Victor Arden was born, in theory and in name, a lot later than the man who actually created him as a pseudonym, Lewis John Fuiks. The only son of Samuel and Vallie Fuiks, both Illinois natives, Lewis was born and raised, for a time, in Wenona, Illinois, not far from Peoria. His father is listed in 1900 as working in "general merchandise," likely managing or owning a general store of some kind. Not much has been reported about Lewis' early musical training, but there was probably some piano instruction involved, along with harmony and theory. As evidence of this, Fuiks was able to publish a rag at age 16 in Chicago with the unusual title of Safety Pin Catch. By the time of the 1910 Census the family had moved to Chicago, where they were erroneously enumerated as the "Fox" family. Samuel was shown to be working in a clothing store as an assistant buyer.
     In the fall of 1910 Lewis was enrolled in the University of Chicago, and he emerged with a degree in music in short order. This was followed by training at the American Conservatory of Music, also in the "windy city." There is some possibility that Fuiks was producing piano rolls as early as 1915, likely in Chicago. There are some roll titles that were released by Imperial, a Chicago company, in the mid to late 1910s. In their advertisements of 1916 they promote Fuiks as "the Chicago University Musical Wonder." He and fellow dynamo performer Zema Randale were considered the primary "raggists" of the Imperial label. In a Music Trade Review notice in the October 7, 1916 edition, it was noted that: "...the Jazz-Ragger Fuiks and the inimitable syncopating star, Zema Randale, are coming under the protection of insurance companies. The Imperial Co. sells its high-grade products at such fair prices that it will not subject itself to loss through the inability of any of its staff to play."
     Yet Imperial did suffer that very loss shortly thereafter as Lewis moved on to greener pastures. To compound things, their other star, Miss Randale, tragically died in 1918. It is not known for certain when Fuiks moved to New York City, but given that his first output from there came in 1917, and he is known to have contributed at least four "operas" to the Chicago Blackfriars, the last presented at annual musical in May of 1916, he likely left for Manhattan late in 1916, along with his new wife Ilse Fuiks.
     One of Fuiks' first jobs in New York may have been as an accompanist for the movies and, given his training, for hire by singers as well. However by February 1917 he was arranging and recording piano rolls as his primary career. There was some output from the Rythmodik roll company in 1917 through 1919, including his own Honeymoon Waltz which was considered somewhat of a hit. However, the bulk of Fuiks' early works were on the Ampico label, the parent company of Rythmodik, turning out "hand-played" expression rolls of popular dance tunes, tangos, and operettas. When the Rythmodik label was finally abandoned many of his cut were re-released on Ampico rolls. Early advertisements for both labels touted him as a jazz artist.
     While about two dozen of these were printed under his given name of Lewis J. Fuiks, this may have proved problematic to either Lewis or Ampico management for obvious linguistic reasons (this has not been officially established in fact but has been discussed), and he was soon rechristened as Victor Arden on his popular jazz rolls as early as February, 1917.

The All Star Trio around 1920 with (l to r) George Hamilton Green, Wheeler Wadsworth and Victor Arden

Even though Lewis still used his given name for legal purposes, Arden would be the name he was professionally known as for the rest of his life, although rolls played by Fuiks were still shown in the listings as late as 1929. In at least one 1920 advertisement, both names are listed, a matter of continuity and removing the necessity to relabel all of the older rolls with the artist's new name. His 1917 draft record, taken in New York City, shows him working for the American Piano Company (Ampico) as a musician, with an address north of the city in Yonkers.
     Starting around 1918, Victor formed a group called the All Star Trio, with George Hamilton Green on saxophone and F. Wheeler Wadsworth on the newly-minted vibraphone and other tuned percussion. They recorded for the next two years on the Edison label initially, turning out recordings for Victor, Brunswick, Pathé, Okeh, Paramount, Emerson, and for the Vocalian label of Aeolian, a subsidiary of the American Piano Company. Fellow pianist and roll arranger Max Kortlander stepped in for Arden on occasion. Arden also continued to turn out great rolls of popular tunes during this time, earning him the title of King of the Piano Roll. The bulk of Victor's compositions were from this period. In either June or July of 1918 Arden shifted gears and labels as he started arranging and playing for QRS, the dominant standard roll manufacturer.
     It was at QRS that Victor first met pianist Fillmore (Phil) Ohman, who had been there for a couple of years. They found they had similar backgrounds, abilities and points of view concerning performance, and neither lacked the energy to explore new ways to play things. The duo quickly found they could produce some amazing roll arrangements with little effort, and were soon inseparable. Their first QRS rolls started to appear within weeks off Arden joining the firm. Ohman sketched out the general direction of what they would play without full notation, then they would record with Arden in the bass and Ohman in the treble.
     One critic who observed them up close found Ohman to be the "wag and clown of the pair," calling Arden the "serious minded, painstaking musician." While a slightly imbalanced point of view, Ohman's humor was more likely to come out in his playing, even during serious classical recitals that he accompanied. Both quickly became celebrities both in and outside the circle of jazz performers, and the public proved to be thirsty for their duet piano rolls. Lewis is listed in the 1920 Census as a "musician recorder" living in Yonkers with Ilse, and a new addition, Lewis John Fuiks Jr., born in July of 1919. Son Robert Spindler Fuiks would follow in 1921.
     While Arden and Ohman continued to make rolls both together and separately, Phil, through praise brought for his public performances, was offered a job in the fast-rising orchestra of Paul Whiteman, the so-called "King of Jazz." Not able to keep all his various positions, Ohman had to quit QRS and break up the duo for a while. Victor would continue to do duets through the mid 1920s, but with Kortlander, who he had been playing with since joining QRS, filling in for Ohman. Victor also kept busy with outside obligations. The All Star Trio expanded from 1921 to 1922 as the All Star Trio with Orchestra, featuring the distinctive Billy Murray on vocals. They signed a contract with the B.F. Keith Vaudeville Circuit for a 1922 tour.
     While the job with Whiteman was both good for his exposure as well as making connections, Ohman realized, as did Arden, that it was less fulfilling than their duo performances. So after a year or so he quite Whiteman's orchestra and concentrated on local gigs with Arden. They built their repertoire playing in clubs in midtown Manhattan, particularly on 52nd Street, and finally went into the studio late in 1923 to record live as a duo. Among their eclectic choices were the 1888 galop Dance of the Demons by multi-piano composer Eduard Holst and the popular rag turned song Canadian Capers. They were also one of the earliest piano duos to appear on radio as early as 1922, and were featured in one notable broadcast on wireless Chicago station KYW on April 11, 1925, for an estimated audience of 300,000 listeners. Phil had further exposure on the popular Roxy and His Gang Show which was broadcast from the Capitol theater where Ohman had worked. He brought Arden on for occasional appearances on the show.
     The performances were a sensation, and Broadway soon discovered them as well, knowing that they would be an additional draw to certain shows. The use of dual pianists or pianos was not new on Broadway, but their reputation was about as solid as their first Broadway employer/collaborator, Gershwin himself. So it was that they co-led the pit orchestra for Lady Be Good in 1924. According to the January 3, 1925 edition of The Music Trade Review: "An interesting anecdote relative to the two Story & Clark small grands being used by Phil Ohman and Victor Arden in the musical show 'Lady Be Good,'... was told this week by L. Schoenewald, New York district manager of the Story & Clark Piano Co. 'The original arrangement was that two of our pianos were to be used by the show when it opened in Philadelphia... but an error on the part of the stage carpenters resulted in building of the special moving platform too small to hold them. Although they had requested Story & Clark grands, Ohman and Arden were compelled to play their duet numbers on two 4 feet 8 grands of different make during the Philadelphia engagement. They were not satisfied with the tone of these pianos, so on coming to New York Victor Arden prevailed on the management to enlarge the platform to hold our 5 feet 2 inch grands. It has afforded the Story & Clark Piano Co. much pleasure to realize that our pianos are held in such esteem by two such talented pianists as Phil Ohman and Victor Arden.'
     Gershwin started what would become a popular trend throughout the remainder of the 1920s and into the 1930s, supported in the end by the economy of having two pianists and requiring less orchestra personnel. This trend was noted in The Music Trade Review of July 16, 1927, in the following excerpt:

     Piano Duos Featured in Both Productions and Over the Radio as Well as in Moving Picture Theatres—Wide Variety of Effects Obtainable
     A FORM of presentation of popular numbers which during the past season has reached a new point of popularity is the piano duo as exemplified by nearly half a dozen teams of pianists featured in the orchestra pits of the leading musical comedy successes. The use of specially arranged numbers for four hands is a practice older than jazz itself and originated many years ago in the recording studios of the pioneers in music roll making. Since that time, with the development of the augmented dance orchestra, the employment of two pianos has followed the trend of the day and the sparkle of special choruses for the pianists in skillful teamwork has become one of the bright spots of an evening at the dance floor or cabaret.
     About three years ago Phil Ohman and Victor Arden, seasoned recording pianists, were featured in a specialty in "Lady, Be Good," a George Gershwin musical show. This started things for the theatrical presentation of piano duos and the same team appeared the following year in the pit of the Gershwin show, "Tip Toes." Here the effect was more impressive than in the previous engagement, where they had appeared on the stage but only for a short time. In the second show the two pianos were an integral part of the orchestra during the entire evening.
     Anyone susceptible at all to rhythmic and harmonic effects in popular music will not soon forget the thrill of hearing the arpeggio passages of Phil Ohman on the upper register of his piano in the number, "That Certain Feeling," of Gershwin. The pianists had carefully gone over the entire score with the composer in rehearsals and every place that afforded a pianistic "break" or embellishment was so treated. The result was a score far more brilliant and individual than is customarily heard from the orchestra pit and a new custom was started...
     But the spread of popularity of the piano due has not ended in the theatre. The radio, too, has developed favorites in four-hand interpretation of the latest hits.

     Phil Ohman moved from QRS to Aeolian in July, 1925, to cut Duo-Art rolls, effectively ending the six year run of QRS duets he had done with Arden. However, it was not the end of their partnership by any means. Their first Broadway success would be followed by more Gershwin shows such as Tip Toes in 1925, Oh, Kay in 1926, and Funny Face in 1927. Other shows included Treasure Girl in 1928, both Spring is Here and Heads Up in 1929.

Victor Arden (l) and Phil Ohman (r) in a
late 1920s publicity shot.

In between the Broadway shoes they recorded and performed on the road on the vaudeville circuits. Among the labels Ohman and Arden appeared on were Columbia, Victor (soon to be RCA Victor) and Gramophone.
     It should be noted that when they were billed in any venue that the order of their names did not matter to them, the sign of a solid partnership. They were also sought out in the late 1920s, as many New York acts were, by Warner Brothers for a few Vitaphone sound shorts, one of the first being The Piano Dualists in 1927. They were later seen and heard playing Dancing the Devil Away in the 1930 RKO musical The Cuckoos. Arden turned out many interesting arrangements during the 1920s of dance tunes on record, many sold very cheaply in Woolworths and similar outlets, making his name perhaps even better known than Ohman's.
     One of their contemporary critics, Gay Stevens, said the following concerning this formidable duo: "There is not a piano player in the land who, after hearing Ohman and Arden interpret a piece of jazz music on their two pianos, has not wanted to throw his piano out of the window. The keyboard magic of this duo-team has been the inspiration and despair of every real American youngster who sedulously practiced his Czerny with a secret desire to win excited gasps of admiration from the fair young things in his circle by his jazz piano playing."
     Arden, Ohman and Kortlander appeared together often for QRS promotions in the mid 1920s, playing live performances of their collective solo and duet piano rolls in addition the occasional trio. While Victor and Phil often performed just with the piano, the Arden-Ohman orchestra was started in 1925, initially for recording but later for both live performance and radio work. It was the latter that gave them their best overall exposure in the late 1920s through the first part of the Great Depression.
     In addition to this live duo, Arden went back to work for Ampico in the spring of 1928, turning out new popular roll arrangements. As announced in The Music Trade Review of February 11, 1928: "J. Milton Delcamp, vice-president of the Ampico Corp., announces that arrangements have been made with Victor Arden, the well known young American pianist and devotee of popular music to record his playing exclusively for Ampico records [rolls] in the future. Mr. Arden, a graduate of the University of Chicago and of the American Conservatory of Music of that city, came to New York several years ago, and in company with Phil Ohman has played in a number of musical comedy successes and has also been a member of Roxy's Gang." This job soon expanded into a series of duets with Ampico roll artist Adam Carroll. Carroll subsequently briefly joined Arden and Ohman to create a piano trio for a few performances on radio and for special functions.
     From 1928 to the mid 1930s, Arden and Carroll turned out over 60 rolls with their names on them. However, while some may have been arranged initially by Arden, many were filled in (and some created) by Frank Milne at the factory (often edited with colored pencils on Milne's kitchen table). They are still often considered to at least be in the style of Arden and Carroll, even if not entirely played by them. Both turned out rolls separately as well, but the player piano business faded fairly quickly as the Great Depression set in and free entertainment was available via radio.

A 1931 broadcast transcription disc of Arden and Ohman with the Victor Orchestra.

When Ampico failed in the late 1930s many of these rolls were re-coded for Duo-Art performances, making them among the rarer rolls that were available for both reproducing systems. As off the 1930 Census Lewis and Ilse were still living in Yonkers with their sons Lewis and John and one servant, and Lewis Sr. was listed as a musician/performer.
     Realizing that the best possible future for success was on the radio, the most effective medium of the 1930s, the dynamic piano duo re-teamed and hit the airwaves. Arden and Ohman had no issue finding good sponsorship, playing for everything from news programs to two or three numbers advertising toothpaste or fine watches. Some of their musical shows included The Bayer Music Review, The Buick Program, and the landmark American Album of Familiar Music. But the stresses of performance partnership eventually interfered, more on the professional level than on the personal level, and in 1934 Arden and Ohman split to go different directions, remaining friends. The duo reunited for one more recording session on Brunswick in 1935. Ilse Fuiks had her own hobby as well, dabbling in the world of equestrian competitions. She owned a few different horses during the 1930s, including one fine jumper named Happy Days.
     While Ohman went on to some fame in Hollywood, Arden chose to stay back east where radio was still the predominant form of entertainment during the waning days of the Great Depression. He was able to secure work as both pianist and conductor on NBC (National Broadcasting System), including such shows as Kings of Melody, Sweetest Love Songs Ever and Broadway Varieties. Arden also worked and recorded with his own dance band, but with all the other engagements he had to keep it fizzled out before too long. He also filled in for leader Abe Lyman on many occasions, conducting for his popular Waltz Time shows. Arden enjoyed one last stretch on Broadway playing for the revue George White's Scandals of 1939.
     Lewis and Ilse were still living in Yonkers as of 1944 when their younger son, Lieutenant Robert Fuiks, USNR, was first engaged to Thirsa Burr Sands that October. In the 1940s during World War II, he continued to make records with various orchestras, and was featured on the Manhattan Merry-Go-Round for a while in 1947, eventually landing steady spot on The American Melody Hour near the end of the decade. In the 1950s Arden again led an orchestra, this time behind the charismatic Dick Powell, the singing star of many MGM movies. One of his last projects was a reincarnation of his first group, the All Star Trio, after which he went into retirement. He had moved from Yonkers in 1951, buying an apartment at Douglas Park, located at W. 236th Street and Henry Hudson Parkway in Riverdale.
     Lewis was remarried in the 1950s to Frances Newsom. During his last few years the couple lived at 77 Park Avenue in Manhattan. His former partner Phil Ohman died in the summer of 1954. Lewis Fuiks a.k.a. Victor Arden died almost exactly eight years later in 1962 at age 69 leaving behind a wealth of recordings allowing us a look into some of the most exciting music of the 1920s and 1930s. His work both alone and with Ohman brought a vitality to the driving rhythms and languid ballads of the 1920s and beyond, making the player piano a glamorous instrument, and its listeners always wanting more.

     Felix Arndt, regarded by some as the earliest proponent of the novelty piano style, was born to royalty, at least in a sense. His mother, Charlotte [Harpeur] Arndt (5/1851), was born in Spain to a French father and Spanish mother. Charlotte was known as the Countess Fevrier of France, and was reportedly related to Napoleon III. (She was mistakenly listed as Carolyn in the 1910 Census.) Felix's father, Andreas W. Hugo Arndt (2/1853), was a carpenter born in Switzerland. The couple married in Manhattan in 1888. Felix also had a younger sister, Charlotte A. Arndt (12/1890). Born in New York, Felix was educated in the New York City public school system, greatly improved as the influence of Tammany Hall was waning, and usually fostering those who wanted to play instruments in the requisite school band. He took up the piano on his own, but later sought out advanced training in harmony and theory. One of his professors was pianist Carl Lachmund, who was a follower of Franz Liszt. Carl's son Arno F. Lachmund would one day work indirectly with Felix while employed by Duo-Art.
     Once out of school, Arndt's talent for arranging was quickly recognized by publishers, and he got a job composing special material on demand for several years, including for vaudeville stars such as the husband and wife team of Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, and often with fellow composer Gus Edwards (although specific titles have not surfaced to date and may have been disposed of after use). His steady gig for a time was as the organist for New York’s famed Trinity Church, right on Wall Street and a focal point in the days following the WTC disaster of 2001. He was shown in 1910 as still living with his family, and as a musician working for a publisher. Charlotte is shown as a stenographer working for a publisher, possibly the same one.
     One of his more fortuitous breaks came in 1912 when Felix joined banjoist Fred Van Eps and his brother Bill Van Eps on a second banjo to form the Van Eps Trio, the first of many such groups led by Fred. Van Eps had already been recording for Victor Records, so had no problem bringing Felix into the fold. They also accepted him as a soloist, and this started a flurry of recording activity over the next several years. Felix would cut at least 30 keyboard solo sides in addition to his recordings of the trio, and 5 with mandolin player Dr. Clarence Penny. Many of the sides also featured Felix playing the delicate keyboard celesta. He also debuted many of his own compositions simultaneously on record and piano roll over the next few years. After several cuts in 1912 there were curiously no sides from 1913, but as it turns out, Felix was pretty busy.
     Another bit of good fortune came in 1913 when Arndt started at Universal Music Company during the advent of "hand-played" piano rolls. As announced in the Music Trade Review of March 15, 1913: "The Universal Music Co., 29 West Forty-second street, New York, is calling the attention of the trade to. the fact that Felix Arndt has just signed a contract to compose, arrange and play for the Uni-Record. Felix Arndt needs no introduction to lovers of popular music, either as a player or composer, as his renditions are known from one end of the country to the other." Even though he was signed at first as an "exclusive" artists, Arndt soon managed to get work with other concerns as well.
     Being a fine arranger and pianist, the position with Universal allowed him the opportunity to advance his skills when applied to other composer's works, and helped him in his compositions as well. The following year, Arndt also became a staff musician for Aeolian Hall, creating Duo-Art reproducing rolls in the Popular Music genre. In his nearly five years for the two companies he reportedly created over 3,000 rolls, which would equate to three or four on an average work day. It should be noted that he was not confined to popular works only, taking on many well-known classics, operas, and even contemporary composers such as Claude Debussy in his own inimitable style. However, many of these rolls were sometimes re-released under multiple sub-labels, so that number was likely substantially smaller, yet still astonishing given the time frame.
     It was during this period that he penned the first of a series of compositions that are now considered to be classic novelties, A Symphonic Nightmare: Desecration Rag (#1). It is an amusing send up of well known symphonic pieces in a complex syncopated format. This was followed by the unusual From Soup to Nuts, and a piece that would be the harbinger of genius yet to come, Marionette, although the latter would not be fully released until 1917. Felix was a charter member of ASCAP, founded by several musicians in 1914 in an effort to provide a focal registration point for protecting copyrights and distributing royalties.
     In late 1914 or early 1915 Felix met his famous muse, Nola B. Locke, a professional singer with the St. Louis symphony, and a vocal teacher and capable pianist as well. She was born in DeQueen, Arkansas, near Monroe, on July 11, 1889 to real-estate agent George Todd Locke and his wife Callie Blanche (Dooley) Locke. She was in the middle of six children in the family of three girls and three boys, the youngest boy dying in infancy in 1900. George died a year later in 1901. Nola was on her own as of the 1910 Census, living in St. Louis and likely working as a teacher at that time, having not yet been engaged by the Symphony. The circumstances of how she met Felix are unclear, but in her obituary it was stated that Nola had traveled to New York to find a better situation for her vocal talents.
     Soon after they met the couple was engaged, and Felix wrote his signature piece in honor of the occasion, Nola - A Silhouette for the Piano. A lilting tune made up largely of interesting patterns, and melodic lines that utilize both hands and span pretty much the entire keyboard, it was a much admired template for what would become the genre of novelty piano in the 1920s. Written and copyrighted in late 1915 it was first published and recorded early in 1916. Several months after the piece was composed they were happily wed. A later attempt to turn it into a relatively unsingable song version with lyrics by added by James F. Burns was met with lukewarm response, the difficult pairing proven by a vocal recording of the piece.
     Felix performed both on record and live with variations of the Van Eps group, but at some point pianist Frank Edgar Banta started to fill in from time to time. Banta would eventually take over the piano spot in the group by 1916, partially at the insistence of Victor management who liked that particular combination. However, it was over the next two years from 1916 to 1918 that Felix really started to find his niche as a composer as well as a performer. There was a second Desecration, An Operatic Nightmare: Desecration Rag #2 (the first was renumbered at this time), and a nice dance piece titled Clover Club. On some of the many rolls wo which Felix applied his flying fingers, Nola also accompanied him and got credit for their duets.
     Right around the time of World War I was when young George Gershwin looked briefly to Arndt as a mentor of sorts. Felix likely got George his job with Aeolian Hall on 42nd Street in Manhattan in early 1916, potentially inspiring or even contributing a bit to the single rag that Gershwin wrote, Rialto Ripples. It has been suggested that Felix may have introduced George to his friend Irving Caesar, with which Gershwin would later pen his first and biggest hit, Swanee.
     Felix's 1917 draft card shows him as an employee of Aeolian, and the sole support for Nola and her mother. His parents were still in Manhattan, and his sister Charlotte had recently married Alex Alexander. They subsequently had a daughter in 1918 named Elaine, and continued to live with Hugo and Charlotte for some time. On January 1, 1918, Felix added yet another notch on the ladder of success when he started with the now-dominant QRS piano roll company. They were also fortunate to have signed him exclusively to their label. He put his own full page announcement under his portrait in the trades in February, 1918:

     To the Music Industry:
     After six years' experience recording for different roll cutters, I have come to the conclusion that there is a wonderful field for this line of work and owing to the Q R S Company's various line of rolls and complete organization, my best interests lie in recording for them exclusively, except, of course, that I shall continue to play for the Victor Talking Machine Company.
     I wish to take this opportunity of thanking you, my friends, who have been so kind as to express your appreciation of my work and believe that this new arrangement will offer greater possibilities for us both.
     Sincerely, Felix Arndt.

     Throughout 1918 Arndt turned out a torrent of rolls with dynamic arrangements. There were some issues of the trade papers in which his name might be seen associated with four different companies on the same page. Overall, he had recorded hits for Universal (including their Uni-Record line), Aeolian (including their Duo-Art, Metro-Style Themodist and Metro-Art lines), the Wilcox and White Company (including their Angelus line), the A.B. Chase Reproducing Piano Company, Perfection and QRS. Other companies featuring his work would tout him as the well-known player of rolls, even though he was working for the competition.
     Then the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic struck the world, and New York City was hit hard. According to the account in the Music Trade Review of October 26, 1918: "Mr. Arndt contracted cold on October 8, which developed into pneumonia, causing his death on October 16." The final analysis was that his system was weakened, and the influenza quickly overtook him at that point. This deadly sickness deprived the world of Felix Arndt shortly before WWI had ended. Arndt was interred at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, New York.
     Nola went on with her life, and interestingly enough was known to have lived for a time with their mutual friend Caesar. Following her late husband's lead in the music business, she contributed the lyrics to Nobody Loves Me Now by Billy Tracey in 1922. While not readily found in the 1920 Census, she was located in 1930 married to a Russian immigrant construction company president, Henry Mandel, working as a musician doing private concerts. Another song with lyrics by Nola appeared in 1938, Mia Cara (My Dear) with Oscar Malanga. From the late 1940s into the 1950s Nola worked as a music and drama coach in New York City. Little is known about the remainder of her life. Nola died in Manhattan on July 19, 1977. She was buried with her first love in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown.
     As for her namesake composition, it continued to grow in popularity for decades after Felix's death. As noted in the February 28, 1925 edition of the Music Trade Review:

Composition by the Late Felix Arndt Continues to Grow in Favor Despite Long Time Since Published      "Nola," which has found such favor as a foxtrot with dance orchestras, theatres and in photoplay houses during the past season and also as a solo number by concert artists and in other is the work of the late Felix Arndt. As a piano silhouette it was recorded on the Victor records in 1915 and was first released in sheet music form by the present publisher, Sam Fox Publishing Co., Cleveland, Ohio, at that time.
     The popularity of the number was immediate, demonstrating that the public, while favoring popular music, appreciates compositions of the better type. The original sales on this number were also produced by the renditions of pianists who gave it its initial popularity and who successfully presented it in the same manner as that of the composer.
     In 1922 Vincent Lopez and His Hotel Pennsylvania Orchestra rendered "Nola" as a fox-trot for the first time and later it was one of their features by radio. This quickly established "Nola" as a dance number and the publisher immediately forwarded orchestrations in fox-trot time to the leading orchestra leaders in all parts of the country. It undoubedly became the outstanding instrumental hit of 1922 and the early part of 1923 and, of course, continues to maintain much of its popularity.
     In 1923 Adelaide and Hughes, Florence Walton and Maurice and Lenora Hughes took up "Nola" as a special feature dance number. This brought further popularity to this offering. Bill Baker used it in the Music Box Revue for a full season. George Carey, xylophone soloist of Sousa's band, and the popular pianists, Roy Bargy, Frank Banta, Joseph Daily, as well as Frederick Fradkin, the solo violinist, played the number with unusual success. The latter also recorded the number with his own original arrangement for Brunswick records. Jascha Gurewich, the saxophone virtuoso, has proclaimed this number the greatest instrumental novelty ever written and many other outstanding artists seem to have a similar opinion.
     The publisher is firmly of the belief that 'Nola' has not reached its peak and is anticipating that before the year is over the demand and sales for this charming composition will have increased double to what they are at the present time.

     Nola managed to remain in print throughout the 20th century, selling millions of copies to hopeful pianists who wanted to try and catch that unique style. It was available as a popular piano duet as well. Overall the piece became perhaps the best seller in the catalog of Sam Fox who also had acquired many other Arndt compositions. By the late 1920s, Lopez had made it his theme song, preserving his arrangement on film in 1932 in the first of the Big Broadcast films and giving it constant radio exposure as well. A quickly rendered performance of it was heard in the orchestra introduction in the 1930 two-strip Technicolor film King of Jazz, starring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. Guitarist Les Paul even had a top-ten with it in the 1950s using his revolutionary multi-tracking guitar recording technique. In the 21st century pianist Sue Keller has become associated with the tune, which was a favorite of her mother.
     Arndt's music and style were most certainly influential on a number of composers of the 1920s, and they help provide us a continuation of his legacy and the amazing potential he possessed.

     Burt Bales is not a widely known name outside of ragtime playing circles, and he rightfully should have been. He was just born in that niche where he was too late for the original ragtime era, too sophisticated in many ways for the honky-tonk era, and too obscure for some in the ragtime revival. Bales was also sometimes overshadowed by other pianists in the San Francisco Bay Area, largely due to circumstance more than anything else, and sometimes of his own doing. Yet he was highly regarded by all who knew him, and much sought after as a band musician. Here is his story.
     Burton was born in Stevensville, Montana, to Montana native father Benjamin Franklin Bales and his wife Elizabeth D. (Johnson) Bales. Stevensville is located around 20 miles south of Missoula, the county seat, on the Bitter Root River. By 1920, the family had moved north about 60 miles to Pablo on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Benjamin (who later went by Frank B. Bales) was listed as a newspaper editor, but was a printer by trade. Burton would be joined by his younger brother Jack W. in 1919, and Robert S. in 1921. In 1925, Frank moved the family west to Marin County, California. By 1927 they were living at 322 Richardson Street in Sausalito, and Frank was listed as a printer. In 1930, the family was still in Sausalito, but now at 11 Princess Street, with Frank listed more specifically as a newspaper printer. By 1933, the Bales family had settled at 108A Sycamore Avenue in San Anselmo where they would remain for many years.
     Burt came to Northern California right in the middle of jazz age, although most of the jazz in San Francisco, which was a bit of a trip for the family before any bridges spanned the bay, was more often performed by visiting groups. Later in the 1930s a few performers started making their home in the Bay area, most notably pianist Paul Lingle who would become a friend and colleague of Burt's. While there are reports that he had actually been performing in public at hotels and nightclubs since the age of 12 (around 1928), confirmation of any appearances before the mid 1930s is difficult to come by, so this might have been a slight exaggeration.
     However, while he was attending Tamalpais High School in his mid to late teens, Bales had already begun playing piano professionally in the Bay Area, focusing his efforts on traditional jazz works by Jelly Roll Morton, and contemporary artists like Fats Waller.

The young, sophisticated pianist
in the 1940s.

