After celebrating his 73rd birthday at a salmon-fishing retreat in Ireland, Charlie Chaplin went home last week to the quiet north shore of Lake Geneva, where—both inwardly and outwardly—he has mellowed and found peace of mind. The great comedian stoops a bit. His hair is flashing white.
His pocketcomb mustache is, of course, long since gone. But his eyes have the same wistful sparkle they showed when he was eating the shoe in The Gold Rush; his life seems to be about half over, no more.
But he is not the same old Charlie Chaplin; ten years in Switzerland have changed him a great deal. His outrageous temper is all but gone. His tirades against the U.S. are now infrequent. The headlines he once made for everything from the Great Paternity Suit to Tax Problems to accepting a Kremlin-sponsored "peace prize" (thumb at his nose, fingers pointing west) have vanished, not to be replaced by others. Oxford is about to give him an honorary degree; so is the University of Durham.
Separate Planes. With his wife Oona and his huge family, Chaplin lives in the village of Vevey in a 15-room villa called Manoir de Ban, staffed by 13 servants, including two nannies. From its 69 acres of grass and gardens, the Chaplins have a panoptic view of Lake Geneva and the Mont Blanc range. They seldom go out to mingle with the Swiss, whom Charlie calls "those natives." (Englishman that he is, he has never learned the local French.) But visitors of all sorts make pilgrimages to Manoir de Ban—from old Hollywood cronies to such distinguished guests as India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
When Charlie grows restless, the family travels, usually to Venice, Paris or London, or to the Irish coast, where they have bought a house. Charlie likes to walk the slum streets of London, where he grew up as an orphan. When they travel, the family flies in two or three planes so that no crash could claim all of them.
Charlie's greatest fame in recent years has been his steady siring of children. He has seven by his 36-year-old wife of 18 years*—and she is pregnant again. Oona believes in natural childbirth, a technique she learned with the last baby. Enthusiastically, she declares that all their future children will be delivered by natural childbirth, too. Oona is Charlie's fourth wife, but the first who could manage him.
She has jacketed his whims and quelled his temper. When he walks absentmindedly in the garden, she runs after him with a forgotten topcoat. Loyally, she says she is the only member of the family who thinks Charlie is funny. She talks very little; he never stops. Her fondness for him comes close to worship; she has a closet full of Balenciagas, but she often dresses severely, perhaps to appear nearer her husband's age. Around the house, she wears slacks and sweaters, her hair rubber-banded in a ponytail. Terribly shy, she hates to leave the grounds. Oona is a beautiful woman, with the dark, unfathomed look of her father, Eugene O'Neill.
The children resemble their mother.