Comedy—and Tragedy

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12247, 19 September 1925, Page 11

Comedy —and Tragedy

Charlie Chaplin’s First Love The Romance of Little Hetty Keely

»V now everybody know& that the long* Charlie Chaplin ami l.ita Urey, the schoolgirl whom he married lust November in Mexico. lia£ safely arrived (writes a eovrespondent of an Ameri- * can weekly).

Kvory me who knows tlie true 1 Charlie Chaplin wonders whether the ; (ursinj' of this small son will end the heart restlessness and love wanderings which have heen his for years; whether :hat baby can banish the memories of

his first and only real love —or, better still, reincarnate them within itself. If go, Charlie will 6tep into the land of happiness. For many years Charlie Chaplin has been in love with a dead woman — Hetty Kelly, sister of Edith Kelh. the dancer-wife of the American million aire Frank Gould. He rarely speaks of her. If little Hetty Kelly had lived they would have married. No woman ever took the place in Charlie Chaplin's heart that was left empty by little Hetty, although for many years he has tried to find some one who could. Probably only a baby could tasp that place. There are women who*arp far better mothers than they are wives; women who unconsciously lake a man less for himself than for motherhood, and who. once that end is achieved, pass lip the husband. There are men of the same kind : men to whom the wife is far less than the child she may bear. Charlie Chaplin, buffoon and funniest man of the films—but always able to bring the tear close upon the heels of the laugh—is apparently one of these men. Friends na.v that he himself recognises this. It is why Charlie’s reeond baby may make his marriage.'to Lita stick, just as it was the death of his first baby that mainly broke up his marriage with Mildred Harris. • • • • The story of Chaplin’s first love has never been told, although the name of little Hetty Kelly has flittered like a ghost through the columns that have heen written about him. Only nnce has he referred to her in print. That was in the hook he published, “My Trip Abroad.” “WAITING FOR HETTY” ‘‘W© are driving toward Kennington Gate. Kennington Gate! That has its memories. Sad, sweet, rapidly recurring memories “ ’Twas here I had my fimt appointment with Hettv. How I dolled up in my little tight-fitting frock coat, hat and canel I was quite the dude as ! watched everv street car until 4 o’clock waiting for Hetty to step off, smiling as she saw me waiting. * ‘T get out and stand there a fo\c moments at Kennington Gate. Mv taxi-driver thinks T am mad. But T am forgetting taxi-drivers. I am seeing a lad of nineteen,! dressed to the pink. * ith fluttering heart, waiting, waiting for the moment of the day when he rnd happiness walked along the road. The road is so alluring now'. It beckons for another wa’lk. and as I hear a street car approaching I turn eagerly, for the moment almost expecting to see the same trim Hetty step off, smiling. “The car stops. A couple" of men get

i off. An old woman. Some children. But no Hetty. “Hetty is gone. So is the lad with the IrooK coax and cane.” EARNING A BARE LIVING It was in the days when Charlie Chaplin was very poor and'eking out a bar© living in a burlesque skit, “A Night in a London Music Hall.” Charlie’s act consisted in falling out of u box upon the stage. Hetty, like her sister, was a dancing girl in a music hall with a troupe of J-higlish gins named, oddly enough “The YankcePoodle Girls.” It happened that both the acts appeared at one music hall, the famous old Karno’s, the . sum* veck. There Hetty and Charlie first ll*et “Wo were working for very small salaries,” he said; “indeed, we liatdIv knew what money was; but we foil i\i love with each other and spent long hours together, and through the ©yes of youth we visioned the day when we would have fame and fortune within our grasp. She believed in me. She was an inspitation. “Edith was already winning prominence as u dancer, but Hetty and 1 were in deep obscurity. Then came my chance to come to America in that same skit —‘A Night in a London Music Hall.’ ” This was back in 1000. Charlie took the chance. At that time he had not the slightest idea of going into the motion pictures—that came about by accident later. But he did think that ho would be able to make enough money to go back to London, able to marry Hetty. F< he bade him god-speed and a long and tender farewell. Charlie came to America. Letters between them cros-

