THE PLAYFELLOW OF THE WORLD

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 303, 20 December 1922, Page 8

THE PLAYFELLOW OF THE WORLD

By "OUTSIDER"

i To most people the name of QJtuartte I Chaplin conjunes up a picture of a tramp—a tiny man.'■with huge feet—» ( a down, a fool—the nian. who makes , the'children laugh! ; . . But away behind the clowning, and the I'ooUng, there is something' very , differcnC. - There is the bran of a Genius—a complex, vivid personality— vety human and vary lovable. < Thomas Burke, the author of " Limeho us a . Heights" (from which - the exquisite film "Broken Blossoms" is.taken), says of Chaplin, "He is the iontlesfc saddest man I ever knew." When on his memorable re-visit to London ( Chaplin had expressed ra. wish, to meet Thomas Burke, but' the , authoi , was not very responsive-- in his own words "he was not very much interested In. folk of the film and stage." "Bα 1 ;, finally an appointment was made, is;nd author and film star met. It was at a flat in Bloornsbury, '&&&. Burks describes his impressions .' of the young man, to whose do'ngs the front pages of the big newspapers wero at that time giving prominence. "The 'great feet" that always send his audiences iru o peals of laughter ano really very small. His beautiful hands flash and flutter as he fcaiks. tie has a mass of greying hair above* a vivid, nervous, featured face. When, the shy (ititet figure stepped from tke shadow o? ihe window, it made an instant appeal to mc. I received an' impression of something very warm and bright. It was like the radiance of fluttering firelight. He inspires "'immediately, not admiration or respect, but affection, and one gives it impulsively. At eleven o'clock that nigUr, I cook him for a six-hour ranii ble 'through certain districts in East London— -through the by-ways of Hoxton, Spitaifields, Stepney, Ratcliff, J Shad'veil a iic! Wapping. As we walki ed, wo talked. Ho opened his heart to I mc, 'arid I understood. For J. too, had spent hard inhospitable hours "of youth in tiibse streets, and I could (appreciate what he felt at coming back to thrtn with h'"s vast treasure of ! fame. j We-.rested on the curb of an ialleyj way. in St. George's, and he talked of I his-bitter youth. he- loneliness, his I struggles, and h's ultimate bewilder- ' ing Always from the day he left'- London- It a tiad. at the back of his mind, vague and formless, and perhaps fool-Vu, f.iie drcsam of a triumphal. "Dick Wfultington return" to Uhe city who£.'i3 stones were once so. cold to Lara. For the most philosophic temper i* not wholly free from that attitude of ' : a time-will come when you shall hear mc"! Like all men who have been bora 'in exile-—outside the- gracious enclosures o" Life—he-.-can-never quite forge , : those- early years. And even now .that 'his drejam has come 'rue" avid he has made his returns-it does not quite satisfy him." I .think this description that Thomas Burke gives explains the '.'hold" that -Charlie Chaplin has on our .affections.. He is "real." He has r-m through the Gamut. He knows all the notes in the s^cale. Other film stars have been "Born Iα the purple," in a manner of speaking .— ho has come up from the lowest depths of poverty. His mother, to whom, he is devoted, worked hard at her sewing in order to • feed and clothe her* two fcoys. And quite recently she has crossed the ocean to I've in a beautiful home provided by hsr world-famous son. ■Numerous stories are told in con* nection. with his visit to England, How he walked across London Bridge feeling along it with his hand, tor a crack "where my head used, to reach up to in these old days"! ho explained to .the fr.'end who was with; him! —Of his going out after midnight with his pockets full of money putting it into the pockets of "Dead Beats" whom, he found sleep'oig on neats and under archways, "just in memory c<2 those same old days," as he said, whimsically! Whether the stories are all true , or not the fact remains, that Charlie Chaplin, the grotesque genius of the -screen —the man who has made mil- • lions of people laugh—the. play-fellow of "the children of the world," Is as Thomas Burke says, "Different." And withal, he is one of the . pathetic figures, for the world's "Laughmakers," are always "the saddest and loneliest-people in the world"!