Eventually, a firm of lawyers representing an Eastern circuit of theatres came to the rescue. They wanted control of the company and were willing to pay us $12,000,000 – $7,000,000 in cash and $5,000,000 in stock. This was a godsend.
‘Look,’ I said to Mary, ‘give me five million in cash now and I’ll get out and you can have the rest.’ She agreed and so did the company.
After weeks of negotiating, documents were drawn up to that effect. Eventually my lawyer called up and said: ‘Charlie, in ten minutes you will be worth five million.’
But ten minutes later he telephoned: ‘Charlie, the deal’s off. Mary had the pen in her hand and was about to sign, then suddenly said: “No! Why should he get the five million dollars now, and I have to wait two years for mine?” We argued that she was getting seven million dollars – two million dollars more than you. But her excuse was that it would create problems with her income tax.’ That had been our golden opportunity; later we were forced to sell for a considerable amount less.
*
We returned to California and I completely recovered from the ordeal of Monsieur Verdoux, so I began ruminating ideas again. For I was optimistic and still not convinced that I had completely lost the affection of the American people, that they could be so politically conscious or so humourless as to boycott anyone that could amuse them. I had an idea and under its compulsion I did not give a damn what the outcome would be; the film had to be made.
The world, no matter what modern veneer it may assume, always loves a love story. As Hazlitt says, sentiment is more appealing than intellect and is also the greater contribution to a work of art. And my idea was a love story; besides, it was something completely opposite to the cynical pessimism of Monsieur Verdoux. But, what was more important, the idea stimulated me.
Limelight required eighteen months’ preparation. There were twelve minutes of ballet music to compose, which presented an almost insuperable task because I had to imagine the action of the ballet. In the past I had composed music only when my film was completed and I could see its action. Nevertheless, by imagining the dancing I composed all the music. But when it was completed I wondered whether it was suitable for ballet, for the choreography would more or less have to be invented by the dancers themselves.
Being a great admirer of André Eglevsky, I thought of him in the ballet. He was in New York, so I phoned him and asked him if he would be willing to do his ‘Bluebird’ dance to different music and if he could suggest a ballerina to dance with him. He said he would have to hear the music first. The ‘Bluebird’ dance is to the music of Tchaikovsky and lasts forty-five seconds. I had therefore composed something for that length of time.
We had been months arranging the twelve minutes of ballet music and had recorded it with a fifty-piece orchestra and I was anxious to get their reaction. Eventually Melissa Hayden, the ballerina, and André Eglevsky flew out to Hollywood to hear it. I was extremely nervous and self-conscious as they sat and listened, but, thank God, both approved and said it was balletique. It was one of the thrilling moments of my film career to see them dance to it. Their interpretation was most flattering and gave the music a classic significance.
In casting the girl’s part I wanted the impossible: béauty, talent, and a great emotional range. After months of searching and testing with disappointing results I eventually had the good fortune to sign up Claire Bloom, who was recommended by my friend Arthur Laurents.
Something in our nature makes us forget hate and unpleasant things. The trial and all the acrimony that went with it evaporated like the snows. In the interim Oona had had four children: Geraldine, Michael, Josie and Vicki. Life in Beverly Hills was now pleasant. We had also established a happy ménage and everything worked well. We had open house on Sunday and saw many of our friends, among them Jim Agee, who had come to Hollywood to write a script for John Huston.
Will Durant, author and philosopher, was also in Hollywood lecturing at U.C.L.A. He was an old friend and occasionally dined at our house. They were amusing evenings. Will, an enthusiast, who needed no stimulant to intoxicate himself but life itself, once asked me: ‘What is your conception of beauty?’ I said I thought it was an omnipresence of death and loveliness, a smiling sadness that we discern in nature and all things, a mystic communion that the poet feels – an expression of it can be a dustbin with a shaft of sunlight across it, or it can be a rose in the gutter. El Greco saw it in our Saviour on the Cross.
We met Will again at a dinner at Douglas Fairbanks Jr’s house. Clemence Dane and Clare Boothe Luce were there. I first met Clare many years before in New York at W. R. Hearst’s fancy dress ball. She was ravishingly beautiful that night in an eighteenth-century costume and a white wig, and was quite charming until I heard her wrangling with my friend George Moore, a cultured and sensitive man. In the midst of her coterie of admirers, she was dressing him down quite audibly: ‘You seem to be a bit of a mystery: how do you make your money?’
This was rather cruel, especially in the presence of others. But George was sweet and answered laughingly: ‘I sell coal, play a little polo with my friend Hitchcock, and here’ (I happened to be passing), ‘my friend Charlie Chaplin knows me.’ My impression of her changed from that moment. And I was not