sed the Atlantic weekly, and months went by, Charlie slowly winning toward success—not the success* of course, which was later to be his, but success as compared with his previous struggles. SISTER MARRIES MILLIONAIRE But a great change had come in the fortunes of Hettv. Sister Edith had married Frank Gould, the somewhat eccentric millionaire) son of Jay Gould, and Hetty had gone along with her as a companion. Charlie knew of this, but in tho crowded life that ho was living he gave it little thought. Their letters, however., became less frequent, but not for r.n instant did his love for her diminish, as it later turned out. did hers for him. At last Chaplin’s engagement in America ended and he made posthaste for England, with more money in his pockets than he had ever had before. Hetty had been told of his coming, and there was to be a joyful reunion. . But Hetty, alas, had too great a sense of tho dramatic. When Charlie had left her, her wardrobe had been little more than her stikjet dress and her dancing dress, and it was as this poor little Hetty Kelly that Charlie still visualised her. It was this picture of her that he had been carrying around in his heart for nearlv two years. He knew, of course, that poverty no longer harried her, but still that was the picture that he had of her. Anxiously he awaited for her to arrive. . . . And Hetty did arrive—arrived dres-

sed all in silken garments fit for a duchess, beautifully coiffured and manicured, with jewels about her neck and on her hands! Alas, indeed, for little Hetty’s dramatic sense. Dumbly the comedian looked at lier as she swept toward him. This was never littlo Hetty Kelly! Where he had looked for the modest little dove there was a glittering bird of paradise. This was not the shabby girl who had kissed him goodbye with tears streaming down tier cheeks. It was a stranger. Vainly- Charlie tried to gather Ins spirits together. They sat close and recalled their hopes and dreams, but between them was some indefinable harrier that neither could surmount. And after tho dinnei was over Charlie Chaplin crept into another room, buried his head in his hands and wept. Syd, his brother, found him there. “Why, Charlie, what’s the matter?” he asked. “NOT MY HETTY” “That isn’t my Hetty,” said Charlie. “That isn’t the girl I knew. 1 loved the little Hetty Kelly who was poor. This is not she.” Chaplin turned away that night dejected immeasurably. Hetty, too, was heartbroken. What was the matter? What had gone wrong? What was it that had turned the reunion they both had looked forward to withj such longing into the sorrowful, puzzled meeting that it had beenP In the few weeks that elapsed before Chaplin returned to America to begin the work which has made him what he is, they dici not meet again. The barrier persisted, and each was too proud to try to break it down. • 4k • « • • Hettv married, and a few months after this lier husband was killed in France, at tho outbreak of the war. Then lier pride did and she sent Charlie at Hollywood a long letter. What was in it no one but Charlie knows. He answered it and followed as soon as hi 6 engagements would let him. He went straight from the dock to her home in London.. And as his taxi turned into the street where was her house, he saw the doors of this house open and six men march down the steps with a coffin on their shoulders. In that coffin was little Hetty Kelly! Few people know that this is Charlie Chaplin’s second baby. It is probable that if the first baby had lived he and Mildred Harris would still be man and wife. How much .Charlie thought of that first baby, and how he built upon its arrival, is. shown bv a tiny grave marked by what ; s without doubt the strangest Imadstone in any of “God’s acres.” The little grave is in the Inglewood cemetery.. just a few miles out from Hollywood - ; where the comedian turns out the films for the

world’s laughter. It lies on a grassy knoll overlooking a flowery pool which mirrors drooping pepper trees above the fine marble slab. On that slab is carved: “THE LITTLE MOUSE, JULY 7—JULY 10. 1919”

