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The Gold Rush Clippings 142/363

Cal York, Photoplay, New York, February 1925.

The Gold Rush Scenes

& Chaplin Finishing

      Latest Picture Sets New Pace for Charlie

      By Grace Kingsley

      Charlie Chaplin is now in the throes of finishing his latest

reel of „The Gold Rush“ or „The Lucky Strike“

or whatever he decides to name his latest picture, which

has, by the way, been sixteen months in the

making. (...)

      Only two weeks more of work remain on the

picture, says Charlie with joy. Some scenes were recently

made on board ship coming from San Diego.

      An interesting little incident shows what a wonderful

fellow the comedian is to work with. The incident

was related by Grant Withers, who played the part of the

captain of the boat.

      „I got seasick,“ said Withers, „and Charlie took personal

care of me. He got me hot drinks and otherwise

eased my sufferings. When the fellows found out about it they

all began to be seasick, too, and Charlie took care

of two or three of them until he got on.“

(...) FLASHES, Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1925


„The bride wore her traveling costume“

Editorial content. „Charlie‘s Unromantic Marriage

      By Cal York

      ,IT‘S great to be famous, but it‘s sure tough when you

want to pull off a quiet wedding.‘ This must have been Charlie

Chaplin‘s thought after his marriage to little Lita Grey,

his sixteen-year-old leading lady.

      There is no doubt that he sought a quiet, unpublicized

wedding, but Charlie learned that no man can

be a public figure, inviting publicity one day, and a recluse

spurning it the next. The public feels that it has bought

and paid for such a figure as Charlie Chaplin and it doesn‘t

make any difference whether he buys a new

automobile, gets a divorce, gets married, or sues“ his

mother-in-law, it wants to know all about it – and

does.“ (...)

      „Upon a certain day in November, Charles Spencer

Chaplin, king of comedies and supreme artist

of the screen, was married in the little Mexican town of

Empalme to Lilita Louisa McMurray, professionally

known as Lita Grey.

     No exquisite bride in shining satin enters upon this tale.

No candle-lighted drawing room, fragrant with

orange blossoms. No sacred, triumphant music. no brilliant

gathering of celebrated friends to wish the famous

couple joy. No adoring, cheering crowds to scatter blessings

in their path.

      Far different.

      A dobe hut, with chickens and dogs congregated in the

front yard. A sixteen-year-old girl, in dusty traveling

costume; lawyers, a few Mexicans, a few Japanese servants,

an ex-heavyweight prizefighter, and a dismal dawn

were the principal features at the wedding. Then the bridegroom,

stumbling along railroad ties with his bride behind him,

trying to avoid newspaper men.“ (...)

      „ONE day, after the manner of a pale gray fog,

the story began to drift over the Boulevard – the story that

Chaplin had gone to Mexico to marry Lita Grey.

It was denied. But it persisted. Charlie could not be found.

Neither could Lita. They say that Charlie actually

believed he could keep such a world event as his marriage

a real secret.

      On October fourteenth, Charlie and Lita went to Empalme

and asked a judge there to marry them. The official

was willing, but Mexican law requires that the intention to wed

be publicly announced thirty days before the ceremony

takes place.

      Outside the judge‘s little dobe hut was an old blackboard.

Upon this, therefore, were chalked the names of

Charles Spencer Chaplin and Lilita Louisa McMurray. Below,

as witnesses, Angel Murillo, Jr., Francisco Monge,

Francisco Esqueda and Paul Ramirez.

      The party returned to Hollywood.

      Thirty days went by – thirty days and a few over. Charlie

was here, there and everywhere. He was more than

usually full of pep. He entertained the Prince and Princess

of Siam. He was master of ceremonies of the opening

of Janice Meredith. He attended dinner parties with this star

and that star, and he gave dinner parties to which

the elite of filmdom were invited.

      But nowhere in any of these festivities did anyone

see Lita Grey. Not once did her name appear upon the guest

list.

      Soon after the end of the thirty days, Lita and her

mother and her grandmother, once Louisa Carillo and a Spanish

belle of early California, appeared at Guaymas,

accompanied by their lawyer. Lita wore a blue serge middy

and a blue skirt, and looked like any other very young

Mexican girl of the town.

      They waited, anxiously, for several days.

      Some newspaper correspondents, on trail of the Hollywood

rumor, arrived and she received them.

      At two-thirty on the morning of the fourth day, Chaplin‘s

private car arrived. It was dark. The train left it upon

a siding. No signs of life were seen and the little crowd

of newspaper men, met by the ever present

Japanese valet, was told that Mr. Chaplin slept. They went

home.

      At four o‘clock, that darkest hour of all, Chaplin got off

the car, accompanied by his Japanese valet, his New

Yorker lawyer, his prizefighter bodyguard, and two personal

friends. He joined his fiance and they began the trip

from Guaymas to Empalme.“ (...)

      „Now there is nothing romantic about Empalme.

It exists only because the railroad shops are there.

The population is composed of laborers in the yards. It is drab

and dreary at its best, which is not five o‘clock in

the morning. Packs of Mexican dogs of unidentifiable lineage

scurried from under foot. Roosters crowed disconsolately.

      The judge of Empalme who performs wedding

ceremonies, is a very ancient Mexican, over seventy. He speaks

no English, only the poorest Mexican dialect, and

he mumbles that through toothless gums. He has his office

in his house, a tiny dobe hut, and no family can be

expected to have done its housekeeping by five o‘clock

in the morning. So the chamber for the bridal

ceremony was not arrayed even in its poor best.

      The wedding party brushed the dust from their clothes

as best they could – Charlie wore the suit which had

served him to travel in from Los Angeles, the bride wore her

traveling costume. They lined up in that drab office

– the great comedian, the sixteen-year-old girl, her mother

and grandmother, the lawyers.

      An interpreter translated, so that they did not even

understand the beautiful and sacred words of the Spanish

marriage service.

      When it was over, Charlie kissed his wife, and they hurried

to the car.“ (...) 


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