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| Oona O'Neill with Charles Chaplin 1952 |
The Story Behind Charlie Chaplin and Oona O'Neill's Extreme Age-Gap Marriage
Chaplin called meeting O'Neill "the happiest event of my life."
BY SAMANTHA DRAKEPUBLISHED: APR 18, 2017
Known as the iconic "Little Tramp" of silent films and a Hollywood pioneer behind a string of cinematic masterpieces, Charlie Chaplin achieved international fame and respect as an actor, director, and producer. But in private Chaplin led a lonely life, dogged by scandal and haunted by his impoverished youth, until he met the luminous Oona O'Neill.
In his memoir, My Autobiography, Chaplin described meeting O'Neill as "the happiest event of my life."
"For the last twenty years I have known what happiness means," Chaplin wrote.
"I have the good fortune to be married to a wonderful wife. I wish I could write more about this, but it involves love, and perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustrations because it is more than one can express."
For a long time, it seemed unlikely Chaplin would ever find lasting love.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London on April 16, 1889, to parents who pursued careers as actors and singers. However, "the early death of his father and the subsequent illness of his mother made it necessary for Charlie and his brother, Sydney, to fend for themselves" before Chaplin was 10 years old, notes the Chaplin Office, which represents the Chaplin rights-holding companies and the Chaplin family.
A part in a stage show at age 12 started Chaplin's career as a vaudeville comedian, which eventually took him to the United States in 1912. Chaplin was a hit with audiences and the fledgling Hollywood film industry took notice. Chaplin launched his silent movie career in 1913.
Chaplin increasingly became involved in the writing and directing side of moviemaking and later joined forces with fellow actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and director/producer D.W. Griffith to found the United Artists Corp. His most enduring films include The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940).
Unfortunately, real-life scandals too often overshadowed Chaplin's on-screen triumphs. He married his first wife, actress Mildred Harris, after a pregnancy scare when she was just 16 years old. The couple divorced in 1920. In 1924, Chaplin quietly married another 16-year-old actress, Lita Grey, whom he met on the set of The Gold Rush. The couple had two sons, Charles Jr. and Sydney, before divorcing in 1927. Chaplin's third wife was the actress Paulette Goddard, who appeared in several his films and was 21 when they wed. They were married from 1936 to 1942 and divorced amicably.
Chaplin met O'Neill in 1942 when he was considering her for a role in one of his films. They hit it off immediately, becoming inseparable, and married the following year. "[H]e at last found true happiness, and it seems they had both found their soul mates, despite the fact that Oona was only 18, and Charlie was 53," according to the Chaplin Office.
Although O'Neill was older than both of his first two wives when they married, the couple's age gap raised eyebrows. But for Chaplin this was the happy union he had been waiting for all his life. The couple had eight children together: Geraldine, Michael, Josephine, Victoria, Eugene, Jane, Annette, and Christopher, and they remained married until Chaplin's death in 1977. Several of the Chaplin children went into acting, with film and stage actress Geraldine Chaplin and her daughter, Oona Chaplin (who appeared in Game of Thrones and Taboo) achieving the most recognition.
Chaplin was world-famous when they married. But who was Oona O'Neill, the woman who finally captured Chaplin's heart?
She was the daughter of American playwright Eugene O'Neill, whose celebrated plays include The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey into Night, who divorced her mother when Oona was just 2 years old. Already irked that his teenage daughter was trying to take up acting against his advice, the playwright immediately disowned her upon learning of her marriage to Chaplin, who was the same age as he.
The graduate of an exclusive private girls school in New York City, Oona had already drawn attention. "As a young and somewhat sensitive society beauty, Oona O'Neill had her own following. When she visited the West Coast in her brief attempt to become an actress, she received long daily letters from an admirer named 'Jerry'—the author J. D. Salinger," noted the New York Times in her obituary.
Being married to Chaplin wasn't always easy, but O'Neill handled the turbulence that surrounded him with quiet grace.
"The forties brought Chaplin lawsuits, violent press attacks, general unfavorable publicity, and failure of his only film of the decade," Theodore Huff wrote in his biography of the actor, Charlie Chaplin. In particular, the press had a field day with a paternity suit brought against Chaplin by aspiring starlet Joan Barry. Although a blood test proved Chaplin was not the father of Barry's daughter, a jury decided otherwise and a judge ordered him to support the child.
The Chaplin family posing with copies of Charlie Chaplin\’s autobiography for their 1964 christmas card.O'Neill was by Chaplin's side in London for the world premiere of his film Limelight in 1952 when he received word that in order to reenter the U.S., he would have to submit to questioning about his political views and moral behavior. The couple decided to settle in Switzerland with their children and moved to Corsier-sur-Vevey near Lake Geneva. They lived there until Chaplin's death.
The couple's deep love for each other was unmistakable. "As I live with Oona, the depth and beauty of her character are a continual revelation to me," Chaplin wrote in his autobiography. "Even as she walks ahead of me along the narrow sidewalks of Vevey with simple dignity, her neat little figure straight, her dark hair smoothed back showing a few silver threads, a sudden wave of love and admiration comes over me for all that she is—and a lump comes into my throat."
Chaplin died on Christmas day in 1977. Oona lived another 14 years, largely in seclusion in Switzerland and New York. She died in 1991 of pancreatic cancer at age 66. Chaplin and O'Neill are buried side-by-side in Corsier-sur-Vevey.
Her New York Times obituary reported that she was a content wife and mother, never paying any attention to the difference between her age and her husband's: "'He is my world,' she said in 1960. 'I've never seen or lived anything else.'"
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