14 Friday, January 13, 1978 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Charlie Chaplin: An Epitaph for a Jewish (?) Comedian

Jewish newspapers, in-
cluding The Detroit Jewish
News, refrained from men-
tioning Charlie Chaplin's
passing. There have been
references to his Jew-
ishness, but since there was
no affirmation from him in
the latter years of his life,
and because he was given a
Christian burial, his name
did not appear in obituary
_ columns of the Jewish
press.
The London Jewish
Chronicle, however, carried
a most revealing "Jewish
story" about him in its issue
of Dec. 30. Its text follows:
"Was Charlie (Sir
Charles) Chaplin, the great-
est comedian of all time, a
Jew or of Jewish origin? In
all likelihood, no one will
ever know for sure. He nev-
er denied or confirmed the
fact.
"Whenever the question
was put to him directly he
usually put off his inquirers
with such evasions as 'Does
it matter?' or . 'Is it impor-
tant?' He once remarked
that to deny the allegation
would mean offending mil-
lions of his Jewish admirers
in America.
"Israel Zangwill, the Jew-
ish writer, once slated
Chaplin for refusing to ac-
knowledge that he was a
Jew. Addressing the Brook-
lyn Academy of Music in
1923, Zangwill declared: 'Of
course Chaplin is a Jew and
he ought to be ashamed not
to own up to it.'
"Some of the roles Chap-
lin played helped to foster
the belief that he was Jew-
ish. During his early years
in the English music hall he
was once billed as Sam
Cohen, the Jewish comedi-
an.'
He mentioned in his auto-
biography an engagement
at the old Foresters' Music
Hall, in Cambridge Road in
the East End, at a time
when Jewish comedians
were all the rage in London.
" 'Although I was abso-
lutely innocent of it, my
comedy was mostly anti-
Semitic. My jokes were not
only very old ones but very
poor, like my Jewish ac-
cent. After the first couple
of jokes the audience
started throwing orange
peel and began stamping
and booing.
" 'The jeers and the 'rasp-
berries' and the throwing of
coins increased. I did not
wait to hear the verdict of
the management. I left the
theatre immediately and
never returned.'
"Then there was his film
'The Great Dictator' made
in 1940, in which both as a
Jewish barber and a
screaming dictator, he
drove home the point of his
blistering satire against Hit-
ler and Mussolini in a six-
minute speech against intol-
erance, hatred and greed.
"He told one interviewer
at the time that, while work-
ing on the film, he felt so
vlosq.'1,01 the .:Jemrs,

CHARLIE CHAPLIN
what was happening to
them under Hitler 'that I
was convinced that I must
be Jewish.'
"Investigations to deter-
, mine the place and date of
his birth have not been suc-
cessful. Though his birth is
always _given by his biogra-
phers as April 16, 1889, no
certificate of that date can
be traced at Somerset
House under the name
Chaplin_ or of Thonstein,
which has been mentioned
from time to time as having
been the family name.
"That he lived in Ken-
nington, south-east London,
as a boy is certain, but
whether he was born in
South London or in Paris,
Fontainebleau or elsewhere
has not been established.
"His father, a music-hall
performer, is said to have
belonged to an • Anglo-
French family, some of
whom were Jewish, while
his mother__ (nee Hannah
Hill), a dancer, appearing
as Lily Hartley, is believed
to have been of Spanish-
Irish — some say gypsy —
stock.
"He was once quoted as
saying that he had 'relatives
' on my father's side, living
in Africa, who look ex-
tremely Jewish, some with
Jewish names, so I am
probably part Jewish.'
"Chaplin once declared
himself to be 'a citizen of
the world' and Israel was
one of the many countries
where he was particularly
admired. An Israeli Army
radio station interrupted a
broadcast of Menahem Be
gin's departure to meet
President Sadat at Ismailia
to announce the news of his
death Dec. 25."
Jewish Telegraphic
Agency Hollywood reporter
Herbert "Luft writes that
Chaplin and Adolf Hitler
were born under the same
star, only four days apart,
April 16, 1889 and April 20,
1889. On the surface, there
was a strong physical re-
s emblance between the
pathetic "little tramp" with
the deeply searching eyes
and the clipped mustache.
and the swaggering ex-cor-
poral who was obsessed
with power and greed. Of
course, the two were com-
pletely dissimilar in charac-
ter and attitude and Chap-
lin, without the makeup of
the clown, revealed a coun-
tenance of . .

