- Dalia Ventura
- BBC News World
Details of the promotional poster for the 1931 film “City Lights” (Getty), written, directed and starring Charlie Chaplin.
45 years ago, on December 25, 1977, the world said goodbye to the great creator of the iconic Charlot, who with the same cane with which he faced the capricious scourges of life turned the novel entertainment medium of movies into art.
Legendary Charles Spencer Chaplin, widely regarded as the greatest comic artist and one of the most important figures in movie history, had died in the early morning “of old age,” according to his doctor.
Born into poverty and hardship, he became an immortal artist thanks to his brilliant humanization of man’s tragicomic conflicts with destiny.
More than a virtuoso physical comedian, Chaplin was a versatile actor, writer, musician and director who meticulously honed every aspect of his films.
The most famous tramp in the world, a cute little man with a black mustache and a waddling gait, dressed in baggy pants and a tight jacket, huge shoes and a little bowler hat, made millions of people laugh and, on occasions, brought a few tears to their eyes, without saying a word. not a word.
When sound came to the seventh art, the silent star showed that he had a lot to say.
The final speech of his first talking film “The Great Dictator” (1940) was an admirable and progressive defense of democracy, which might not be heard in the domains of the Third Reich, neither in Italy nor in Spain, since Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco banned the film, proving that Chaplin had hit the mark.
His life, however, was also marked by controversy.
Expelled
Making a comedy regarding a Nazi leader was one of them. He would later write that he was determined to do it because it was essential to laugh at Hitler.
image source, Getty Images
Poster of “The Great Dictator”, which highlights: “He speaks…”.
But he had gotten into politics, and while his private life also fed the tabloids, it would be politics that would cause him the most trouble.
His speeches during World War II, calling for a second Western Front with Soviet allies to crush Hitler, irritated many conservatives.
With the advent of the Cold War, his friendships with prominent artistic figures accused of sympathizing with the communist cause put him in the crosshairs of the authorities.
Rep. John E. Rankin, a right-wing lawmaker from Mississippi, was among those who denounced him and demanded his deportation.
The life of Chaplin “is damaging to the moral fabric of America”Rankin asserted, urging that it be kept “off the American screen and its disgusting images kept out of the eyes of American youth.”
image source, Getty Images
Charlie Chaplin… a threat to America in the 1940s and 1950s.
Finally, in 1952, the actor, a British subject and in 1975 knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, was virtually expelled by the United States.
It was worth nothing “incalculable effect in making cinema the art form of the 20th century”recognized by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of that country 20 years later with an Honorary Oscar.
Boarding a ship bound for England, he was informed by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service that he would be denied re-entry to that country unless he was willing to answer the charges. “of a political nature and moral turpitude”.
Outraged and fed up with the relentless harassment by the authorities, the Chaplins moved to Switzerland.
It was there that he died at the age of 88, a few hours before his family’s traditional Christmas celebration began.
His fourth wife, Oona -daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill- and 7 of their 11 children were with him.
The drifter who had made 81 films in a cinematic lifetime that began in 1914 and ended in 1967 was buried in a private ceremony two days later in the hills above Lake Geneva.
But that, as we anticipate in the title, it was not the end of the story.
In a coda that seemed to have been written by him for one of his first comedy shorts, several months following his death, his body was seized by a pair of bumbling thieves.
image source, Getty Images
Oona and Charlie Chaplin in their first public appearance since they shocked the public in 1943 with their surprise marriage: he was 54 and she was 18.
In March 1978, they dug up the coffin, to force Chaplin’s widow, Oona, to pay £400,000 (equivalent to regarding $2.35 million today).
Lady Chaplin had inherited some £12 million (regarding $70 million today) following her husband’s death.
She refused to pay saying: “Charlie would have found it ridiculous”.
In subsequent calls, the kidnappers threatened to harm her two youngest children.
The family kept quiet regarding the ransom demands but that did not stop various rumors from circulating regarding the missing coffin.
A Hollywood report speculated that it had been dug up because Chaplin was Jewish and had been buried in a gentile graveyard.
Meanwhile, the Swiss police mounted an operation in which 200 telephone kiosks were monitored and the Chaplins’ telephone was tapped.
Five weeks later, the perpetrators of the kidnapping were tracked down and arrested.
The coffin was later found, buried in a cornfield by Lake Geneva.
image source, Getty Images
A spokesperson for the Chaplins said: “The family is very happy and relieved that this ordeal is over”.
Superintendent Gabriel Cettou, chief of the Geneva police, told the press that the two men would be charged with attempted extortion and disturbance of the peace of the dead.
Italian inspiration
Nearly a year following Chaplin’s death, at his trial on December 11, 1978, a Polish refugee confessed to a Swiss court that he dug up the body and tried to extort money from the comedian’s family.
Roman Wardas, a 24-year-old auto mechanic, said he had been unable to get a job and was having a hard time when read an article in a newspaper regarding a similar case in Italy.
“I decided to hide Charlie Chaplin’s body and solve my problems,” Wardas explained to the Vevey District Court.
He added that he asked his friend Gantscho Ganev, a 38-year-old Bulgarian, to help him dig up the coffin in Corsier-sur-Vevey, near the mansion where Chaplin lived for 23 years.
“I didn’t particularly worry regarding interfering with a coffin,” he said.
“I was going to hide it deeper in the same hole originally, but it was raining and the earth got too heavy.”
image source, Getty Images
That was why he was taken away in Ganev’s car and reburied in the cornfield.
The co-defendant told the court: “I didn’t mind lifting the coffin. Death is not that important where I come from”.
Ganev clarified that following helping Wardas that night, he was no longer involved in the matter.
According to a psychiatric report requested by Ganev’s lawyer, the Bulgarian, who agreed to be part of Wardas’ plan believing the risks were minimal, was alarmed by the public impact of the coffin’s disappearance.
Wardas was sentenced to four and a half years of hard labor for masterminding the bizarre plot.
His accomplice, described as a “muscular man” with a limited sense of responsibility, received an 18-month suspended sentence.
Charlie Chaplin’s coffin was reburied in the original cemetery, this time in a burglar-proof concrete tomb.
image source, Getty Images
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