According to a July 1956 article about trombonist Jack Buck, who Burt often played with, "in 1935 he joined Ellis Kimball's orchestra which was playing at the now defunct Topsy's Roost at the San Francisco ocean beach. 'Burt Bales was doing many of the arrangements for us' Buck said, 'and we were playing a lot of New Orleans jazz. This was several years before Lu Watters formed the Yerba Buena Jazz Band and opened at the Dawn Club [1940]." Through listening to hundreds of recordings, and at times actually backing some legenday musicians, Burt soon became somewhat of an expert in Chicago jazz style, and particularly the traditional jazz of New Orleans, even though he had not visited there.
     A frequent performer with bands at the iconic Dawn Club in San Francisco, Bales became known to bandleader Lu Watters, who had been working on a revival of the tunes first laid down by Joseph "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong nearly two decades before. Wally Rose was Watters' primary pianist, and a cornerstone of Watters' pioneering Yerba Buena Jazz Band, but Bales also started working with the group from time to time as a backup. Wally's style was much more traditional, based largely on ragtime, but he also did fine work in the Jelly Roll Morton idiom. Bales was adept at either but leaned much more in the Morton direction. Both made invaluable contributions to the early years of the revival, helping to keep it alive until it exploded nationwide around 1950.
     From the late 1930s into the 1940s, Burt became known as a solid club pianist who was flexible for use with a variety of jazz musicians. As it was, he played with noted musicians such as Jack Teagarden, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter and Bunk Johnson, a rarity in an era where integrated bands were not always welcome in any number of public venues. He also appeared on radio with banjo player Clancy Hayes in the late 1930s, a bit ahead of the coming revival. Having already recorded with Benny Strickler's group in 1942 on a KYA broadcast from the Dawn Club, Bales, along with Bunk Johnson, made one of his only studio recordings with the Yerba Buena Jazz Band in 1944 after Rose had been drafted into service. Burt himself had enlisted in the Army on January 23, 1943, but his service was short-lived, not even lasting through basic training due to poor vision issues from his myopia. This left Bales, along with Paul Lingle, as a viable Bay Area commodity during the war years, as many other musicians were fighting the battle overseas. Bales also led his own band from 1943 to 1946 before taking an extended residency at San Francisco's 1018 Club after the war.
     One of Bales' first studio recording sessions was in 1947, courtesy of Lester Koenig and his Good Time Jazz label.

A Good Time Jazz EP release
from 1953

Koenig had been recording Watters and Rose, among other bay area traditional jazz groups, since late 1941. Given that Turk Murphy was taking an increasing leadership role in the band, and that Bales was called on to gig with his group from time to time, it was natural that Lester became acquainted with his style. However, the sides were not released for 15 years. Bales was kept busy, however, playing also for the bands of Bob Scobey and Marty Marsala in 1948. In 1949, Koenig once again put Bales in front of the microphone in San Francisco, and eight recorded solo piano tracks from that session eventually made it to a 10" long-playing record in 1953. In May he laid down a set of tracks with Murphy and Scobey, this time in Los Angeles, and in December recorded four with Ed Garland on bass and the widely used Minor Hall on drums. Those four tracks were released on a 7" EP disc, also in 1953. More recordings with Murphy in Los Angeles, where Koenig had set up his company, followed in 1950, along with a couple of singles recorded with his own ensemble again, including vocalist Jeanne Gayle.
     Following the success of Koenig's release of Lingle's famous 1952 studio recording for Good Time Jazz, and similar good response to Wally Rose's classic piano rag album, Lester saw fit to also release the Bales solo piano cuts, giving Bales more import in the national jazz press. It kept him dutifully employed throughout the 1950s, but mostly in the Bay Area which he preferred. Bales had the central theme of the influence of Jelly Roll Morton in common with Lingle, and while there was no overlap in their cuts, there was certainly a lot of variety between the two. This served Koenig well when he converted the entire Good Time Jazz line to 12" LPs in the mid to late 195os. While some were not re-released in the lengthier format, Bales and Lingle were combined on one of the most famous releases the company ever issued, They Tore My Playhouse Down, from 1958. The title and the cover referred to, in a thinly veiled manner, the "playhouses" of the Storyville district of New Orleans, or even of the notorious Barbary Coast area of San Francisco. Even as it caused some minor controversy among some concerning taste, the compilation sold briskly. It is still available on CD and via digital download some six decades after the original analog cuts were recorded.
     In spite of his brief national fame, and slightly higher local favoritism, from the mid 1950s forward, Bales worked largely as a solo pianist in various clubs around the Bay Area, most frequently at Pier 23. Several tracks were recorded there during his tenure, but not all were as well received as his Good Time Jazz releases. In a Saturday Review mention of the 1958 release of the album Jazz from the San Francisco Waterfront released on the ABC Paramount label, author wrote that "Burt Bales sounds as if he'd spent a lot of time listening to [Joe] Sullivan, Fats [Waller] and Earl [Hines], but no one else. The ensembles are meaningless except for spots on 'Tin Roof' and 'Save it Pretty Momma,' when Matty [Masala] band saves them. This record, with all its faults, is still more enjoyable than the performances of people who never listened to music before 1958."

Burt at home playing at Pier 23
in the late 1950s.

     It was also in his new regular spot, located in a not entirely savory part of town in spite of its popularity, that one of the more interesting stories surrounding the eclectic pianist emerged, as reported in a San Francisco paper on March 21, 1958

     In 1959 Burt was included in A Survey of 60 Years of Piano Jazz held at the University of California, San Francisco on May 13 and 14. He appeared along with Wally Rose, Tiny Crump, stride pianist Ralph Sutton and modernist Richie Crabtree. Later that year he appeared with singer Lizzie Miles, whom he frequently backed, at the Montery Jazz Festival down the coast, but may have been off his game as he received a scathing review in the San Mateo Times on October 10, 1959. The critic stated that "Burt Bales threw away a good chance too. Lizzie Miles couldn't even cover for him when he lost beat, tempo, focus and hearing through most of the numbers together."
     Then came the crushing blow that caused Burt to take a mandatory pause in his life, and perhaps refresh his resolve as a performer. On February 26, 1960, Bales was crossing Seventh Street near the Greyhound Bus Depot in San Francisco when he was struck by a car. There was the possibility that he was going to lose his left leg.

Ev Farey's Golden State Jazz Band c.1979. Burt is leaning against the signpost to the right.

By July, his leg still intact, he was informed that he might have to wear a cast on the leg for up to a year, but that a walking cast might be fitted by late 1960. That was enough encouragement to keep him going, since it would mean a return to his Pier 23 gig after nearly a year of convalesence and healing. Friends were always around him at the hospital, which further helped his spirts. To assist with his substanial medical bills, several benefits were held for Bales, resulting in $2,000 or more for many of the events, directly donated to the ailing pianist's cause. On one spring evening there were simultaneous coordinated benefits held at four of his favorite hangouts. By early 1961 he was indeed back on the bench at Pier 23, and even made a recording with a pick-up band, although the tracks were released many years later.
     Burt spent the rest of the decade playing rather uneventfully at Pier 23 and other venues with a dedicated crowd following him around. By the 1970s he was starting to slow down a bit, but still kept a regular Monday Night gig at the Washington Square Bar & Grill into the 1980s. There was a brief flirtation with another jazz band from 1979 to 1980, but Bales preferred his solo work.
     In 1989, in failing health, he finally visited New Orleans and felt a kinship with the musicians there that greeted him warmly. Bales was ailing from cancer, diabetes, and cardio-vascular complications, having stopped playing regularly just a year prior. On October 26, 1989, Bales died of complications from heart surgery at St. Mary's hospital, survived by his wife Yvonne, brother Jack, and mother Elizabeth. Around the same time his historic works were finding their way into the digital medium, and remain with us today. Even though he was under-recorded, sometimes under-regarded, and at times somewhat eccentric, Bales believed in his music and breathed joy into whatever he played for whoever would listen.

     Roy Bargy was born in Newaygo, Michigan, to Frederick and Jessie Bargy, the youngest of two children including his sister Myrtle (8/1888). However, he grew up mostly in Toledo, Ohio. He began to study piano at age five and proved to be a child prodigy at the instrument. Fred Bargy was listed as a musician in the 1900 Census, so likely had some direct influence on his son's talent and musical direction. Roy continued taking lessons for 12 years and developed as a very competent classical pianist. Roy had aspirations of becoming a concert artist, but the thinking of the time was that serious pianists needed to study in Europe in order to be seriously regarded within classical music circles, a practice that continued into the 1940s. Family economics made this dream impossible to achieve at that time, as by 1910 his father was no longer working as a musician, but instead was listed as a market superintendent.
     Discouraged but not daunted, Roy began to hang around the growing Toledo jazz community and, still in his teens, found work playing piano and organ in silent movie houses. Roy also organized his own pickup orchestra, which played for school dances. He took lessons in both organ and piano with C. Max Ecker of Toledo for as long as seven years. Roy often cited Ecker as the person responsible for the development of his dazzling technique. He claimed to have attended no music conservatory, and beyond his time with Ecker to have never studied composition, harmony, theory, or similar courses that most arrangers and composers were taking at that time. His knowledge in these fields was mostly self-taught, and came from his observation of how the instruments in an orchestra complimented or interplayed with each other.
     Roy's 1917 draft card shows him listed as a musician playing for a Toledo country club. He ended up being enlisted for five months of 1918, serving in the Army in Central Officer's Training School in Georgia, and was honorably discharged at the end of November. In a Music Trade Review article of September 13, 1919, it was noted that: "Mr. Bargy was in an officers' training camp when the Germans resigned, and while in the service was a great organizer of bands and orchestras among the soldiers. He has played in many parts of the country and wherever he has appeared his true musicianship has been appreciated."
     In the summer of 1919, Bargy auditioned for pianist Charley Straight, manager of the Imperial Player Rolls company. He was asked to arrange a pop tune for roll. The initial cut was so good that Bargy was quickly hired and the tune was put into their catalog. Straight cultivated Roy's arranging abilities as he was assigned to record novelties and popular songs. He soon challenged Bargy to compose some of his own novelties in an effort to compete with rising star Zez Confrey of QRS. Bargy came back with six of the Eight Piano Syncopations that were every bit as innovative as Confrey's (with whom he became a long-time friend), but his pieces were not quite as accessible to the average pianist.

Bargy (the pianist) leading the Benson Orchestra in 1922.

The six were committed to piano rolls in 1920 and published as sheet music from the rolls two years later. Two others were most likely written by Straight in 1918 or so, but Bargy got collaboration credit when they went to sheet form.
     It was Straight that introduced Bargy to booking agent, Edgar Benson, who had just formed a dance orchestra which was slated to record for Victor Records. Benson was impressed by Bargy's skills and took him on as both pianist and musical director. The Victor recordings of The Benson Orchestra, which were very progressive for the time, helped secure many other bookings for Bargy as a pianist and arranger for other recording bands such as Isham Jones. Roy married to his first wife Gretchen, also from Toledo, around this time. Their daughter Jeanne was born in 1922. Patricia followed in 1924.
     After creative conflicts with Benson in late 1921, Bargy left to launch his own orchestra, taking many members of Benson's group with him. He was helped by music entrepreneur Ernie Young, who managed not only to get Bargy's group booked for a solid year at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, but made certain that the group was the highest paid dance orchestra in the country in 1923. But the group disbanded after only a couple of years, after which Bargy joined the Isham Jones organization for a while. Roy traveled with that group to England and Europe in 1925, shown arriving back in the United States on the Mauretania on December 8, 1925. Roy had also done a couple of recordings with Arthur Pryor's band earlier in the year.
     In 1926 Bargy continued again with his own orchestra, this time playing at the Hotel Stevens in Chicago. In May 1927 Roy was signed by Ampico as a roll recording artist. Bargy then migrated to Paul Whiteman's orchestra in 1928, quickly becoming Whiteman's musical assistant. Whiteman had been looking for a sound beyond the conventional dance band, and Bargy's arrangements provided much of that sound, some of them commissioned even before he joined the orchestra. Bargy claimed he joined Whiteman's organization so he could go to Europe with the group, which did happen in short order. Roy's piano was the featured attraction in Whiteman's film debut of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in King of Jazz, released in 1930. Bargy was partially responsible for the symphonic arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue, which varied in many ways from the original jazz band arrangement by his colleague Ferdé Grofé. His pianistic skills were also utilized on some of the early recordings made by Whiteman's star singer, Bing Crosby and the famous Rhythm Boys. In the 1930 Census Roy is difficult to locate as he was on tour, Gretchen and two daughters were living in his home base of Toledo.
     During the 1930s when Bargy wasn't playing with Whiteman during the occasional hiatus of the group, he would again assemble his own orchestra to work during the tour breaks. He and his groups continued to record for Victor Records, and were frequently heard on national radio broadcasts, mostly on NBC stations. As a member of the Whiteman Orchestra Roy became one of the premier interpreters of Rhapsody in Blue, and as of 1938 likely held the record for the number of performances of the work by one pianist. Soon after it was premiered, he was also featured in many performances of Gershwin's highly challenging Concerto in F. Bargy was also the assistant conductor, put in charge whenever Whiteman left the podium. In 1940, Bargy left Whiteman after a twelve year stint to arrange and conduct radio orchestras and bands. These included gigs with Lanny Ross (with whom he recorded some Irish tunes), Garry Moore, and famed Latin bandleader Xavier Cugat.
     In a 1937 article published in Amarillo, Texas in September, 1937, Roy looked back on his fortunes and success. In spite of his lack of formal music education, Bargy said: "I certainly don't wish to discourage people from going to the conservatory and studying those courses which I did not have... Nevertheless, I believe the method I followed of studying privately with one excellent piano teacher for some seven or eight years, and the way I had to dig out my extra musical knowledge alone, was the best thing for me." When asked if his former instructor, Max Ecker, was proud of his achievements, he continued: "Proud of me? Oh no, he's disappointed! He thinks it's been very fine for me to be with a great orchestra like Whiteman's, but he doesn't think that is my field. He accepts the concert stage for me and nothing else." Bargy also made it clear that he liked his work on the radio more than anything else at that time.
     Comedian Jimmy Durante, himself a competent pianist who got his start playing at Coney Island during the ragtime era, hired Bargy as musical director in 1943, and it was in this capacity that he remained until both of them retired from show business two decades later. Bargy and his orchestra were featured on the radio weekly on the show that originally starred both Durante and Moore on NBC radio. When Moore went to TV, Durante re-teamed with Alan Young, and retained Bargy for radio and live appearances. Roy's daughter Jeanne had debuted at age 13 on WPSD radio in Toledo in the mid 1930s as "the Voice of the Blues." She started to make a name for herself as a pianist and singer in the mid 1940s, appearing at various venues around the country, and favoring the style of her mother's good friend, singer Mildred Bailey. Jeanne also had a stint on CBS radio from 1948 to 1949.
     While the circumstances are not fully clear yet (still being researched), Roy, now remarried to Virginia Bargy, two decades his junior, acquired two more children by adoption, who appear to possibly be a brother and sister born in South Dakota. Roger Michael (MacLean) Bargy (03/08/1941) and Susan M. (MacLean) Bargy (c.1945) became members of the Bargy clan in the mid 1940s. An unfortunate accident involving a soda pop bottle exploding resulted in Roger losing his left eye in 1948, to which Roy sued the company (unnamed in the news reports) on Roger's behalf for $25,486.
     There were two bits of nostalgic resurgence involving Roy in the early 1950s. The first was a series of brilliant interpretations of his early piano novelties by performer Ray Turner, who was known as "The Hollywood Pianist" due to his soundtrack work that made actors sound like accomplished musicians. Turner's recordings for Capitol Records appeared both as solos on a 16" radio transcription and on two albums as well, the pioneering Honky Tonk Piano and Turner's own Kitten on the Keys. There was also a brief reunion of Roy with Paul Whiteman in 1953 when the two played along with others in a traveling revue. An ad for them in Reno in July, 1953, shows the "King of Jazz" on the same bill as the "Piano Extraordinary" of Bargy along with some teen-aged musical acts from Whiteman's television show. Unfortunately, performing became more difficult for Roy in the mid to late 1950s due to the onset of arthritis, so appearances by Bargy with Whiteman or Durante diminished throughout the decade. One of their last performances together was for Durante's Fiftieth Anniversary in Show Business special, broadcast in full color on NBC Television on August 9, 1961.
     Roy spent the remainder of his years in the California sunshine playing golf for enjoyment, but also helping his second wife Virginia with the Country Day School she founded in Vista, CA. Students have memories of him as both the cook for lunch time, as well as the entertainer from time to time for assemblies or casual afternoons. Their daughter, Jeanne, composed lyrics and some music for several stage productions throughout the 1960s with composer Jim Eiler, including some that were broadcast on NBC Television. Susan was married in 1964 in San Diego, then after a divorce married again in 1973 in Santa Barbara.
     Novelty pianist extraordinaire Roy Bargy died in his home in early 1974 after a fruitful career in music and helping with the Counrty Day School. It is reported that Virginia, who moved in with one of their daughters (likely Patricia) after his death, likely disposed of some additional compositions or arrangements that he had kept around their house. Roger (a.k.a. Michael) died in 1981 on Roy's birthday in San Diego. Virginia Bargy survived Roy until April, 2005, and Susan is still around as of this writing, as is Patricia. Although Bargy left behind only a few compositions, his contributions to recorded jazz are considerable but hard to measure because he left his imprint in so many places.

     Jimmy Blythe represents another case of a working musician/composer who had some moderate success, yet very little is known about him outside of ragtime and boogie piano circles. He was born to former slaves turned sharecroppers Richard D. Blythe and Rena (Stovall) Blythe in South Keene, Kentucky, just southwest of Lexington. James was the youngest of five surviving siblings out of a total of eleven born to the couple. Others included Dovie (4/1880) who died in childhood, Bessie (7/1882), Effie (2/1886), Mary M. (11/1889), and Aubrey (7/1897). At least one sibling born after James had died by 1910.
     The Blythe family was living together when the 1900 Census was taken before Jimmy's birth. However, by 1910 their situation had changed. They had moved to Lexington, and may have fallen on hard times in the process. Rena was working as a servant in the home of Florent Wilson. Effie and Mary were working as cooks and boarding with widow Emma Ross as well as a cousin, Lana Stovall. Richard and Jimmy were difficult to locate in that record or the 1910 Miracord, but it is known they were still living in Lexington with James working as a janitor or day laborer. The extent of Jimmy's early involvement with the piano is not well known, nor if he received any type of training in Lexington. Given the situation it seems that he may have learned simply by observing other ragtime performers and imitating their style. Not being found in the Census also suggests living conditions that probably precluded regular schooling.
     In the mid 1910s Effie married C.V. Merritt of Illinois and subsequently moved to south side of Chicago. Mary and her new husband Mario Slaughter were not far behind and moved in with the couple, as did Bessie. She also shows as having been married to a Mr. Clark, but her husband was not living with the rest of the group in 1920. Jimmy came to Chicago in the late 1910s (reports vary, but 1917 to 1918 seems most likely). In the January 1920 Census Jimmy is difficult to locate. He had been living with Effie, but was not present for the Census or had moved out of the Wabash Avenue home of his sisters.
     Once in Chicago Blythe hooked up with transplanted Ohio ragtime/blues pianist Clarence M. Jones, who was classically trained, but already had some ragtime song successes to his name. Jones ran his own studio in Chicago's south side. As jazz started to enter the musical lexicon he quickly adapted to it and was able to teach some of the art of performance to Jimmy. While little else is known of his time in Chicago from 1919 to 1922, it is likely Jimmy was also exposed to a number of fine pianists and band musicians, and had played in a few public venues.
     His break came in 1922 when Jimmy was hired by the Columbia Music Roll Company. He set to work recording popular songs and instrumentals of the day at a breakneck pace with increasing originality. Modeling some of his style on what he learned from Jones, Jimmy took the increasingly popular moving octave and boogie bass and applied them to some of the recordings, both for standard home use and multi-song commercial rolls. While not all of them are properly attributed, it has been estimated that Blythe recorded as many as three hundred rolls for Columbia, and then for Capital when the company was reorganized in 1924.
     In spite of the limitations of paper rolls which had varying note resolutions, no dynamics, and often only edited sustain pedal punchings, Blythe's excellent performance skills still cut through and his rolls became quite popular. He was able to take simple popular songs and create an engaging performance from them in short order. Many of these were taken from the simple sheet music and expanded to include blues riffs, stride or boogie-woogie bass, and even pseudo-novelty figures. Musicians around Chicago and beyond worked to emulate his engaging style as his fame grew.
     In April 1924 Blythe entered the recording studio and started to cut sides for Paramount Records (no affiliation with the film company of the same name). Some of his material, including songs written with his friend Alex J. Robinson, had already been covered by other artists on that label, so he had a head start. His first tracks, Armour Avenue Struggle and Chicago Stomp, had the rolling boogie-woogie blues bass pattern throughout. This ostensibly made him the first boogie-woogie pianist to be recorded on record, but verification or agreement of this fact is a matter of semantics on this point. It has also been suggested that his recording of Jimmie Blues from 1925 influenced Pine Top's Boogie Woogie recorded by Clarence "Pine Top" Smith in 1928, and some of the work of boogie-woogie player Albert Ammons.
     Over the next few years, Blythe recorded with a variety of his own ensembles, some assembled just for recording. These included in approximate order Blythe's Sinful Five, Jimmy Blythe and his Ragamuffins, Blythe's Washboard Band, Blythe's Washboard Ragamuffins, Blythe's Owls, The State Street Ramblers, The Dixie Four and The Midnight Rounders. Many of these ensembles featured clarinetist Jimmy O'Bryant who Blythe apparently favored. Jimmy also played on sessions with Jimmy Bertrand's Washboard Wizards, and two fine piano duets each with Jim "Buddy" Burton and Charlie Clark, who was the son of his sister Bessie, working at that time as a barber. Their single piano recording of Bow to Your Papa, reproduced on piano roll as Regal Stomp, has become a blues and stride classic.
     Paramount was not the only company looking to use Blythe. With his groups or other artists he also cut sides for Vocalion Records, Okeh Records, and Gennett and their subsidiary Champion Records. In addition, he worked with musicians like reed player Johnny Dodds and accompanied a number of singers such as Sodarisa Miller and Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, though not always properly credited. Collectively between his solo and ensemble records and his piano rolls, Jimmy accumulated a wealth of approximately five hundred recordings in just nine years, a feat that has rarely been paralleled, and for that time in society only approached by a couple of other African-American artists.
     While many of the left hand lines of Blythe's compositions and recordings have a similar theme or style, he still did manage some distinction in many of his original works. Some were recorded by other artists, and he even co-wrote some on the spot with performers, including Priscilla Stewart and Trixie Smith. The family was also in on the act as his sister Mary contributed to Have Mercy. Another contributor he met around 1924, an amateur pianist named Janice (sometimes Jannie) from Louisiana, became his wife near the end of the year. Together they composed Midnight Strutters.
     Jimmy's most frequent partner was singer Alex Robinson who was married to Aletha Dickerson of Paramount Records. Listings in the pioneering black newspaper The Chicago Defender, and occasionally in other Chicago papers, show Jimmy and Alex playing from time to time on Chicago radio station KYW in 1926 and 1927. Aletha's role should not be downplayed in the life of Jimmy or many black musicians. Starting as a secretary with Paramount she eventually helped to cultivate the talent and get their works published. In the case of Jimmy she got co-credit on at least two of his pieces. One of them, Fat Meat and Greens, was covered by no less than "Jelly Roll" Morton. Most of his compositions remained on record or piano roll. However, at least a couple were published by Chicago music school czar Axel Christensen, who also may have inadvertently taken credit for a couple more Blythe originals. His biggest hit, at least amongst performers, was Mecca Flat Blues, the title referencing a large and sometimes controversial apartment complex built in the 1890s. It also found its way into print in a Paramount produced folio arranged in part by Aletha Dickerson.

The Dreamland Café Around 1923

     In spite of his busy recording schedule, there are indications, some through scant notices and word of mouth, that he also performed live. Among the places mentioned were Mamie Ponce's tavern on the south side. Given the number of local venues in that area known as "the stroll," including the famous Dreamland Café on State Street and even the Lincoln Gardens, it is easy to imagine that he or his band was invited to play on one or more of the stages within that district. Yet he is also remembered for being in the background to some degree, drawing attention to his groups by not drawing any to himself. He was considered relatively quiet for an active musician, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that Blythe has been overlooked in some jazz histories, even though he is remembered among pianists. It has also been conjectured with some credible basis that Blythe used at least a couple of different pseudonyms for his work, including Duke Owens and George Jefferson.
     As of the 1930 Census Jimmy was living on South Michigan Avenue with Mary and her husband Mario, Bessie who had been recently widowed, and her son Charlie. He listed himself as a musician, while Mario was a janitor and Charlie was working for a barber. It appears that Janice, who very little is known about, was separated from Jimmy and living on East 44th Street. Both of them indicated that they were still married, however, so the circumstances are unclear. The couple never had children. Not quite a month after he turned 30, Blythe contracted meningitis and within a few days was gone.
     Fortunately a great deal of his piano work was left behind to be discovered by future generations of boogie-woogie and stride pianists, and is still performed decades later in the 21st century. His role in fostering the growth of boogie or boogie-woogie piano has been challenged over time. It was a style that evolved from barrelhouses, largely in the Chicago area, but boogie-woogie was also heard in Kansas City and even Texas concurrently with early Chicago boogie blues. What Blythe did was to use his talent and musical charisma to get the style heard, showing it could be applied to popular music, not just blues. While Clarence "Pine Top" Smith is known as the guy to set the template and helped to provide the name for boogie-woogie blues with his early recordings, Blythe preceded him in utilzing the same left-hand style both on piano rolls and records, and would undoubtedly have been a major player in that genre in the 1930s had he lived.

     Rube Bloom was the third of five children born in New York City to Russian immigrants Abraham M. Bloom and Fannie J. Bloom. His siblings included Sidney Joseph (9/4/1898 - listed as Joseph in the 1900 Census), Helen Ann (3/1900 - listed as Annie in the 1900 Census), Harry (c.1905) and Milton (1906). Abraham came to the United States in 1888, followed by Fannie in 1895, and they were married in 1896. He was listed as a painter in a factory in the 1900 and 1910 Federal Census. There has been some confusion over Rube's true birth name. While sometimes cited as Rueben, it is more consistently spelled Rubin or Ruben in early public records, not an uncommon spelling among Russian Jews.
     Details of Rube's years growing up are scant, including whether or not there was a piano in the family's home on Stockton Street. Whatever the circumstance, he quickly latched on to the piano, and it has been said that with virtually no formal training managed not only to learn to play, but to tackle the difficult concepts of harmony and theory on his own. A couple of later articles claimed that he had been, in fact, privately trained in composition and piano performance at some point, so the "no training" story is somewhat suspect, given his level of talent. It is unclear as to whether he eventually learned to transcribe his pieces or just used an arranger to do it for him. His obituary insisted that he composed directly on the piano and worked with arrangers to create both piano scores and orchestrations.
     By the age of 17 Rube was out working the vaudeville houses of Manhattan, sometimes touring a bit beyond, as a rock solid staple of any company he was in, usually working as an accompanist during this period. The 1920 Census shows Rube as a pianist in vaudeville. His father was now a shoemaker. Note that many historians insist his name was pronounced "Ruby" but at least one recording held by pianist Peter Mintun has it pronounced as "Rube" in his own voice. The music press helps confirm the former as they often used "Ruby" in print.
     While he was making his way from the vaudeville stage to the band stage, Bloom started concocting his own compositions. The first one, Indiana Moon, was a simple song, but it was followed by That Futuristic Rag, which was a launching point for his career as a composer. It shows a penchant for moving whole note harmonies that somehow remain congruous with the key signature. While the term "rag" was quickly become stale in the early 1920s, the format was actually advancing, relabeled as novelty piano. Bloom did not move in the same dynamic direction as Zez Confrey or Frank Banta, but this work stood up to them rather well. He would not recorded until six years after its initial publication. That Futuristic Rag is still played nearly a century later, quite notably by the brilliant Frederick Hodges.
     Rube's reputation quickly grew, and as the jazz age began he found more work as a band pianist.

Rube (highlighted) with the Ray Miller Orchestra c.1923.

