The Charles Chaplin Waltz with Edna Purviance & Eric Campbell

Подробнее о видео

Edna Purviance began working as a stenographer in San Francisco. Charles Chaplin invited her to join him at Essanay Studio in 1915, the year of her film debut in Chaplin's His Night Out. Over the next seven years she appeared as his leading lady in over 20 Chaplin films made by Essanay, Mutual, and First National, including the classics The Tramp (1915), The Immigrant (1917), Easy Street (1917), The Kid (1921), and The Idle Class (1921).

As a repayment for years of work with him, Chaplin intended real stardom for her with A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923). The movie was a commercial failure though it advanced the career of Adolphe Menjou. She remained on Chaplin's payroll until her death, her last two appearances being non-speaking extra parts in his Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Limelight (1952).

Campbell began acting in "fit-ups" (local theatres) in Scotland and Wales, playing melodramatic roles. In this setting he was discovered by Fred Karno, the English impresario who was impressed by Campbell's size and baritone voice and took him to London to act in the slapstick comedy style.

Campbell travelled to New York in 1914, following Chaplin and his then understudy Stan Laurel, who had moved there in 1913. Campbell soon became established in America as a stage actor. In 1916 Chaplin, in New York to sign his contract with Mutual, saw Campbell in a play on Broadway. Subsequently, Chaplin invited him to Hollywood to join the cast of actors for the 12 Mutual films Chaplin had contracted to make.

Eric Campbell's first film with Chaplin was The Floorwalker (1916). In it he achieved recognition for the "escalator scene", in which he chased Chaplin through a department store. It was in their second film together, The Fireman (1916), that Campbell developed the role which featured in all his work with Chaplin. A tall man towering 6 ft. 5 in.(1.96 m.) and weighing almost 300 pounds (136 kg), he became the bully and comic foil to the Little Tramp's antics.

His best role is probably in Easy Street (1917), in which, as a brutal bully, he bends a cast-iron street lamp standard to a right angle to intimidate the policeman played by Chaplin. Campbell perfected his fiercely menacing eye make-up when performing in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado prior to entering the movie industry.

Chaplin was then the highest-profile film star in the world, with many imitators. Campbell also had imitators, including Oliver Hardy who played second banana to Chaplin's impersonator, Billy West.

When Chaplin's contract with Mutual ended, he signed another with First National, intending to take Campbell with him. Between films, Chaplin lent Campbell to Mary Pickford, who cast him in Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley (1918).