Day 2 – Favorite Female Lead – 30 Day Charlie Chaplin Challenge
This isn’t too hard to decide on: Edna Purviance (second would be Paulette Goddard). From the time Chaplin hired her for her first movie, A Night Out, she definitely had something special.
I don’t remember when I first saw Edna… The Tramp (somehow I got my hands on a narrated version) maybe? Those early days of fandom are a bit fuzzy (25+ years will do that to ya!), but that’s definitely one of the first times I saw her.
Edna and Charlie in A Burlesque on Carmen
Some of my favorite films she was in was Easy Street, Burlesque on Carmen (a satire on the opera Carmen. She plays the flirtatious Carmen. Her parts are great! The “finished” film is a bit long though… thanks a lot Essanay!), Shoulder Arms, and The Kid (heart-wrenching and beautiful!)
And there is that last appearance, a cameo in Monsieur Verdoux, but according to the wonderful Edna Place site, she isn’t there. She did to a reading for a part for Charlie, but in the end, it didn’t work out. She had been rumored for many years to be in the background, and I looked for her, and haven’t seen anyone that looks like her.
They did a\have a romantic relationship off-screen but nothing that led to marriage, and quite frankly, Chaplin was a bit of a cad to her towards the end of their relationship. They did remain friends until she passed away.
But I thought it was sweet on Chaplin’s part to continue to pay her, even after she stopped working for him and up until her death after he was exiled from the United States. One of her last letters to Charlie that he shared in his autobiography was so sweet and funny, and she begs him to come back to America. “You belong here.” Sadly, she did not live long enough to see that happen. She passed away of throat cancer in 1958.
Three great sites (all sister-sites to each other) to find out more about her are:
Edna’s Place – A great blog. Not updated very often (something I can relate to) but has oodles of info
EdnaPurviance.org – The first Edna site I came across many years ago. Also has extensive database of Chaplin books and documentaries. French version is here.
Leading Ladies – Started by Edna’s grand nieces, Lita and Ellie Hill, and later partnered with Linda Wada (of the above two sites) to help preserve Edna’s memory. You can also buy “The Sea Gull”, a book about the film that was going to be Edna’s last film, but mysteriously destroyed by Chaplin.
