Little big man

Michael Parkinson

,.MY Life In Pictures Charles Chaplin (Bodley Head £6.95) I was reared in a cinema. It was the haven of my fantasies. I became a journalist because I wanted to cradle the telephone under my chin, wear a snap brim trilby and smoke a Camel without making my eyes water, just like I'd seen a thousand times in all the movies. pecause of the cinema I knew what New York looked like before I ever went there. At the age of nine or ten I was familiar with the manner and style of American cab drivers, and I knew u,ow to order a dry martini long before I needed tne information. knIndeed the first time I experimented with my owledge of the American route to a ruined 'shier was at the opening of a cocktail bar in arrIsleY. If such an establishment seems unlikely in the land of strong ale where men

stand shoulder to shoulder, knee deep in

sawdust, and drink enough beer to float a minesweeper I must confess that it was not exactly a raging success and closed almost as suon as it opened. But not before it had claimed une victim: me.

I

(chose my partner for the evening carefully 1s.he was, I recall, Miss Stocking Factory of '53) and escorted her into the new bar. She ordered a port and lemon (she was short on ill and 1 decided to show off. I said to the :arrnan: . "A port and lemon for the lady," and .11e. didn't bat an eyelid. "What's tha' want rnssen," he said, which is the way barmen talk nJ3arnsley's swishest drinking establishments.

vodka said. martini, rocks, lemon twist, no olive," I lira' what?" he said.

I repeated my order, loudly this time because fad the attention of the bar. He looked at me ,°.r a minute then turned his back, and busied 'ainself with the order. Miss Stocking Factory Was looking at me with enraptured eyes, the rest of the clients quite obviously envied my 7-Iran of the world panache. The barman turned ve°1-1.1, his endeavours and presented me with his j„ rsion of a vodka martini. It was dark brown colour, had a head on it like a good stout and ciwas served in a pint pot. Moreover, it had half a °. en cherries floating in its foam. ha 1t was a supreme invention of one man who „,,..0 never heard of a vodka martini to another iouo knew how to say it but didn't know what it e,',3ked like. I drank it because I had to with 4rY person in the bar looking on. I remember vio'l,e of the rest of the evening except being inigehnttly ill and throwing away any chance I be fte " have had of making it with my local 1-1 tY queen. The bar closed down shortly

rw a rds, and if I had taken two vodka (Barnsley style) instead of the one it ould have been closed down a darned sight

` ur, e possibly at the insistence of the local 43rmier.

All t • his is by way of a. 'Preamble to illustrate love for the movies, and to describe the had on my young, impressionable

ve Looking back I can see that, during those anarrs I went four nights a week to the movies, e. 'mat happened was that one spotty adoles47t's life, shot in grainy black and white, was tianced by technicolour. Save one other it ng, more lasting and much more important. was in the cinema that I discovered the l'ortance and the seriousness of humour. Iito.,? until 1 first saw a Charles Chaplin film our had been a belly laugh: Old Mother

Riley, George Formby, Frank Randle, Abbott and Costello in a series of movies aimed no higher than the navel. They made me laugh and laugh, but it was Chaplin who made me laugh and think. He was the first comedian I saw who made me curious about his background, about where he came from arid in which direction he was going. There were certain things I knew about him just by looking at him. I detected his working class background because of the very aggression of this little man. The point about Chaplin's classic comic invention is that although a figure of fun he is about as vulnerable to the ways of the wicked World as a radiation proof bomb shelter. He is a survivor and he survives because he kicks people up the backside when they are not looking, steals, lies and loots to keep alive. But he never goes under. The other thing I discerned about Chaplin without knowing a thing about him was the tap root of his best gags and the reason for his immaculate timing was a background in music hall.

Since that time I have read everything there is to read about him, and most of it pretentious nonsense, which is why Charles Chaplin, My Life in Pictures is so welcome. It is no more, no less than a family album of Chaplin's life with an effective foreword by Francis Wyndham and the odd caption provided by Chaplin. It is, however, a necessary purchase for anyone who sees the real and unique contribution Chaplin made to the cinema, and who can appreciate the incredible story of the boy raised in a London orphanage, who became a millionaire and made movies that will be treasures when all of us are dust.

As Francis Wyndham says in his forward: Charles Chaplin is doubly a genius — as a performer and as a maker of films. This synthesis places him beyond comparison with any of his 'rivals' in either sphere. No artist since Dickens has combined the widest popular snccess with the highest critical acclaim the way Chaplin has. . . To say that Chaplin 'dates' is as crass as to submit his work to the straitjacket of any fashionable interpretation: Freudian, IVIarxiSt, Existentialist or Sassurian. He can no more-be 'dated' than he can be 'up to date'; like all great artists he is essentially dateless.

Wyndham's essay is a necessary introduction to the book but it is the pictures that tell the tale. The tiny face in the group picture at the Hanwell School for Orphans and Destitute Children, looks shy and vulnerable. The stills from his films reveal the essential athletic beauty and grace that stamped all his appearances; at the end of the book there are pictures of him in 1972 in Hollywood receiving his honorary Oscar in a land which had first received him, then adored him, then doubted him and finally, and not before time, asked him to forgive them and return. Chaplin's terse caption to the Oscar picture is: "I was touched by the gesture but there was a certain irony about it somehow." Quite.

Chaplin was always the man I most wanted to interview and when my chance came it was too late. What should have been a celebration of his genius would simply have been a sad reminder of an old man, and I didn't want any part of that. I prefer to remember him as he is captured throughout the book, designing and demonstrating a new vocabulary for the cinema.

One final word: £6.95 is a lot of money for a book and today, when you can pay three quid for rubbish, you have to buy carefully. If I pay the-asking price for a book like this I demand it meets certain standards of design and quality. This book meets them all. It is superbly produced by Bodley Head, and David King's design is simply marvellous. It is right and fitting that a man who developed wild imaginings into meticulously assembled works of art should have the evidence of his genius constructed in the same way. And it has been done.

Michael Parkinson hosts a weekly television programme.