Over the next decade he would play, and often record with many very reputable musicians and a number of fine jazz groups. Among those in his circle were other competent pianists, notably the brilliant Arthur Schutt, and musicians that would reach both fame and defeat, most notably composer and cornetist Bix Beiderbecke.The groups he played for include The Captivators, Pinkie's Birmingham Five, Joe Venuti and his Orchestra, Hottentots, Joe Venuti's Four/Five/Six, Ray Miller's Orchestra, The Cotton Pickers, The Washingtonians, Arkansas Travelers, The Red Heads, Jay C. Flippen and his Gang, The Melody Sheiks, The Tennessee Tooters, Lee Morse and her Bluegrass Boys, and Ben Selvin and his Orchestra.
     In addition, Rube was frequently tapped as an accompanist, a skill he refined during his vaudeville days. In the recording world breaking color barriers did not have the same impact as it did for live performances, so he got to work with some very fine black musicians, which further helped develop his playing and composition style in more of an African-American direction. Among the singers or instrumental soloists he backed, both jazz and classical, were Ruth Etting, Annette Hanshaw, Ethel Waters, Martha Copeland, guitarist Eddie Lang, Arthur Fields, Peggy English and The Kelly Sisters. The selected discography included here focuses on his feature and solo work, but his total easily tops sixty sides.
     For his first studio session at Gennet Records in 1924, Rube backed Beiderbecke, trombonist Miff Mole, and saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer for two tracks. One of them, Flock O' Blues, was his own composition, which later became known as the Carolina Stomp. It was said that Bix wanted to call the group the Davenport Six, honoring his home town in southeastern Iowa. However, Miff got the engineer to write down Sioux City Six because it was located at the extreme opposite end of the state. The band only recorded those two sides, but those takes still resonate with their obvious collective talent today. As for the Carolina Stomp version, upon its publication in 1925 it received some good press in The Music Trade Review of October 31:

     From late 1925 to early 1926, Rube further made a name for himself recording with the Hottentots (one of many groups using that name). Along with Mole, the group featured trumpeter Red Nichols who was headed for his own fame in the jazz world. One of their finer takes was on the Chinese Blues, penned by yet another future piano jazz star, Thomas "Fats" Waller. He also made a brief entry into the world of piano rolls, cutting a number of popular pieces in his own style for the Aeolian company on their Aeolian and Mel-O-Dee lines from late 1925 through late 1927. But there were two other pieces he wrote and recorded in early 1926 that helped to define who Rube Bloom was to the music world.
     Encouraged by the response to his playing and his earlier works and by Triangle Music publisher Joe Davis, Rube created two more fine progressive novelties in 1926. Spring Fever was an ambitious foray into that world, and was soon covered by a number of artists, including Bloom himself, and an early recording by Ray Turner who would help revive the genre in the 1950s. But it was Soliloquy: A Musical Thought that would stand as one of Rube's finest and most introspective piano solos, both in print and on record. It echoes some of the fine work he was doing as an accompanist for singer Ruth Etting, capturing elements of popular song (a paraphrase of My Mammy in one section) with the delicacy of parlor intermezzos. He would record the piece on a piano roll and at least three times on record over the next year along with Spring Fever.
     They were initially published by Davis through Triangle Music, but even after that catalog was acquired by publisher Jack Mills, both remained good sellers in the Mills catalog for many years. Many publishers also encouraged many novelty piano stars to create method books to engage the public. Bloom's first, published by Alfred Music in 1926, was 100 Jazz Breaks for Piano, giving the consumer a glimpse into the methods used by many jazz pianists to creatively "fill in the gaps" in the middle of a repeated chorus. Soliloquy also was published in a popular orchestral version, and was performed frequently over the next few years. Rube was called on to present it, with the orchestration, at a Modern Jazz Concert on February 19, 1926 at Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts. The program was hosted by Columbia Records artist and orchestra leader Leo Reisman, and featured composer Ferde Grofé, plus black trumpeter Johnny Dunn playing some blues numbers.
     A follow-up to his two fine novelties was called for, and Bloom did not disappoint. In 1927 he crafted two more, Sapphire: A Musical Gem and Silhouette: A Musical Outline. The hype presented by publisher Joe Davis in the trades that April, he said "that these two numbers have unusual possibilities, and are great follows-ups for the previous novelties by the same writer, called 'Spring Fever' and 'Soliloquy.'" All four would play an unusual but important role in copyright law in years to come.
     With a busy recording and performance schedule throughout 1927, Bloom had little time for writing much more. His piano career was soaring, yet his personal life was a mystery. Rube was still living with his now-widowed mother and three brothers, although now they were now across the river from Manhattan in Brooklyn on Brooklyn Avenue in a larger home. Even though their sister had married, the brothers remained bachelors into the 1930s. Harry had become a lawyer, and Sidney was in the advertising business. Milton, on the other hand, followed his big brother into music as a trumpeter. No specific information was located to link them playing together in the same group or on a recording, but given the jazz world in New York City, there remains that possibility. Milton eventually moved to Los Angeles where he played and taught music for many years.
     In 1928 there was a new group of Bloom compositions to delight fans and vex amateur pianists. His three solo novelties for the year included Fannette, Serenata and Fleur De Lis published by Triangle. In the middle of the year he jumped to two other publishers, one in part because his novelty work was co-composed with two other writers. First was his Modern Jazz Piano Course published by the Robbins firm, a formidable rival to Jack Mills in the piano novelty genre. Then there was a new tune that was noteworthy enough to garner an announcement in the Music Trade Review of August 4, 1928:

     It would go on to be included in the 1929 film The Show of Shows.
     Rube went to England and Europe late in the summer for a brief performance tour, returning in September 1928. In an interview from that time he predicted that "a distinctive national schoool of music was being born in this country." Rube was certain that the United States would some day be the "musical center of the world. In the years to come there will arise a distinctive American music. Not is is in the ebryonic stage. Music in the truly American idiom is 'blues,' which, of course, is Negroid in origin. Negro spirituals and 'blues' are practivally all our worthwhile folk music... But I think of music that is American in the future without being Negroid, but individual, expressive and representative of this country as a unit."
     Then another important event helped to increased Bloom's exposure as a composer, assuring him a bright future in that regard. The Victor Talking Machine Company held an open "$10,000 prize competition for the best concert composition within the playing scope of the American dance or jazz orchestra." Before the closing on October 29th, 1928, hundreds of entries were submitted. At the same time they were also offering a $25,000 prize for the best symphonic composition, a first in the music industry. The results were announced on December 28, 1928, and reported the next day in The Music Trade Review:

     A Victor record with both compositions performed by Shilkret was also offered to the public on December 29th. Both winners were able to choose the publisher they wanted to release the work, and Rube picked the firm of Leo Feist. In short order, Song of the Bayou became a minor hit, and Rube was kept busy with appearances in both the US and Europe during this period. There were apparently no recordings made of him as a soloist or accompanist in 1929, with the exception of a few minor band sides. In the 1930 Census he is shown living in Brooklyn with his mother and three brothers, listed as a musician/pianist. Within a year or two he would move out and live on his own at 1025 St. John's Place, still in Brooklyn.
     In spite of the exposure for his earlier novelties, now being published by the combined Triangle/Jack Mills Company, Rube was still riding on the fame from his Song of the Bayou win. To that end, at the close of 1929 he formed a band that was destined for recording gigs only, Rube Bloom and His Bayou Boys. Starting in January they recorded a total of six released sides by May, and some jazz historians regard these as some of the hottest records from the early part of the Great Depression. When you consider the lineup, that is no accident or understatement. Along with Rube on the piano, he engaged Manny Klein on trumpet, Tommy Dorsey on trombone, Benny Goodman on clarinet, Adrian Rollini on bass saxophone, Stan King on drums and vocalist Roy Evans at the microphone. They never performed live or on the radio.
     Unfortunately, the unfolding fiscal crisis triggered by the Wall Street failure created a substantial dent in the recording industry, and the public was migrating to radio, which was a much less expensive and more current form of entertainment. Revenue from radio appearances evidently became necessary for Rube because an early 1929 Broadway gossip column noted that he had dropped his $5,000 winning into Wall Street, obviously not knowing what would transpire in October. Victor tried made the most of Bloom's radio appearances, but it was not enough to stave off the collective woes of the country's financial crisis which quickly put many record and piano roll companies out of business.
     Fortunately Bloom had been working in radio since 1927, and was becoming increasingly familiar to listeners who could receive the New York stations, including WNAC and WABC. There were frequent advertisements in the papers throughout 1929 of his performances of Song of the Bayou and his other novelty works, so he was able to weather the storm relatively well. There was also a minor 1930 hit which really helped to launch his career as a songwriter. Rube had collaborated on a few tunes before, but The Man From the South (With a Big Cigar in His Mouth) penned with Harry Woods was the first that had life in the world of popular music. He also started a long collaboration with lyricist Ted Koehler with Puttin' It On For Baby that same year. They would improve on their skills and titles in short order.
     While recordings all but shut down for groups like Rube's and radio even let up a little, Bloom was still highly regarded, and was commissioned at the suggestion of Shilkret to complete a special composition for the somewhat ill-timed 1931 opening of the ostentatious new Empire State Building. A passage concerning this was reprinted in Joun Tauranac's 1997 book The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark:

     While there was a lack of recording activity from mid-1930 to late 1934, there was no lack of creative composition. In 1931 Rube released Moods: A Modern Piano Suite, which consisted of five different "moods." They were simply named - Metropolitan, Valse Petite, Gypsy, Blues and Primitive - with each one musically describing their respective title. There were a few other instrumentals that year, including Spring Holiday and Aunt Jemima's Birthday but Bloom also began working with a few fairly well known lyricists, putting some songs into circulation. There were no hits at that time, but his name did sell a few copies here and there.
     Bloom either took a break over the next couple of years, or had trouble finding much more than occasional work on radio, and his output was light. He took a trip to Bermuda in the spring of 1933, but little other activity that was newsworthy. One song, Stay on the Right Side of the Road, was recorded by Bing Crosby, doing well on the radio. In 1934 Rube released a few songs, and at the end of the year recorded his final two known piano solos for Victor, Penthouse Romance and On the Green. Fortunately, some of the best was ahead for him, and he got a second wind in 1935.
     The famous Cotton Club in Harlem, which had long provided black entertainment for white patrons, was undergoing some changes in management (which had reportedly been by crime bosses of the 1920s and 1930s including Owney Madden) and personnel, particularly with the departure of Cab Calloway who had achieved great fame there with Minnie the Moocher and his Hi-De-Ho style. A revue was commissioned in 1935 and lyricist/producer Ted Koehler chose Bloom to write the music. The two had worked together before, and this collaboration on The Cotton Club Parade for 1935turned out some fine numbers, including Dinah Lou and the instantly catchy Truckin'. Some reviews of the show intimated that it sounded like it was written by a black composer, a compliment to Rube, but this was also in part due to the delivery by the black cast. Truckin' retained its status a popular dance tune for many decades.
     The following year, Rube teamed up with a young Johnny Mercer, the singer and eventual founder of Capitol Records, for Lew Leslie's annual "all colored musical revue," this one the Blackbirds of 1936. The show did not yield any notable hits, but it was fairly well received when it opened in May 1936. The production was staged in London, so Rube played for a while in England in the late spring and early summer of 1936, returning to the United States in late July for a short run at the Gaiety Theater in Manhattan. It was not the end of his collaboration with Mercer, however. This work may have led to Rube writing music underscore and cues for a 1937 film, The Public Wedding. Song of the Bayou was released around the same time with lyrics added, and a revised version of Blackbirds was presented in late 1938. Rube's big hit of that year, penned with Koehler, was I Can't Face The Music (Without Singin' the Blues), covered by several artists.
     In 1939 Bloom and Koehler were again engaged to provide tunes for a special Worlds Fair Edition of the Cotton Club Parade. Opening in February, it received a good amount of press, and yielded a couple more hits, including The Ghost of Smokey Joe and Don't Worry 'Bout Me, that latter one which would have a long shelf life. Day In - Day Out also had decent coverage beyond the show. Some of this publicity reignited interest in Bloom's earlier solo works, so they were kept in circulation by Mills into the 1940s.
     From 1940 forward Blooms work was sparse at best. While not completely retiring at age 38, he did ease up on his activities a bit, playing as an accompanist or in dance bands. He managed one fine number with Mercer in 1940, Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread, which was covered by a wide spectrum of artists for many years, including crooners Tony Martin Frank Sinatra, both already associated with several Bloom numbers. Another, Take Me, with Mack David, became a 1940s hit for the Benny Goodman and Dorsey Brothers' orchestras. Three more songs, this time with Harry Ruby, made it into the 1946 post-war film Wake Up and Dream. Of those, one in particular became a standard for both singers and jazz musicians, Give Me the Simple Life. While there were no more big hits to come from his hand, Bloom put out a handful of works with other lyricists over the next 15 years, culminating with Everybody's Twistin' composed with Koehler during the twist craze of 1962.
     The United States Government teamed up with ASCAP in 1955 to sponsor an overseas tour to entertain the troops stationed around the world, particularly in Germany, France and North Africa. Rube played in several locations during this trip, which was both for morale and publicity. However, his style of music, which enjoyed yet another view during the first ragtime revival of the early 1950s, was quickly being overtaken by the upsurge of more youthful forms, most notably rhythm and blues, and rock and roll.

The ASCAP Overseas Troupe of 1955.
Front row: Lou Handman, Florrie LeVere, Gerald Marks, Abel Baer, Mack Gordon, Rube Bloom, Bee Walker and John Redmond. Sitting on piano: Fran Russell, Gogi Grant and Marion Spellman.

In spite of a few more pieces, he mostly retired after 1956, and turned out a couple of books on piano method.
     Rube was, however, involved in a lawsuit that had an impact on copyright law, particularly on the topic of whether renewal was the right of the incumbent owner or should be open game. His suit was led by well-known music lawyer Lee Eastman, the father of Linda Eastman who would eventually marry Paul McCartney, who also hired Eastman to secure rights to his own work. As noted in the May 19, 1956 of Billboard:

     Eastman had presented a similar case for Hoagy Carmichael and his composition Stardust, which was ultimately settled out of court. However, The bloom suit concerned renewals on his four most famous instrumental tunes, Spring Fever, Soliloquy, Sapphire and Silhouette. They eventually found in favor of Bloom, and made case law. This allowed for a review of interested parties with legitimate claims to be considered by the copyright office in the Library of Congress for owning the renewal of a copyright either by transfer or by right of having created the work in the first place, rather than the assumed right of renewal by the party currently owning the copyright. This topic would revisited over 40 years later in the so-called Disney/Bono legislation of 1998, which further extended the rights in favor of the original composer instead of their publisher, many cases still in contention concerning the clarity of both the Bloom case (and that of Euday Bowman's 12th Street Rag and the recent changes in the law.
     There was a new surge of interest in Rube's musical style in the late 1960s, and in his late 60s he came back out to perform with Joe Venuti for some reunion concerts in New York. His tunes were further revived in the late 1960s and early 1970s by pianist Dick Wellstood, who recorded some post ragtime novelties in 1973. The only other activity that he was occasionally noted for was trips to the track, as he had taken quite a liking to horse racing, as an observer and bettor. Bloom otherwise largely shied away from the public eye during his last few years.
     Rube died at the end of March 1976, just as the second ragtime revival was starting to expand beyond the school of Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb, and many of the fine early novelty works were finding new popularity among pianists and collectors. According to his obituary in the New York Times, "A maid found him dead on the floor of his room Tuesday [March 30] in the Hotel Consulate in mid-Manhattan. A friend said he had recently complained of an ulcer but it was not known if he had undergone any treatment." He was interred at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York. Three weeks later on April 20, syndicated columnist of the Voice of Broadway, Jack O'Brian had perhaps the last fitting word on Rube's sometimes misunderstood but always important role in American music:

     More than three decades later many of his best pieces are still being performed and recorded, making Mr. Bloom timeless. Not bad for a "self-taught" "Yankee Doodle Jewish boy."

     Jimmy Blythe represents another case of a working musician/composer who had some moderate success, yet very little is known about him outside of ragtime and boogie piano circles. He was born to former slaves turned sharecroppers Richard D. Blythe and Rena (Stovall) Blythe in South Keene, Kentucky, just southwest of Lexington. James was the youngest of five surviving siblings out of a total of eleven born to the couple. Others included Dovie (4/1880) who died in childhood, Bessie (7/1882), Effie (2/1886), Mary M. (11/1889), and Aubrey (7/1897). At least one sibling born after James had died by 1910.
     The Blythe family was living together when the 1900 Census was taken before Jimmy's birth. However, by 1910 their situation had changed. They had moved to Lexington, and may have fallen on hard times in the process. Rena was working as a servant in the home of Florent Wilson. Effie and Mary were working as cooks and boarding with widow Emma Ross as well as a cousin, Lana Stovall. Richard and Jimmy were difficult to locate in that record or the 1910 Miracord, but it is known they were still living in Lexington with James working as a janitor or day laborer. The extent of Jimmy's early involvement with the piano is not well known, nor if he received any type of training in Lexington. Given the situation it seems that he may have learned simply by observing other ragtime performers and imitating their style. Not being found in the Census also suggests living conditions that probably precluded regular schooling.
     In the mid 1910s Effie married C.V. Merritt of Illinois and subsequently moved to south side of Chicago. Mary and her new husband Mario Slaughter were not far behind and moved in with the couple, as did Bessie. She also shows as having been married to a Mr. Clark, but her husband was not living with the rest of the group in 1920. Jimmy came to Chicago in the late 1910s (reports vary, but 1917 to 1918 seems most likely). In the January 1920 Census Jimmy is difficult to locate. He had been living with Effie, but was not present for the Census or had moved out of the Wabash Avenue home of his sisters.
     Once in Chicago Blythe hooked up with transplanted Ohio ragtime/blues pianist Clarence M. Jones, who was classically trained, but already had some ragtime song successes to his name. Jones ran his own studio in Chicago's south side. As jazz started to enter the musical lexicon he quickly adapted to it and was able to teach some of the art of performance to Jimmy. While little else is known of his time in Chicago from 1919 to 1922, it is likely Jimmy was also exposed to a number of fine pianists and band musicians, and had played in a few public venues.
     His break came in 1922 when Jimmy was hired by the Columbia Music Roll Company. He set to work recording popular songs and instrumentals of the day at a breakneck pace with increasing originality. Modeling some of his style on what he learned from Jones, Jimmy took the increasingly popular moving octave and boogie bass and applied them to some of the recordings, both for standard home use and multi-song commercial rolls. While not all of them are properly attributed, it has been estimated that Blythe recorded as many as three hundred rolls for Columbia, and then for Capital when the company was reorganized in 1924.
     In spite of the limitations of paper rolls which had varying note resolutions, no dynamics, and often only edited sustain pedal punchings, Blythe's excellent performance skills still cut through and his rolls became quite popular. He was able to take simple popular songs and create an engaging performance from them in short order. Many of these were taken from the simple sheet music and expanded to include blues riffs, stride or boogie-woogie bass, and even pseudo-novelty figures. Musicians around Chicago and beyond worked to emulate his engaging style as his fame grew.
     In April 1924 Blythe entered the recording studio and started to cut sides for Paramount Records (no affiliation with the film company of the same name). Some of his material, including songs written with his friend Alex J. Robinson, had already been covered by other artists on that label, so he had a head start. His first tracks, Armour Avenue Struggle and Chicago Stomp, had the rolling boogie-woogie blues bass pattern throughout. This ostensibly made him the first boogie-woogie pianist to be recorded on record, but verification or agreement of this fact is a matter of semantics on this point. It has also been suggested that his recording of Jimmie Blues from 1925 influenced Pine Top's Boogie Woogie recorded by Clarence "Pine Top" Smith in 1928, and some of the work of boogie-woogie player Albert Ammons.
     Over the next few years, Blythe recorded with a variety of his own ensembles, some assembled just for recording. These included in approximate order Blythe's Sinful Five, Jimmy Blythe and his Ragamuffins, Blythe's Washboard Band, Blythe's Washboard Ragamuffins, Blythe's Owls, The State Street Ramblers, The Dixie Four and The Midnight Rounders. Many of these ensembles featured clarinetist Jimmy O'Bryant who Blythe apparently favored. Jimmy also played on sessions with Jimmy Bertrand's Washboard Wizards, and two fine piano duets each with Jim "Buddy" Burton and Charlie Clark, who was the son of his sister Bessie, working at that time as a barber. Their single piano recording of Bow to Your Papa, reproduced on piano roll as Regal Stomp, has become a blues and stride classic.
     Paramount was not the only company looking to use Blythe. With his groups or other artists he also cut sides for Vocalion Records, Okeh Records, and Gennett and their subsidiary Champion Records. In addition, he worked with musicians like reed player Johnny Dodds and accompanied a number of singers such as Sodarisa Miller and Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, though not always properly credited. Collectively between his solo and ensemble records and his piano rolls, Jimmy accumulated a wealth of approximately five hundred recordings in just nine years, a feat that has rarely been paralleled, and for that time in society only approached by a couple of other African-American artists.
     While many of the left hand lines of Blythe's compositions and recordings have a similar theme or style, he still did manage some distinction in many of his original works. Some were recorded by other artists, and he even co-wrote some on the spot with performers, including Priscilla Stewart and Trixie Smith. The family was also in on the act as his sister Mary contributed to Have Mercy. Another contributor he met around 1924, an amateur pianist named Janice (sometimes Jannie) from Louisiana, became his wife near the end of the year. Together they composed Midnight Strutters.
     Jimmy's most frequent partner was singer Alex Robinson who was married to Aletha Dickerson of Paramount Records. Listings in the pioneering black newspaper The Chicago Defender, and occasionally in other Chicago papers, show Jimmy and Alex playing from time to time on Chicago radio station KYW in 1926 and 1927. Aletha's role should not be downplayed in the life of Jimmy or many black musicians. Starting as a secretary with Paramount she eventually helped to cultivate the talent and get their works published. In the case of Jimmy she got co-credit on at least two of his pieces. One of them, Fat Meat and Greens, was covered by no less than "Jelly Roll" Morton. Most of his compositions remained on record or piano roll. However, at least a couple were published by Chicago music school czar Axel Christensen, who also may have inadvertently taken credit for a couple more Blythe originals. His biggest hit, at least amongst performers, was Mecca Flat Blues, the title referencing a large and sometimes controversial apartment complex built in the 1890s. It also found its way into print in a Paramount produced folio arranged in part by Aletha Dickerson.

The Dreamland Café Around 1923

     In spite of his busy recording schedule, there are indications, some through scant notices and word of mouth, that he also performed live. Among the places mentioned were Mamie Ponce's tavern on the south side. Given the number of local venues in that area known as "the stroll," including the famous Dreamland Café on State Street and even the Lincoln Gardens, it is easy to imagine that he or his band was invited to play on one or more of the stages within that district. Yet he is also remembered for being in the background to some degree, drawing attention to his groups by not drawing any to himself. He was considered relatively quiet for an active musician, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that Blythe has been overlooked in some jazz histories, even though he is remembered among pianists. It has also been conjectured with some credible basis that Blythe used at least a couple of different pseudonyms for his work, including Duke Owens and George Jefferson.
     As of the 1930 Census Jimmy was living on South Michigan Avenue with Mary and her husband Mario, Bessie who had been recently widowed, and her son Charlie. He listed himself as a musician, while Mario was a janitor and Charlie was working for a barber. It appears that Janice, who very little is known about, was separated from Jimmy and living on East 44th Street. Both of them indicated that they were still married, however, so the circumstances are unclear. The couple never had children. Not quite a month after he turned 30, Blythe contracted meningitis and within a few days was gone.
     Fortunately a great deal of his piano work was left behind to be discovered by future generations of boogie-woogie and stride pianists, and is still performed decades later in the 21st century. His role in fostering the growth of boogie or boogie-woogie piano has been challenged over time. It was a style that evolved from barrelhouses, largely in the Chicago area, but boogie-woogie was also heard in Kansas City and even Texas concurrently with early Chicago boogie blues. What Blythe did was to use his talent and musical charisma to get the style heard, showing it could be applied to popular music, not just blues. While Clarence "Pine Top" Smith is known as the guy to set the template and helped to provide the name for boogie-woogie blues with his early recordings, Blythe preceded him in utilzing the same left-hand style both on piano rolls and records, and would undoubtedly have been a major player in that genre in the 1930s had he lived.

     Lou Busch was born to William H. Bush and Irene A. (Eruwein) Bush in Louisville, Kentucky in the midst of the ragtime era and the jazz age. He had an older brother, Richard H. Bush, born in late 1908. When Louis was born his parents were living with Irene's family, the Eruweins. Anna's father Peter was born in France in 1849, but migrated to Kentucky when he was only four years old. In the 1920 Census the Bush family is shown living in Louisville at 731 32nd Street with William listed as a laundry salesman.
     Even though the family name was Bush, Lou added the c for Busch at some point in the 1920s, largely for the uniqueness it provided. The change was likely for stage purposes and not completed legally. One of his California death records indicates Busch while another one plus his Social Security and Army enlistment records indicate Bush. Truly blessed with an inherent music talent, he was already leading a ragtime and jazz band by the time he was 12 years old. At 13 Lou led a combo called Lou Bush and His Tickle Toe Four. At 16 he left school and home for a career as a professional musician, playing with the likes of "Hot Lips" Henry Busse, Clyde McCoy and George Olson. One travel manifest shows him working with the McCoy band on a cruise to the Bahamas in 1929. Louisville was still considered his home base, as he was listed there with his brother and parents in the 1930 Census as an orchestra musician.

The Hal Kemp Orchestra around 1940 with Lou at the piano and singer Skinnay Ennis at the microphone.

The family was residing at 802 41st Street, with William still a laundry agent, and Richard now working as an auto mechanic. After a few years on the road, his desire to learn more about music theory led him to study at the Cincinnati Music Conservatory in Ohio in the early 1930s.
     Following his music education break, Busch became the pianist for Hal Kemp's "sweet music" band for the remainder of the 1930s. Lou also honed his arranging skills, being offered an arranging position when arranger John Scott Trotter left the band in 1936. This position was shared with another key arranger, Hal Mooney, and was invaluable experience for both of them. The Kemp Orchestra had been making short sound films since 1928, and Lou appeared in a few of them between 1936 and 1938, as well as some recordings by the group. After Kemp died December 21, 1940 from complications suffered during a head on automobile crash two days earlier, the group quickly disbanded. Busch and Mooney made their way to California in early 1941 to work as studio musicians and at whatever gigs they could find. This was interrupted by World War Two, which presented an opportunity for Busch to hone both his musical and production skill set.
     He enlisted on July 27, 1942, in Los Angeles, and was considered immediately for entertainment duty, as his Civil Occupation is shown as a musician and the branch is shown as "Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA." Busch and many others in his field were considered highly valuable for morale in their entertainment roles. So many groups of musicians were assigned to play behind radio or film stars, and some were also involved with set traveling shows, often performing near the front when not on broadcast duty. Private, and later Lieutenant Busch ultimately spent three years in the Army, utilizing his musical talents from time to time during the war as part of the 1st Radio Production Group of the Army Air Corps. (Glenn Miller headed up the 2nd RPG.)
     Even this early in his career, Lou did make the news from time to time. While he was in the band he met the band's singer and soon to be Hollywood actress, (Martha) Janet Blair. According to an October 1942 syndicated news item from Hollywood's Louella O. Parsons: "Now we understand why [actress] Janet Blair is not one bit interested in the boys around town. Her heart is in the keeping of Private Lou Busch, stationed at Fort MacArthur and formerly an arranger with the late Hal Kemp's Orchestra. Oh, it is not a new thing by any means. Janet met Lou when she was the canary with the same band and talk is that the gal who is sure to zoom to stardom after My Sister Eileen is released will wed Private Busch very soon." In fact Janet did wed Lieutenant Busch on July 12, 1943.
     After his tour of duty, Busch decided to dive back into the music business, but desired a more stable position than just a musician. It was around this time that singer Johnny Mercer was recruiting artists and employees for his recently formed label, Capitol Records, so Busch was hired for the radio transcription service in 1946. At the same time he was working part-time with Columbia Pictures recording songs for films. In 1948, Busch was hired full-time at Capitol and put in charge of production of promotional radio shows featuring Capitol artists for distribution to stations around the country. He also helped to score and produce famous cuts from the label including Bonaparte's Retreat by Kay Starr and both Yingle Bells and I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas by Yogi Yorgesson (comedian Harry Stewart.
     By 1949 Lou had been promoted to A&R (Artist and Repertoire) man given his considerable talent and contacts. During this time he also served as a pianist for studio groups backing singers such as Peggy Lee, "Tennessee" Ernie Ford and Jo Stafford. In early 1950 Lou and Janet split, with Janet claiming mental cruelty and casting Busch as a "born bachelor." Lou was quoted as saying "There will be no sensational charges. We just drifted apart." The couple was divorced in short order after a March 1 hearing. He got married again in August, this time to Capitol singer and rising star Margaret Whiting. She had recently divorced Hubbell Robinson, vice president of CBS Radio. Their daughter, Deborah Louise "Debbi" Busch (now Whiting), was born in October. In a September 1950 interview, Margaret worried that "her baby will sing like her husband, Lou Busch, and play the piano like she, herself does."
     Three events from this time, all having to do with Capitol Records, helped spur the ragtime revival of the 1950s. Interest in the music of the late 1910s through the 1920s had been growing out of San Francisco for nearly a decade, particularly through Lu Watters, Wally Rose and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, so the seed had been planted. The first event was bandleader W. Gerhart "Pee Wee" Hunt's surprise hit with Twelfth Street Rag, something recorded simply to use up time at the end of a broadcast transcription in 1948 as a bit of a joke. Since Busch was involved with radio transcriptions as part of his job at the time, he may have been responsible for editing or distributing this particular session. The cut was requested by listeners so often upon broadcast that the demand warranted a single release, and it soon became a runaway hit. The following summer, Busch backed singer Jo Stafford and conductor Paul Weston on the hit record, Ragtime Cowboy Joe. He was also uncredited on the Ray Anthony recording of Spaghetti Rag, another sizable hit. These successes and the moderate hit Sam's Song from late 1949 encouraged both Lou and the label to release his own original single, Ivory Rag, early in 1950. Over the spring it became a bigger hit than the previous two in both the U.S. and overseas. It was also the first piece incorporated into the Crazy Otto Medley by German pianist Fritz Schulz-Reichel, which was later associated with Johnny Maddox in the U.S.
     These events coupled with the 1950 release of the book They All Played Ragtime by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, gave indications that ragtime might yet live again. Busch decided to produce one of the new Capitol 10" long play (LP) records of the music, and recorded pieces by himself, Ray Turner and Marvin Ash for Honky Tonk Piano, released in April 1950. The Honky-Tonk reference, more often identified as a Country Music term, is likely in conjunction with the type of "joint" the music was played, but the sound of the piano might also apply, as they sometimes used hardened hammers or detuning to alter the tone. However, instead of just piano, Busch and company followed the lead of the traditional jazz revivalists of the late 1940s and added percussion and bass. The whimsical style coupled with clever arrangements made the records accessible to a public craving nostalgia, and Capitol's distribution helped make Honky Tonk Piano a big hit for many years.

