Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups (Scarecrow Filmmakers Series) [Hardcover]

Georgia Hale (Author), Heather Kiernan (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0810830035 | ISBN-13: 978-0810830035 | Publication Date: April 1995

Many remember Charlie Chaplin's comic masterpiece, The Gold Rush, as the finest blend of comedy and farce ever brought to the screen, but far fewer remember its heroine, Georgia Hale. Seventy years after the film's premier, Georgia Hale returns to the center of the frame through her memiors. Charlie Chaplin describes the actress's intimate relationship with Chaplin; her memoir effectively ending with Chaplin's marriage in 1943 to Oona O'Neill. Contains illustrations from the Chaplin archive.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...highly interesting... (The Silent Film Monthly )

...excellent historical and biographical reference. Recommended for film biography collections. (Library Journal )

A touching read... (Sight and Sound )

Hale's book does corroborate other accounts of Chaplin's working methods and demeanor, and testifies to the intense devotion he could inspire in others. (Film Quarterly )

...always delightful...manages to dance off the page with wonderful revelations of the charm and grandeur of Hollywood (and Chaplin) in the Twenties. (Films In Review )

The reader is rewarded with pieces of Chaplin's life not to be found elsewhere...in context the overall cumulative effect of the book is winning, and Georgia's personality comes through as warm and very appealing. (Limelight ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Heather Kiernan, a freelance writer and editor, was educated at the University of Toronto and Cambridge University. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 271 pages
• Publisher: Scarecrow Pr (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810830035
• ISBN-13: 978-0810830035
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,026,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Loving Tribute, October 9, 2005

By 

Samantha Glasser "Maliejandra" (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series) (Paperback)

This book is everything I expected it to be and more.

Too many books on famous faces are filled with stories of their sexual exploits. Too many of these books lose their credibility due to bad writing, unrealistic situations, and a tell-all attitude which cheapens the information presented. This book is not like that. It is classily put together like an old movie that never showed sex but smartly implied it. Hale does not blatantly throw her longtime love affair with Chaplin in the reader's face; she forces one to read between the lines and to still realize that there were barriers like marriage that she did not cross.

Along with stories about Chaplin, Hale reminisces on her life before and during stardom. She tells of winning a beauty contest that took her to Hollywood and meeting Chaplin on the street one day. She tells about filming The Gold Rush and her passionate love for Chaplin ever after.

More than anything else, though, this book gives its reader total insight into Chaplin as a man. He was tempestuously moody and difficult, yet insanely insightful. This all comes from a woman who knew him well for much of his life. So many books dismiss his personality to dissect his genius as a film maker but only glance at his behavior outside of that. This book looks into what Chaplin was like socially by a woman who was not only close to him, but is representative of the many women in the comic's life.

Miss Hale comes off as an annoying know-it-all bragging about Chaplin having an attraction to her during The Gold Rush in the Unknown Chaplin series. However, reading this book gives a whole new perspective on her. It helps one to understand that she was not bragging about Chaplin's affections; she was simply reveling in a tiny glimpse of hope that he might feel even a fraction of the love she felt for him. This is an honest, emotional account.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Georgia Gets Her Man- For A Time, February 1, 2000

By 

Christina (New Castle, De) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series) (Paperback)

I am a big Chaplin fan, so I try and read whatever I can get my hands on. Georgia Hale was Charlie's leading lady for The Gold Rush, and unbeknownst to me, one of his major loves off-screen. Their relationship was on-and-off again for several years, but he kept coming back to her. I enjoyed reading about Georgia's childhood and her search to meet the man (she claims) who completely saved her life. Her accounts with him are surprising, endearing, memorable. I only wish she would spend more time talking about herself as an individual, instead of Charlie's companion. This accounts for gaps in time and information since it is apparent that she feels the times not spent with Charlie are not worth mentioning. She also ends the book on a rather uneventful and abrupt note which is dissatisfying. You learn more about Georgia's post-Chaplin life (but not much) in the introduction by the author. However, it is a touching recollection of her times with this amazing man, hence my 3 stars.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Romantic and Sweet, August 5, 2007

By 

Jay Raskin "PhilosopherJay" (Orlando, Fl United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series) (Paperback)

This is a very beautiful memoir about Charlie Chaplin. Hale fell in love with Chaplin's tramp character, "Charlie." In her memory, it happened as a young girl when she first saw him at the movies, but one can suggest that it really happened when she co-starred with him in the "Gold Rush" in 1926. They had a close off-and-on romantic relationship for the next 17 years.
Hale wrote this in the 1960's, when she was in her 60's and had not talked to Chaplin for over two decades. Still, the pain and pleasure of her relationship with him seems quite fresh.
Unfortunately, she seems to be seeing the relationship through the prism of her Christian Science ideology. It is hard to say if she really loved "Charlie" the artist, but hated "Mr. Chaplin" the Hollywood businessman, as she insists. This might be a later interpretation that she imposed upon the relationship to suppress the very real contradictions that the relationship must have held for her. We should remember that she was in constant competition with hundreds of beautiful women for his affection and companionship. She desperately wanted to be special for him. The only thing that seems to have made her special was her love for Charlie the tramp character. One can say that Chaplin loved her for her love of Charlie.
She does give a fascinating dream account towards the end of the book in which she marries Chaplin and moves to a small village in Greece with him. Obviously, there, she would not have faced the terrible competition for his affection that she faced in Hollywood.
Heather Kiernan has done a wonderful job of editing this work into a narrative whole from what was apparently very choppy and incomplete manuscripts.