It is quite possible that
Hitler, in the beginning, de-
liberately imitated the looks
of the already world-famous
Chaplin when putting the
ridiculous mustache under
his nose to appear as a fool
one . wouldn't take serious
abroad — to gain time to
prepare for a conquest of
the continent. It also was
advantageous for him inside
of Gerniany to be compared
by the Populace with the
loveable comedian who had
- become a remarkably fa-
miliar face within a few
short years.
The story idea to make a
motion picture such as "The
Great .Dictator," satirizing
racial insanity and the con-
cept for world domination,
came to Chaplin in the late
1930s from the Hungarian-
born, British-knighted Sir
Alexander Korda, one of the
pioneers of film production.
Chaplin went ahead; he
invented the character of
the Jewish barber (a varia-
tion of the immortal tramp)
against a ghetto environ-
ment of central Europe.
Symbolizing the inborn
goodness of the simple man,
antithesis of the evil dicta-
tor Hynkel who operates un-
der the sign of the "double-
cross" (which replaces on
the screen the swastika),
the barber mistakenly is
identified as the Fuehrer of
the realm.
The parody of chauvinism
is highlighted by a radio
address to millions of fol-
lowers. Combining his man-
nerism with the awkward
bombast of the dictator, the
little Jew holds out his hand
to humanity at large, to all
men of good will .whether
they are Christians or Jews,
Black or white.
In the foolish-mask of the
dictator, he exposes the
hypocrisy of the regime. At
last, he calls out for his girl
Hannah (portrayed by Pau-
lette Goddard) whom the
filmmaker has given the
first name of his own
mother.
Jerry Epstein who headed
the Hollywood Circle Thea-
ter where Charles Chaplin
directed a series of stage
plays, revealed that Charlie
once told him that he
wouldn't have had the nerve
to cavort in the disguise of
Adolf Hitler and poke fun at
the Nazis in "The Great
Dictator" had he known
then the facts about Ger-
man concentration camps,
the anguish and torture and
exterminations.
In 1942, when Chaplin was
aware of "the final solu-
tion" of the Jewish prob-
lem, he strongly advocated
that the Allies open a sec-
ond front to divert the pres-
sure of the German assault
on Russia and stop the mur-
der of millions of innocent
civilians. -
In a letter to the New
York • Times, Nougzar
Sharia wrote:
Now Charlie Chaplin is

dead(.4he.mazw.whol defie&

all the Marxist ideologies by
which I was raised, first at
the Theatrical State In-
stitute in Tbilisi, the capital
of the Georgian Socialist So-
viet Republic, and later in
Moscow at the Academy of
Cinematography.
We learned to respect
Chaplin as one of the great-
est satirists of all times,
who could ridicule
bourgeois society and
bourgeois life — but only a
real Communist was ca-
pable of fundamental criti:
cism.
One of my professors at
the academy used, to tell us
that Stalin, as a great Chap-
lin fan, saw his movies quite
often. When in 1940 the
American Embassy re-
ceived a copy of "The Great
Dictator," a gala show was
organized\to which the elite
of the Soviet film industry
was invited. The film was
shown in the State Projec-
tion Room of the Kremlin.
Stalin was seated in front
of all invited guests and
enjoyed Chaplin's perform-
ance tremendously, laugh-
ing like a child all through
the first part of the film.

However, when at the end
Chaplin began to criticize
all dictatorships, Stalin
stopped the performance
with a sweeping gesture,
announcing: "We don't need
Chaplin here."

Chaplin, of course,
learned almost immediately
of this incident and ad-

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dressed a letter to the well-
known Russian director - Al-
exandrov in which he stipu-
lated that no future film of
his should be shown in the
USSR. And that was the end
of the official relationship
between two great powers:
the Union of Socialist Soviet
_ Republics and Charles Spen-
cer Chaplin.

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