Editor’s Note: Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available on Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon.
As you know if you read this paper with any frequency, on May 17 of this year the Catalina Island Museum will be presenting perhaps the most remarkable Silent Film Benefit in the history of that annual event.
Editor’s Note: Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available on Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon.
As you know if you read this paper with any frequency, on May 17 of this year the Catalina Island Museum will be presenting perhaps the most remarkable Silent Film Benefit in the history of that annual event.
The silent classic “City Lights,” directed by (and starring) Charlie Chaplin, will be shown in all its glory while accompanied by a 39-piece orchestra belting out tunes largely written and composed by Chaplin himself.
Everyone loves Charlie Chaplin. He is one of those rare individuals who seems to have transcended the numerous “generation gaps” over the past century. Young people who may not know who Neil Armstrong was or who scratch their heads when they hear the name Glenn Miller, will almost certainly recognize Mr. Chaplin.
As an aside, my own personal brush with the Charlie Chaplin phenomenon came a few years ago while I was doing a film job in the Angeles National Forest. For the three days that I was on location, I had the honor of bunking each night in Charlie’s old loft in none other than Wallace Beery’s cabin. I wish I had a ghost story to relate to you regarding this stay, but alas, Mr. Chaplin made no cameo appearances.
But enough about Charlie. For not as well known as Charlie was his half-brother, Sydney Chaplin, who had quite a few feathers stuck in his cap as well. Like his brother, Sydney had a life-long love affair with Catalina Island.
Not only is Sydney credited with starting the first airline in the United States (which included Catalina Island in its routes), he had an impressive film career as well; a career that in true Hollywood fashion largely ended in scandal.
Sydney was older than Charlie by about four years. Being half-brothers, their common denominator was mother Hannah, a London music hall entertainer. Both boys were raised in Mother England and after giving up a promising seafaring career with Britain’s Merchant Navy, Sydney opted to join brother Charles in Hollywood in the motion picture business.
In the course of their partnership together, the two discovered that mother Hannah had also given birth to yet a third half brother, Wheeler Dryden, who was also an actor as it turned out. The three of them teamed up and worked together off and on until the 1950s.
Sydney was not only an actor, but also tried his hand at directing. One of his first, and probably most successful, efforts was the silent “The Submarine Pirate,” released in 1915. This pioneering comedy was one of the first movies filmed at Catalina using underwater footage. After these initial successes, Sydney began handling most of his brother Charlie’s business affairs, including contract negotiations, a failed sheet music business and a successful marketing business.
While Sydney’s film and agency career was going gangbusters, he began dabbling in another of his passions, aviation. In 1919, he founded Sydney Chaplin Aircraft Corporation and began Chaplin Airlines, arguably the first airline with scheduled air service in the United States. (There is some dispute as to whether that title belongs to Chaplin Airlines or Chalk’s International Airlines, a Florida-based airline that was founded about the same time).
While Chalk’s International Airlines stayed in business until, incredibly, the year 2007, Sydney’s fledgling airline lasted only a couple of seasons, with routes along the California coast, including Avalon Bay.
After bailing out of the airline business, Sydney went on to direct and/or appear in a number of films during the Roaring Twenties, including “The Perfect Flapper (1924),” “Charley’s Aunt (1925),” “The Better ‘Ole (1926) and five feature films for Warner Brothers among others.
But as they say, all good things must come to an end. According to Lisa K. Stein’s biography “Syd Chaplin: A Biography” (McFarland, 2010), Sydney’s slide into disrepute with regards to his film career began in London in 1928 shortly after his first film for British international Pictures, a sex comedy called “A Little Bit of Flush.”
He was just beginning work on a second film for BIP entitled “Mumming Birds,” when he was accused by actress Molly Wright of sexual assault, specifically “biting off one of her nipples in an overzealous sexual encounter,” according to Stein.
Following the accusations, Sydney left England behind—along with a boat-load of debt. His employer, British International Pictures, settled with the young actress out of court. Within a year, Sydney declared bankruptcy.
Over the following decades, Sydney maintained his show business contacts and stayed informally involved in the entertainment industry. He married twice, but had no children.
He passed away on Good Friday, 1965, and is buried next to his second wife, Gypsy, at the Clarens-Montreux Cemetery near the Swiss town of Vevey.