The Busch Family in 1952, with
(l to r) Debbi, Lou and Margaret

     Lou's name was as much in the news in the early 1950s for his music work as it was for his public problems with Margaret, largely because of her popularity as a Capitol Records artist. In 1950 and 1951 it was largely positive, with items about Debbi's birth and bits of Capitol publicity fluff with posed pictures. An October 15, 1951 syndicated article had nothing but good spin in it:

     Margaret Whiting said today that old wheeze about husbands and wives not working well together is a bunch of hooey. She's got her old man to thank for a whole new career. He's Lou Busch, a minor musical genius when it comes to singing or arranging or plinking out a hot tune on the piano. No slouch at launching a gal on a night club tour either. Even when the gal's his wife.
     "I was scared to death," Maggie said. "All I'd ever done was radio and records and a few TV guest shots. But night clubs are full of real people. You have to compete with filet mignons and halibuts. And leave us face it, sometimes the halibut wins out."
     Busch talked her into it, and then, Maggie said, went out and did everything but sing the songs for her.
     "He picked out my numbers, arranged them, conducted the orchestra, and set up the mikes and the lighting," she explained. "He even told me what kind of gowns to buy. Now he's got me broken in," she said, her fingers crossed. "And just to show you how wrong people can be, we haven't had a single fight in all this time. The only things we fight about are things we don't work together on. And he's always right. In fact, he's always right about my career, too. Never saw such a man. He told me how to stand up to a mike... what to do with my hands... and how to treat hecklers.
     "That's what worried me most. On radio or TV people come because they want to hear you. But in a night club they're just sitting there DARING you to please them. Lou warned me there'd be people who'd talk while I was singing. And there were. He told me the drunks would probably holler during my most dramatic ballads. And they did. He even warned me about people who threw pennies at entertainers. So far that hasn't happened. But it might some day. Like I say, Lou's always right.
     Which probably accounts for the reason Maggie and Lou never fight. Who's gonna battle with a dame who thinks you're wonderful?

     As there has been so much written on the life of Charlie Chaplin, this biography will largely focus on and take into context the parts of his life as a composer and musician, while still covering the major events and time line. Chaplin was not really a ragtime composer per se, but he did what he could to keep music viable in his films by directing the use of certain pieces or genres of pieces, and eventually composing them as well. Many of these works made it into print as far back as the mid 1910s, and a handful endure today. So his music was born out of the melding of ragtime and popular music as it accompanied early silent films, and therefore he should be not be ignored as a composer who drew on that era for some of his work. But he went well beyond that, as will be seen here, and should further be acknowledged for the boldness he displayed in scoring some of his later films as well, putting him also in the category of film composer.

     Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in England to Charles Chaplin and Hannah (Hill) Chaplin, both performers in London music halls. Name after his father and his uncle, Spencer Chaplin, Charles had an older brother, Sydney (John Hill) Chaplin (1885), by a different father, whose identity has never been fully confirmed, but is considered by a handful of researchers to be a Sydney Hawkes. Charles Chaplin Sr. was a talented actor and singer, and even a published composer. One of his pieces was The Girl was Young and Pretty, the theme of which was later echoed in his 1992 film biography directed by Sir Richard Attenborough. Another was a poignant waltz song called Every-Day Life with lyrics by Harry Boden from 1891. The sheet music advertised that it had been "Composed and Sung with Enormous Success by Charles Chaplin." However, he was also an alcoholic, and ended up separating from Hannah when Charlie was around two. In the 1891 England Census Hannah Chaplin is listed as an unemployed professional singer residing with Sydney and young Charles in the St. Mary district. Hannah showed as being married, but without her husband in the household. He was living nearby in the same district in a boarding house with other music hall artists.
     To compound an already difficult situation, Hannah had some mental illness, and her inability to keep jobs required the broken family to move from place to place around Kensington Road, so as to be close enough to the theaters. Yet they still lived in relative comfort above the poverty level. Charles had constant exposure to the stage, and to the music as well. His mother, who worked under the name Lilly Harley, preferred to bring the boys to the theater rather than leave them alone, so they quickly became familiar with the songs of the day, bawdy and otherwise. They would occasionally see Charles Sr. perform as well, even after he had left the family. One of his frequent haunts was the Canterbury Music Hall.
     As Charles relayed it in his autobiography, his first time on stage was when he was but five years old. He was backstage at the Aldershot Canteen while Hannah was performing for a group largely made up of soldiers. She was having a rough time of it, her voice cracking during her song. Whether Charles ventured out after she left the stage or whether he was pushed on remains conjecture or hearsay (he claims the latter). However, he took over for his mother, singing two or three songs, one of them being Jack Jones, and picking up coins thrown on stage by the amused audience in response to his work before he left. It was the start of a very long career performing for the public, and was claimed to be his mother's last night on stage.
     Following this, Hannah, who had been prone to increasing bouts of laryngitis, was no longer able to work consistently as a singer, leaving the family of three suddenly living day to day in poverty. After a year or so they had to retreat to the workhouses, and at times were separated. Hannah recovered briefly, then had a breakdown. She was sent to Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon for recovery,

Charlie Chaplin as a Souse in Karno's Night in an English Music Hall.

and Charles and Sydney were sent off initially to live with their father and his mistress Louise for a while. She, in turn, sent them to the Archbishop Temples Boys School, and had a tenuous relationship with Charles and Sydney. This was exacerbated by her drinking as well as their fathers, and the presence of a boy in the home who was four years younger. This was Charles' other half brother, but he did not know it at that time. After a few months the boys went back again to live their mother after she was released. However, she was not able to properly care for them, and was again committed to the asylum while the boys were sent to a school for paupers. Sydney eventually went to sea and Charlie was at times out on the streets fending for himself.
     Even as a juvenile performer Chaplin claims he had not yet really discovered music. However, he told of that day in his biography, leaving the impression that he was perhaps eight at the time. Charles had come home to his father's empty house, and bored after a while he wandered out into the streets again to try to find food and solace. As he tells it: “Suddenly, there was music. Rapturous! It came from the vestibule of the White Hart corner pub, and resounded brilliantly in the empty square. The tune was The Honeysuckle and the Bee, played with radiant virtuosity on a harmonium and clarinet. I had never been conscious of melody before, but this one was beautiful and lyrical, so blithe and gay, so warm and reassuring. I forgot my despair and crossed the road to where the musicians were... It was all over too soon and their exit left the night even sadder... It was here that I first discovered music, or where I first learned its rare beauty, a beauty that has gladdened and haunted me from that moment.”
     Charles first worked as a billed artist in 1898 with a group of pre-teen clog dancers. They were called The Eight Lancashire Lads, and the experience allowed him to hone his agility of movement as well as gain a better sense of timing and rhythm in conjunction with the musical accompaniment. Although the work was necessary to help support his family, he was thoroughly at home on the stage, and became quite acrobatic as a result of his time as a dancer. He reportedly may have also done some singing and a little comedy with this act, but there is no direct billing that fully supports this contention. As of the 1901 England Census he was rooming with a troupe of actors, possibly the clog dancers. Like the others, Charles was listed as a "music hall artiste." Neither his mother or Sydney were residing there, but he was one of ten juveniles living in the flat of John Jackson, son of the troupe's leader who himself was all of seventeen. That same year, Charles Sr. finally died at age 37 from cirrhosis of the liver and complications related to alcohol abuse.
      At twelve and a half years of age after a year of odd jobs, and shortly after his mother was recommitted to Cane Hill, Charlie managed to snag a plum role in the C.E. Hamilton Company as Billie the Page Boy in a production of Sherlock Holmes. After getting good reviews in an otherwise poor play staged before the Sherlock Holmes tour, he continued in the role for three seasons. In the fourth season he ended up playing the same role opposite the author of the play. The four years emboldened him as an actor and established his stage presence, but not prepare him for comedy. Now sixteen and a bit cocky, Charlie decided to turn down the next role because it required traveling. As a result, he spent nearly a year not working.
      Steady work of any kind was hard to come by, so he was supported in part by Sydney, who had been with British performer and producer Fred Karno's comedy company since 1906. Charles secured some music books and Jewish humor jokes, attempting to make a splash as an ethnic comedian. He was ill-prepared to do direct comedy as opposed to character comedy, and this venture lasted one performance. There were other minor failures on stage as well. Then at age nineteen Charlie, morally supported by Sydney, secured a position with Karno as a replacement actor playing opposite comedian Harry Weldon in a sketch called The Football Match.

Chaplin (center) and others from the Karno company in 1912 aboard the Oceanic.

Within a week he had a long-term contract with Karno, and his career as a comic actor was finally established.
      Working in various groups of Karno's traveling organization, Charlie quickly became a star of the sketch and pantomime comedy sketches, and his timing and choices were evidently highly regarded by the boss. It has been noted that his use of music in his act fully availed itself of the possibilities presented in the rhythmic and melodic elements of a tune, adding to the overall essence of his act. The acts often used classic 18th and 19th century melodies accompanied by sound effects or slapsticks to emphasize falls or other actions, which gave his form of comedy its name, even before he became associated with it. Among the actors he worked with during his time with Karno was another future comedy star, was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, known on stage as Stan Laurel. Stan ultimately served as Chaplin's understudy and backup while with the Karno company.
      Charlie met a girl in the chorus line named Hetty Kelly and was instantaly transfixed by her. His emotions for her became so strong that on their first outing he referred to her as his "nemesis," which she could not understand. Within days he had asked if she loved him, which she felt unfair given that Hetty was just short of sixteen to his nineteen years. Chaplin ended it right there after all of four encounters, but went to her home the following day to say goodbye once more just to be sure. He would never forget Hetty, and subconsciously would search for her over the next 34 years. In fact, when he met her just over a year later she was now seventeen and well-developed, but not the same girl in many ways, so he continued searching.
     The Karno company toured Europe a couple of times from 1909 to 1910. At one show in Paris presented at the famous Folies Bergère, composer Claude Debussy was in the audience with a lady friend from the Russian ballet, and asked to meet Charlie after the show. The impressionist composer told him, "You are instinctively a musician and a dancer." While this was clearly a great compliment to Charlie, he was not sure how to reply, and he did not know who Debussy was at that time. However, he eventually knew all to well, noting in his autobiography it was the same year that "Debussy introduced his Prélude à L’Après Midi d’un Faune [Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun] to England, where it was booed and the audience walked out."
     Charlie toured Canada and the United States extensively with the American Karno company from late September 1910 to early 1912. They entered the United States on October 1 after having arrived a few days earlier to Quebec on the Cairnrona, and proceeded quickly to New York City for their first engagement of six weeks. Reports that he was the featured star entertainer with the troupe on that trip are not fully supported by newspaper advertising of that time until closer to the end of the tour, which was extended for twenty weeks to the west, another six in New York, and another twenty in the west again. Among the acts that toured was one titled The Wow Wows that featured Charles as "The Original Souse." In late 1912 the core of the Karno company again ventured to America to tour the vaudeville circuit for another year, arriving this time in New York Harbor on October 12 aboard the Oceanic as second class passengers. One of Chaplin's specialties in the Night in an English Music Hall sketch was playing an inebriated souse much older than himself, who randomly invaded the audience, then the stage, with his drunken antics.
     Stan Laurel remembered several facets of this second trip and recounted some information about Chaplin in a later interview with historian John McCabe. "Charlie carried his violin wherever he could. Had the strings reversed so he could play left handed, and he would practise for hours. He bought a cello once and used to carry it around with him. At these times he would always dress like a musician, a long fawn coloured overcoat with green velvet cuffs and collar and a slouch hat. And he’d let his hair grow long at the back. We never knew what he was going to do next.” This concurs with Chaplin's own account of his first trip to the states: "On this tour I carried my violin and cello. Since the age of sixteen I had practised from four to six hours a day in my bedroom. Each week I took lessons from the theatre conductor or from someone he recommended. As I played left handed, my violin was strung left handed with the bass bar and sounding post reversed. I had great ambitions to be a concert artist, or, failing that, to use it in a vaudeville act, but as time went on I realised that I could never achieve excellence, so I gave it up."
     It also during the second trip while they were playing in New York City that Chaplin went to the Metropolitan Opera House to see the opera Tannhäuser, something that may have influenced even more his sense of the melding of music and storytelling. According to Charlie: "I had never seen grand opera, only excerpts of it in vaudeville – and I loathed it. But now I was in the humour for it. I bought a ticket and sat in the second circle. The opera was in German and I did not understand a word of it, nor did I know the story. But when the dead Queen was carried on to the music of the Pilgrim’s chorus, I wept bitterly. It seemed to sum up all the travail of my life. I could hardly control myself; what people sitting next to me must have thought I don't know, but I came away limp and emotionally shattered."
     On the 1912 to 1913 trip Chaplin was clearly the star of the Karno troupe in their primary sketches, A Night in an English Music Hall and The Wow Wows. While on the second American tour, Charlie was witness to, and soon was entranced by the growing medium of motion pictures, now well into their second decade. The notion of putting something into a permanent record that could be viewed by potentially millions in a short time, as opposed to hundreds in a week, was appealing to him, as was the potential in what was a forced pantomime. So near the end of 1913 when his contract with Karno expired, Chaplin decided to achieve his own success in America and left the company to pursue a career in the movies.

     In a sense, Charlie was offered a carrot to stay in the United States. His act had been seen during the first tour by movie producer Mack Sennett, then working for D.W. Griffith, and some of his future comedy stars, including Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle who at that time was one of the Keystone Kops.

Charlie's first time as the tramp with Mabel Normand in Mabel's Strange Predicament.

They were named after Sennett's Keystone Studios which was located in Edendale, California, just east of present day Hollywood. Chaplin was hired to do comic roles on film and as a contingent replacement for his star Ford Sterling, who was going to Universal for a better deal (although he returned to Keystone within a few months). Charlie quickly found out that acting in front of a camera doing stunts and multiple takes without audience feedback was a much different experience than working on the stage. Receiving a standard salary of $150 per week, nearly double his pay from Karno, his first appearance as a newspaper reporter with questionable scruples in Making a Living did not fully support his making even that much. It was found later that most of his funny bits had been deliberately edited out by jealous director Henry Lehrman, but it was also clear that his talents were not properly utilized in that short.
     Actress Mabel Normand took up Charlie's cause and insisted that Sennett give him another chance under her tutelage. Although he had issues with a woman directing his acting, Chaplin persevered and came back strong in the next film, Mabel's Strange Predicament.. According to his autobiography Sennett had asked him to dress in a comedy make up of some kind. The famous incident with him finding his new identity was poetically recreated in the 1992 biopic Chaplin starring Robert Downey Jr., but Chaplin's own passage was actually a bit more practical:

     I had no idea what makeup to put on. I did not like my get-up as the press reporter [in the previous film Making a Living]. However on the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large. I was undecided whether to look old or young, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small moustache, which I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born...
     [Sennett] stood and giggled until his body began to shake. This encouraged me and I began to explain the character: 'You know this fellow is many-sided, a tramp, a gentelman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. He would have you believe he is a scientist, a musician, a duke, a polo-player. However, he is not above picking up cigarette-butts or robbing a baby of its candy. And, of course, if the occasion warrants it, he will kick a lady in the rear – but only in extreme anger!'"

     In reality, the hat and oversized pants came from the rotund Arbuckle and the shoes from Ford Sterling. The concept itself was evocative of his early years living in poverty and making due with whatever was at hand. While the tramp did appear briefly in Mabel's Strange Predicament, the first film that featured that character, shot the following week, was Kid Auto Races at Venice released in early February 1914. The simple plot had him mugging annoyingly for the camera at a soapbox derby race while directors and cameramen try to keep him out of the picture. The tramp character immediately caught on with audiences, and several more shorts were made featuring Chaplin. He immediately adopted the oversized shows, baggy pants, and penguin-like walk that made him stand out. Charlie did play a Keystone Kop in one recently discovered short, but once the tramp character was established he rarely veered away from his creation. Little known to most of the public, the tramp also had a name, the French derivative of his own, Charlot.
     By the middle of the year Chaplin shorts were drawing crowds, and they were appearing frequently in advertising, often trumping the feature they were playing with. It was clear to Sennett and Chaplin that $150 per week was hardly appropriate any more, and the two tussled over numbers for the remainder of the year. Chaplin also wanted more control over scenarios, editing, and even directing. He was now making $175 per week plus a $25 bonus for each completed film. Sennett and Chaplin were often at odds, but the studio head put up with it because his revenues had increased significantly thanks to Charlie's films. Even before the end of 1914, Chaplin was the most famous movie comedian, and arguably the most famous comic actor in the United States. During his one year contract Charlie appeared in 36 Keystone films, a brutal pace considering the amount of physical action and location shooting done in the early days of film.
     It was a show of respect by Sennett that he did not openly contest Chaplin leaving his organization to work for Essanay Studios (S and A for owners George K. Spoor and cowboy star G.M. "Bronco Billy" Anderson) in 1915 for a great deal more money. News reports of the time put it at over $100,000 for the year. By then, Sydney had also come to the United States, and for a time replaced his brother in Keystone comedies. At Essanay Charlie was given a bit more freedom to develop his gags, and regularly used a stock set of actors for consistency. Among them was a young lady named Edna Purviance and villains Bud Jamison and Leo White. Essanay managed to distribute Chaplin films to every corner of the country and heavily advertised their star property as well. Chaplin films even managed big draws in New York City, where entertainment was available at every turn. However, much of the crowd seeking entertainment from the tramp were immigrants who still did not have command of the English language, and did not really need to in order to grasp the universal pantomime slapstick that Charlie was mastering.
     Charlie had another trick up his sleeve as well, making an attempt at a popular song in 1915.He sought to have his music heard in America. When Oh! That Cello was self-published in 1915 it had a slow start. But after a piano roll of it was released the following year the name association caused some head scratching and curiosity in the music industry, as reported in The Music Trade Review of September 9, 1916.

     CONSIDERABLE anxiety has been expressed in various quarters to know whether the Charles Chaplin who appears as the composer of "Oh that 'Cello" in the August bulletin of the Q R S Co. is in reality he of the slap-stick motion picture comedy fame. The Q R S Co. aver that it is the simon pure Charles. He is doing quite a bit of composing nowadays between acts, so to speak, and moreover is publishing his own compositions. "Oh that 'Cello" is quite pleasing even to the ear of one who does not revel in the popular music of the day. Lee Roberts [main arranger and vice president of QRS] made a hand played roll of it and has a nice letter from the real Charles written from Los Angeles giving his permission for its inclusion in the Q R S catalog.

     Even before the discovery that Chaplin was a composer, composers discovered Chaplin, and in 1915 alone no less than eight pieces named for Charlie or his feet were in the stores. The most popular of them were That Charlie Chaplin Walk and Those Charlie Chaplin Feet. The reason such a comic association between music and Chaplin's screen persona seemed so natural is that it often was. Chaplin, like many other fine comic actors, knew that there were layers of rhythm within the concept of "comic timing." Even today, scripts for television and movies often use the term "take a beat" or "two beats" at times, informing the actor to pause for an amount of time that would be analogous to the current pace of the action. Sennett often had musicians in his employ to provide not only mood music but rhythm to help the flow of action for the actors.
     Chaplin sometimes did the same, and he also knew the importance of both acting and editing in such a way that music played to his films, the big end factor over which he had virtually no control over at that time, would naturally find a sweet spot through his pacing. Many of the songs about Chaplin fit that mold nicely, and were not only used to accompany some of his films but sold in the lobbies as well. Others were featured on stage, managing to make the presence of Charlie known even at the popular Ziegfeld Follies. Chaplin himself made it known that certain popular piece might even inspire action sequences or scenarios. "Simple little tunes gave me the image for comedies. In one called Twenty Minutes of Love, full of rough stuff and nonsense in parks, with policemen and nursemaids, I weaved in and out of situations to the tune of Too Much Mustard, a popular two step in 1914. The song Violetera set the mood for City Lights, and Auld Lang Syne the mood for The Gold Rush."
     Chaplin's first Essanay film was made at their Chicago headquarters, a place he deplored. So he went to their studio in Niles, California, which was situated near the San Francisco Bay area and featured very usable old-west scenery. During the process of making his fourteen films at Essanay Charlie's musical proclivities became better known to his colleagues. He bought a higher quality violin, perhaps favoring it over the cello. It was said that he would "scrape away" at the instrument for several hours at night. As he and the other actors were often housed next to the studio at Niles, Chaplin staying in the surprisingly sparse quarters of millionaire Bronco Billy, they would often suffer through sleepless nights listening to Chaplin trying to master the instrument. That misery did not last long. After four more films Chaplin retreated to Southern California and rented a studio near downtown Los Angeles for the remaining Essanay films.

Charlie conducting a band in a rare snippet likely taken at the New York Hippdrome in 1916.

     After a successful but sometimes choppy run with Essanay in 1915, Sydney arranged a lucrative agreement for his brother for $670,000 ($10,000 per week plus a $150,000 signing bonus) with the Mutual Film Corporation for twelve two-reel comedies in 1916, one per month. Mutual wisely gave him more or less carte blanche in terms of artistic control, content and personnel. The same was true in terms of time, because as the Mutuals went along Chaplin required a longer shooting and editing schedule. The initial twelve months stretched into just over eighteen. However, every one of the twelve films has remained a classic for nearly a century, and Chaplin stated in his autobiography that it was the most productive and happiest period of his career.
     Mutual allowed Chaplin to form his own separate production arm named Lone Star Productions. In spite of his success with the tramp, the character was not featured in all of these shorts. In The Fireman he is obviously a fireman in and The Cure Chaplin plays an alcoholic who checks into a sanatorium. One of most unique Mutuals, One A.M., features Chaplin as an adventurous bachelor who arrives home quite inebriated and has to negotiate the hazards of his own home in order to get to bed, or something like a bed. There is a clear rhythmic pace in this solo effort that is punctuated by a wall clock with an oversized widely swinging pendulum. In The Vagabond he played a saloon violinist who rescues a girl from a cruel gypsy master. In it he is seen playing in his usual left-handed manner. The Rink, Easy Street and The Pawnshop have also remained favorites.
     Chaplin's new role as a comic leading man opened many doors to him, but also brought obligations. He was asked to do benefits and promote causes.

Charlie with Igance Jan Paderewski in 1916.

In one instance he did a benefit at the famous Hippodrome in New York City. A filmed snippet remains that is thought to be from that benefit. It shows Chaplin in his guise as a musician, conducting the band half seriously while clowning around with them. Even though the appearance was staged, it had an air of spontaneity and joy. His fame also brought him many visitors and admirers. Among those was a man that Chaplin himself had admired for some time, pianist Ignace Jan Paderewski, who posed with Charlie in late 1916. There is no account of any lessons being given in either music or comedy during that visit. Chaplin also built up a fine ensemble cast and crew. In addition to his leading lady and constant companion Edna Purviance, who he was romantically involved with during 1916 and 1917, he brought in his half brother Sydney as both agent and manager, and added a comic giant villain, Scottish import Eric Campbell, to his stock company. Charlie had known the 6'4" Campbell from the Karno company, and he was described as a very gentle giant. During the Mutual run Campbell lost his wife to sickness, and subsequently got involved in a sham marriage. Sadly, after the last Mutual production was finished, Eric died instantly in a tragic car accident on Wilshire Blvd. in December 1917, the result of too much alcohol.
     To further extend his control over his end products, Charlie had formed the Charles Chaplin Music Company with comedian and pianist Bert Clark to publish Oh! That Cello. He likely had big plans for that concern, but in its short life of perhaps two months or so only two more pieces were published. The Peace Patrol was a simple but lyrical instrumental march.

Letterhead from Chaplin's short-lived
music publishing enterprise.

While he was negotiating with the Mutual Company in New York City, Chaplin appeared at a benefit concert at the Hippodrome on February 20, 1916. There he led Sousa’s band in the Poet and Peasant Overture, followed by The Peace Patrol, perhaps its only public performance in his lifetime. This composition was followed by There's Always One You Can't Forget, a sentimental piece about his first true love, Hetty Kelly. (In 1921 he found out that she had died during the flu pandemic which devastated him.) As for his publishing activities, Chaplin recalled that, "[Bert and I] had rented a room three storeys up in a down town office building and printed two thousand copies of two very bad songs and musical compositions of mine – then we waited for customers. The enterprise was collegiate and quite mad. I think we sold three copies, one to Charles Cadman, the American composer, and two to pedestrians who happened to pass our office on their way downstairs."
     In the latter half of 1917 after nearly 18 months, Charlie left Mutual, where he later said he had enjoyed the best period of his life. He signed with First National for a contract of eight two-reel films (some would be longer). The money and freedom they gave him in addition to what he had earned from Mutual allowed Chaplin to build his own studio in Hollywood (presently the home to Disney's Jim Henson Studios). Chaplin remembered that "At the end of the Mutual contract, I was anxious to get started with First National, but we had no studio. I decided to buy land in Hollywood and build one. The site was the corner of Sunset and La Brea and had a very fine ten-room house and five acres of lemon, orange and peach trees. We built a perfect unit, complete with developing plant, cutting room, and offices." He met with resistance from a local residential neighborhood who opposed the encroachment, but ultimately was allowed to built by the city council. Sydney also joined him in this effort, becoming Charlie's manager. He played a comic role of a food vendor in Chaplin's first film for the company, A Dog's Life, released in 1918.
     From the time of the Great War (World War I) on there was some obvious controversy concerning Chaplin's patriotism towards the United States, more a reflection of his perceived political views than anything. One that persisted was that he tried to avoid the draft or enlistment. This is not true, and he indeed filled out a draft card on June 5, 1917, listing himself as moving picture comedian working for the Lone Star Company, the name of the production company he had formed at Mutual. In fact, it has been reported that Chaplin made three attempts [at least two confirmed] to enlist in either the American or British armies, and was rejected for one or another reason. At 5'6" and a mere 125 pounds he was a bit slight to be a soldier. Even though he was not a naturalized citizen, that fact did not make him ineligible. He had wanted to enlist in the British Army, but his Mutual contract stipulated that he remain the United States until it was fulfilled. Not knowing this, soldiers in the British army adopted a nasty parody, sung to Red Wing by Kerry Mills, called The Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Chaplin, suggesting he be sent to the Dardanelles where a bloody campaign had taken place.
     It is known that Chaplin was seen as an important entity in his capacity as an actor, as he was not yet involved with so-called subversive organizations or activities. He was also quite active in promoting the sale of bonds during a national tour with Mary Pickford, best friend Douglas Fairbanks, and actress Marie Dressler. This was followed by a short called The Bond, made at his own expense, which was used by the Federal Government to further promote sales. It explained several types of bonds, including friendship and marriage, ending with the most important type, Liberty Bonds. A final scene showed him wielding a larger mallet with "Liberty Bonds" painted on it, which he used to successfully pummel the Kaiser (played by Sydney), in a comical manner, of course. One of his early films through First National was the war-themed feature Shoulder Arms, which was a large success at the box office and considered by historians to be the best World War I film actually during the conflict. In it, Sydney reprises his role as the much abused Kaiser.
     By mid 1917, most theaters in the United States had house musicians playing either piano or organ, or in some cases ensembles ranging from three piece groups to orchestras. In smaller towns it would often be a piano teacher or her star student playing classical tunes or the latest popular songs and rags to the films for some extra cash. For the most part, with few exceptions, there were no definitive music scores for movies, especially for the shorts.

Chaplin vigorously campaigning for the sale
of war bonds in New York City in 1918.

D.W. Griffith had commissioned scores for a couple of his feature films, but they were typically only used in the very largest metropolitan centers and not reduced to a piano or organ score. The following year would see the introduction of theme songs associated with films, but one song a score did not make.
     Chaplin was well aware of this shortfall, and in particular recognized how the proper underscore would add to the emotional import of the action on the screen. Along with some other directors and producers his company sent out simple suggestions for the type of music to play for each scene, even with some popular titles. While this was not the same as a score, the guidance provided more consistency for film goers as long as the local musicians were capable of following these directions.
     The first hint of coming disasters in his life came about in 1918 when Charlie, then 29, married a popular 18-year-old actress, Mildred A. Harris, a quickly formed union predicated on a pregnancy that turned out to be a false alarm. While their relationship seemed to be smooth at the start, things quickly fell apart after Mildred actually did get pregnant, then gave birth to a son, Norman Spencer Chaplin. Sadly, the child died at three days old on July 10, 1919. The couple was never able to fully reconcile, and Charlie set out on a series of affairs that occasionally made it into the press, not helping his image or his questionable marriage.
     Being a top personality in show business, his endorsement was sought out by many companies, one comical example which was relayed in The Music Trade Review of December 21, 1918:

     Charlie Chaplin received a letter from a certain manufacturer of musical instruments, proposing to present him with a saxophone providing he would be photographed with it, and permit the maker to use the indorsement [sic] for advertising purposes. Not being particularly interested in the saxophone but appreciating the gentleman's courtesy, Mr. Chaplin in part replied: "If you happen to have a spare 'Strad' violin knocking about that you don't want, well, you might send it on. I will have my picture taken with it, and I will give you a letter to the effect that I can thoroughly recommend it."

