When Charlie Met Joan
The Tragedy of the Chaplin Trials and the Failings of American Law
Exploring the lasting impacts of the Little Tramp’s real-life courtroom drama
Description
Charlie Chaplin, the silent screen’s “Little Tramp,” was beloved by millions of movie fans until he starred in a series of salacious, real-life federal courtroom dramas. The 1944 trial was described by ace New York Daily News reporter Florabel Muir as “the best show in town.” The leading lady was a woman under contract to his studio—red-haired ingénue Joan Barry, Chaplin’s protégée and former mistress. Although he beat the federal criminal trial, Chaplin lost a paternity case and had to pay child support despite blood type evidence that proved he was not the child’s father.
A decade later during the Cold War, the U.S. government used the Barry trials as an excuse to bar the left-leaning, sexually adventurous, British-born comic from the country he had called home for forty years. Not only did these trials have a lasting impact on law; they also raise concerns about the power of celebrity, Cold War politics, the media frenzy surrounding high-profile court proceedings, and the sorry history of the casting couch. When Charlie Met Joan examines these trials from the perspective of both parties, asking whether Chaplin was unfairly persecuted by the government because of his left-leaning political beliefs, or if he should have been held more accountable for his cavalier treatment of Barry and other women in his life.
Diane Kiesel is a retired judge of the New York Supreme Court. Her other books include She Can Bring Us Home: Dr. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee, Civil Rights Pioneer, and Domestic Violence: Law, Policy, and Practice.
Reviews
“Although most aspects of Chaplin’s life have received plenty of attention, these trials have not been the subject of sustained treatment—which is curious, given this was a sensational courtroom drama which had long-term consequences for Chaplin himself. The book not only responds to an obvious gap in the writing about a well-known star, it is particularly timely in the wake of the #Metoo movement and the trial of Harvey Weinstein. The author shows an expert knowledge of Chaplin and his world, and her legal background enables an unusual precision in handling the legal dimension of the trials.”
- Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield
“When Charlie Met Joan is the definitive account of the scandal that brought down one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history—and a perfect case study of how powerful but sexually immature old men can be destroyed by their weakness for beautiful but unstable young women. Diane Kiesel tells this lively story of lechers, gold-diggers and the prurient public, with a historian’s rigor and a judge’s clarity.”
- Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age
“This is a story that will captivate the general reader and scholar alike and the author is the perfect person to tell it. Chaplin is an inherently fascinating historical character. He was deeply flawed, and rightly morally condemned for many of his actions, including those mentioned in this forensic and readable analysis. But this did not make him guilty of all of the charges laid before him, and thus there is a fascinating story to tease out. This page-turner of a brilliant book does just that.”
- Richard Carr, Anglia Ruskin University, author of Charlie Chaplin: A Political Biography From Victorian Britain to Modern America