US Pushes Charlie Chaplin into Exile

• Author: Allen Pusey
• Pages: 72-72

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US Pushes Charlie Chaplin into Exile

Charlie Chaplin and his family were midway across the Atlantic, London-bound from New York City

aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth, when word reached them that his return to the U.S. was likely to be

complicated.

Chaplin, who never relinquished Brit ish

citizenship, had been g ranted a re-entry

permit. But Attorney G eneral James P.

McGranery waited u ntil Sept. 19, 1952, two

days after the ship set sa il, to announce that

immigration authorities wou ld detain Chaplin

for questioning upon his return. The pur pose,

McGranery suggest ed, was to determine—as

for any new imm igrant—whether the inter na-

tionally known comed ian, 63, had the physical

fi tness, sound mind a nd good morals wort hy

of admittance t o his home of 40 years.

To Chaplin, the move was the latest in a decade slong

campaign again st him—one that intensifi ed with the r ise

of anti-communist polit ics and its bone-deep suspicion

of foreigners, artist s and, most of all, Hollywood. And he

had reason to believe t hat.

McGranery’s announcement, c alculated in its timing,

was later shown to be the product of i ntense FBI scru-

tiny that abetted public at tacks by infl uential politicia ns,

defamatory press a ccounts, national boycotts by citizen-

ship groups, and crimi nal charges tied to his relationship

with a young actres s.

Though never shown to be a member of any partic ular

organization or politica l party, Chaplin was widely

assailed for presumed com munist leanings; and, for his

part, he never denied deep sy mpathies for the powerless

or poor. Reared on the impoverished street s of London,

Chaplin’s work veered far to the left of the self-con scious

capitalism that predomin ated his era. His most popular

fi lms—includi ng Modern Times and The Great Dictator—

carried a worki ng-class bia s against industrialization

and authoritaria nism that meshed poorly with postwar

capitalism and its a nti-communist zeitgeist.

Even worse, he was independent. As one of the origin al

investors in the United Ar tists fi lm studio, Chapli n was

rich—and a capitalist. He ow ned the lucrative rights to

most of his own perform ances and couldn’t

be intimidated by stud io bosses. In the run-up

to World War II he had urged American neu-

trality, but he later abandoned that position.

And during the war he ex pressed support for

the Soviet Union, at the time an al ly. After the

war, he refused to abandon fr iends who had

actually embraced communism.

In 1947, when questione d about his sym-

pathies at a press conference for Mon sieur

Verd ou x, C haplin retorted: “These days, ... if you

step o the curb w ith your left foot, they accuse

you of being a Communist.” And when invite d to appear

before the House Un-American Activ ities Committee, he

shot back a telegram to its c hairman, J. Parnell Thomas:

“I am not a Communist. I am a pe acemonger.”

Chaplin’s public image was furt her complicated by

a lawsuit brought by aspiring act ress Joan Barry, who

claimed the actor, more than 30 yea rs her senior, had

fathered her child. Although blood te sts indicated

Chaplin had not, they were in admissible in California

courts and he lost the c ase. So in 1944, federal prosecu-

tors followed with crim inal charges, alleging tha t a trip

to New York with Barry for “immora l purposes” violated

the White-Slave Tra c Ac t, aka the Mann Act. Though

a jury acquitt ed him, it lent fodder to his critics.

Initially, Chaplin seemed deter mined to fi ght to re-enter

the United States. But in April 1 953, he surrendered his

re-entry per mit to U.S. o cia ls in Switzerland, where he

lived until his death in 1 977.

The measure agains t Chaplin was one of the fi rst uses

of the Immigration and Nationalit y Act, created in 1952.

Aimed at denatural izing and deporting mobsters, it

became a usefu l tool for U.S. o cial s to deter visits by

artists a nd intellectuals—writer Graha m Greene, actor

Yves Montand, po et Pablo Neruda, among many—whose

works (or personal histories) they considered inimica l.

Sept. 19, 1952

72 || ABA JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2018

Precedents || By Allen Pusey

Attorney General

James McGranery

The government ’s crusade

against Chapl in was

one of the fi rst uses

of the Immigrat ion

and National ity Act.