     On February 5, 1919, with his new studio fully built and in production for a year now, Charlie joined one of the earliest ongoing efforts to promote individualistic freedom and support for film makers. Along with Sydney and their actor friends Mary Pickford (America's sweetheart), Douglas Fairbanks (America's screen hero), William S. Hart (America's favorite cowboy) and legendary director David W. Griffith, the group formed the United Artists production and distribution company. They had heard, in part through a woman detective they had hired, that some of the larger studios and distributors were banding together, which would have created a monopoly in the business, with little of the money going to the artists.

Charlie with the other founders of United Artists.
(L to R) Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin,
David W. Griffith, Mary Pickford.

As was Chaplin's hope, the idea behind this organization was to allow the stars to be their own bosses. Through UA they had to do their own financing for projects, but they also were able to reap more of the profits, which had traditionally gone to the producers of films. Yet at the time he helped form the organization, Charlie still had an obligation of six films to complete with First National in order to exercise that freedom. Charles and Mildred appeared in the 1920 Census living 674 Oxford Way in Beverly Hills with a live-in chef and his wife. They both listed their occupation as a motion picture actor and actress respectively.
     In 1919 he completed two more films, the unusual three reel Sunnyside and the more traditional two rell A Day's Pleasure, the latter of which included several potential vomiting jokes. His next film for them was a six-reel feature, The Kid, starring child actor Jackie Coogan (who would later act as Uncle Fester on The Addams Family) along with Chaplin. Much more than a comedy it went through a variety of emotions including tragedy, sentiment and pure pathos. Charlie wanted this particular release to have something more attached to it. So The Kid was distributed with fairly specific cue sheets with title lists, and in some packages music as well. While this was not a Chaplin score per se, it helped him realize something much closer to the overall intent and emphasized the importance in which he held music as an important entity and even a character in his films. Joe Bren and Haven Gillespie wrote a song specifically for the film, but there is some uncertainty as to whether this piece was included in the official recommendations.
     There may have been more music composed during the final stages of the film, but Charlie would not have time to tend to that. Mildred had filed for divorce and was reportedly attempting to seize his assets. In the process she had also publicly accused him of being a "red," or a Bolshevist sympathizer, the first time he would have to counter such a charge. Charlie had already moved out and was living in the Los Angeles Athletic Club, rather than at the apartment he had built at his studio. He had stirred the waters by suggesting that Harris was engaging in lesbian activities with other young actresses. Concerned that the authorities may move in, in the middle of the night Chaplin grabbed all of the film stock from The Kid and with Sydney's assistance moved it to a hotel room in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the editing was completed by Charlie himself. Upon the discovery that he was in Utah, where the authorities did not arrest or extradite him, one newspaper article observed of the 31-year-old star that "Charlie's hair is growing gray." Even without the full suggested score that he had hoped to assemble for the premier events, the movie was a huge hit and his reputation was kept intact. Mildred ended up with some of their joint property and a $100,000 settlement in November 1920. She would overspend and be bankrupt within two years.
     Needing a break after the traumatic events involving The Kid, and the efforts involved in his next film, The Idle Class, in which he played two roles, Charlie sailed for England on the Olympic in late August, 1921, arriving in Southampton, England, on September 1. While he was aware he had achieved some level of fame on the continent and in his original home of London, Chaplin was quite awe struck and moved by the reception he received there. He also met with author H.G. Wells, but his hopes for a private meeting were dashed by the large crowds hanging around their rendezvous point. There were also some dissenters in London who had misunderstood his role in the Great War, so he ended up more or less escaping his original home and the mix of joy and angst he found there.
     He left for Paris, then Berlin, and there met with Albert Einstein and his wife. Everywhere he went Charlie was met by large crowds who revered his talent, and underscored how universal his pantomime comedy, which transcended language barriers, actually was.

A 1920s Robert-Morton Organ similar to the type that Chaplin had installed in his new home in 1923.

Back in Paris Charlie reluctantly appeared at a benefit showing of The Kid, then retreated back to London. There he was able to spend more time with Wells and a number of British dignitaries who sought an audience with him. After a seven week vacation, Chaplin returned to New York, then Hollywood to resume his work with new energy. On the returning passenger list on the Berengaria, dated October 17, 1921, his nationality is listed as English. However it was apparantly and inaccurately altered on February 7, 1936, with English written over with Hebrew for unknown reasons.
     Chaplin made two more films to finish off his First National contract, Pay Day and The Pilgrim. While there was no specific score composed for these at that time (some of his early films would be scored in later years by Chaplin), they were accompanied by the same sort of cue sheets as had been sent out with The Kid. But as his films progressed, he was already experimenting more with composition, and in his leisure time was engaged ever more with performance.
     Having made his first million and more, Charlie first procured a Brambach Welte-Mignon reproducing piano in late 1919. In 1922 he bought a Bilhorn Telescope Organ, a portable device that allowed him to take his music on the set with him. Chaplin then had an expensive Robert-Morton Pipe Organ installed in his new Beverly Hills mansion as it was being built in 1923. It was reported that he often sat at it for hours at a time playing older melodies and composing new ones. The procurement of the instrument was described in the music trade magazine Presto on February 3, 1923:

     Movie fans in the country seldom realize the true character of their screen stars. Screen action, plot, and the vehicle representing our favorite doesn't always fully interpret the temperament of the actor.
     It may be news to many readers that Charlie Chaplin is a clever musician, playing violin, piano and organ with unusual skill. The first intimation that many of Chaplin's friends and followers knew of this musical talent was the placing of an order for a Robert-Morton organ to be installed in his new [Beverly Hills] home in the course of construction. This is one of the finest, residences in the Hollywood district. In the music room provision was also made for an echo organ and a special roll device will also be installed on the instrument.
     It is expected that Charlie will "shoulder arms" over the console of the new instrument when the Pipes of Pan are playing in the springtime.

     Now one of the richest entertainers in the world, Chaplin was certainly enjoying and reveling to some degree in the spoils, which sent a mixed message to some fans and critics. In the September 2, 1922 Music Trade Review, Los Angeles music columnist Marshall Breeden made the observation that Chaplin had once "told this writer that in the early days of his stage life, and later in pictures, he strove to be artistic. He did not look only for the money. Now to him money comes, but he certainly is the one outstanding man in the world who comes closest to the border line between comedy and tragedy." In many ways those words were predictive as well.

     In 1923 Charlie was free from First National, and ready to start on his contract signed with his own collective company, United Artists. With ready financing, his own studio, and the support of many of his peers, he was finally afforded the freedom to make films on his terms and his schedule. It would take nineteen years for him to fulfill his eight film contract, but they included his four most notable masterpieces, all of which had scores by the director and star as well.

Charlie with Pola Negri.

     His first effort with UA in 1923 was A Woman of Paris. Unlike his previous films, this one was a romantic drama, not a comedy, and while it was written and directed by Chaplin, he only appeared in it for a few seconds. It was in part a vehicle for his long time leading lady and former romantic partner, Edna Purviance, to help her launch a dramatic career. But by this time Chaplin was already involved with other partners, including serial millionaire divorceé Peggy Hopkins Joyce who had inspired the film. While A Woman of Paris was received very well by the critics and his peers, the public did not seem to care for it very much, and it did poorly at the box office. There was no specific score known to exist when the film was first released, just the cue sheets. However, A Woman of Paris would be the very last film he would score at age 86, when he went into the studio with his arranger, Eric James, and tried to breathe new life into the movie with appropriate music.
     There was again some trauma in his life while working on A Woman of Paris. After a number of affairs, he became involved with a Polish actress named Pola Negri. While he had managed to keep many of the earlier dalliances off the radar, the relationship with Negri, which allegedly included a one month engagement that was most likely contrived by the press, became quite public. Whether this was for publicity purposes or not has not been ascertained for certain, but many aspects of Pola's time in the United States clearly were dramatized for public consumption. At the same time that Mildred announced her intentions to remarry, she also lashed out at Charlie and Pola, calling their romance "funny," and that he would never the same after the "marital lessons I taught him." The stormy relationship ended after the engagement debacle, with Negri feigning major heartbreak.
     This was followed by an alleged affair with actress Marion Davies, who was known to have been involved with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. In the end she stayed with Hearst, but their affair allegedly resurfaced a few times through the early 1930s. False stories have persisted concerning Chaplin and Davies, stating they were involved in the murder of Charlie's friend, film producer Thomas Ince, on Hearst's yacht on November 18, 1924, when Hearst mistook Ince for Chaplin and shot him a jealous rage. The supportable facts that put this falsehood are that the relationship between Chaplin and Davies is hard to pin down, Chaplin was confirmed to have not been on the yacht that weekend, and that Ince actually died from a heart ailment a day after being removed from the yacht with a case of acute indigestion. Chaplin's aid and chauffer Kono reportedly claimed that Ince was bleeding from a bullet wound to the head when he was brought off the yacht. The case was closed even before the persistent rumors took hold. It harmed Hearst's career, but not Chaplin's.
     Chaplin's next film, one of the masterpieces, was inspired by the tales of the men who in the winter of 1897-1898 braved the cold and brutal Klondike, having scaled either Chilkoot Pass or White Pass into Canada with the hope of finding gold in the fields near Dawson several hundred miles downstream. The Gold Rush would start out with a legendary shot recreating the treacherous climb up Chilkoot Pass, filmed near Truckee in Northern California, and using a deft combination of comedy and pathos, told the story of a simple and unfortunate tramp miner who eventually earned his keep, even though he seemed to have lost the girl of his dreams.
     Wanting even more control over the music involved with the film, Charlie actually did write some specific music for The Gold Rush, and in the midst of filming stopped long enough to visit a recording studio in May, 1925, and record two pieces, conducting Abe Lyman's Cocoanut Grove Orchestra from the Brunswick single. The session was reported on in the Music Trade Review of July 18, 1925:

Film Comedian an Able Left-Handed Violinist and Recently Conducted Orchestra in Making of Brunswick Record      Few of the admirers of Charlie Chaplin, the well-known film comedian, know that he is a composer or that he is much of a musician. As a matter of fact, however, he is quite accomplished in this direction He studied the violin in his youth and is one of the few left-handed bow-players the world has known. He is also a conductor as was demonstrated by his ability in directing Abe Lyman's Cocoanut Grove Orchestra when they recently made the recording of his new song "With You, Dear, In Bombay." This record was made for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. Chaplin not only wielded the baton on this occasion but himself played the violin solo part of the recording.
     It is said that the Brunswick Co. has inaugurated a special publicity department and will feature this Chaplin recording. "With You, Dear, In Bombay" is published by M. Witmark & Sons. Chaplin wrote both the words and music. It is a lively fox-trot with an appealing swing and very tuneful melody. The Witmark Co. will exploit the number on a wide scale.

     Copies of the piece, which were included in the road show and big city premieres of the film, were available in the theater lobby. The cover featured a picture of Charlie standing in the snow in the elaborate Klondike town set constructed for the film at his studio.

Chaplin conducting the Abe Lyman Cocoanut Grove Orchestra in a recording.

The B-side of With You, Dear, In Bombay was Sing a Song co-written with and arranged by Gus Arnheim, but it was a forgettable tune. This music would be revisited in 1942 when The Gold Rush was scored for its sound re-release.
     The chaos that had, for the most part, only mildly infiltrated the amorous comedian's life to that point, came to the forefront while filming The Gold Rush. While filming The Kid he had engaged a nearly 13-year-old girl named Lillita Louise MacMurray as an angel in a dream sequence, one in which ironically he had flirted with and kissed the girl. She came around looking for work, and Charlie decided to use her as the femme fatale for his new film. Now 16, and renamed as Lita Grey, Chaplin followed what had become a pattern and became romantically involved with the girl during the initial filming in 1924. The affair led to a pregnancy, which led to a more or less forced marriage, which led to shutting the production down while Chaplin dealt with this tenuous situation. Their union was a difficult one from the start, but they would stay together long enough not only for her to give birth to Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr., but also their second son Sydney Earle Chaplin soon after.
     Chaplin had to scrap all the scenes with Lita and now employed an film extra who had recently arrived from Chicago, Georgia Hale. The pace of filming was no faster, even though the plot was changed very little during that period.

The Klondike town set for The Gold Rush which was filmed in Hollywood in fake snow during the summer of 1924.

Even while Lita was pregnant with their second child, Chaplin started an affair with a willing Hale. Their relationship had a bittersweet ending that was later reflected in the sound re-release of the film in 1942, where the final scene with the two characters kissing was excised with a much less romantic shot of them walking into the background.
     The Gold Rush was liked by virtually everybody who saw it, and it further established Chaplin as one of the best film makers of the era. It remains on the top lists of not only the American Film Institute but the Library of Congress and National Film Registry as well. However, there is a distinction to be made between the original and the 1942 re-release which Chaplin himself helped to score from certain selections, and composed some of the music as well. It is more often this version, with narration instead of inter-titles, which is the better preserved and more revered one, in part because of his direct musical involvement.
     In addition to his original cues and songs (arranged by professionals but selected by the director), Chaplin liberally utilized Romanze, Opus 118, No. 5, by Johannes Brahms, the folk song Coming Through the Rye, portions of Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and the main waltz theme from Sleeping Beauty by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Even though he did not compose all of the cues, these choices should not be dismissed as many film makers since that time have used similar classical pieces either as placeholders or suggestions to inform their hired composers, or in a stylized manner that suits their film, much as Chaplin did. It showed more than just an appreciation of classical music, going further to reinforce the actions or emotions on the screen with an underscore that was appropriate and not distracting. The few complaints about the 1942 release were more about the rapid-fire narration style of Chaplin than anything else.
     After a short period of recovery, Chaplin purchased another reproducing piano, an Ampico, for his home in 1926. That same year he started on The Circus, a film based on love triangle themes that had been previously visited, most notably in his Mutual film The Vagabond. The making of this film was complicated by a legal battle that started with Lita filing for divorce from her famous husband. To the press she wailed that Charlie was starving her and his two sons, while in reality he was giving the lawyers checks, but they were rejected because they were not big enough. Charlie brought charges of defamation against Lita and her attorneys.

Charlie with Charlie Spencer Chaplin Jr. and second wife Lita Grey around late 1925.

The battle became so intense that he had to stop production for nearly eight months while Charlie fought against a seizure of his studio as a marital asset. It was also beset by other issues, such as winds bringing down the main circus tent set, film exposures that proved to be unusable, and a fire that burned all of the standing sets and props.
     At the end of the divorce ordeal both parties dropped their charges and reached an amicable settlement of around $825,000 to support young Charlie and Sydney. It also helped to temporarily get rid of the distraction from the press. However, just prior to the last day of shooting when they took the circus wagons out of town to a friendlier location, the wagons were stolen as part of a college student prank for use as a bonfire. There were other perils while shooting the film, such as Charlie doing stunts on a high wire, and inside a lions cage for a reported 200 takes with the unfriendly beasts. Their mother, Hannah, also died during the filming seven years after having been brought over to the United States. Charlie and Sydney housed her in relative comfort in Glendale, California, until her death. Several years afterwards the half brothers found out that the had yet another half brother through their mother, Wheeler Dryden, who had been raised by Charlie Sr.
     The Circus was warmly met by the public, and it was enough to earn him his first Academy Award at the very first Academy Award ceremony in 1929 (the term Oscar™ was not yet in use) for "Versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing." He had originally been nominated in several categories, but the Academy instead decided to give him the uncontested special award instead. Had it been a sound film they likely would have had to add "composing," making Chaplin one of the only film stars in history to excel in all five categories (he would later win an Oscar™ for a film score and was considered for one for choreography as well). Chaplin's direct involvement with the work of his favorite and most tolerant cameraman, Rollie Totheroh, might have also brought a consideration for cinematography. When he dictated his biography in 1964, Charlie made only a passing mention the film in the book at all, perhaps because of its painful relationship with the nasty public divorce and his mother's last years.
     In the 1930 Census, Charles Jr. and Sydney were living with Lita's grandmother, Louise Curry, at 521 North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. Lita was listed as living on her next door at 523 North Beverly Drive. Both were comfortably well off, showing as owning their expensive homes, paid for, no doubt, by Charlie. He was residing at 1103 Cove Way in Beverly Hills, with four Japanese servants and the wife and two sons of one of them, Robert K. Sato. Friendly rival comic actor Buster Keaton, who was listed on the same page just above Chaplin, was living three blocks off on Hartford Way, but would be gone from that household within a year.

     For his next act, Charlie would embark on perhaps the most difficult film journey of his career that not only tested his creativity in every way, but his resolve and limited patience as well. Even before The Circus had been released, the entire landscape of the motion picture changed with the release of the Warner Brothers synchronized sound film The Jazz Singer in the late fall of 1927.

Al Jolson serenading his Mammy in The Jazz Singer.

Even though most of the dialogue of that film used inter-titles, there was one scene in which star Al Jolson interacted live with his screen mother while playing Blue Skies which clearly showed the potential for sound. Other than Chaplin, Jolson was likely the biggest star in show business at that time, yet the public had seen much less of him since he was known for stage and sound recordings. Nearly overnight, however, many of Chaplin's previous efforts were overshadowed by the introduction of practical sound films.
     Early conversion to sound was not inexpensive for theaters, and in order to accommodate both the synchronized discs of the Vitaphone system from Warner Brothers and the more practical sound on film system from Fox and Lee DeForest, even more equipment had to be installed. Yet by the end of 1928, with almost all of the major studios producing sound films in either format, more than half of the theaters in the United States had made the investment in one or the other system, or both, since that was what the ticket-buying public was crying for. By 1930 silent films would be all but gone.
     For Chaplin this conversion presented a multiplicity of problems. For starters, his older films, most shot at an average of 18 frames per second, would not show correctly on the newer sound projectors which displayed films at 24 frames per second. Conversion of older films was costly, so the public soon accepted that silent films would simply look faster than sound films. He had often used undercranking of the film to his advantage to speed up certain portions, and would continue to, but the conversion of an entire film was a different matter.
     The bigger problem was that the very thing that made him a star had the potential to be totally negated by sound. Chaplin was a pantomime artist. Many of his films used far less inter-titles than those of his peers, because the action was fairly obvious. Therefore, with only a little change in inter-titles to reflect the country of exhibition, his films did not need translation in any country. They were nearly as funny or moving in Hong Kong as they were in Paris, Berlin or St. Louis, Missouri. Spoken sound would immediately make each film an American or English language film. The use of dialog also negated some of the broad movements of pantomime, which would have been deemed overacting in conjunction with speech.

Charlie sings to a phonograph record on the set
of City Lights in 1930.

He was also clear, as were many critics, that sound film had its place as far as presenting musical numbers, but dialog had gotten by just fine with inter-titles for over two decades.
     City Lights had already gone through several alterations during 1929 and into 1930, most of them for story points. Scenes were shot dozens or even hundreds of times in order to capture a subtlety or an angle, and most were discarded. In the background, Charlie was concerned about how well a silent film would play when the public was asking for sound. He did some experimental takes with sound for one or two days on a couple of dialog scenes, then abandoned that concept. In the end, Charlie proposed that the only difference between this film and his previous efforts was that there would be a unified score distributed with the film by way of a soundtrack. This was the culmination of what he had been trying to do since The Kid.
     It was Chaplin himself who either composed or selected the pieces for the entire score of City Lights. He engaged Arthur Johnson and Alfred Newman to arrange and orchestrate his choices, but there was no question who was in charge of the overall execution of the music. While Chaplin was not well trained in Western notation or harmony and theory, he had an innate sense of the emotional and action aspects of the right music. Calling on one of his favorite composers, Richard Wagner, as well as accurately predicting virtually every film composer from Max Steiner (whose score for King Kong in 1933 is regarded as the first fully original film underscore) to John Williams, Charlie worked with specific musical motifs assigned to a character, location or incident.
     For the blind flower girl, played by the engaging but problematic Virginia Cherrill, he selected La Violetera (Who Will Buy My Violets) by José Padilla. Chaplin himself composed two other themes for her, one related to her simple but poor flat (apartment), and the other for emotional reflective close-ups. Additional musical devices composed by Chaplin include a fanfare which opens the film and is heard in a few places announcing another pending calamity, and a galop reminiscent of those of the 1890s or early 1900s for some of the action scenes. There is also a theme for his tramp character as he wanders through the lonely city, appropriately enough played on cello, although not by Chaplin himself. A faster theme played on the bassoon was used to accentuate his humorous moments.

Robert Downey Jr. as Chaplin in a scene depicting an obsessed Charlie working on a score with a frustrated Alfred Newman.

Another predictive device was to substitute speaking with or through a saxophone for prattling dialog, similar to what would be used for adult speech in the Peanuts cartoons of the 1960s to 1990s. The rest of the cues were composed or cut to the action on the screen, also predictive of cartoon scoring of the late 1930s and beyond.
     Chaplin did stray from his traditional background which included a healthy dose of classical and older popular music, and called on contemporary forms to keep the film current ital. For a scene where he and the millionaire character played by Harry Myers go to some of the hotspots in town, a bustling jazz theme played by a smaller ensemble is used. It is contrasted with a Latin rhumba for a party at the millionaire's mansion. A dramatic motif was used in association with the suicide attempt of the millionaire, in addition to two different themes for his highly contrasting drunken and sober moods. A couple of other familiar themes were inserted as well; a snippet of Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov played in two different timbres, and the more common How Dry I Am often used by arrangers for scenes involving alcohol. Most of the sound effects were also done with instruments with the exception of, literally, bells and whistles.
     While most films of the time were using underscore sparingly, often interspersed with on-screen musical numbers, the entire soundtrack for City Lights codified his abilities and instincts not only as a composer but as a competent score writer, which requires a different skill set. Musically he was able to clearly define comedy, pathos, wistfulness, whimsy, and even love. Everything from English music hall motifs and ragtime through classical, jazz and loosely defined tangos. Some of the themes from City Lights were also rescored and used in a clever fashion by director Attenborough in the 1992 film Chaplin.
     There were many issues with the film, including the contentious relationship between the director and his co-star, Virginia Cherrill. He considered her an amateur in every way, and even fired her at one point. After a failed attempt at trying to fit Georgia Hale into the role, he brought Cherrill back to finish the film. After more than two years, City Lights was finally unveiled to a wary public in January, 1931. In spite of the lack of dialog and Chaplin's concerns about the public's reception, City Lights was an enormous financial success, just right for audiences in the deepening Great Depression who needed a heartwarming story that favored the poor over the rich. It was critically acclaimed as well, not only for the acting and writing, but for the effective use of music.
     He was uncertain about how it was to be perceived by the public, now yearning for talkies. The first sneak preview to a half-full house did not go well. The Los Angeles premiere, where Charlie sat with the Einsteins, was interrupted in the middle by the manager who wanted to talk about his new theater. But Charlie was more worried about New York, which could make or break his valiant effort. He rented the 1150 seat George M. Cohan Theater on 42nd Street for $7000 per week for eight weeks, paid to fit it for sound films, then set out to charge more ($0.50 to $1.00) for his showing than most other movie theaters in New York were doing. In the end, Chaplin's instincts won out, and they trumped most of the nearby theaters in terms of attendance and profits. City Lights, the semi-silent gamble, was a critical and public success, much needed after his failed marriage and faltering career.
     Chaplin had reached a new zenith in the creative process of the cinema. It would be five years until he unveiled his next act, and something else quite new where his fans was concerned. However, the news mongers were able to find enough to keep him in the press, and Chaplin's sometimes unraveling life certainly gave them material.

     At nearly 42 years of age Chaplin's hair had partially turned white, perhaps from stress as much as heredity. Mabel Normand had died. Comedian Buster Keaton had been demoralized by his troubles with MGM and was becoming an alcoholic. Doug Fairbanks was having major issues in his marriage to Mary Pickford. Roscoe Arbuckle had barely survived three harrowing trials that proved him innocent, yet destroyed his film career, and would be dead within two years.

Chaplin with Mahatma Gandhi and family.

Many actors in Hollywood were finding that they did not sound quite how they looked, and they also lost popularity with the public.
     Although he was often discouraged by having to battle misinformation or private information found in the press, Charlie still maintained a nearly religious dedication to his art, and his energy remained undiminished, even if his enthusiasm had faded a bit. In need of a rest and a change after City Lights, Charlie, his long-time Japanese valet and chauffer Kono, and his friend Ralph Barton, who had recently attempted suicide and was in need of a new perspective, set off that Spring on a 1931 world tour that would last for the better part of a year. The first stop was London where he attended the British premier of City Lights. They gathered a few companions along the way for some legs of the journey. One of those was May Shepherd, hired in London as his personal secretary for the duration to read and respond to correspondence. There have been reports that she went out with Chaplin and his entourage and had an affair with Chaplin, but correspondence confirms that she stayed behind in London. She did, however, have access to many of the salacious offers mailed to the star, or letters recounting previous passions, and used that in her favor later in the year to leverage for higher pay.
     Sydney had already moved to Europe and he and his wife Minnie were living in Nice at that time. Being the brother of somebody so famous and at times controversial made it hard for Syd to hide from any transgressions, real or perceived. After ending his association with the film industry a couple of years earlier and selling out his shares, tax investigators questioned the reliability and validity of his claimed income. The couple first went to England, but found matters to be just as bad there. Thus it was in France where Sydney Chaplin would be found in 1931.
     Having not been to London for a decade, Charlie found his tumultuous reception there had been magnified considerably from that of 1921, and with much more media present. Of course the star was invited to many events, including a dinner given in his honor by American born Lady Astor. He also was able to visit and spend more time at the familiar and bittersweet locations of his youth, including the boys home. The question had been brought up concerning his receiving a knighthood.

Charlie received a rousing welcome and a lift from the crowds in Berlin, Germany, 1931.

It has been considered that his involvement with underage girls and some of his political stances of that time kept Charlie from being honored as such in Buckingham Palace. Such an honor would have to wait. He also managed a visit with esteemed author George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill among other dignitaries, and spent more time with his friend H.G. Wells.
     Chaplin had the privilege of meeting with India's biggest advocate and future leader, Mahatma Gandhi in Canning Town, London. It was the only time Gandhi would be in England, where he had been schooled, between 1914 and his assassination in 1948. Both the spiritual leader of India and the creative leader of comedy had large crowds surrounding them when they met, largely by happenstance, in the poor East End of London. Photographs were taken of Charlie with Gandhi and his family. They exchanged some dialog about the leader's struggles during a time when the Indian people were boycotting British machine-made fabrics, then both went on their way. Charlie and his friend Ralph Barton, who was still depressed after five unsuccessful marriages, visited Ralph's daughter in a London convent. There he learned that she would be going to Africa on a mission, but that outside contact was discouraged. Charlie then bid Ralph adieu, and he sailed back to New York City where he would be found dead by his own hand within two weeks.
     The remaining party's next stops were in Weimar and Berlin, Germany, where his equally enthusiastic reception by the public would later be utilized in propaganda specifically against the comedian and the countries and alleged race that he represented. Chaplin would, in turn, use that propaganda to create a brilliant and eerily accurate response in one of his finest screen appearances. Even more than a decade after the war, his films had been banned in Germany in response to Shoulder Arms (1918) in which he handily defeated many German soldiers. Yet none of this seemed to dampen the legions of fans he had in Berlin, whether they came out to see an American celebrity, or had perhaps seen some of his contraband films in underground theaters. Among the stops they made in Germany were the royal palace where Frederick the Great had once dwelt, and back to the simple home of physicist Albert Einstein and his family, who had already been Chaplin's guests in Hollywood. One other visit was with singer Marlene Dietrich. The two had no connection other than mutual admiration, so there it has been historically considered that there was no publicity motive involved with their meeting.
     Next on the agenda was a return to Paris. Chaplin was met at the station, and pretty much everywhere, with the same adulation he had found all along the way, if not even more intense. As in Germany, some parts of his clothing disappeared while trying to get to local transportation. He met with King Albert of Belgium, trying to address him as he would anybody, and finding out that Kings really do get special treatment.

Charlie meeting with Marlene Dietrich in Germany, 1931.

Charlie visited the tomb of Napoleon, a character he had flirted with playing now and then, but was reluctant to do so lest he upset the apple cart of fame for the sake of art. Staying later in Normandy with the Duke of Westminster, Chaplin experienced his first boar hunt and first time on a horse in years. He also spent some relaxing days with Sydney and Minnie at the French Riviera.
     While studying the casinos in Nice and deciding they weren't for him, Charlie spotted dancer May Reeve, who Sydney said he knew. A meeting was arranged and Charlie was soon enamored with, then involved with her for some time during the remainder of the European portion of their extended trip. May fell for Charlie, although she was reluctant to even think of marriage. H.G. Wells again met with Charlie in France, and the combination of the two created enormous crowds everywhere they went. He also had a chance to spend time with Edward, Prince of Wales, and his wife.
     The entourage ventured back to London briefly in September, without May, to deal with business. A small part of this London visit was spent in dealing with Shepherd and her knowledge of Charlie's intimate life through his correspondence. A satisfactory arrangement was eventually realized. He also spent considerable time with the Prince of Wales.
     Then, several months after having left Beverly Hills, the party went to Switzerland in December where his long time friend Douglas Fairbanks was staying. Charlie, missing his new love, sent for May and she rejoined him there. They were inseparable for some time, but Sydney made clear some of his disdain for Charlie's public escapades and affairs, which it appeared he more or less ignored. Many thought that May would be that elusive perfect wife for the comedian. She clearly loved him and brought some stability to his demeanor. But Charlie simply never it took it that far, in spite of or perhaps because his obvious affinity for her. The group left Switzerland for Italy on their way to the Orient, with Sydney in tow. While in Italy, United Artists tried to have Charlie meet with the country's fascist Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, who was already going by the title Il Duce. Fortunately for the reluctant Chaplin there was no time available in the leader's day, and he escaped what with hindsight would have been perhaps an even larger crushing blow than those that would eventually land on him.

