Washington Lawyer - March/April 2025 - 38

WORTH READING
When Charlie Met Joan:
The Tragedy of the
Chaplin Trials and the
Failings of American Law
Diane Kiesel
University of Michigan Press, 2025
Review by Jeremy Conrad
C
harlie Chaplin was a superstar
of the early 20th century -
one of the biggest celebrities
of the silent film era, cofounder
of the United Artists distribution
company, and a millionaire.
He was also a notorious womanizer who had a
penchant for pursuing young aspiring actresses.
This proclivity and his outspoken leftist politics
would result in a series of media circus lawsuits
in the 1940s as well as the British national's
eventual exile from the United States.
Retired New York Supreme Court Judge Diane
Kiesel's new book, When Charlie Met Joan: The
Tragedy of the Chaplin Trials and the Failings of
American Law, focuses on Chaplin's relationship
with Joan Barry, his former protégé and mistress.
Barry successfully sued Chaplin for paternity
in 1943, despite a blood test definitively establishing
that the " Tramp " was not the child's
father. Chaplin was also the subject of criminal
prosecution for his actions during the relationship,
facing Mann Act charges for transporting a
woman across state lines for immoral purposes
in 1944. The prosecution was unsuccessful. Finally,
during a 1952 trip abroad, Chaplin's reentry
permit was cancelled by the United States
attorney general, citing his political leanings
and immorality as the basis for the revocation.
Some things have changed since Chaplin's trials.
Scientific evidence that was discounted in
his paternity suit receives a much higher degree
of respect in today's courts, and social attitudes
about sex outside of marriage are considerably
less fraught than they were in the
1940s. But those aspects of the trials involving
scandal, celebrity, and the abuse of power remain
incredibly relevant.
Kiesel does remarkably little proselytization,
however, preferring instead to provide un38
WASHINGTON LAWYER
* MARCH/APRIL 2025
flinching descriptions
of the players
in the drama
as it unfolds. Barry
is a sympathetic
character whose
aspirations make
her easy to manipulate,
but she
is also repeatedly
described as being
erratic and difficult
to manage.
Barry broke into
Chaplin's home
on more than one occasion, threatening him
with a gun at one juncture. Illustrations of her
financial mismanagement, mental health issues,
and sexual dalliances with a variety of
powerful men are balanced with clear examples
of Chaplin's callousness as well as reminders
of the significant power imbalance between
the two.
Chaplin is also permitted some redemption.
Kiesel's assessment of the man includes significant
acknowledgment of the potential political
motivations driving the legal actions taken
against him. His involvement in efforts to support
the Second Front movement during World
War II to bolster Russian efforts against Germany
led Herbert Hoover and others to accuse the
actor of having Communist sympathies.
Having gotten word in 1947 that he would potentially
be summoned before the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee (HUAC), Chaplin
sent a preemptive telegram that said: " While
you are preparing your engraved subpoena,
I will give you a hint where I stand. I am not a
Communist. I am a peace-monger. " Questioned
by Immigration and Naturalization Service District
Director John P. Boyd in 1948, Chaplin gave
a somewhat more pointed answer: " I am sure
that I am not a Communist and my name will
never be connected with any Communist.
I have $30,000,000 worth of business - what
am I talking about Communism for? " HUAC
never ended up summoning Chaplin. While
others were blackballed from Hollywood,
Chaplin was effectively untouchable.
Kiesel finds scant evidence of Chaplin holding
any firm political belief, writing that he might
be called a " Parlour Bolsheviki " at best, fond of
making scandalously leftist comments and socializing
with left-wing radicals. Evidence of the
problematic nature of his sexual interests, however,
is much more abundant and damning.
Although the Mann Act prosecution brought
against Chaplin failed to establish that he transported
Barry across state lines for immoral purposes,
or that he arranged to have her run out
of Hollywood when she became an annoyance,
in violation of her civil rights, it was uncontested
that the 52-year-old star had a sexual
relationship with the 21-year-old Barry.
Nor was the relationship an outlier. As his relationship
with Barry ended, Chaplin met and
married Oona O'Neill, the estranged daughter
of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene
O'Neill. The two were wed just months after
O'Neill's 18th birthday.
Assessing Chaplin against more contemporary
scandal, Kiesel captures the situation's complexity,
writing, " Chaplin's bad behavior pales
next to [Harvey] Weinstein's. Weinstein was a
bullying sexual predator; Chaplin was a charming
womanizer who had a penchant for seducing
girls barely out of adolescence. " However,
the author sees similarities in the role of the
media in demanding justice. Weinstein's reckoning
would land him in prison. Chaplin would
avoid incarceration, but his damaged reputation
lost him his American audience. His later
films did poorly in the United States, though
their reputation has improved as the scandals
that eclipsed his stardom have faded into the
background. Regardless, Chaplin's later years in
Switzerland were not uncomfortable, and he
returned to the United States in 1972, when he
was recognized with an Honorary Academy
Award for his contributions to cinema.
Less is known about the impact on Barry. Her
daughter continued to collect child support
from Chaplin until she turned 21, but Barry was
institutionalized in 1953 at the age of 33. There
is little evidence of what happened to her since,
but Kiesel's research was successful in identifying
the unmarked grave of a woman who died
in 2007 as Barry's likely final resting place.
It is a sad ending to an unhappy story. Today, it
may fall on ears very differently than it did then.
At the time of the Chaplin trials, many perceived
Barry to be a deranged stalker and a
conniving gold-digger. Kiesel's book invites a
reassessment of the individuals and legal processes
in play and provides an opportunity to
reflect on how changes in gender politics, science,
and the law impact our perceptions.
Reach D.C. Bar staff writer Jeremy Conrad at
jconrad@dcbar.org.
Washington Lawyer - March/April 2025

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