I was peeved to read about his lawless character with young women in the article. I only knew about his fourth wife, a famous New York socialite who left J.D Salinger for Chaplin, essentially. Oona O'Neill (yes, that O'Neill) was something like 18 or 19 when she married Chaplin, but they stayed married until he died over 30 years later.
The article makes it sound like he just raped his way across America, and perhaps he did -- I wouldn't know. It does note that he was accused of this by a Nazi sympathizer, but says that the accusations were essentially true.. About the man who made "The Great Dictator".
The journalist doesn't bother to mention that he did settle down for what was by most accounts a loving relationship, and must have been a successful marriage by any standard.
From what I understand, many of his early marriages were a result of affairs with young "starlets" which resulted in pregnancy and subsequent marriage to avoid legal issues or further career damage. Those early marriages didn't last since they were only based on necessity but when he married O'Neill, they actually made a stable couple.
It's interesting to read about as it's the sort of thing you see in so many other stories about "stars" sleeping with groupies or other admirers, often below the modern age of consent. I've wondered before how much of that has to do with the stereotypical entertainer's lifestyle or what it says about arrested development in performing artists.
Indeed. It seems to be historically common for people in power.
I'd propose that what's different in the last two hundred or so years is that the middle class exists, is large enough and is literate enough to impose its values on 'upper class' citizens, or at least has a large enough media platform to shame them.
In the west, Victorian middle class citizens really took up the idea that social improvement was tied to comportment. We see this kind of thinking all the time still, for instance, I just got an e-mail from Quora with the title "Why do billionaires dress so badly?"
Top answer: because they don't have anyone to impress.
The article makes it sound like he just raped his way across America, and perhaps he did -- I wouldn't know. It does note that he was accused of this by a Nazi sympathizer, but says that the accusations were essentially true.. About the man who made "The Great Dictator".
The journalist doesn't bother to mention that he did settle down for what was by most accounts a loving relationship, and must have been a successful marriage by any standard.