Charlie with his European tour love, May Reeve, relaxing at San Juan les Pins.

By the time Charlie was on the ship to the Far East it was clear that May could not go along, and it was the last they ever saw of each other.
     For the next two months, Charlie, Syd and friends toured Singapore, Ceylon, Java, Bali, and parts of the South Pacific. Charlie particularly enjoyed Bali, admittedly because so many of the women there walked around bare-breasted, but also because the culture had not yet been spoiled by Western influence. Even in these remote spots of the world, silent films had long been known and still presided, particularly those of Chaplin and his peers. Silent comedy needed no translation, so Charlie found himself beloved in even the more remote ports he visited that had the electricity to run a projector. Even though he was met with more subdued crowds in these countries, they were present nonetheless. However, the next highlight of the trip for Chaplin would be Japan, which they reached around June. It was also familiar territory to his companion and valet Kono, who preceded the party there by a few weeks to prepare the way.
     A couple of years before, according to accounts by Kono, Charlie had attended an authentic Japanese play in Los Angeles and was captivated by the mixture of pantomime and music that was not only indigenous to Kabuki, but to Chaplin as well. He had made this clear to Kono at that time, then let the matter drop until the pending visit loomed in the immediate future. To go to Japan and experience it in its native environment was something he had looked forward to for a long time, and now asked Kono to help enhance that experience. The visit was extremely well publicized, and the government made sure that Charlie would realize all of the conveniences and opportunities they could afford him and his party. On the train from the port to Tokyo, they were ordered to stop at every station for a few minutes while Chaplin was seen by the immense crowds, and received all manner of gifts from local officials, such was his universal fame even there. While in Japan Chaplin enjoyed the trapping of fame, but more importantly their exquisite sense of story telling through theater. It was one of the big highlights of his trip.
     The stop in Japan could well have been his last. Although it took several years for the details to emerge, Kono had been approached before Chaplin arrived, warning him that his boss was in potential danger. As a sign of allegiance they asked him to have Charlie bow before the palace in Tokyo (stating that it was a tradition) before he even got to his hotel. While attending an event with the son of the Prime Minister, the son was called away with urgency, and when he retured a little while later relayed that his father had just been assassinated at his home by renegades from the Japanese Navy, and had he been there he would also have been a victim. Since suspicious activity had also centered around Kono, Charlie thought that there was more to the story. Chaplin found out years later that he was also a primary target as a symbol of America, but that they decided otherwise during his visit. He joked that if they had found out after his death that he was actually British that they would have politely said, "Oh, so sorry."
     Then after nearly a year on the road, Charlie returned to Hollywood and world of the movies he had momentarily left behind. He had taken in a lot of world culture, absorbing facets of musical and creative arts as well as political ideas. Not having had the deadlines and expectations of creativity thrust on him, even if self-imposed, for some time, he came back weary but refreshed, and ready to tackle new horizons, including one big idea that had been running through his head for some time. However, as Chaplin would soon find, his charmed existence had lost some of its luster in his absence, and there was a difficult road ahead creatively, personally and politically.

     In spite of his new enthusiaism, Charlie felt a bit like a bum because he was not working and did not have an idea of what to do. Some of this was caused by the onset of sound, and he did not have a clue for several more months how he would make the tramp work in a sound movie. He even had thoughts of hanging it all up and moving to Hong Kong.

Charlie Chaplin with Paulette Goddard around 1935.

Then, recalling some of the discussions on his trip and some recent books he was read, he started to develop his next project. It was a pre-George Orwell look at the growing role of automation and martinet-like dominance over the American worker. While not overtly or consciously socialist in nature, it was his outlet to rail against some of the facets of progress that doomed those who were very much like his little tramp; the hapless everyday man with no direct recourse against authority. The idea had been around a while and germinated during his tour, viewing the ravages of the world-wide depression that had taken hold by then. So the core of the film project was ready to go in late 1932. He now needed to make decisions on the use of sound, and casting as well.
     One of the lead roles, and indeed an inspiration for the film itself, came about after a weekend on a the yacht of Joseph Schenck, president of United Artists, in late 1932. Schenck and his younger brother Nicholas, would fairly soon be two of the lesser favorite Hollywood executives, between UA and MGM, but they still knew how to conduct business effectively. On that trip to Catalina Island, two actresses joined the party, one of them a former Ziegfeld girl and now contract player named Marion Pauline Levy. She was 22 at that time, historically a little older than Chaplin's taste had run, and had already been married and divorced once. But the actress had a childlike quality that Charlie instantly took to.
     Charlie soon cast her under the name of Paulette Goddard in the role of the orphaned gamin in his upcoming film Modern Times, and before long the two took up residence together. The question remains to this day as to whether they were actually married. Both avoided answering the question as best they could, and told friends they had been married privately, either in China or at Sea. For a while, at least, few cared because they seemed made for each other. There were a few in Hollywood who saw their apparent co-habitation as scandalous, and the first rumblings were heard of making an example of the foreigner who had not even attempted to gain U.S. citizenship.
     While making Modern Times, Charlie was either oblivious to this talk or simply didn't care. He was focused on the elements of producing, directing, casting, acting, set layout, and most importantly the use of music and sound. The role of the machinery required large sets, and the outdoor locations found contrasted the clean factory with the reality of the Great Depression that had settled in. The small shanty set up for the tramp and the waif bore striking similarity to many that had sprung up in public parks around the country, including Central Park in New York City. He also engaged the use of a downtown department store that was undergoing renovations for a daring and dangerous scene on roller skates.
     While the formation of the plot and filming took a relatively short period of time, considering Chaplin's history, the application of sound and music merited a great deal of both pre and post production.

The tramp speaks at last - or sings at least.
Chaplin performing Titina in Modern Times.

He had decided that all speech would be through machines, such as radios and a facsimile of early wall televisions that even invaded the privacy of the washroom. The remaining dialog would be through inter-titles or replaced by pantomime. There was one exception, however, which set the film world on its ear - Chaplin's tramp would not talk, but he would sing.
     The way Charlie went about this very revelation was with a measured and intelligent approach. He chose a popular French tune from 1922 which had been a minor hit in the United States in 1925. Titina (Je Cherche Après Titine) had both French and English lyrics. However, Charlie chose to make up a nonsense set of lyrics with a mish-mosh of non-words and mangled European phrases. They all rhymed when necessary and some were close enough to reality that the idea of them was understood. However, it was, in the end, his performance of the piece with a live orchestra on the set that suggested what he was trying to get across. In a sense, he had created a musical pantomime in which the use of pauses, accelerations, and even vamps contributed to the way the lyrics were conveyed to the screen audience on the set as well as the theater-goers. It was a way to keep the tramp from being le Tramp Americán, while displaying his inherent musical talents.
     As had been done with City Lights, Charlie also wrote much of the score and underscore, using key classical or popular pieces for the remainder, and spending weeks in the studio with an increasingly frustrated Alfred Newman, who eventually abandoned the project in need of sleep and sanity. His name still appeared on the credits. In addition to the music, Chaplin also directly oversaw or contributed to most of the sound effects used in the film. In later years he would write about this part of the creative process and how important it was for him to be involved, referring with some ambiguity to Newman or his colleague Arthur Johnson:

     One happy thing about sound was that I could control the music, so I composed my own. I tried to compose elegant and romantic music to frame my comedies in contrast to the tramp character, for elegant music gave my comedies an emotional dimension. Musical arrangers rarely understood this. They wanted the music to be funny. But I would explain that I wanted no competition, I wanted the music to be a counterpoint of grace and charm, to express sentiment, without which, as [English critic and writer William] Hazlitt says, a work of art is incomplete. Sometimes a musician would get pompous with me and talk of the restricted intervals of the chromatic and the diatonic scale, and I would cut him short with a layman’s remark; "Whatever the melody is, the rest is just a vamp." After putting music to one or two pictures I began to look at a conductor’s score with a professional eye and to know whether a composition was over-orchestrated or not. If I saw a lot of notes in the brass and woodwind section, I would say: "That’s too black in the brass," or "too busy in the woodwinds". Nothing is more adventurous and exciting than to hear the tunes one has composed played for the first time by a fifty piece orchestra.

     As he had done for City Lights, Chaplin assigned specific motifs or themes to characters and situations. There was, however, one tune that permeated not only the film, but the hearts of those who would soon hear this song that warranted a separate publication. For anybody who had claimed that Chaplin's composing was pedantic or uninspired at best, they only needed to listen to the melody Smile to understand this to not be the case. The lyrics, which were added 18 years later in 1954 by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, were approved by Charlie and spoke true to character of the tramp that he had portrayed for over two decades by this time. They also speak true to the sentiment of the beautiful and poignant melody: "Smile, though your heart is aching, Smile, even though it's breaking. When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by."
     Modern Times opened in February, 1936, and both critical acclaim and controversy soon followed. It was evident to many that the tramp would now be history, particularly because in the end of this film, he not only gets the girl but he keeps her, for the first time walking off into the distance with her on his arm. But there was trouble from Europe as well. Tobis, a French and German film company, claimed that Chaplin had stolen some of his ideas from their similarly themed 1931 film A Nous la Liberté. The director, René Clair, an admirer of Chaplin, was not totally on board with this contention and noted that he was quite embarrassed by the proceedings. The court case floundered and was dropped during World War II, but came back again in 1947 with a request to suppress Modern Times from exhibition. Chaplin and UA settled not as an admission of guilt, but to make the issue go away.
     There were also articles lambasting Chaplin for his indictment of progress and the American way of life, which in part was the intent of the film, but claiming him also to be against what America stood for. One authority figure of note, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, had started a dossier on Chaplin even before Modern Times and took note of these views. However, his role in later controversies as portrayed in the 1992 biopic was exaggerated for the sake of having a protagonist, and he was not so active in anti-Chaplin sentiment at that time. If Charlie had any one public enemy who could turn the public against him, it would be popular print and radio columnist Hedda Hopper. For the time being, Modern Times was well-received, and did not overtly polarize moviegoers and Chaplin critics like his next film would.
     Starting in 1937 the government and certain members of the public started to pay more attention to organizations that Chaplin either purportedly supported or was even peripherally involved with.

Charlie as fictional dictator Adenoid Hynkel on
the set of The Great Dictator in 1940.

After actor Erol Flynn was falsely accused of financially helping Spanish Loyalists in the war in Spain against the Fascists, a cable to Chaplin surfaced thanking him also for his help with the Catalonian People who comprised the majority population of the country. Both actors came under public scrutiny for these associations. The "Red Scare" was not yet upon the country, but by 1940 there would be incidents affecting every studio from MGM to Disney concerning overbearing unions and links to communism.
     On the other side of the equation, in the late 1930s, the Nazi government released a book and a film, Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew), deriding the reception that the German people had given the American comic in 1931, and making the claim that no "Juden" (Jew) was worthy of such an honor. (Charlie later wrote clearly that "'No, I am not Jewish... but I am sure there must be some somewhere in me. I hope so.") While trying to shame the German population, the film also incensed Charlie who started paying much more attention to what was happening in that country. The resemblance between Chaplin (with his moustache) and German dictator Adolf Hitler was not lost upon him, nor was the fact that they were born only four days apart. The idea of parodying Hitler in a comedy started to take shape after the German film was released. Indeed, many others noticed as well, including a clever British songwriter who got around a BBC ban of mentioning Hitler's name outside of the news by composing Who is This Man (Who Looks Like Charlie Chaplin).
     In early 1938, Chaplin had visited author John Steinbeck at his home, seeking a conversation and autographs of two books. At that time Steinbeck had no idea who he was actually talking to, and a few months later in Hollywood he was reintroduced to Chaplin, and felt very embarrassed about the first meeting. They talked for many hours, and Steinbeck, who had no interest in various offers to write for films, agreed to help Chaplin with the plot and writing for his first talking film.
     The Great Dictator had been a work in progress since perhaps 1938, but as conditions changed in Europe, especially for the worse for the Jewish population, certain elements of the plot also had to be changed to reflect the seriousness of the situation. Hitler was already a target as the lead character, but when Mussolini made it clear in the press that "The Italians do not find Mr. Chaplin funny," he warranted an important part in the film as well.

Charlie working with Meredith Willson on the
score for The Great Dictator in 1940.

Chaplin endured fights with United Artists and many of his friends and advisors, as well as a number of anonymous threats from the public who did not understand the efficacy of the potential commentary that would result from his making a satire of the German Füehrer and his horrendous actions. However, he also received direct support from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who sent an advisor to the set to review the script and encourage Chaplin to complete his project in spite of any public or private objections.
     In the story, Chaplin, who was not Jewish by birth (Sydney was half-Jewish from his mother), played the part of a Jewish barber who had been injured in World War One, and after twenty years of amnesia suddenly came out of it and returned to his shop. He also plays Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator who was running Jews out of the cities and into unknown regions. Mussolini was brilliantly represented in the character of Benzino Napaloni (Mussolini morphed with Napoleon), and Hitler's interior minister Joseph Goebbels became minister Garbitsch. For the most part the upper hierarchy of the countries involved as well as the army was parodied, and not always played for laughs. The Jewish characters, while providing some humor, were closer to their actual real-life counterparts.
     Not only did Chaplin have to bring balance to the story, of which the ending was drastically changed after the invasion of Poland in 1939, but to his use of dialog and sound as well. As Hynkel he gave outrageous speeches of mixed German nouns, including food items and a nonsensical tirade against "Der Juden." As the barber he needed to be genteel yet urgent with his resolve. Having already tackled the art of composing for his films, Chaplin now needed to at times tune the acting and the timing to the expected tone of the score, so the musical aspects of the film informed him of the emotional ones, even before the score had been recorded. The trickiest aspect of this highly predictive film showing the expected direction of events in Europe with some modicum of accuracy, was the ending speech, which was written near the end of production after the Germans had invaded France.

Charlie as the Jewish barber giving his
customer a musical shave to Brahms.

     This time Charlie had conductor Meredith Willson at his side to do the scoring of the Chaplin melodies. With Willson's assistance, the music Chaplin either composed or selected perhaps subconsciously prepared him for his first driven and emotional dialog scene on screen, the barber's speech at the end of the film. That speech starts out simply and tentatively, building to an enormous climax in concert with the score. The music selected was the Prelude from Lohengrin by one of his favorite composers who he had called on before, Richard Wagner. Another seminal musical moment also utilizes that same Prelude as he toys with the idea of world domination by tossing an inflated globe around in his office. An almost identical globe, albeit not inflatable, was known to have existed in Hitler's office, and was one of the few remaining items found there after his suicide.
     One of the cleverest uses of music with action in the score of The Great Dictator not only was a tribute to the pantomime of his tramp character, but was later copied by Chuck Jones in 1950 for his Bugs Bunny cartoon, Rabbit of Seville. While the wascally wabbit performed his tonsorial duties on customer Elmer Fudd to the music of Rossini, Chaplin did his amazing shave of a customer to Johannes Brahms' highly popular Hungarian Dance #5. While anybody familiar with film would imagine that this particular track was recorded in advance for shooting, the orchestra had not yet been hired as the score was not completed. So instead, Chaplin rehearsed and performed the delicate routine with no cuts (in the film or on the customer) to a phonograph record. Willson intended to record the orchestra in short segments of eight to sixteen measures for better ease of editing to fit the timing on the screen. However, at Chaplin's insistence, he did one full rehearsal take with the orchestra conducting to the film, and they nailed it in that one take.
     When Chaplin was interviewed in 1940 about working with sound and music, he stated that "Film music must never sound as if it were concert music. While it actually may convey more to the beholder-listener than the camera conveys at a given moment, still it must be never more than the voice of that camera". Willson, working on his first major film project, had much more to add about his employer both in contemporary interviews and in his 1948 book And There I Stood with My Piccolo:

     I have never met a man who devoted himself so completely to the ideal of perfection as Charlie Chaplin... I was constantly amazed at his attention to details, his feeling for the exact musical phrase or tempo to express the mood he wanted… Always he is seeking to ferret out every false note however minor from film or music...
     I've seen him take a sound track and cut it all up and paste it back together and come up with some of the dangdest effects you ever heard — effects a composer would never think of. Don't kid yourself about that one. He would have been great at anything — music, law, ballet dancing, or painting — house, sign, or portrait. I got the screen credit for The Great Dictator music score, but the best parts of it were all Chaplin's ideas, like using the Lohengrin Prelude in the famous balloon-dance scene.

     On his experiences with The Great Dictator and City Lights, Chaplin was a bit more introspective in a later recounting of his role as a composer and his association with musicians compared with others engaged in various creative disciplines:

     Writers are nice people but not very giving; whatever they know they seldom impart to others; most of them keep it between the covers of their books. Scientists might be excellent company, but their mere appearance in a drawing room mentally paralyses the rest of us. Painters are a bore because most of them would have you believe they are philosophers more than painters. Poets are undoubtedly the superior class and as individuals are pleasant, tolerant and excellent companions. But I think musicians in the aggregate are more cooperative than any other class. There is nothing so warm and moving as the sight of a symphony orchestra. The romantic lights of their music stands, the tuning up and the sudden silence as the conductor makes his entrance, affirms the social, cooperative feeling.

     In spite of the outcry from certain factions in Hollywood, and the public, The Great Dictator opened to great acclaim in October 1940, and was ultimately Chaplin's biggest moneymaker. Even though the British government had made it clear in 1939 that they would ban the film from exhibition, by October 1940 the situation was clearly much different, and they stepped aside. In London The Great Dictator opened around the time of the German blitz on that city, so provided literal comic relief from the drastic situation they were experiencing in England. It also received great support from the Jewish community, only a few who were even somewhat aware of the horrendous actions being taken against their race in Germany at that time. Hitler was said to have viewed it at least twice, laughing at some scenes and clearly scowling at others. Chaplin later said that had he known about any part of the Holocaust, he likely would not have gone ahead with the project. The entertainment and political critics were glad he had done it. One of the theme melodies from the score would later be released with lyrics under the name of Falling Star.
     The Great Dictator was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Chaplin), Best Supporting Actor (film comedian Jack Oakie as Benzino Napaloni), Best Original Score (Willson), and Best Original Screenplay (Chaplin). Whether it was simply first rate competition from others in those categories or the politics of the voters of the Academy, The Great Dictator ultimately ended up with only the acclaim, and none of the awards. It would also, like Modern Times, spur a plagiarism suit from Konrad Bercovici who claimed to have written at least some of the story. While Steinbeck likely had a little more to do with it, Chaplin finally settled for $95,000 in 1947, in part to stave off any more negative press during a time of rapidly waning popularity. Even as the dust settled and the United States prepared for war with Germany, and were surprised by a military attack from the Japanese Empire, more of the personal wars of Chaplin were just around the corner as well.

     The next major film of Charlie's would find its birth in 1941, but it would be six years of misery and distraction before he could get it to the screen. In the interim, he did manage to resurrect his most venerable and beloved silent film for sound in 1942, The Gold Rush, by composing and compiling a new score, adding narration in place of inter-titles, and doing a little re-editing and excision.

Charlie being fingerprinted in early 1944
before his Mann Act trial.

Some film historians consider the redux of this story to be better than the original cut even though it leaves out the final kiss. Others feel it was butchered or over-revised. In either case it was the beginning of a successful project that would take most of the rest of his life - resurrecting his older silent films with new musical scores and some minor editing. The work also yielded Oscar™ nominations for scoring (Max Terr) and sound (James L. Fields).
     The combination of his sometimes obsessive workload, hyper-focus on his work during The Great Dictator, and short attention span in other areas of his life spelled trouble for is relationship with Goddard, and by 1939 the two had been separated. In 1940 they announced that they had been married four years earlier, in part to squelch continuing speculation and criticism. Two years later Chaplin made an amicable legal settlement with Goddard, who continued on with her own career at Paramount and other studios. Charlie's next distraction would be his undoing, albeit unfairly.
     Her name was Joan Barry (a.k.a. Mary Louis Gribble), an American actress of no particular distinction. Chaplin had hired her to his studio in mid 1941, keeping her on retainer will making sure she had acting lessons to realize her potential and help alter her nasal New York accent. Fixated on her form and figure more than anything else, Charlie had a short affair with Joan in mid to late 1942, but ended it after she proved to be mentally unstable. Barry would come to his home to harass him from outside, trying to gain sympathy and entry, and having to be taken away by police on a couple of occasions.
     Ten or eleven months after their involvement allegedly ended, Barry gave birth to a girl, Carol Ann, and claimed that the child was Chaplin's. Charlie immediately and emphatically denied that this was possible and submitted to a blood test to prove the fact that he was not the father. However, Barry's attorney, Joseph Scott, did all he could to convince the jury that Chaplin, who had shown an affinity for underage girls and lurid behavior, was still responsible, and convinced the court that the blood tests should not be admissible as evidence. In late 1943 Chaplin was ordered to give Barry child support for the next eighteen years, which he did, in spite of the injustice, to help negate the already sensational and damaging publicity the trial had generated.
     To add to his problems, Federal Prosecutors charged him with a violation of the Mann Act, which covered trafficking, prostitution, and immorality.

Charlie with his new wife, Oona O'Neill, at the Mocambo Nightclub in 1943.

He was acquitted of any such violation in 1944, but as his old friend Roscoe Arbuckle had found out, being proven not guilty did not always make prominent figures appear to be innocent to the public, especially one trying to find distractions from a world war. Ultimately it was clear that Barry suffered from deep mental illness, but this would not be evident until the early 1950s. By then it was too late for Charlie. Some lawmakers seeing the injustice done to the comic during the ordeal managed to change California law within a couple of years so that blood tests would be admissible in court for the purposes of identifying criminal suspects and establishing paternity. This did not help him in the two civil trials that followed which yielded the same result.
     Yet by the time of even the first trial, Charlie seemed less troubled and more settled than ever before. He had finally found the equal of his first love, Hetty Kelly, in the person of Oona O'Neill, the daughter of famed playwright Eugene O'Neill. She had come from New York to California at age 17 to try and reconnect with her estranged father, a relationship that did not work out well. Oona also wanted to try her luck in Hollywood. As it happened, Charlie was looking for a replacement for Barry in the fall of 1942 for an upcoming film project, Shadow and Substance. When he first tried her out he deemed the girl too young for the part. However, she immediately took to Charlie and persisted in trying to convince him to use her. Within a short while, they became romantically involved and the film was put aside. Chaplin was reluctant to move forward with the relationship, but Oona pursued it, winning him over. They were married in Santa Barbara, California, on June 16, 1943. Immediately the press added another marriage to an 18-year-old to the list of supposed infractions committed by the aging star, which did not help with the first Barry trial soon to be underway.
     Feeling that his words might have some sway still for fans, and even the governments of the United States and Great Britain, Charlie became vocal in late 1942, hoping to help fight the war with ideas. Among those was a secondary front to the east of the Axis of Germany and surrounding nations, which meant forming an alliance with the Soviet Union. While a combination of strategic air power and some cooperation with the USSR ultimately helped the Allies win the fight in the European and African theaters,

Chaplin as Monsieur Verdoux serving poisoned
wine to an unsuspecting Marilyn Nash.

there were many who saw Chaplin's ideas as a step towards aligning with communists, and his words on this topic would come back to assault him within a few years. Charlie, now engrossed in the Barry trials and working up his next movie project in 1944, finally backed down from voicing this idea further. On July 31 of that year, his third child and first daughter was born, Geraldine Leigh Chaplin.
     Knowing that he could no longer get away with making a silent film, and having ostensibly given the tramp his last hurrah, disguised to some degree as the barber in The Great Dictator, Charlie knew that he would have to create an entirely new character for himself if he were to appear again on screen. That was the project that had been brewing since 1941. Orson Welles had learned of the execution in 1922 of Henri Désiré Landru, who had murdered ten or more women, two dogs, and one boy. Having finished his legendary but controversial Citizen Kane, Welles developed a story that had a similar character marrying women and killing them for their money in order to support his primary family. He thought of Chaplin for the part and had approached him. Chaplin was enthusiastic about the story, but not about being directed by somebody else. He wanted to take over the project, so for $10,000 and a guaranteed screen credit, "Based on an idea by Orson Welles," it became a Chaplin property.
     While the Barry-related trials and the war both caused him to delay the project, Charlie's real life courtroom drama helped him create the ending for the story in which he would play the title character, Monsieur Verdoux. Even though it was finally written fairly quickly, there were troubles with the script approval in 1946 when he presented it to the Breen Office, the association responsible for monitoring and enforcing moral codes in motion pictures displayed in the United States. In one scene where Verdoux comes close to poisoning a girl just out of prison, in her original guise she had been arrested for prostitution. In a movie about a serial killer this was oddly unacceptable, so her crime was changed to theft. He also had to remove any suggestion that he was sharing a bed with any woman in his life, and "come to bed" in one scene had to be altered to "go to bed." There were few other alterations, and the production proceeded, although stiltingly.

Chaplin as Henri Verdoux.

At this time Charlie was involved many days with the final Barry trial, the second plagiarism trial for Modern Times, the plagiarism trial for The Great Dictator, composing themes for the film, and engaging in actual production.
     Chaplin's score for Monsieur Verdoux, arranged and directed by Rudolph Schrager, is much sparser than those for the previous three films, in part because there is so much dialog. However, in many scenes the combination of camera work, lighting and use of the score were at the same level in many regards as the films of the famous suspense director Alfred Hitchcock. There were repeated motifs, such as the locomotive theme for Verdoux's frequent train trips throughout France, and a lot of use of the oboe either alone or mixed with other instruments in unaccompanied monophonic lines, often introducing a new scenario with Verdoux. His use of underscore in a scene with a young woman on who he was going to test a type of poison and changes his mind signals methods that would become common in the 1950s, withholding all background sound until the moment of danger, then retraction from his plan occurs.
     The ongoing court battles with Barry helped motivate Chaplin for his somewhat controversial courtroom speech. Even though it is set in 1937, he gives a 1947 view of the world, pointing out that individuals who kill in small numbers are amateurs in comparison to governments who are able to render mass murders with great efficiency through warfare without themselves being held accountable. "Numbers sanctify," he tells a reporter. This was another astute yet incendiary phrase that would further alienate Chaplin from the public. Indeed, when the film came out in April, Charles had no delusions about what the press was most interested in. Resigned to not talking about the movie, he was relentlessly questioned about the trials, tax issues, and his refusal to become an American citizen. Most critics were also down on Chaplin's performance, some saying he was better in pantomime than when opening his mouth. There were, of course, his ardent supporters, but Monsieur Verdoux was a box office disappointment, in part because many theaters refused to exhibit it given the growing anti-Chaplin sentiment in the United States.

Chaplin on stage as Calvero in Limelight.

In spite of all these events, Chaplin's screenplay was nominated for an Oscar™ for best writing. When it was exhibited again in 1964 as part of a New York City Chaplin Film Festival, it was the biggest hit of that festival, raking in enormous sums for a single theater.
     When the trials were over, Chaplin moved ahead with his life as best he could, albeit now under even more public and Federal Government scrutiny. In 1946 he had a second child with Oona, and was also still involved in the lives of Charlie Jr. and Sydney. After another break of a couple of years, he set his sights on what many historians have viewed variously as either an autobiographical story or in some cases one of self-pity for his plight. It was also came with a new set of creative challenges.
     Limelight was the story of a once-famous stage clown comedian now in his decline, based on real-life people Charlie had observed going through similar situations. In particular were a Spanish clown named Marceline who he had worked with on London stages when he was young, and Frank Tinney, a comedian who had worked in black-face when it was still in vogue. One can't help but draw some comparisons to Chaplin's career as well, although realistically it had not gone into the same unfortunate state, and he was hardly impoverished. It took him over two years to develop the script, initially as an unpublished novel titled Footlights, and the music to go with it. He settled on two main characters, one the aging comedian Calvero, and another a stage dancer, Terry, based on Hannah Chaplin and Hetty, who was dealing with her own handicaps including having been literally paralyzed by fear. Much of the script was based on back story that Chaplin developed in order to flesh out the characters, and even though it is not shown in the film, the references alone are apparent throughout.
     Of some importance to note are four of the actors in the film besides Chaplin himself. One was his second son, Sydney, who played a secondary younger male lead. Another was his older half brother Wheeler Dryden, making this more of a family affair.

Buster Keaton gives Charlie some pointers in
a rehearsal for Limelight.