It is interesting to learn that both America and England are preparing to build lighter-than-air ships which will be twice as large as the present navy craft. The English building programme embodies several novel features. Zeppelin construction and use have been at a staudstill in the British Isles for four vears—since the ill-fated “R-38,” built on order for the United States navy to be the “ZR-2,” fell apart in midair, causing the dentil of her entire English and American crew. The “R-34,” the old ship which was first to fly to America, has been lying idle and partly dismantled in lier hangar ever since. With construction halted in England and Germany, and the United States the only builder, advancement in Zeppelin types practically stopped. Tho Shenandoah, built at Lakehurst, was modelled after the plans of a Zeppelin which in the American area in France during the war. Except for being larger, sli© is in no wise much different from any of the war-time German ships. The “ZR-3.” now +he Los Angeles, is the «ame type of Zeppelin, with the addition of rmssenger accommodations. She is the biggest practical airship -ever built, but her gas capacity is a quarter of a million feet less than the illfated “R-38.” - THE BRITISH SHIPS The new British shins, however, and the commercial craft being planned at Akron, will present several new developments. The Akron plans have not reached the stage of publicity, but the English designers have announced their Programme. begin with, the two British shins will each have a capacitv of 5.000,000 cubic feet of gas—twice the size of the two American navy craft. They will each he engined hv seven motors, as compared to the American five, and. most radical development of all, the engines will burn kerosene instead of gasoline. Each motor will develop 600 horsepower, and will have eight cylinders. No magnetos will he used. The substitution of kerosene for the more dangerous gasoline is hailed in Eogland as the greatest advance of all. In every case in which a Zeppelin has heen destroyed by fire, investigation showed

that it was the i;asoline which caught first, and then set fire to the inflammable hydrogen gas. ' AMERICA’S SHIPS The American navy ships, being filled with helium, of course, are not subject to the same fire danger. The United States has a monopoly on helium gas, but the British are planning to make their hydrogen ships safe, and at the same time give a greater lifting capacity than helium, by the novel idea of surrounding each hydro-

gen gas bag by an outer envelope eonxaining cither helium or some other inert gas. The English ships will have a framework of stainless steel, instead of the duraluminum alloy used in the American craft, and will weigh about 150 tons, giving a “disposable” load, for passengers and cargo, of forty-four tons. They arc being specially designed to operate at a profit in the Lon-don-lndiu- service, with accommodations for 200 passengers in peace time, or 100 soldiers and full equipment in wartime. Provision is also made for converting them into hospital ships to transDort wounded soldiers quickly to base hospitals. Their great size, with twice the gas capacity of the American navy ships, will not make them proportionately longer. In fact, they will he but 720 feet long, as compared to the 650 feet of the Los Angeles, and some 675 feet of the Shenandoah. The increased gas capacity will be accounted for, however, by their diameter of 130 feet amidships, as compared to tho ninety feet six inches of the Los Angeles, and ‘the still slimmer Shenandoah. The greatly increased girth, however, is not expected to give much more head resistance, since the streamlines are still well proportioned. In the air the English airships will present an unusual appearance, since the pilot cabin and passenger accommodations, hitherto always carried in a car suspended near tlie nose of the ship, has been moved back, well amidships, and prolonged to many times the size of the cars on the American ships. The cabins will really be twostory houses, wfth the dining saloon, galley, lounge, smoking-room, wireless shack and control cabin on the lower floor, with windows through which the passengers may watch* the passing scenerv, and the sleeping berths above, within tho body of the ship. , ON A COMMERCIAL BASIS The English ships will be moored at 180-foot masts, equipped • with electric passenger elevators. The success of the American mooring mast 9 both on land and on the airship tender Patoka, at sea, has assured their use, despite the fact that the Germans never approved of them, and insisted on using hangars on all occasions. That an airship the size of the two Ameri-

can navy craft could be operated at a profit in commercial business is the contention of experts, and they point to tho profitable business of the Bodensee in Germany, a ship much smaller than either of those now at Lakeburst. This claim is strengthened by the fact that the big new ships now being started can earn a far greater proportionate profit, since the weight of a rigid airship increases approximately as the square oF the linear dimensions, while the lifting power increases as the cubo of those dimensions.