BRUTALITY OF SHOW BUSINESS: 1/8: Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Scott-Eyman/dp/1982176350
Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin’s fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War II, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold.
Politics aside, Chaplin had another problem: his sexual interest in young women. He had been married three times and had had numerous affairs. In the 1940s, he was the subject of a paternity suit, which he lost, despite blood tests that proved he was not the father. His sexuality became a convenient way for those who opposed his politics to condemn him. Refused permission to return to the US after a trip abroad, he settled in Switzerland and made his last two films in London.
In Charlie Chaplin vs. America, Scott Eyman explores the life and times of the movie genius who brought us such masterpieces as City Lights and Modern Times. “One of the finest surveys of the man and the artist ever written” (Leonard Maltin) this book is “a sobering account of cancel culture in action.” (The Economist)
1915
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor. |
| 0:10.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:12.6 | It is the late 19th century Christmas Day. |
| 0:16.9 | A young child proceeds to the dining hall to receive his Christmas gift. |
| 0:23.2 | The Lambeth Workhouse, Workshop Workhouse. |
| 0:26.6 | These are mostly young men, young boys who have no parents or the parents are not |
| 0:31.9 | responsible for them at the moment and their wards of the state momentarily. |
| 0:36.0 | One of those small children is Charlie Chaplin. |
| 0:38.7 | This scene plays again and again throughout the book, in my mind, Charlie Chaplin versus America, |
| 0:44.7 | when art, sex, and politics collided. Scott Eamon is the author. I welcome Scott now. This scene, |
| 0:51.9 | Scott, I return again and again to it in your careful analysis of Charlie Chaplin's |
| 0:57.6 | spectacular career. He tells the story, I imagine, more than once. He also uses the image of oranges |
| 1:04.6 | on Christmas to his own children when they are not appreciative of the wealth that they grew up in. |
| 1:11.6 | What happened to Charlie Chaplin? |
| 1:13.6 | I imagine he was some six, seven, eight years old. |
| 1:16.6 | What happened to Charlie Chaplin that day? |
| 1:18.6 | Good day to you, Scott. |
| 1:20.6 | Good day to you, John. Thanks for having me. |
| 1:23.6 | The story was told to me by Chaplain's son, Sydney. |
| 1:28.2 | Sidney Chaplin was named after Chaplin's brother, Sydney, for very good reasons that we can get into later. |
| 1:34.3 | Sidney Chaplin told me that he would go over to his father's house in Switzerland for Christmas, |
| 1:41.2 | and the tree would be 15 feet tall and hundreds of presents under it because |
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