Claire Bloom starred as Terry, although she was doubled by Oona in a couple of scenes, and by New York Ballet star Melissa Hayden for an extended ballet sequence. The most welcome inclusion was that of his old slapstick rival Buster Keaton, who after several difficult years recovering from career mishaps and alcoholism was starting on his second rise to fame.
     To this day there are aspects of Keaton's inclusion in the film that are still points of controversy among historians. He played in an extended scene with Chaplin near the end of the film where they engage in a slapstick routine involving a pianist and violinist. It has long been reported that Keaton may have actually upstaged Chaplin when they shot the routine, and most of his best work ended up excised from the final product. However, it should also be considered that the film was already relatively long, and some may have been left out due to time considerations, and the rest merely to fit the story line better in favor of Calvero. Their memories of this event are quite different. Keaton claims it was delightful and that he would have worked with Chaplin for nothing. Charlie made no mention of Keaton's involvement in his later books.
     With a relatively tight shooting schedule, another aspect that had to be worked out in advance was the music for the ballet sequence, which required both composing and recording it. Charlie ended up composing a 25 minute ballet, although it was extensively reduced in the final cut. With the help of Ray Rasch and Larry Russell, he completed one of his finest scores yet. In particular, the haunting main love theme known as Terry's Theme is still regarded to be as venerable as Smile, and was published separately as Eternally. He also dug into his past of ragtime tunes and English music hall traditions, coming up with original tunes that echoed both quite effectively. It would eventually yield him another Oscar™, but that would have to wait.
     Limelight was Chaplin's final United States film. Trouble had been brewing in Hollywood and Washington as more information emerged, not all of it genuine, about Charlie's communist sympathies. Even though he was now in a very stable marriage that would last for 34 years to his death and produce eight children, the family that Chaplin had long desired, his past affairs were being brought up more frequently in a challenge to both his political and moral turpitude. In July it was announced that he was being investigated by and would be subject to a subpoena to appear in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee to answer charges he was promoting communist causes in Hollywood and beyond. He later wrote that "Although I am not a Communist I refused to fall in line by hating them." There was a call in Congress to commence with deportation proceedings during the height of the Red Scare in 1952. While it did not make it to the stage of deportation, Chaplin did help them out to some degree by leaving the country, albeit not to relocate.
     In the long run it is still unclear what person in what government agency pounded in the final nail concerning his rights in the United States. While J. Edgar Hoover has long been suspect, Hedda Hopper had used her voice in the Hollywood gossip columns to turn public sentiment against Chaplin, also accusing him of communism. Some of the most credible speculation is that the Department of Defense, more so than the State Department, saw Chaplin as a threat through his potential sway over some of his more loyal fans in Hollywood and Washington. Chaplin left the United States for the British premiere of Limelight in early October, 1952 aboard the luxurious Queen Elizabeth. Almost as soon as he was gone, the Immigration and Naturalization Service through attorney general James McGranery revoked the visa of the country's most famous resident alien, and he would be denied re-entry into the country in which he had spent four decades setting the standards for film comedy, directing, and musical scoring, as well as contributing significantly to aspects of American life.
     In reality, Chaplin could have returned, but before he would have been able to fully gain reentry, he would have had to appear before an INS board of inquiry to answer as to why he should be allowed back in. It was later revealed that the INS did not really have enough cause to ban him from coming back. When interviewed in London about his plight, he responded with a quote by a famous American figure: "As the late Calvin Coolidge said when he terminated his presidency and was embarking to go home, and waylaid by one of the pressmen who said, 'Mr. President, won't you say a few farewell words to the American people?,' he said 'Yes, goodbye!'" The American premiere of Limelight would be poorly attended, and due to the current sentiment about its star following his exile, would be shown on very few screens. As it would not last in Los Angeles for even a week, it was not eligible for Oscar™ contention. In hindsight this was probably a blessing for the comedian. In a very short time all of his films were banned in the United States, although this short-sighted way of thinking would not last very long, and before the 1950s were out Chaplin films would again appear on television and in selected theaters. But Chaplin himself would not be heard from in the United States for nearly two decades.

     After having toured England and part of Europe with Oona and his four children, Charlie briefly considered stating his case and renewing his U.S. visa. He later recalled “that I was fed up with America’s insults and moral pomposity, and that the whole subject was damned boring." He finally reconciled that this would be a fruitless endeavor, and made his reasons known publicly: "Since the end of the last World War, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted.

Charlie fires back at Congress in
A King of New York from 1957.

Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States" In this regard, his exile was actually self-imposed, a fact that was often misunderstood by most Americans during the ensuing decades. In early 1953, Charlie and Oona then established their family in a villa in the town of Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, the home of Nestlé Chocolate on the north shore of Lake Geneva. He would live on an estate there for the remainder of his life, around 24 years. He surrendered his U.S. visa in Geneva.
     Oona returned to the United States alone to wrap up their affairs there. This included packing everything from their home and getting it sold, gathering all of the materials, including film negatives, from the studio, and taking care of other business affairs and transfers. Even though it was known she was in the country, something that made Charlie very nervous, Oona was not stopped or questioned on her trip, even though most other Chaplin associates were still in the hot seat. When she returned the Chaplins had a special film vault installed in their home, and his precious lifes work was safely stored for later disposition or distribution. The world was thinking quite differently about Charlie now, and while there were detractors in the United States he still had many supporters there and in his home country of England. While the question of his receiving knighthood from the British Empire was again raised in 1956, it was denied once more due to what the British Foreign Office cited as concerns over his moral behavior. In short, it was still too controversial a move at that time. Oona eventually gave up her American citizenship for that of Switzerland, but was still allowed to return to the U.S. for family matters.
     Even away from Hollywood, Chaplin found that there was no need to cease his motion-picture work, and set out to make not just a film but, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, a clear political statement on both his expulsion and the paranoid political climate of the United States in the 1950s. Hampered by not having his own studio, he now had to plan as much as possible in advance to make the best use of locations and rented facilities in order to maximize his investment. The story of A King in New York revolves around the congressional interrogation of a young boy, played by his son Michael who was ten-years-old. Under pressure he names the political affiliations and friends of his allegedly communist parents. One of those was King Igor Shahdov, played by Chaplin, who had been bilked of his funds by his own Prime Minister and had escaped to New York City after a revolution in his country. While campaigning for the use of peaceful and efficient nuclear power, he inadvertently becomes a television icon in commercials, which he acts in to earn money for his cause.

Charlie and Scraps enter the Green Lantern in
A Dog's Life, included in The Chaplin Revue.

Grilled by McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, he is exonerated and retreats to Paris. There he welcomes the child and his parents and hopes to enlighten them to a new way of thinking.
     The film takes obvious issue with the HUAC, new revolutions in film such as widescreen formats, the pitfalls and audacious effects of celebrity, television as a medium and its commercialism, and popular music. For the latter, Chaplin composed some pop music with non-clever rhymes to make his point. Unfortunately, given his time constraints, the music, cinematography, and even some of the writing have historically been scrutinized by film historians as shoddy or in need of editing and refinement. In addition, London was not an ideal stand-in for New York City, but he could not film on location for obvious reasons. A King in New York opened in virtually all major movie markets outside of the United States in September 1957, and did well enough that Chaplin was able to recoup his costs. It was largely ignored, however, in the United States. However, two other projects, one of them totally out of the hands of Chaplin, would help to start the long healing process.
     In 1957. around the same time as the release of A King in New York, American film entrepreneur Robert Youngson compiled a documentary on silent film comedians. It included clips of the Sennett studio in action extracted from The Hollywood Kid, and had incessant narration throughout. The orchestrated music, mostly classical and largely culled from Chopin, has been viewed as not entirely appropriate, especially with some of the whimsical sound effects thrown in for fun. Still, The Golden Age of Comedy was well received and critically acclaimed, in spite of the obvious absence of Chaplin, Keaton and the third major comic genius, Harold Lloyd. In an effort to cash in on the film's success, and perhaps to rectify the omission of his first compilation, Youngson released When Comedy Was King in late 1959. While the inclusion of Chaplin and Keaton rectified their absence from the first film, Youngson evidently felt it necessary to temper Charlie's films with statements like "The young Charlie Chaplin, swept so quickly to fame, was to become a figure of controversy," and "But that was before the troubled times..." The second film, less weighed down by narration and abrupt pacing, did even better than the first.
     Whether Charlie was emboldened by the results of The Golden Age of Comedy or was hoping to capitalize on its reception and improve on its faults is unclear. However, in 1959 he continued where he had left off with his redux of The Gold Rush.

Musical credits from The Chaplin Revue.

Since his days at First National and A Dog's Life, Chaplin had full ownership of his film products, so naturally had access to and control of all the original 35mm negative elements. He also had the Essanay negatives, but these were inexplicably destroyed at Chaplin's request instead of being shipped to Europe. He took three of his First National Films, A Dog's Life, Shoulder Arms and The Pilgrim, re-edited them slightly, added footage from How to Make a Movie which showed off his new studio, and packaged them as The Chaplin Revue in 1959. His friend, critic James Agee, also had a role in prompting the film, although his vision was to put the tramp in a more contemporary environment, which Chaplin quickly rejected.
     This new release of his First National material was accompanied by minimally narrated introductions and a full score composed by Chaplin, some of it using musical elements from his previous film scores. Unlike the Youngson productions, which tried to retrofit classical and old popular tunes to the action, Charlie chose to underscore the emotion of each scene, with very few synchronized effects (such as the beating of a bass drum by a dog's tail). The recurring theme for the Green Lantern Inn became The Green Lantern Rag, an authentic ragtime piece that when fully assembled represents a three section rag. In A Dog's Life for a scene where Edna Purviance is singing a weepy ballad on stage, instead of trying to retrofit a known piece underneath her performance, he used a bowed saw instead to substitute as a forlorn human voice. Shoulder Arms used a more militaristic theme, yet it too played upon emotions more than comedy. For The Pilgrim, which features an escaped convict dressed in a Quaker pastor's outfit on his way from New York to Texas where he is mistaken as a real pastor, Charlie wrote a real authentic western tune, Bound for Texas, employing British singer and Decca artist Matt Monro (later known for recording Born Free) to don his best cowboy voice for the song.
     Running two hours, The Chaplin Revue was released in September 1959 in England, and other parts of Europe over the next several months.

Charlie displays his newly published autobiography from his villa porch in Switzerland.

The Chaplin Revue Copies of it made it into the United States where it received fairly good reviews by those who dared to do so. Some historians have derided the editing, in which some scenes were stretched and re-paced to accommodate the music, and a number of frames ere excised for the same reason. However, it has stood the test of time. With the McCarthy era now fading into the background, the film's popularity signalled the first rumblings of a Chaplin revival in the U.S. was the first film in which Charlie engaged Eric James as his orchestral arranger, along with Eric Spear and conductor Eric Rogers. Coincidentally, one of the sound engineers was named Eric Stockl.
     In the early 1960s, Charlie took time out to compile a somewhat sanitized but otherwise selectively thorough autobiography. My Life would be published in 1964, followed by three other books over the next few years. He focused largely on life with Oona and his children in Switzerland. Home movies show an attentive and fun-loving family man who treasured his eight offspring and adored his strong and devoted wife. Among the visitors to the Chaplin estate in Vevey were friends of Oona, Walter and Carol Matthau. Carol and Oona had gone to school together and maintained their friendship. Walter would later play a role in Chaplin's reacceptance in the U.S. Sydney and his second wife, Henriette, were also visitors until Sydney's death in 1965. In 1962 he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Oxford University, and in 1965, shared half of the Erasmus prize with another famous director, Ingmar Bergman, amounting to five million French francs.
     Charlie had used his wife in children at various times in films, and at home the family made their own mini comedies or dramas. A couple of them went a bit further in their acting ambitions. His second son, Sydney, went into films after World War II, winning a Tony Award™ in 1957 for Bells are Ringing, and a nomination in 1964 for his performance as gambler Nicky Arnstein opposite Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl. Charlie's oldest daughter, Geraldine, had been seen briefly in Limelight. After she gave up the idea of a career in ballet she received training in acting. Her first major role was as Tonya Gromeko in the David Lean epic Doctor Zhivago, which earned her a Golden Globe™ nomination.

Chaplin gives direction to Sophia Loren on the
set of A Countess from Hong Kong.

Fluent also in French and Spanish, she acted in films aimed at many different markets, including Robert Altman's Nashville in 1975 which earned her another Golden Globe™ nomination. Michael (1946), Josephine (1949) and Victoria (1951), all American born, also entered into film acting in some capacity.
     Chaplin wanted to prove that he had at least one more good film in him, and in mid 1965 undertook his final production, A Countess from Hong Kong. He wrote the comedy as well, based on an idea called Stowaway which he had intended for Paulette Goddard in the late 1930s. It was about an American ambassador-designate to Saudi Arabia who makes his way to Hong Kong while finishing up a world tour. There he encounters a Russian countess who sneaks on board a luxury liner and into his cabin in order to escape a life of forced prostitution. A farce is in the works when the ambassador's wife boards in Hawaii. Included in the cast were three of his daughters in walk-ons. Sydney had a moderately important lead role and Charlie did a walk-on as a ship's steward. The stars were Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. A Countess from Hong Kong was Chaplin's first and only film in color and widescreen. Surprisingly he received support from Universal Studios in California, who had just entered the British film market at Pinewood Studios.
     The expensive enterprise was not surprisingly plagued by problems on the set at Pinewood. Chaplin broke his ankle during a walk, the first serious injury he had ever sustained in his long career. Brando, who was second choice to Rex Harrison who had demurred from the part, was very much an admirer of Chaplin, but did not act this way during the filming and was difficult both on and off the set. Both later made it clear that the experience of working together was quite unpleasant. The same lack of chemistry and cooperation existed between Loren and Brando. There were also issues with the lenses used on the cameras, and problems with editing. The music was perhaps one of the best aspects of the production, as Charlie composed no less than fifteen themes, and used a couple of other classical works. One of his pieces, titled This is My Song, was covered by popular singer Petula Clark shortly after the release of the film. Chaplin did not care for her rendition, but it went to number one on the charts and turned out to be the only bright spot of a dark period.
     When A Countess from Hong Kong was released in January 1967, there were projection problems at the London premiere in which the wrong lens was used and the film was displayed at an incorrect aspect ratio, setting the dismal tone for what was to come. Critical reviews on the editing and the partially spherical presentation of the premiere were rather abysmal. The British and European moviegoers took the critics at their word, and the $3.5 million film ended up recovering only half of the production costs. The lack of American distribution further increased any hopes for success. In spite of the support of a minority of critics, his film was regarded as a box office failure. Universal removed fifteen minutes from the original cut for a revamped release, but it did not do any better, and Chaplin felt that the cuts ruined the overall production. Charlie went into a deep depression that would last for some time.
     Still interested in work in spite of the major setback, Chaplin revisited another film in 1968 that had not even been mentioned in his 1964 autobiography in spite of it being responsible for his first Oscar™. He resurrected his 1928 motion picture The Circus and wrote a fresh score for it which included a theme song, Swing, Little Girl. The piece was used for the title sequence. To further codify his involvement with the music and at the insistence of Eric James, who was again acting as arranger, Charlie actually sang the title sing at age 79, giving him a bittersweet involvement with this difficult project some four decades after it had been first completed. His next act would force him for the first time to contend with a soundtrack at the same time he was making a film. In his book My Life in Pictures, written in 1974, Charlie mentioned that he had been working on one more film project titled The Freak which was to star his daughter Victoria. Costumes were made as were film tests, but the production never got off the ground.
     Now resigned to a retirement driven more by public sentiment than personal ambition, Charles retreated into his estate at Vevey, and into himself. He remained devoted to Oona and his children, but did not emerge publicly for nearly four years. Charlie did not know it yet, but there was one final act left that involved healing and his legacy, some of which would equal the pathos and joy found coexisting so effectively in his earliest films.

     The Chaplin family became involved in Charlie's love of music. He had a collection of records and reel-to-reel tapes of classical music. They would often gather together in the evenings and listen to one or another symphonic work or piano sonata in a house only lit by candles. Discussions of the music would often ensue as well.

Charlie and Oona relaxing at home in Corsier-sur-Veney in the early 1970s.

Some of the influence of this practice showed up increasingly in Chaplin's scores as his musical vocabulary increased. He was better equipped to suggest instrumental timbres and combinations, cadences, and other technical facets of the score which Eric was able to translate. There are still hours of audio tape in the family collection that have Charlie working on melodies on the piano, humming at times to hone in on a certain melodic fluidity. He had said that even if he could not remember the melodic line as a series of notes, he could remember the physical patterns on the piano keys.
     Throughout his life Chaplin had befriended many top musicians and composers, some as friends and some as acquaintances. They included Sergei Rachmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Vladimir Horowitz, Victor Borge, Hanns Eisler and Arnold Schoenberg. Others in the classical world continued to visit him from time to time in Vevey, and he would hold miniature concerts with them for family and friends. It may never be known what kind of influence they had on the later film scores that Chaplin composed, but it can be ascertained that there was some discussion from time to time on his music that may have included advice, solicited being the most likely type.
     After taking a break for a couple of years, Chaplin decided to continue his project for completion of composed and recorded scores for his earlier films, this time with much less re-editing involved. In 1971, with help from Eric James, he managed to finish The Idle Class and his early masterpiece of pathos, The Kid. He also worked on some more potential book material as well, making sure to leave a more detailed accounting of his life as an artist in films.
     In the interim back in the United States, silent films, which sometimes started out as filler material for shows on independent and public television stations, were being discovered by a new generation.

Charlie and Oona arriving in New York
in April, 1972.

There were still issues with their presentation as most television stations were not able to compensate for the slower frame rates, and many simply used random honky-tonk records as a music track. So the action was sped up and the accompaniment corny. Still, the films of Keaton, Lloyd and Chaplin were now getting noticed again. There had been a Chaplin film festival held in New York in 1964 that featured works from his entire career up through Limelight, and it was popular enough that such events were repeated over the next several years with increasing attendance.
     In 1971 Mo Rothman acquired distribution rights to Chaplin's films in the United States and was looking to promote then in some way. By this time, with the McCarthy era long gone, a new generation in power in government and entertainment, the focus being largely on the continuing war in Vietnam, expanding musical and creative horizons, more independent film makers, and a second wave of 1900s nostalgia following the widespread honky-tonk craze of the 1950s, it seemed that the time was right for a reconciliation with the exiled comedian. More than a simple apology was clearly in order, and with the cooperation of the United States Government, Hollywood was able to set the stage for perhaps the most emotional moment in the history of the cinema.
     In early 1972, through Rothman and Academy member Bert Schneider, a resolution was drafted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honor Charles Chaplin with an overdue honorary award to be presented to him in April. Even though Hoover was still running the FBI (he would be dead within a month of the presentation) he did not have the same support as he had in the past concerning such matters. He was not really even a factor in Charlie's return. Oona fully supported and encouraged her husband to make the trip to the country that had thrown him out just less than two decades prior.
     Their first stop was in New York where they visited some old friends and saw to a few other business matters. When the Chaplins arrived at the airport in California there were a number of devoted fans there to welcome them. Among them was actor Jackie Coogan who was the star of The Kid (1921) and had also been in A Day's Pleasure two years before that. Even though decades had passed, Charlie recognized him and made his way over the give Coogan a hug. He reportedly whispered to him, "I think I would rather see you than anybody else." One of the people that had hoped to honor Chaplin during his visit was trumpeter Herb Alpert, who along with Jerry Moss had founded A&M Records a decade earlier. They now occupied the old Chaplin studio on La Brea, having converted two sound stages and the pool area to recording studios. In 1984 he had added a mural to one of the large walls depicting Chaplin in a number of his films. However, Charlie wanted to avoid public appearances as much as possible,

Jack Lemmon joking with Charlie, who holds a bowler hat and cane after receiving his honorary Oscar™ in 1972.

and simply arranged to be driven to the gates on Sunday, April 9, so he could reminisce for a moment or two. This incident is also depicted, nearly unnoticed, in the 1992 biopic.
     On Monday night Charlie Chaplin was escorted into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles Music Center for the 44th Academy Awards Oscar™ ceremony, reportedly uncertain of how he would be received by his peers after such a long absence. Veteran star Betty Grable was also honored that night in her last stage appearance. She would die from cancer within the year. One of the hosts, Jack Lemmon, introduced a montage of several minutes showing some of the best moments of Charlie's work, assembled by no less than Peter Bogdonavich. Then Lemmon announced the lifetime achievement Oscar™ which was in presented to Chaplin "for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century." "The 3700 fellow artists of the academy, with pride and affection, present this tribute to one of the immortals among men."
     This author, who is the son of a fairly well known character actor (Sam Edwards) remembers the wave of emotion that swept through our Los Angeles home that evening when the aged little tramp slowly walked out on stage to a tumultuous ovation the likes of which had never been heard at an Oscar™ ceremony and has not been repeated since. Even in my early teens I was quite aware of many of Chaplin's films and his importance in comedy, and also was educated on his exile. But nothing could prepare us, or even Charlie, and perhaps even the crowd in the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, for the reception that one of the most misunderstood and yet revered members of the early days of film would enjoy, especially in the city that he helped to build. The applause lasted more than five minutes, with nobody in particular trying to stop it so the show could go on, because at that moment, that was the show.
     Charlie was duly overcome by the reception. After the applause finally subsided and he received his statue he could only utter a few words of thanks to his supporters. "An emotional moment for me, and words seem so futile; so feeble. I can only say thank you for the honor of inviting me here, and... oh, you're wonderful, sweet people. Thank you." Lemmon then handed him a cane and a bowler hat, a trademark of the tramp, and Charlie put it on his head, caused it to pop off, and gave a little impish grin. Jack and all of the honorees serenaded him with Smile as Oona came out. He was still composed enough to point at and publicly acknowledge his long time supporter and best friend, making it clear that she had also made this moment possible. Then he exited the stage, left the building, and returned to his home in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, never again to set foot in the United States.

     Because of the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which stated that a film needed to run at least a full consecutive week in a year in Los Angeles and New York to allow voting members a chance to see it,

Walter Matthau walks with Charlie and Oona
in Corsier-sur-Veney in 1974.

Limelight had not been eligible in its first run in 1952, pulled before it even got off the ground. However, in the swell of Chaplin nostalgia that was felt throughout the motion picture industry and by Chaplin fans, several of his older films were now being released by Rothman. Among them was Limelight, which finally got its due in the Los Angeles and New York markets. Now eligible due to that technicality (which has since disappeared), Limelight was nominated for and won the Oscar™ for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score at the 45th Academy Awards Ceremony in April 1973. Chaplin was not on hand to retrieve it, but co-writers Raymond Rasch and Larry Russell took the statue which soon found its way to Europe. This was Chaplin's third Oscar™ after several nominations through the years, and the first Oscar™ he won in a competitive category. Given that his first award in 1929 covered a number of categories, he remains the first recipient of Academy Awards honoring at least five different disciplines - directing, writing, producing, acting and composing.
     Soon after the Chaplins returned to Switzerland, Bogdonavich, who had been a documentary director before his award winning The Last Picture Show, was tapped to interview Charlie for a potential documentary. He sent in a French camera crew headed by Pierre Cottrell. However, most of what was shot turned out to be unusable because Chaplin's mood would change often, and some of his stories lacked the detail or emphasis that the directors were looking for. Director Richard Patterson took over the project and decided to make a film about Charlie's life, using some of the previously shot footage as well as key sequences from Chaplin films to juxtapose with certain elements of his life. Many of the family's 16mm films were also added into the mix. With the assistance of Walter and Carol Matthau, more candid footage was shot in Vevey to fill in the ending.
     The Gentleman Tramp, narrated by Walter Matthau included several quotes of Chaplin read by Laurence Olivier. When it was first viewed by Oona, she made several suggestions about scenes or points she thought should be removed from the film. Much of this included the juxtaposition of films with life events. Some of the film was re-edited, but just before the premiere Oona vociferously objected to the fact that not all of her requested alterations had been made, suggesting that the juxtaposed scenes were poor substitutes for actual events in Charlie's life. Her protestations were intended for the most part to properly protect her husband's legacy. Patterson carefully wrote her a letter defending all of his choices and the logic behind them, noting that these were intended as dream sequences of a sort, echoing but not duplicating what was happening in Charlie's life at those particular times. No further objections were lobbied and the film was approved.

Chaplin conducting a studio orchestra in 1974, recording new soundtracks for his First National films.

The soundtrack used a great deal of Chaplin's own music, some newly recorded. Released initially in selected theaters, a version was also made for television that featured Matthau doing some on camera narration for transitions from commercials. The Gentleman Tramp has long been regarded as a fine and respectful testament to the life of a film genius.
     During this time, Charlie had gone back in to the recording studio with new scores for his remaining First National films, including Pay Day in 1972, A Day's Pleasure in 1973, Sunnyside in 1974, and his last film scoring session for the long neglected 1923 feature A Woman of Paris in 1976. All told, Chaplin had written scores for no less than 18 of his films, most of them feature length, and out of those several enduring pieces emerged. The longest lasting of those, often played when he was received at various functions, were Eternally from Limelight, Falling Star from The Great Dictator, the main theme from City Lights, and the brilliant Smile. The latter remains his most familiar tune, having been beautifully rendered soon after the lyrics were added by artists as diverse as Nat "King" Cole and Wladziu Valentino Liberace.
     That one elusive honor that so many had hoped the British film maker would receive finally was awarded forty-four years after it had first been put forward; a knighthood from the British Empire. On March 4, 1975, Charlie was wheeled into Buckingham palace, just miles from where he had been born and raised, as a subject of the British Empire. The orchestra played his beautiful theme from Limelight as he was brought into the hall. Queen Elizabeth tapped him on each shoulder and hung the KBE (Knight of the British Empire) medallion around his neck before the two briefly chatted. As he left the ceremony, the 75 year old actor who had been so supple and athletic into his early sixties asked that the cameras be stilled as he struggled to get into the limousine. He exited as Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin.
     His final two and a half years were spent in declining health at home with Oona and frequent visits from their children and friends. Charlie was becoming frustrated with his increasing inability to communicate, a paramount function in his life, and this may have contributed to his failing condition. Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, the wayward child of two English music hall singers who ended up leaving an indelible mark on the 20th century, finally succumbed to death, the very thing he had defied so many times during his prime years of acting in his own films, passing in his sleep at 87 years of age on Christmas Day 1977.
     Charles was interred near Sydney and Henriette in Corsier-Sur-Vevey Cemetery. But was not allowed to rest in peace right away. A group of Swiss Mechanics stole his casket from the grave on March 1, 1978, in an effort to extract a ransom from the grieving family. The Swiss detectives managed to thwart the plot, and by mid May Chaplin's body had been recovered. Fearing further incidents of this type, the family had him buried in the same plot, but under six feet of concrete. Now his body would rest peacefully while his soul continually entertained all of those who had passed from this world as well.
     Oona returned to New York to escape her grief and start a new life. However, her efforts did not carry her far enough, and in the mid 1980s she returned to Vevey and the Chaplin villa, rarely showing herself in public, and reportedly struggling with alcoholism. Although she gained some control over her issues with her family's help, Oona was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after it was too late to counter it. Charlie's one and only enduring love, Lady Oona O'Neill Chaplin, joined him on September 27, 1991, and is interred next to him in Corsier-Sur-Vevey Cemetery.

     Since before his death, there have been many layers of public perception of what Charlie Chaplin was all about. Some associated him with virtually nothing but slapstick shenanigans. Some have seen him as countering the Hollywood establishment. Many have seen him as a pathetic figure who was wronged by the American public. Others who study his stories see him as a master of juxtaposition of pathos and comedy in the same space. There is some degree of truth to all of these layers.

Robert Downey, Jr. as Charlie Chaplin's tramp in a publicity still for the 1992
Richard Attenborough film Chaplin.

On and off through the years there have been mentions of his capacity as a musician, but most of these have been obfuscated by the other more dominant story lines of the Chaplin legend.
     In some ways this actually speaks very highly of Chaplin as both a film maker and a musician. The clear intention of music in relation to films for him, going back to when he first distributed cue sheets for The Kid with specific styles of pieces intended for specific scenes, was to enhance or underscore the action on the screen without getting in the way of it. The very word underscore comes from this contention, and is used to denote what some might call background music, even though a true underscore has a much more symbiotic relationship with the other elements of a scene, including sets, lighting, camera angles and, of course, acting. Knowing this, Charles wrote themes from his heart and mind that were suggested as much by the action he saw on the screen, or in some cases envisioned in advance, as much as from his own ideas of what would move an audience without detracting from the story.
     Yet it was not until the 1990s that any serious study was done on his scores and compositions, and even in the second decade of the 21st century, many Chaplin fans are still unaware of the sheer volume and quality of the works he composed over a period of sixty years. There are now CDs and music downloads available of Chaplin scores and songs in their original recordings or rendered by any number of popular artists, Smile being the one that tops the list, followed by Eternally. It is hoped by this author that future generations will be more aware of this particular layer of the many talents of Charlie Chaplin, and perhaps find new ways to apply his music to his films, or even as separate entities. There have been several books written on silent films in general and Chaplin and Keaton in particular since their deaths. As might be expected, some of them focus on the visual or comic aspects of these two multi-talented individuals, but at the very least they have instilled interest in new generations of moviemakers and moviegoers, and bring new insight to those of older generations.
     Seeing that the time was right, actor and director Sir Richard Attenborough, also a Knight of the British Empire (1976 - now Lord Attenborough), worked to bring his own vision of Chaplin to the screen in 1992. The lead role was played brilliantly by actor Robert Downey, Jr., who in his thirties realized his own struggles with fame and addiction that have since been put behind him and channeled into a highly successful career. Downey, with Attenborough's help, seemed to understand the struggles that often hounded Chaplin, and while it was impossible to encapsulate who he really was in the space of 144 minutes, the pair managed to cover most of the aspects of his life and career, including his musical involvement. One of the more artistic devices Attenborough used was to cast Moira Kelly in the roles of both Hetty Kelly and Oona O'Neill, Charlie's first and last loves. Bringing the story full circle, Chaplin's oldest daughter, Geraldine, was brought on board to play her own grandmother, Hannah Chaplin.

Kermit the Tramp guarding the former Chaplin Studios, now occupied by Muppets.

