Like Old Times

The movies' legendary comic genius was playing his greatest reconciliation scene. Charlie Chaplin and America were kissing and making up--and loving every minute of it.

Charlie was edgy on the plane from Bermuda, where he had been resting for a few days before setting foot in the U.S. for the first time in 20 years. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had invited him to receive a special award at Hollywood's Oscar ceremonies, and the Film Society of New York City's Lincoln Center was throwing a big party for him at Philharmonic Hall. But what about the audiences? Would they respond again to the comic humanity of his Little Tramp? Would they resurrect the old resentments at the leftish leanings and marital tangles that had led Attorney General James P. McGranery in 1952 to order him detained if he tried to re-enter the U.S.? Or would they merely show indifference at the appearance of another octogenarian has-been?

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The reception at Kennedy Airport was not particularly promising. Most of the 100-odd people waiting were newsmen. They and the curious transients at the terminal windows watched the fleshy-faced, white-haired old man, just short of 83, blow a few kisses for the cameras, then ease himself slowly down the airplane steps and shuffle over to a waiting limousine.

That evening New York's welcome began to warm up. Gloria Vanderbiit Cooper, who has known Charlie's wife Oona since they were both 14 (and who also once married a famous oldster, Conductor Leopold Stokowski), gave a dinner party for the Chaplins in her town house and invited 66 of the Manhattanites who matter. Among them were Theatricals (like perennial Film Star Lillian Gish), Actresses (Geraldine Fitzgerald and Kitty Carlisle), Politicals (Senator and Mrs. Jacob Javits), and Literary-Socials (Truman Capote and George Plimpton). Winsomely self-deprecating, perched on his chair rather than sitting in it, the guest of honor basked in so much high-powered appreciation--humming delightedly along with Showman Adolph Green's near total recall of the themes from Chaplin's film scores. It was almost like old times.

Next day, though, he was nervous again about the public reception that awaited him at Lincoln Center; he was too tense to attend a preliminary screening of two 1921 Chaplin films: The Idle Class and The Kid. At a cocktail party for about 50 notables at a suite in his hotel, Charlie and Oona came late, sat down, and limited their conversation pretty much to how-do-you-dos.

Charlie need not have worried. At Philharmonic Hall, the 1,500 who had paid $10 and $25 admission, plus the 1,200 who had paid $100 and $250 apiece for a black-tie champagne reception after the films, cheered him to the echo when he appeared with Oona in the first tier, and they watched the Little Tramp on-screen with such delighted empathy that the big concert hall all but glowed in the dark. When the movies were over, the audience turned in sudden, shouting ovation toward the dignified old man looking down on them, whose spry shadow had just been cavorting on the screen.

Norman Mailer had tears in his eyes.

President Nixon's representatives were Presidential Aide Leonard Garment, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Nancy Hanks and USIA Director Frank Shakespeare--like everyone else, they cheered and clapped. Charlie Chaplin stood at a microphone, waving and miming a little. Then he became very serious. "This is my renaissance," he said. "I'm being born again. It's easy for you, but it's very difficult for me to speak tonight, because I feel very emotional. However, I'm glad to be amongst so many friends. Thank you." -

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The champagne reception was a champagne shambles. Chaplin had specifically requested that his table not be cordoned off from the crowd, but perhaps he had forgotten about New Yorkers. Flashing their tickets at the ushers, they made a surging subway jam of black ties and decolletage, pressing around the table where Charlie sat.

Someone gave him a derby, and he mugged with it, a finger held under his nose doing service for the famed mustache. Congresswoman Bella Abzug leaned over his table, clutching her floppy pink hat. "The audience, the audience!" he exclaimed to her. "Everybody was in the audience!" Actor Zero Mostel loomed up and kissed him from the depths of an enormous beard, Actress Claire Bloom, one of his leading ladies (Limelight, 1952), appeared at the table. Roulette Goddard--another protegee (Modern Times, 1936) and his third ex-wife--was somehow brought unscathed through the crowd to chat with him for a couple of minutes. A nearby window was a refracted pattern of outsiders with faces and noses pressed against the glass, waving to attract his attention. But for all the loud confusion, when tired, old Charlie Chaplin made his way out at last, shielded by policemen and supported by his wife and son-in-law, his face was alight with pleasure.

The following day, a confident, happy Charlie began stepping out in the city. With Oona, he went for a short walk in a secluded part of Central Park. When he turned up at the "21" Club for a lunch given by Manhattan Councilman Carter Burden, there was a burst of applause as he entered the dining room. He lingered at the table, telling stories well into the afternoon, then had Photographer Richard Avedon up to his Plaza Hotel suite for their second sitting (the first was 20 years ago, on the day Chaplin left America). Later he visited Gracie Mansion, where Mayor John V. Lindsay presented him with the city's highest cultural award, the Handel Medallion. "Smile!" yelled the photographers. "I'm afraid my teeth would fall out," cracked Chaplin, cupping a hand beneath his chin.

At week's end the Charlie Chaplin who arrived in Hollywood to receive his second special Oscar--for his "incalculable effect in making motion pictures the art form of this century"--was still an old man who did not walk very fast or see very well. But he was not the same old man who had arrived in the U.S. a few days earlier. He knew that he was home and--as he said--that he had been reborn.

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