Due to his position as a celebrity and film
artist, Charlie Chaplin was no stranger to public
scrutiny and critique. Early in his career,
he was castigated for not serving in World
War I and then for a troubled marriage or
two. And then there was the issue of taxpaying
that seemed to plague him throughout his
life in America. These are not the only
areas of public critique, but are perhaps
the most well known. Lesser-known and/or
summarily forgotten is the controversy Chaplin
endured in order to be decorated by the
French government. His goal was always to
receive the highly-regarded Legion d’Honneur
medal, equivalent to an English knighthood,
but his acquisition of this medal and its
attendant respect and honor took nearly
ten years and probably ten times the difficulty
it needed to. In honor of the 75th anniversary
of Charlie Chaplin’s receipt of the medal on March
27, 1931, I would like to dedicate this
newsletter to its story.
 The
story must begin, really, with Charlie’s
first trip back to Europe in September/October
1921. While most of his focus on this
trip was on London and his first homecoming
there since moving to America to work
in films, Charlie Chaplin and his party made three
trips to Paris as part of the itinerary.
Certainly, meeting the French public who
greeted him as “Charlot” for the first
time, was an important part of these visits,
but also there seemed to be a sort of
promise to Charlie that he would be “decorated,”
whatever that term happened to mean at
the time. On the third trip to Paris,
ostensibly to attend the French premiere
of The Kid at the Trocadero,
“it” happened, but the decoration was
for something called “Officier de l’Instruction
Publique”—an award given to public school
teachers in France. After all this effort,
Charlie still didn’t receive the award
he was after and returned to the States
empty-handed, although his account of
it in My Trip Abroad reveals
none of this disappointment:
“Mary [Pickford] and Doug [Fairbanks]
are very kind in congratulating me,
and I tell them of my terrible conduct
during the presentation of the decoration.
I knew I was wholly inadequate for the
occasion. […] Then they wanted to see
the decoration, which reminded me that
I had not looked at it myself. So I
unrolled the parchment and Doug read
aloud the magic words from the Minister
of Instruction of the Public and Beaux
Arts which made Charles Chaplin, dramatist
artist, an Officier de l’Instruction
Publique.” |
