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Show Family-- Wsekfyj December 12, 1965 There's an about a girl who wanted to study acting but didn't have time be cause she was already a star. No one is more sensitive to this kind of wisecrack than Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill. She knows she was born with a name that carries an automatic aura of stardom. In fact, Geraldine admits quite frankly, that there are advantages in being Charlie's daughter.. As she puts it: "It saved me the waiting period. That's important." But she adds I --do depends ultimately on me and me alone. Of course, l am also very con-OhlUUO VI IIVVT IIIUUI IO CAWtCU Vi me, and so is my father. He really got angry when I accepted a ballet role without an audition. But Daddy doesn't object to my. movie career. After all, when I signed my contract, I wasn't 21 yet, and he had to give legal approval." I first met Geraldine in Madrid, where she was - on location for -- MGM's multimillion-dolla- 'tf showed r produc- "Doctor Zhivago." She up for the , interview dressed unpretentiously in a cheap d cotton print, no stockings, a straw hat to keep the sun out of her green eyes, and worn, wobd shoes, which were bly badly in need of polish. Physically there is a lot of similarity between Geraldine and her famous parents From the nose up, she looks like her mother: dark hair and limpid, lovely eyes. But she has the mouth and smile of her father ("worst luck," she says). We had lunch at Garnacho, an old barn converted into a quaint restaurant. By chance, the only other group of diners was a wedding party. "I hate that sort of thing," Geraldine burst out as we balwatched from, the second-stor- y cony where we were seated. "Why?" She shrugged. "I guess because I don't want to get married and have to raise eight children like my mother did. I'm not going to get married for a long timer if ever. I'm bunks- about someone different every week, and I want to do things that married people can't do." "Like what?" I asked. "Like having 25 boy friends at ' the same time." tion friz-zle- hisrh-heele- , As we discussed her family, it was sooit obvious that while Ger- parents' permission. A few weeks later he announced he was living on aldine admires her father she is bo awed by him that they have never established a close relationship. When. she talks aboutlhe manwho was 52 years old' when she was born, she speaks of discipline, fairness, consideration, and respect, but never of love. .. "I've always been much closer to Mommy than Daddy," she readily admits. "Actually all of us children feel that way." Sh vividly remembers the first spanking she got from her father when she was barely three. "It was justified," she admits. "We were living in Beverly Hills, and Daddy of kidnappers. -asalways-scared One day I hid behind the stairway; I don't remember why. Soon my family, the police, and I guess half the FBI were out searching for me. When they finally found me, Daddy gave me a terrific spanking. "I used to be terrified of Daddy's spankings, but now the little ones can get away with murder." During her childhood, Geraldine transferred a lot of her affection - to animals. "I had raccoons,' badgers, , bats, hamsters, eagles, and two wolves, one of which had a broken leg," she recalls. "I took care of Jhem until Daddy made me give them away because they were too , dangerous. I was bitten so many times I had scars all over me." Her affection for animals, even, reptiles, has stayed with her to this day. For almost a year, she , carried a python named Rodney, in her suitcase wherever she went. She finally gave it away "because I was afraid that people would say I kept it only for publicity." When I had lunch with Geraldine, she brought along her bulldog Boris, and she kept talking to him in three languages. Asked how the dog understood so many languages, she answered, "Well, he's a Chaplin, isn't he?" Geraldine herself speaks English, French, Spanish,' and German. All her brothers and sisters are fluent in at least two languages. But her father has never even picked up the French which is spoken in the part of Switzerland where he public assistance (Michael recently ' gaye up this dole after he was old joke in signed for a beatnik role in a film). "Daddy wasn't upsetthat Michael married or that he wanted to become an actor," Geraldine insists. "He was angry because Michael ' didn't finish, his education. Daddy feels that " is terribly important, particularly for a boy." The senior Chaplin only went as far as the fourth grade himself. Aside from Michael, Geraldine is closest to her stepbrother Sidney and his wife Noel. She doesn't know her youngest stepbrother, Charles, Jr., at all. . Geraldine contends that all her .father's children are loaded with -w- 7 now lives. ' Dine, as Geraldine is called by her family, is close to only one of her brothers: bearded Michael, who earlier this year made headlines when he married a British actress without his -- -- talent and individuality. "The most talented of us is my sister Victoria," Geraldine told me. "She also wants to be an actress. The last time I was home, she shocked Daddy with her sexy, French songs. The rest of the gang haven't made up their minds yet, but I have a feeling they'll follow in Daddy's footsteps as well.. Acting ' ' is in our blood." Geraldine says that her. father has never lost his interest in films or his charm with women. "Three years ago we took a trip to Bali, where the only 'modern' films were Daddy's old movies. Consequently he was still a matinee idol there. You should have seen all those beautiful women throwing themselves at him! Mommy went 'Crrr -- but Daddy, of . course, enjoyed himself thoroughly." Her own introduction to act- -' ing came when she was seven and her father gave her a small part in his last U.S. production, "Limelight" She recalls: "I hated it I didn't like standing in front of the camera for so long. Michael had a part in it too, and Daddy used to get angry at him because he always looked into the camera." When the Chaplins moved to Switzerland, they lived in a hotel. .... "We might have stayed there forever if Mommy hadn't been expecting another" baby," Geraldine explains. "She told Daddy that she refused to have the baby at the "hotel, so" he just went out" and bought a house." Usually the children, five girls and three boys, ate by themselves under the supervision of a nurse, but once in a while Michael and. Geraldine were allowed to join their . . ' . parents. Geraldine recalls: "Every Tuesday cook's night out Mother fixed our meals herself and taught me to cook. But I never really liked to do it" She didn't mind the discipline at home or at the convent school she attended. "It later proved a good background for my classes at the Royal Ballet School in England," she says. "Daddy didn't think ballet was such a good idea, He told me being a ballet dancer was like being half nun, half boxer. He was right. But that wasn't the reason I quit I just knew I could never be a top ballerina." :r;-':rEven at school, Geraldine's high spirits could never be kept down. "I - was forever playing - pranks. One time I put ink into the holy water, and all the nuns came out with black crosses on their foreheads." Both of her parents are atheists, Geraldine says, but she has her own opinion on religion. "At this point I'm interested in all religions from the philosophical view," she told me. "I have discussed religion with my father many, many times,-- and I think people have misunderstood him. He is not against religion. He told me he wished he could be religious because, if he were, he could then trust people more." Geraldine was 19 when she talked her parents into letting her get her own apartment in Paris. "Mommy thought it was a good idea for me to get some experience in being on my own, and Daddy didn't object I lived alone on the salary I made as a ballet dancer, which was about $45 a week. Since my flat cost me $125 a month, this was a bit of a problem, but I managed." Once Geraldine let it be known that she was interested in a film career, she immediately got many offers from persons who wanted her strictly for her name"I turned them all down," she says. ' It was an offer to appear opposite Jean Paul Belmondo in "A Lovely Summer Morning" that changed her mind. "I was sure he'd never play opposite an actress strictly because she was a famous man's daughter," she told me. But in her heart Geraldine knows that no matter how success- -' ful she is on her own, the Chaplin name will always be a magic word to people inside and outside the industry. "I know 111 just have to work that much harder to live up to it" she insists. Family Wttkly, Dreember -- It, 1991 S -- |