     The film was released on Christmas Day, 1992, exactly fifteen years after Chaplin's death. Downey easily snagged a best actor nomination for that year's Academy Awards. Geraldine Chaplin, along with Downey, was nominated for a Golden Globe™. Many criticized Chaplin for the tepid use of Anthony Hopkins as a fictitious biographer of the tramp, a device which was merely included for narrative flow. But in holding Downey up to Chaplin, they could not overlook the fact that Attenborough had mixed in actual clips from Chaplin films instead of reshooting them, such was his confidence in his star's performance. Ultimately it suffered due to the sheer magnitude of Chaplin himself, further chided for trying to cover too much ground in too short a time. Some of those critiques may be authentic in their collective points, but many Chaplin fans were glad that he was being reintroduced to the world, even with some of his more troublesome flaws clearly intact. Downey also appeared in a documentary on Chaplin produced in 2003.
     Film historian David Shepherd of Kino Films/Image Entertainment, among other historians, has worked tirelessly since the 1980s to find the best film elements of prints from around the world and restore the films, as best as possible, to their original exhibition length. In some cases he had access to original camera negatives, and with these and selectively intelligent scores by a handful of astute musicians around the world, has been able to offer a balanced and even fresh look at Chaplin's early work. All of his films are available on DVD, although some of the DVDs are now out of print. A few of the later films are now available on high definition Blu-Ray format, with more in the near future. One of the best sets from Image Entertainment is of the 12 Mutual Films, which also includes a documentary on Chaplin's Goliath, Eric Campbell, and both versions of The Gentleman Tramp. A great addition in late 2010 was a new restoration of all of the Keystone comedies, with only one known to be missing, and only two from inferior prints. Proper restored and timed by Shepherd, they give an entirely new perspective on Chaplin's earliest forays into film.
     The Chaplin family has also made available from the vault in the villa in Vevey all of Charlie's original negatives from 1918 and later. MK2 Editions and Warner Brothers made all of these available on laser disc, then DVD from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Each package contains a number of engaging features and rare footage plus remastered soundtracks of Chaplin's music and even occasional audio tracks. They are consistently introduced by one of Chaplin's later and most respected biographers, David Robinson.

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin

     Appropriately enough, Charlie's legacy also remains in his La Brea studio in Hollywood. He initially sold it in 1957, nearly five years after he left the country, to a company that leased it out for a few films. In 1959 it was purchased by another brilliant pantomime artist, Red Skelton, who used it for his shows for two seasons. In 1961 the property again changed hands, now owned by CBS who produced a few shows there. They allowed William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who had established Hanna-Barbera there in 1960, to remain at the studio, making cartoons until 1963. In 1966 CBS sold the property to musician Herb Alpert who by then was becoming a pop icon for his Tijuana Brass recordings, and his partner, Jerry Moss. A&M Records remained there for 33 years, even after Alpert and Moss were bought out by Polydor in 1987. They converted the sound stages into some of the finest recording studios in Los Angeles, and artists from The Carpenters to Styx made their earliest recordings in the former Chaplin studio.
     In 1999, The Jim Henson Company, founded by the originator of the famous Muppets back in the mid 1950s and now a subsidiary of the largest entertainment company in the world, Walt Disney, bought the studio for creating new Muppet productions. They extensively remodeled the lot, taking great pains to restore much of the exterior to the appearance of the old English Village that Chaplin had worked to create in 1918. The recording studios were retained, and are still in use today by the Henson Company, Disney, and Los Angeles area musicians. Also retained are many relics from its original owners, including bathrooms designed like giant fish bowls, and even vaults in the wall, one of which was featured as a safe repository for the tramp's famous shoes in the 1918 promotional film How to Make Movies. Even though the orange groves of West Hollywood are long gone, replaced by progress and commerce (Chaplin himself pled guilty, citing the influx of oil, aeronautics and movies), the appearance of the front gate today is not much different from that of 1918. There is one obvious exception. The head Muppet, Kermit the Frog (analogous to Disney's famous mouse) is posed to the right of the gate as a 12 foot tall statue, dressed in the famous garb of Chaplin's tramp. Tours are conducted for the lucky few who can secure them, and the sense of history is kept very much alive by a new generation of comic icons who derived some of their best material from the person who built their current home.
     Into the 21st century, dedicated fans will watch Chaplin films and introduce them to others, dedicated musicians will write or improvise scores to the older ones that Chaplin himself did not score, and historians will try to shed new light from a variety of angles on what made Charlie Chaplin tick and why was the public so fascinated by who he was and what he did. Was what he accomplished in the cinema and in music a logical extension of his stage experience or personna, a demonstration of his boundless creativity, a learned science when the medium of film was still in its infancy, or simply art for arts sake? The answer is clearly yes! to all of these. And as long as we can laugh, cry, sympathize with or cheer the tramp, he will continue to have an impact on the world he left behind. For all of his flaws, and there were many, we should hope that the joy and the thoughts he left behind might balance them out. In short, they made him truly human and like the rest of us.
     There is no single word that can encapsulate those feelings; no one paragraph that can begin to describe him. But then again, isn't that lack of speech what made Charlie so brilliant as a shining star in the first place?

     "Zez" Confrey has long been known as one of the most popular progenitors of the Novelty Piano style that was born out of the desire for piano roll arrangers to give their works more bite. He was born to railroad clerk Thomas J. Confrey and his wife Margaret (Brown) Confrey in rural Peru, Illinois at the dawn of the ragtime era. Edward (who may have just as often been called Elzear as he was shown on some official records) was the second youngest of five surviving children of nine born to the couple, including James (3/1885), Frank (11/1886), William (11/1893) and Margaret (5/1897). He displayed his propensity for music at the age of four. Just after his talented older brother Jim had completed a piece during a piano lesson, the youngest Confrey stood at the piano and picked out the melody of the same piece he had been listening to Jim play. So lessons for Elzear started quite early.
     In the 1910 Census the family was shown living in La Salle, Illinois (near Peru) with Thomas still working for the railroad, joined by his son Frank. Oldest son Jim was working as an orchestra musician that year, which was around the time Edward was in high school, and already conducting his own orchestra. "Zez" (as he was now known) had progressed well beyond what most local teachers could offer him. So he soon attended the fairly close by Chicago Musical College (run by Florenz Ziegfeld Sr., father of the famous Ziegfeld Follies founder) for better grounding in all musical forms ranging from classical music to contemporary composers Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and others. It was the influence of the French impressionist composers that showed up in his later compositions.
     One of his earliest pieces that might be considered a precursor to novelty piano was titled Twaify's Piano. Composed in the late 1910s but never published, it was based on a broken-down player piano at Twaify's on Eighth Street in La Salle. He imitated as much as many of the instrument's characterisics as he could, including "its wheezing performance, wrong and missing notes, the asthmatic pedal, the flapping roll," all on a fully working instrument.
     In an effort to support himself during college, Zez logically chose performance, and his older brother Jim stepped in to help him out. They formed an orchestra, then even opened their own venue, The Kaskasia Hotel, to feature it, as well as engaging in occasional short performance tours. This was interrupted by The Great War (World War I). His 1917 draft card lists him as a music teacher living in La Salle. Zez ultimately joined the Navy, where he ended up entertaining the sailors more than serving with them. One of his performing partners during his stint in the show Leave It To Sailors was a talented violinist from Waukegan, Illinois named Benjamin Kubelsky. He later started telling jokes between tunes and soon changed his stage name to Jack Benny.
     When Zez was fresh out of the Navy he sought to expand his exposure by successfully auditioning for the QRS Piano Roll Company, making it clear that he felt his arranging skills would help their rolls sell better. During his six-plus years there he proved that contention to be accurate. In all he made at least one hundred twenty five rolls for QRS, and perhaps several more that have not been positively identified as they were released under pseudonyms. Zez secured a job as a manager with publisher G. Schirmer in Chicago in 1919, a branch dealing mostly with vaudeville singers. From there, it was a natural progression that his next step would be composition.
     After a few interesting pieces, Zez pulled My Pet out of his hat in 1921 (possibly a couple of years earlier). Where Felix Arndt's Nola had broken some new ground six years earlier in the use of seemingly complex sounding patterns, My Pet threw in a impressionistic harmonic progressions and previously implausible syncopated patterns to define his own brilliant take on the novelty piano genre. It was followed almost immediately by his wildly popular mega-hit Kitten on the Keys, and both were quickly packaged on a Brunswick record, as well as arranged for piano roll.
     In the midst of a barrage of interesting solos that would follow, he penned Stumbling, an instrumental that became his most popular vocal song. It came about when Zez watched a postman doing his duty amidst snowdrifts during a winter storm. The piece was used gratuitously throughout the movie Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1967. Some of the sides he did for Brunswick were repeated in 1921 and 1922 for the Emerson label, and he performed Kitten on the Keys on a celebrated Edison Diamond Disc as well on the last day of 1921.
     Publisher Jack Mills was thrilled to have Confrey as one of his prime composers. Confrey had experienced rejection by many publishers who thought his pieces were outlandishly difficult for the average pianist, and was reluctant to even present them to the adventurous entrepreneur. However, Mills saw the sales potential by promoting their musicality as well as making sure they were available on phonograph records. This created a successful paradox where even hack amateurs were so sure they could play what they heard on those recordings that they bought Confrey tunes by the thousands, only to discover their own limitations as represented by the apparent complexity. In truth, Zez Confrey novelties mostly consisted of simple patterns, and had they taken the time to master those patterns the learning curve would have been greatly lowered. A very successful folio of Zez Confrey's Modern Course in Novelty Piano Playing was created in 1923 to address this issue, and indeed remained in print for four decades. A ringing endorsement of this was the adoption of this book by the dominant Christensen School of Music with branches throughout the country. Still, in the end, it was the complexity of novelty piano that soured sheet music sales for Mills and other companies in the genre, but money was still to be made in the record business.
     Perhaps the highlight of Confrey's performance career, and indeed a benchmark for jazz music that announced it was here to stay, was the legendary concert that bandleader Paul Whiteman arranged at Aeolian Hall in New York City on February 12, 1924. While most may remember that event as the premiere of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as arranged by Ferdé Grofé, it should also be noted that some of Confrey's compositions were featured as well, and the composer himself rolled out his newest piece, the classically structured Three Little Oddities, along with the bombastic Dizzy Fingers and famous Kitten on the Keys. In fact, the official billing for the concert read, "Paul Whiteman and his Palais Royal Orchestra will offer An Experiment in Modern Music, assisted by Zez Confrey and George Gershwin." After the event he accepted a position creating rolls exclusively for Ampico reproducing pianos, and turned out forty-four over the next three years. In addition, Whiteman had sponsored Confrey's own orchestra as part of his band empire as early as 1922, a dance orchestra which recorded several sides for Victor as well as performed live at many events. Some of these made it overseas on the HMV (His Master's Voice) label as well
     For all of his performance duties, it appears that Zez took the creation of piano rolls more seriously than anything. It is difficult to get a full estimate of the number of rolls he recorded for QRS, Aeolian and other concerns (the number 223 has been suggested), but each of them clearly has his stamp on them. Confrey could take a semi-popular song, as he did with Titina in 1925, and turn it into a novelty masterpiece, sometimes by adding an original section or altering the format of the song. They were also carefully edited after he made the mark-up copies for a very refined performance. His acoustic recordings were more throwaways in some regards, even though some of them indicated as many as 12 takes for a piece, sometimes across two sessions. In on instance, fellow pianist Phil Ohman sat in for Confrey both playing and leading his orchestra. After two years of constant recording with Victor his output appears to have simply dropped off in 1924, perhaps so he could focus on other concerns like composition and traveling with the orchestra. A series of recuts of Confrey pieces was done in 1927 after the advent of electronic recording, but with the exception of one tracks, this time it was Victor's musical director Nat Shilkret at the piano with the "Confrey Orchestra," which was actually the Victor house band.
     As he became more popular, Confrey became a spokesperson in some ways for the advancement of music forms, which is natural since he was part of the transition of ragtime into jazz and novelty tunes. An article from The Music Trade Review of February 25, 1928, read as follows:

     WATERTOWN, N. Y., February 21.- During his concert here at the armory this week, Zez Confrey, composer of "Kitten on the Keys" and other piano novelties, gave a short talk on the development of jazz music in recent years. Standing by his piano, after playing some of his compositions, Mr. Confrey said: "Radio is largely responsible for the change brought about in American dance music. The old-time so-called 'jazz' could not be broadcast with success. Since the introduction of radio several years ago, I have watched this evolution of the small dance orchestra to the present day concert dance orchestra, playing symphonic jazz with its intricate harmonies and pulsating rhythms. The radio has also served to instruct the small town orchestra, and as a result this type of orchestra is better than its prototype of several years ago.

     However, as the 1930s approached, Zez turned more to composition than to performance. An announcement in the October 6, 1928 edition of The Music Trade Review noted the following:

     Zez Confrey, pianist-composer and for many years leader of his own dance orchestra, has just signed an exclusive contract with the Irving Berlin Standard Music Corp., New York, and will place all his compositions with that organization in the future. Mr. Confrey will concentrate on novelty orchestra numbers similar to his famous "Kitten on the Keys," which proved one of the biggest novelty hits ever published. His first release on the order of "Jumping Jack," the firm's present hit, will be introduced shortly both as a novelty piano solo and in orchestra form. The number will be exploited by the organization in a country-wide campaign.
     Mr. Confrey is also working on modern piano instruction books, both for beginners and advanced students. This news should be of real interest to music dealers throughout the country, who have enjoyed a substantial sale of Mr. Confrey's compositions in the past. His novelties all bear the individuality of his style of playing, and he belongs in a class by himself among modern American composers.

     Seger Ellis was a born and bred Texan, the son of bank clerk George Ellis, Jr. and Millien Pillot of Houston. He arrived in the Lone Star State on a hot Fourth of July in 1904. As of the 1910 Census the family, including Seger's younger brother Hampton Ellis (1906) were living with Mildred's parents, Nicholas and Pauline Pillot, in Houston. At the time of the 1920 Census nothing had changed with the extended family's situation, and George was now listed as an assistant cashier in the bank. Hampton would eventually follow in his father's footsteps, but Seger had a different direction in mind.
     Little has been relayed about Seger's musical training, but given his musical capabilities he may have had some light harmony and theory in high school. He also had professional help. He later recalled that there were three piano players in town, Jack Sharpe, Charley Dickson and Peck Kelley. They played at all the parties and made a good living. He would watch them carefully, and finally asked Jack Sharpe for lessons. Sharpe resisted, and tried to thwart the teen by charging five dollars per lesson, a lot of money at that time. But Seger came up with the funds somehow. The lessons consisted of Seger watching Jack play slowly, supplemented by lessons in reading music from another more traditional lady piano teacher.
     Seger's musical education also came from The University of Virginia, and he worked his way through school performing in local venues. Ellis was also obviously immersed in popular music forms, and not just those heard in Texas or Virginia. Since his musical upbringing predated radio, his influences likely came from phonograph records and live performances, perhaps even some vaudeville. Just the same, there was some Texas ragtime style present in his blues performances as well, some of it perhaps from Sharpe.
     In the early 1920s, with the ragtime era rapidly fading and the decade of novelty piano and the jazz age underway, Ellis entered the field of professional music in Houston. He self-published two of his first songs in 1923 and 1924, and formed his own instrumental group playing popular dance music and some early jazz works and blues.
     As radio started to take hold on the American landscape after 1922, station operators first had to establish a stable signal and audience in their respective regions, then look to providing content in order to keep their audience and attract advertisers.

A early publicity portrait of Seger Ellis.

Playing records over the air was not viable in the early days, so the few hours they were on the air every day were filled with live entertainment. In Houston, the station that became KPRC was set up by the Houston Post-Dispatch in a hurry in April 1925 in order to use some equipment they already owned in storage, and to have the exclusive broadcast rights to a speech to be given by commerce secretary (future president) Herbert Hoover. When they signed on for good in May, Seger Ellis as a solo pianist, with his own small group, and with the Lloyd Finlay Orchestra were among the first acts to appear on a semi-regular basis, along with musicians and other artists from around the region. It is probable that Ellis had been on one of the other pioneer Houston stations before 1925, but confirmation of this was difficult to pin down.
     However, prior to his radio debut, Ellis was "discovered," even though that discovery took a few months. Victor Records, which along with Columbia was one of the predominant record companies in the United States, had been experiementing with electronic recording in early 1925. In order to quickly build up their repertoire and stable of artists to keep their market share and appeal to regional artists, they sent some of their first electronic field units around various parts of the country to find and record new talent. In mid-march they came to Houston where Victor engineers spent a few days auditioning and recording various acts.
     Among those were the Lloyd Finlay Orchestra with Seger at the piano, and on March 17th and 18th, 1925, they recorded several sides, four of the takes which were released, two of them Ellis compositions. As Ellis recalled it in a February 1962 Jazz Journal International article, "The Victor A&R man came to town to record Lloyd Finlay's pit band at the Majestic Theater. He wanted to do eight sides, but Finlay was only ready with four numbers and the A&R man, that was Eddied King, had only two with him. Then they heard me playing on the radio... and he came around and asked me for two original numbers."
     The Victor managers in New York were impressed enough with what their engineers returned with that they asked Seger, now a rising star in his native Houston, to come to Camden, New Jersey to record more sides for the label. The performances he laid down were fine, but there were technical issues with the recordings themselves. He ventured their over the summer, and on August 10th through 12th recorded as many as 45 to 50 takes of several of his own compositions, and a couple of others that he knew. However, the difficulties of early electronic recording and lack of experience on what microphones to use for piano solos and how to use them got in the way, and in the end only three of those sides, Prairie Blues and Sentimental Blues, were deemed usable. Several other takes were put on hold or destroyed. Still, he is among the first Victor artists, perhaps the first pianist to record commerical solo jazz and blues piano sides electronically to disc during the nationwide crossover to this technology between 1925 and 1927.
     These first two released tracks do tell us a bit about the evolving style of the 21-year-old pianist. Prairie Blues is a laid back piece with elements of a strong barrelhouse left hand - more of a left hand vamp that is chord based rather than the traditional ragtime bass.

Seger Ellis' first vocal side
on Columbia Records.

Each chorus is unique and original, and some phrases of the performance could be characterized as boogie-woogie. Sentimental Blues has both a verse and chorus, and is an eighteen bar blues. His performance plays with both major and minor modes, with a prominent and consistent rolling left hand. Ellis himself noted that "I had a weird left hand. It puzzled everybody... They were all playing one note and a chord then, like Fats Waller... My stuff, it was gutbucket but I deviated slightly from the standard blues changes, put in a few extra chords."
     His style was indiciative of the early East Texas barrelhouse style as performed by other blues and boogie-woogie figures such as Will Ezell and George and Hersal Thomas. This enhances the chance that Seger actually heard, and possibly knew these other players as they roamed throughout the south in the early 1920s. His Ash Can Blues, one of the original Victors that survives in spite of not being issued, is further proof of this, as it has been compared to 31 Blues played by Bob Call, another fine Texas blues pianist. It was backed by one of his first songs, You'll Want Me Back Some Day, reocrded in early 1926.
     In spite of his potential as a dynamic boogie pianist bordering on stride piano, a different path would eventually be chosen for Seger by public acclaim. It started during his radio days or performing in the vaudeville houses in Houston and surrounding areas. Ellis had a relatively high but smooth tenor voice, yet he was reportedly uncomfortable with the prospect of his singing. Given that radio was such an important medium for audio, and that during that period most radio sets had better sound potential than the average acoustic phonograph player, it was a given that his employers at KPRC would want Seger to go with the growing trend of bands with singers. They felt that it was difficult to sustain 90 minutes of piano solos at that time, so they asked him to vocalize. Seger felt his voice was too high to be accepted by the public, but their reaction was quite the opposite, and it was his vocalizing that made him more of a star than his dynamic piano playing did.
     Ellis was again invited back east, this time by Columbia Records, and in November 1926 his career as a handsome and charismatic tenor on the national stage began with the piano and vocal recording of Sunday, Over the next 20 months he would lay down several vocal tracks for Columbia, and these in turn put his picture on a number of sheet music covers, a silent promotion that still worked well for artists and composers in the 1920s and 1930s. Almost simulatneously Ellis began an even longer career playing for Okeh Records after Columbia purchased them. Seger moved to New York around this time.

A 1927 San Antonio window display of the
Seger Ellis QRS roll of Texas Wail Blues.

He recorded both on his own as a pianist/vocalist, with pickup groups of his own choosing labeled as the Seger Ellis and His Orchestra, and with a variety of other artists. Among these were Russell Douglas, The New York Syncopators, the Justin Ring Trio, The Royal Music Makers and The Tampa Blue Trio. He became prominent enough that he warranted his own picture label, something reserved only for the real Okeh stars including Paul Whiteman and Ted Lewis. Between 1926 and 1929 he was the third best selling record artist in the United States.
     One pair of recordings in particular put him in with the top musicians of that period. On June 4, 1929, Ellis provided vocals for S.Posin' and To Be In Love, joined by no less than Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey and drummer Stan King, along with his orchestra leader pal Justin Ring on piano. This was rare in that Louis had rarely worked outside of his own band during this period. That the black Armstrong's first track as an independent was on a date for the white Seger Ellis is of some historical significance. It is also probable that Armstrong played trumpet against Seger's vocal on the recently penned Ain't Misbehavin' in August, 1929. Ellis further wrote arrangements for Armstrong, cornetist Muggsy Spanier, trumpeter Manny Klein, the legendary but troubled Bix Beiderbecke, guitarist Eddie Lang and jazz violinist Joe Venuti, all Okeh artists in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
     Early in 1927 Ellis was invited to the U.S. Music studio to record one of his characteristic pieces. The end result was Texas Wail Blues, also released with minor changes on the QRS label, and which was heavily promoted in Texas. In March 1927 he was back in the Houston area performing it on stage and at music stores both in Houston and San Antonio, later in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

Seger's record of Ain't Misbehavin', possibly featuring trumpet by Louis Armstrong.

It is also a moderate tempo blues in which his left hand style challenges the player mechanism to keep up with his dynamic pseudo-stride pulse. In early 1928 Seger was taken in by the Robbins publishing firm. According to the Music Trade Review of March 3, 1928: "A contract with the Robbins Music Corp., New York, was signed this week by Seger Ellis, popular recording pianist, who is preparing a series of piano solos for publication by this house. Mr. Ellis, a native of Houston, Tex., started working out his own ideas in piano playing and drifted to the jazz and blues style."
     In all, Seger appeared on at least 95 Okeh sides between November 1926 and December 1930, followed by a small quantity of just ten Brunswick recordings through June 1931, primarily as a vocalist, but on rare occasions as a pianist. Four Okeh instrumental sides in particular stand out, as does another interesting vocal. In March 1930 Seger recut his first two blues, Prairie Blues and Sentimental Blues, for Okeh. There is only a slight evolution noticeable in this higher fidelity tracks, but they remain fairly true to his Victor takes. Then he took on the by now ubiquitous St. Louis Blues to great effect. But the A side of that record was his Shivery Stomp, a romp that is a standout among the Seger Ellis piano tracks and his admitted favorite as well. While not overly inventive harmonically, it is a showcase for his heavily chorded left hand barrelhouse style, which includes a couple of cleanly executed scales rising up to the right hand melody. Rhythmically it pulses throughout, but with such a fascinating effect that it borders between music that encourages dance movement and that which encourages concentrated listening. Shivery Stomp was also covered by Bix Beiderbecke, and by Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra ten months before Ellis' own, recording, also on the Okeh label. This time line indicates that Trumbauer may have had an ongoing musical relationship with the pianist (Seger had added vocal to one Trumauer side), and also that it and other pieces obviously predated their composer's recording dates by quite a bit.
     One more interesting track was a vocal with orchestra and piano backing. St. James Infirmary, a venerable New Orleans lament, was recorded on January 21, 1930. It has elements of boogie bass as well as the persistent funerial pulse throughout.

An Ellis picture disc of Shivery Stomp
on the Okeh label.

It also includes a rarely-heard verse that would be controversial even today: "I want sixteen roll-the-dice shooters for my pall bearers; want nineteen women [to] sing my funeral song; sprinkle mari-juana in my coffin, and let those [muter?] hands forget all as they go slowly 'long." It is hard to find this verse elsewhere, and authenticity as to a New Orleans origin is also difficult to establish. But this inclusion does show some early connection between jazz musicians and marijuana, which became more prominent in the coming decades, particularly with a future friend of Ellis, drummer Gene Krupa. As for Ellis himself, the author found no reports of known reefer use.
     While many artists often performed or composed using a pseudonym, Ellis was not known to do this except on an occasion where it was called for. In this case it was Okeh who had a floating band name backing one of their novelty minstrel and country yodelinv vocalists, Emmett Miller. On at least a couple of sides, Seger filled in as Bud Blue, a.ka. Buddy Blue, Buddy Blue and his Texans, and various other contrivances. Other Okeh artists of that period also stepped into the Bud Blue shoes, usually pianist Fred Rich. The group also backed singer Smith Ballew although it appears Ellis had no part in his sessions. Being from Texas, Seger probably took these requests in stride.
     Ellis had toured England in 1928 as a solist, and was once again out of the country for the 1930 Census, so some points of his life at that time are hard to confirm. He was married at that time to a Vivian Ellis fron Angleton, Texas. They arrived in England from New York on April 3, 1930, and returned on May 28 from Cherbourg, France. Whether this was for a music tour or simply a trip (honeymoon?) with his wife is not clear. However, other known band members were not found on either of the ship rosters. It also indicates that the couple was living at that time at 8267 Austria Street in Kew Gardens, a neighborhood in Queens, New York.
     And then it seemed to just end. It is unclear whether Ellis fell out of favor with the public, or with Okeh Records, or just wanted to lay back for a while. His last tracks for a while were recorded in June 1931. The Great Depression was taking hold of the country and the globe, and record sales dropped as much as 85% between 1929 and 1931, given that a radio was cheaper to maintain and was always current. While there has been a lot of speculation on what Ellis was up to during this period, some scant listings have been found for him as a vocalist, mostly in the Houston area. However, he also as a booking agent for talent for several years in the mid 1930s. An article in the Pittsburgh Press of March 28, 1934, confirms that he was living or staying in Cincinnati, Ohio at that time, and had previously won first place in one of their national radio talent contests. There are also mentions of him performing on WLW in Cincinnati where he made a discovery of his own. One of the groups he heard there, and then promoted to fame were The Mills Brothers, who went on to a fairly lucrative career in the 1940s and 1950s, initially under the management of Seger. Ellis contributed songs to their catalog for nearly two decades. He also was partly responsible for the rise of Sammy Cahn (Cohen), who had a stellar career as a songwriter and musician, and his early partner Saul Chaplin. There is otherwise very little mention of Ellis between mid 1931 and mid 1936.
     But he was still to be seen, as well as heard, during this period. His picture still surfaced infrequently on sheet music covers throughout the 1930s. Seger's voice had also been heard in a couple of early sound films for Warner Brothers. Then things started to pick up a bit. In addition to his booking agent duties, there was a short-term gig as a vocalist in the mid 1930s at station KFPG/KMTR (now KLAC) in Los Angeles, California (KMTR is now in Eugene, Oregon). Other indicators show that he stayed in Los Angeles from 1935 to at least 1937, also appearing frequently on KHJ with his orchestra, and performing with Paul Whiteman's orchestra. He also appeared on screen in 1936 in One Rainy Afternoon, singing Secret Rendevous with Margaret Warner.
     In 1935 Ellis started to form a big band, his Choir of Brass. The original consist of the group was four trumpets, four trombones, a clarinet, drums, bass and two pianos. Seger spent more than a year picking personnel and developing unique jazz arrangements for the group with the help of Spud Murphy who had also worked with Benny Goodman's arranger Fletcher Henderson. Out of some 80 arrangements they cut several sides in 1937 which were later released on a long-playing record. This group performed and recorded until 1941, but Ellis' role was mostly as the leader and arranger, as he rarely played piano with them. The Choir of Brass was ahead of its time, and perhaps too early to trend, given their advanced approach to jazz and swing, so the group did not fare well overall. One of their more complex tracks was a brass arrangement of Shivery Stomp.
     During this period Seger started appearing both as a soloist and with his groups at venues in the larger cities, including Los Angeles and New York.

The Seger Ellis Choir of Brass c.1937.

He cut several sides with a more traditional instrumental makeup for the up and coming Decca label in 1937, billed as an orchestra once again (which may have been the Choir of Brass in disguise at times), and was back in business with Brunswick Records the following year into 1939 as Seger Ellis and His "Choir of Brass" on some cuts, and the orchestra on others. On the choir, Seger later told the Jazz Journal International, "The things that band did... if we'd have done them four years later we'd have made a hell of a lot of money. But the publice wasn't ready for it then. Goodman was just breaking the ice with something that he was swinging and loud and he hadn't broken enough to let dverybody in."
     By 1939 Ellis and his orchestra were steadily engaged in the east and got plenty of exposure on national radio broadcasts, mostly with him singing and rarely featured on the piano. Another singer featured with him, starting as early as mid-1938, was his (presumably) second wife, Irene Taylor. (Attempts to find dates of his first divorce and second marriage came up empty.) By 1940 the Brunswick and Vocalion company, which had also issued some Ellis records in 1940, was purchased and consolidated along with most of their contracts. So Seger briefly went back to work once again for a reorganized Okeh label under CBS, largely covering swing music arrangements.
     Working through the summer of 1942, Ellis enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September. His role in the military is unclear, but there are no mentions of him in the Stars and Stripes magazine of the war years, so it may have been more as a soldier than as an entertainer. His stay there was short-lived, and followed by a "defense job." Ellis' marriage to Taylor ended around this time, as did two subsequent marriages over the next few years.
     It is hard to find much of mention of Seger in the press after 1942, except for when his compositions were performed by other artists. There was a short-term