Down Memory Lane In Chaplin’s World

Charles Spencer Chaplin, the King of Comedy, was a man of many parts. Upon hanging up his boots from the world of tinsel town, he lived in a huge 14-acre estate known as Manoir de Ban in Corsier-sur-Vevey, near Montreux in Switzerland. To say “hanging up his boots” would not be entirely appropriate, as Chaplin produced films like A King in New York (1957) and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) while living in Switzerland. He wanted to produce another film entitled The Freak from here, but his frail health prevented him from doing so, as he was in his eighties by then.

I recently visited Vevey, as I had gone to Montreux for a few days. The weather was typical of a Swiss autumn evening—cloudy but pleasantly cool. Chaplin’s estate strikes the visitor with its elegance and charm. Humungous in size, it is also intense, leaving a profound and lasting impression.

On entering the museum, which is incidentally manned by young students in their late teens or early twenties, one comes across a foyer where Charlie and his wife Oona used to install the Christmas tree every year. Their eight children would have fun with Santa Claus, who sang Christmas carols and distributed sweets and presents. Ironically, Chaplin never liked Christmas, as it brought back memories of his childhood when, while living in a children’s home, he would receive only an orange and no other presents. He also died on Christmas Day in 1977.

Along the entryway, visitors can see a timeline on the walls highlighting major events in Chaplin’s life, with particular interest drawn to the period from 1953, when he arrived in Switzerland. The next stop on the ground floor is Chaplin’s study. The study has a well-designed and well-stocked library, and among the books I spotted V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival, leaving me wondering whether the great clown enjoyed reading the Indian-origin future Nobel laureate.

Chaplin was 63 when he moved to Switzerland, a victim of a vicious campaign that labelled him a Communist at the height of McCarthyism in the United States. He was still enormously active in literary and cinematic spheres. It was in this study-cum-library that he wrote the screenplays for his later films, A King in New York and A Countess from Hong Kong, as well as the books My Autobiography and My Life in Pictures. His imaginative genius is evident from hundreds of ideas and planned projects in the notes he left behind, including unrealised works like The Freak, the last film he hoped to make, in which he intended to launch his daughter Victoria Chaplin.

Chaplin’s living room is in tune with the rest of the house and equally refined in its finesse. The first violin he ever owned is displayed here. A fine piano, which Chaplin used to play, rests in one corner of the room. He bought the piano on the recommendation of Clara Haskil, a piano prodigy from Romania, whom—along with Churchill and Einstein—Chaplin considered among the three greatest geniuses of the twentieth century.

Clara Haskil had fled France before the German occupation during World War II and would play the piano at the Chaplin residence during the Christmas season. Chaplin would record these sessions on an old-fashioned tape recorder lying beside the piano.

The next room is the dining room, elegant in its ambience. Dinner was generally announced at 6:45 in the evening, with Charlie and Oona dressed informally. Dinner was an open forum for lively discussion, laced with humour and stories. Although the children mainly spoke French, Chaplin made it a rule that everyone should speak only in English at the dining table—or anywhere within his earshot—as he could neither speak nor understand French. He also had a barbecue set up on the lawn, where he would personally cook steaks in the American style.

Climbing the stairs, one sees a display of the Chaplin family tree, a world map, and photographs of people who visited Chaplin in Vevey and whom he admired. The world map is a reminder of the world tour Chaplin undertook in the 1930s, when his career was at its peak, during which he met Gandhi, Einstein, and Churchill, among others. His old suitcases from these tours are also on display. Moved by the great personalities he had encountered, Chaplin later made socially affirmative films like Modern Times and The Great Dictator.

Another room is dedicated to Chaplin’s wife, Oona, the daughter of Eugene O’Neill, one of the most famous American playwrights of his time. Oona, whom Chaplin described as a “luminous beauty,” was charismatic and a great support to him. The room features wax statues of Chaplin and Oona watching a film projected in the style of the era.

I then entered the bedroom where Chaplin passed away peacefully in his sleep on Christmas Day in 1977. A plaque in the bedroom bears his words:
“I see no tragedy in the loneliness of old age. No, I would not mould the matrix in which life has cast me. I go where the wind blows me.”
Pictures of Chaplin at various stages of his life adorn the wall above the head of the bed. Chaplin himself designed the furniture of the room.

Adjoining the bedroom is a room lined with photographs of people he knew and admired, including Gandhi, Nehru, Zhou Enlai, Walt Disney, Stan Laurel, Churchill, and Einstein.

A wax statue of the glamorous Sophia Loren stands tall here; she was the heroine of A Countess from Hong Kong. Descending the staircase, one enters what was Chaplin’s studio and a small amphitheatre, where rushes from his films are screened.

Outside, in the vast estate of the manor, one can saunter around, taking in the charm of the Alps and Lake Geneva below, rightly called the “Pearl of the Swiss Riviera.” I visited the gift shop and bought a few mementoes of the visit. One returned refreshed, having had a brush with history and the great Chaplin mystique.

As one turns the lens back on Chaplin’s life, one is struck by his versatility. Much of his work was both autobiographical and ideological. The Kid is an account of his infancy in East London; The Circus reflects pantomime traditions; Modern Times depicts the individualist creator trapped in the unending assembly line of Hollywood, escaping its tension through love; The Great Dictator expresses his hatred of dictatorships and his plea against the persecution of Jews; The Gold Rush, a madcap comedy, contains glimpses of his own life; Limelight tells the story of a comedian who no longer makes people laugh and bears the Spanish name Calvero in memory of Chaplin’s maternal grandmother; A King in New York reflects his contempt for American life and culture. A Countess from Hong Kong, initially planned as Stowaway in the 1930s, was loosely based on the Russian singer Moussia “Skaya” Sodskaya, whom Chaplin met in France in 1921.

The Freak, the film he planned but never made due to age-related complications, told the story of a winged girl born to an English missionary couple who later becomes an angel sought by invalids for healing. The wings Chaplin created for the protagonist are on display in the museum.

The economic hardship of Chaplin’s early life in London—his father having deserted his mother and her two sons, Charlie and Sydney—shaped the Tramp, the motif of many of his films.

Overall, it was a memorable visit and an opportunity to pay homage to the great clown who made the world laugh, and the great actor who played a variety of roles with such ease. Of Chaplin, Winston Churchill said in 1935:
“Let him play tragedy by all means. Let him display to us the full extent of his histrionic genius. But let him come back—at least occasionally—to the vein of comedy that has been the world’s delight for twenty years.”