i finished a book last week that i got for christmas -
charlie chaplin - a brief life, by peter ackroyd. as i said in the just finished reading thread, i absolutely HATED it.
i was excited to begin it, and emailed a fellow chaplinite i know to ask her opinion of the book - it was only recently released within the last year or so. she said it wasn't great. she's read a lot more books on chaplin than i have.
i was turned off by
tramp, by joyce milton. i read it several years ago and absolutely detested it. milton went out of her way to portray chaplin as an abuser in every relationship he ever had, a closeted homosexual and pedophile. she even found a way to trash the beautiful ending that was
city lights, one of his greatest films. i think i still have that book - i was afraid if i gave it to a used bookstore or even threw it away, someone might get their hands on it and read it, thinking it was the truth. every now and then i go to leave a review on it on amazon.
ackroyd's book wasn't as bad, but it was bad enough. he's supposed to be credited as being a pretty talented writer and biographer, but i'm telling you, he botched this one he wrote on chaplin. he made many mistakes on dates, mixing stories up and even misidentifying people in pictures. one picture shows chaplin in his tramp costume with a dark haired woman - i don't know who she is, but she was identified by ackroyd as edna purviance. it was definitely not her.
in another photo, there is a picture of chaplin, again in his tramp costume, with lita grey. i've seen this picture before, it was when she signed her contract to play the female lead in
the gold rush; there are several. but under the picture it says it is chaplin, marrying lita grey! wtf?? first of all, chaplin and lita were married in mexico with no press allowed - something ackroyd acknowledged. and why would chaplin dress as the tramp at his own wedding?
other things that bothered me - ackroyd would describe an event in chaplin's life and then just add a quote of something chaplin allegedly said with no documentation. how would he know what chaplin said? if it was fact, he should have identified what source it came from. nine times out of ten, it was an extremely negative comment, too, that made chaplin out to be a complete as*hole.
that was the whole theme of the book - it was
terribly negative. i know chaplin wasn't an easy person to work for, be friends with or married to. he was very demanding; he could be self-absorbed and rigid - quick to make friends, but also quick to forget them. but not once did ackroyd give chaplin the benefit of the doubt. when it came to the disastrous marriage to lita grey, ackroyd took ALL his information from lita's first book, which i read. even lita, years later, admitted how inaccurate that book was, as she had a small part in it since the publishers just wanted to make sure it was spicy enough for the readers at the time.
ackroyd even attacked chaplin's relationship with paulette goddard. i'm sure theirs wasn't always a blissful union - after all, they broke up. but they always remained friends and spoke highly of each other for the rest of their lives and appeared to share a happy union for a time when they were together. but ackroyd claimed how chaplin tortured paulette while making both
modern times and
the great dictator and how his cruelty drove her away, with no facts to back it up. it was her career that was the main reason of them breaking up; she was gaining her own popularity and wanted to make films at a pace chaplin didn't agree with.
even chaplin's
mother wasn't off limits. i've read rumors before that hannah could have resorted to prostitution at times to ensure her survival, along with charlie and sydney's, after her divorce to chaplin sr. it's never been documented as fact, though. but ackroyd made her out to be a drunken slut for the most part.
ackroyd does admit to the talent chaplin had, at least. but he was
pompous about it, like he was throwing chaplin a bone. he claimed that when chaplin moved to his home in switzerland that though the people there welcomed and celebrated him, that he was a jerk to all of them.
i can't say enough about how disappointing this book was (obviously). i am bothered because it got so many good reviews on amazon. like the milton book, i'm afraid well meaning, would-be fans will read it and get the wrong impression of him. the best two books to read on his life and career are
chaplin: his life and art, by david robinson, and
chaplin: genius of the cinema, by jeffrey vance. they don't try to hide the bad aspects of chaplin or some of his decisions, but they don't judge or trash him for it, either. and they are very thorough on his amazing career. even chaplin's autobiography isn't as good, imo. though i love having his own words to read - i can still remember the rush i felt when i first started it - he leaves a LOT of information out. the best part of his autobiography is how detailed his descriptions are of his poor childhood and his early success. by the end it is mostly name dropping, really. i felt he was honest, though, about the reasons that led up to his exile.
at any rate, ackroyd's book wasn't a good one. it felt rushed - like he just had read some things about chaplin from other books a long time ago and wrote from memory. i was so pissed after i finished it, i was trying to find an actual address for this ackroyd so i could send him my thoughts. something i am sure he would have appreciated.