MAGICIAN: 4/8: Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2024
⏱️ 8 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.
1918 BRISBANE OHIO
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bessarus Karaimen. The book is Charlie Chaplin versus America when our sex and |
| 0:10.1 | politics collided. Charlie is a great |
| 0:13.4 | dictator. He makes a speech. Joseph Davies, the ambassador to the Soviet Union, cannot |
| 0:19.9 | attend an event in San Francisco during the Second War and Second Front is the big story. |
| 0:26.1 | Stalin once the second front open. |
| 0:28.0 | Eventually it will be, that's Normandy, 1944. |
| 0:32.2 | But the push for the Second front was widespread. The Soviets at this point are |
| 0:37.2 | counter-attacking the Germans. They are hard-pressed. The U.S. is keeping the |
| 0:40.9 | Soviets in the field with Lend-Lise, but Charlie's has to step in for Joseph |
| 0:45.3 | Davis and San Francisco and makes a Charlie Chaplin speech, all for the second front. |
| 0:50.8 | That incident will become important because of what is about to happen to Charlie with his libertarian, |
| 0:57.0 | libertine understanding of the world. |
| 1:00.0 | A young woman named Joan Berry, that's one of her pseudonyms, comes crashing at his door one Christmas. |
| 1:07.4 | I believe it's 41, Scott, I get lost here. |
| 1:10.6 | 42. |
| 1:11.6 | 42. 42. |
| 1:13.0 | 42. |
| 1:14.0 | Who is Joan Berry? |
| 1:15.8 | Joan Berry had been the mistress of J. Paul Getty in Oklahoma. |
| 1:21.5 | She thought it would be fun to be in the movies. |
| 1:24.0 | She got a letter of introduction that she could use generally. |
| 1:28.0 | She traveled to California, met a number of movie people including Chaplin. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.