Author of the week MICHAEL J CHAPLIN
The son of cinema legend Charlie Chaplin, talks about stepping out of his famous father’s shadow
Michael J Chaplin is recalling how his famous father, silent movie great Charlie Chaplin, scared him. “He was a loving father but he could be explosive,” he says.
“He could get very angry. I was a little bit frightened of him. I was nothing like him.
“I identified much more with my mother. She was a very important force in making me read books.”
As the second of eight children from Chaplin’s fourth (and last) marriage to British actress Oona O’neill, Michael, 77 grew up in a country pile called Manoir de Ban in Switzerland.
His dad had been exiled from the US in 1952, suspected of communism in the Mccarthy witchhunt (an allegation he consistently denied).
Michael – an actor who himself has been married twice and has seven children and 12 grandchildren – says his relationship with his father was difficult at times. He looked up to him, but the sheer power and success of the man left his son trying for many years to find purpose.
It has taken him decades to bring his debut novel, A Fallen God, to fruition and he says it’s brought him by far the biggest sense of achievement professionally he’s ever had.
The novel is a retelling of the medieval mythical romance of Tristan and Isolde set in 13th century France, told from the perspective of cuckolded King Mark.
The love triangle involves passion, anger and loss – emotions the author has experienced at different parts of his life. He can relate to the narrator Mark, whom he describes as a dreamer.
“I think I’ve lacked the kind of energy my father had,” he says.
But he found writing the book therapeutic. “I had to come to terms with my anger. It was a great shot of energy to put my own life into it.”
Growing up, he recalls how his father would drum into him the importance of education, which was a challenge to a youngster with undiagnosed dyslexia who didn’t excel at school.
“The great difficulty between him and me was that I couldn’t absorb anything at school. I’d just look out of the window and dream. I couldn’t spell, and he thought this was laziness, until in the 1950s they discovered dyslexia.
“He would tell me how important an education is, how your only defence against poverty is having an education. He hadn’t had one, but didn’t do too badly. His education was in the streets and in music halls. I’d have loved that kind of education, not sitting in the classroom.”
Charlie was the son of music hall performers who split when he was a boy. He hardly knew his father, who was frequently away performing.
“He didn’t see much of his dad and never mentioned him,” Michael recalls. “He talked about his mother a lot, recalling anecdotes about her at the table while we were eating.”
As a boy, Michael was aware of his father’s success.
“He took us to Japan, where crowds gathered around him. As a young boy, I went to the opening of Limelight in London. It was overwhelming. I hadn’t seen that in America – I was six when we left – because he didn’t really involve us in his work.”
Charlie gave Michael a part in one scene in Limelight (1952) and then cast him in A King In New York a few years later.
“It was a great experience. At last I could do something for him and not be the guy who’s last in class. He gave me all his attention. But it didn’t last.”
At home in Switzerland, his father was a powerful presence.
“When television arrived, he was dead against it. But in his old age, he spent all his time in front of the TV,” Michael recalls.
What would Chaplin Snr have made of the digital world we live in today? “I don’t think he would have got excited about it. He worked with his body, with his physicality, it was a very good language. He could speak every language just by mime.”
Michael left home for London in 1962, aged 16, to pursue a girl he had met on holiday in Ireland, telling his mother he was going camping.
The girl’s mum put him up. To make ends meet, he did jobs from selling fruit and vegetables to decorating parties for debutantes. When he returned to Switzerland for Christmas two years later his dad refused to speak to him.
“My mother forced him to accept me back. If he wanted to know something, he’d tell my mother, ‘Ask him...’ He wouldn’t directly ask me.”
Michael says being Charlie Chaplin’s son affected him “more than I would admit to, but I try not to let that come into my relationships”.
Michael had a brief acting and producing period, and later ran a goat farm for 14 years in rural south-west France.
When his dad died in 1977, he went through a “big crisis, big depression. My wife and daughters and my son had to put up with that. I was smoking a lot of dope, drinking.
“Luckily, my wife didn’t walk out on me and writing the book helped me. Maybe you have to go through these moments to be stronger.”
The depression lasted until the death of his mother in 1991, who had herself struggled since Chaplin’s death. “She tried to have a new life, but she couldn’t cope. It was difficult to see,” says Michael.
He moved back to the family home in Switzerland with his brother and his family and started writing there. The house has since been turned into a museum.
Michael and Patricia, his wife of more than 50 years, moved to Malaga five years ago, where they stay in the winter. They also have an apartment in Lausanne, Switzerland.
“I’ve never felt belonging to a particular place,” he reflects.
■ A Fallen God by Michael J Chaplin is published by The Book Guild Ltd,.