The following weeks were like a Kafka story. I found myself engrossed in the all-absorbing enterprise of fighting for my liberty. If convicted on all counts, I would be facing twenty years’ imprisonment.
After the preliminary hearing in court, photographers and Press had a field day. They barged into the Federal Marshal’s office over my protestations and photographed me while I was being fingerprinted.
‘Have they a right to do this?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said the Marshal, ‘but you can’t control these fellows.’
This was an official of the Federal Government talking.
Now the Barry child was old enough to take a blood-test. A clinic was chosen by mutual agreement of her lawyer and mine, and Barry, her child and I submitted to the test.
Later my lawyer called up, his voice vibrant. ‘Charlie, you are exonerated! The blood-test proves that you cannot be the father!’
‘This,’ I said emotionally, ‘is retribution!’
The news created a momentary sensation in the Press. Said one newspaper: ‘Charles Chaplin exonerated.’ Said another: ‘Blood-test definitely proves Chaplin not to be father!’
Although the result of the blood-test embarrassed the Federal Government it continued to pursue the case. As it drew near I was obliged to spend long dreary evenings at Giesler’s house, going over every depressing detail of how and when I had met Joan Barry. An important letter came from a Catholic priest living in San Francisco, stating that he had information that Barry was being used by a fascist organization, and that he would be willing to come from San Francisco to Los Angeles to give evidence to that effect. But Giesler dismissed the matter as irrelevant.
We also had plenty of damaging evidence concerning Barry’s character and her past. On these angles we had been working for several weeks, when one night, to my surprise, Giesler suddenly announced that attacking her character was old stuff, and although successful in the Errol Flynn trial, it would not be necessary here. ‘We can win this case easily without using all this crap,’ he said. It might be crap to Giesler, but the evidence we had of her background was very important to me.
I also had letters from Barry apologizing for all the trouble she had caused me and thanking me for all my kindness and generosity. These letters I wanted in evidence because they would have refuted the vicious stories of the Press. For that reason I was happy that the scandal had come to a head, for now the Press would have to print the truth and I would be exonerated at least in the eyes of the American public – so I thought.
At this point I must mention a word about Edgar Hoover and his F.B.I. organization, because, this being a Federal case, the F.B.I. was very much involved in trying to get evidence for the prosecuting attorney. I had met Hoover at dinner many years ago. After one has overcome a rather brutal face and broken nose, one finds him quite agreeable. On that occasion he spoke to me enthusiastically about attracting a fine type of man into his service, including law students.
And now a few nights after my indictment Edgar Hoover was in Chasen’s Restaurant, sitting three tables away from Oona and me with his F.B.I. men. At the same table was Tippy Gray, whom I had seen sporadically about Hollywood since 1918. He would appear at Hollywood parties, a negative, easy-going type with a perpetual vacuous grin that rather irritated me. I took it for granted that he was a playboy or a small-bit man in films. Now I wondered what he was doing at Hoover’s table. As Oona and I got up to leave, I turned just as Tippy Gray turned, and for a second our glances met. He grinned non-committally. Then I suddenly understood the invaluable use of that grin.
At last the day of the trial came. Giesler told me to meet him outside the Federal building punctually at ten minutes to ten so that we could walk into court together.
The courtroom was on the second floor. When we entered it our appearance made little stir – in fact members of the Press now ignored me. They would get plenty of material from the trial itself, I supposed. Giesler parked me in a chair, then circulated about the courtroom talking to several people. It seemed everyone’s party but mine.
I looked at the Federal Attorney. He was reading papers, making entries, talking and laughing confidently with several men. Tippy Gray was there, and every once in a while he would cast a furtive glance at me, and grin non-committally.
Giesler had left paper and pencil on the table to make notes during the trial, so in order not to just sit and stare I began drawing. Immediately Giesler hurried over. ‘Don’t doodle!’ he whispered, snatching the paper from me and tearing it up. ‘If the Press get hold of it, they’ll have it analysed and draw all sorts of conclusions from it.’ I had drawn a little sketch of a river and a rustic bridge; something I used to draw as a child.
Eventually the tension in the courtroom tightened and everyone was in his place. The clerk then banged three times with his gavel and we were off. There were four counts against me: two for the Mann Act and two for some obsolete law that no one had ever heard of since the Civil War, to the effect that I had interfered with the rights of a citizen. First Giesler tried to have the whole indictment dismissed. But that was mere formality; there was as much chance of achieving that as of dismissing an audience from a circus after it had paid admission.
It took two days to select a jury;
