The Manager Who Discovered a Genius

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 22

The Manager Who Discovered a Genius

Chaplin Started at £3 a Week but Soon Increased His Salary to £3OOO ! . . . Used to Wear One Collar a Fortnight, but Kept Spats For Travelling.

Fred Kamo, veteran English producer, writing in “Titbits’ ‘ recalls his early associations with the world's greatest comedian. ■“a CAN claim to have given V a start to more artistes P now at the top of the tree than any other m] man in the country. •S One of my earliest “finds” was Charlie Chaplin, who was brought to me by his brother Syd after he had been with me for some time. When I first saw Charlie he struck me, I must say, as far too shy to do much good on the stage, especially in the kind of knockabout work in which I specialised. He had almost a shrinking air. I asked him what he had been doing, and he told me he had been a member of a team called the “Eight Lancashire Lads.” I told him I would give him a start, and after he had been with me for a week or two I singled him out for a part in the “Football Match.” It did not take me long to discover that Charlie could not only fool cleverly, but act. So I made him the Drunk in “Mumming Birds,” giving him then £3 a week. Over that he was very bucked. Those Snow-White Spats When we went on tour, I saw some of Charlie’s eccentricities. For weeks on end he would go about, in and out of the theatre, looking like a tramp—a grotesque figure, with a dirty, unshaven face, and boots that were unpolished and laceless. I have known him wear a collar for a fortnight. But at a train call there was a transformation. Charlie turned up at the station immaculate, sporting new wash-leather gloves the colour of butter, snowy white spats, spotless collar and cuffs, and a faultless soft felt hat set at a jaunty angle. He never missed anything. When I was rehearsing the others or preparing a new show in which there were people who had not previously worked with me, he stood on one side, watching every movement, despite the far-away look in his’ eyes that millions have seen on the screen. He was so much on the spot that sometimes, when 1 despaired of getting a person to do a thing in a certain way, he jumped forward, and said:— “Let me show them, guv’nor, will you? And then he would make the exact movements I wanted.

He had c shrinking air, but / told lb* . J'd. give him a start. About 1910 I was short of a man to send to America for a “Mumminf Birds” company, and my choice * ai practically restricted to Syd Chaplin and his brother Charlie. Syd 1 thought too valuable to be epared and consequently I decided to send Charlie after I had taken certain ptr cautions. Hollywood was starving for fun*! men, and people like Mack Senuott kept on drawing recruits from company. They saw -that Frw Karno's “comics” were just the typ* they wanted for slap-stick come®and, as a result, about once a monS I had a cable from my business ®ar ager: “So-and-so left today for aJ* ture contract. Send another co®*v ian quickest possible.” I got tired of involuntarily act® as purveyor-general to the n€W ‘uj! movies. So I resolved to do m>' to keep Charlie. “I'm going to send you over toi w States,” I told him; “but I shall Ma cast-iron contract with you. ' c ; know how many of my men over have cut adrift and gone to Sennaj and other picture people. I w-ant to provide you with a free P*_ sage and then find you quitting in the same way.” , . Charlie grinned. “There’s no of that, guv’uor.” ho said. “I c 0 . never see myself being fuuny in v of a camera. It would be like P ing to the Wood family” (play* llß empty benches)! Not long afterward he was dra < about £3,000 a week for being fa in front of a camera! , t ; Well, aw ay he went. One . received a cable from Kansas -j “Charlie gone.” As a result * to close down the show till I c ° u , c f cast the company, and it was l al p for six weeks. But Charlie ana i correspond on the most friendly t*