the insertion of Chaplin’s statement, entitled “Myself and the Duke,” disposing of a story that he saw the Duke in the audience and expressed a wish to meet him. Counsel read a report of a supper at the Carlton Hotel, in which it was stated that Mr Chaplin met his old friends “with shining eyes.” Miss Shepherd: Mr Chaplin welcomed that sort of thing. Mr. Justice Tobin: This is going to do us a lot of good abroad. Think how foreigners, and rightly, will laugh at it! The hearing was adjourned.