Edna & The Louse (Part Five of Six)
In the Last Episode: Edna simply couldn't please him, no matter how hard she tried, and I knew she was trying as hard as she could. Sadly, I was pretty sure I knew what The Louse was up to. It turned out I had him pegged.
Essanay released The Tramp on the eleventh of April, and within a week we all knew Chaplin's future was signed sealed and delivered. Motion picture fans throughout the country immediately fell in love with The Louse's tramp character. The final scene shows the sad little tramp walking dejectedly away from the camera along a lonely country road, and then his posture perks up and we know he has shrugged off the loss of his sweetheart and is heading for a new adventure. As trite as it seemed, that scene brought tears to the eyes of countless audiences.
There were also tears in Edna Purviance's eyes, but for quite a different reason. The Louse was making her miserable with his constant criticism, which now continued into the production of Chaplin's next project, a one-reeler called By The Sea. In an effort to cheer her up, I suggested we go for a drive one evening, but Edna said she would rather just go to my house and relax in privacy.
As things turned out, Edna spent the night with me, but everything she did and said seemed strained. The Louse was successfully lousing things up without even being there.
The next day Gilbert Anderson gathered several of his top production people for a meeting. It seems many of Essanay's contract players were threatening to walk out if something wasn't done about Chaplin. Their complaint was that The Louse's projects were dominating the studio's facilities and other films were either taking much longer to produce or not being made at all.
We all knew the facts of life when it came to the motion picture business. In this case, Chaplin was the goose that laid the golden egg, and from overheard comments reported to Anderson it was seeming less and less likely that Essanay would be able to match offers anticipated from bigger Los Angeles studios to lure Chaplin down there when his one year contract with Essanay ended in December.
That left us with two options. One was to let the other actors walk out and make hay with Chaplin projects while he was still under contract. The Second option was to reign Chaplin in and shift more of the studio's resources to making pictures with the unhappy contract players.
The real purpose of our meeting was to inform us Gilbert Anderson and his partner, George Spoor, were sticking with Chaplin as long as they held his contract, and to hell with everyone else. I, along with most of the other men in the room, knew that decision sounded the death knell for Essanay. Sure, none of us would be unemployed for a while, but the handwriting was on the wall. Unless something changed, Spoor and Anderson would bank their profits and let Essanay go the way of the dodo bird.
The other shoe dropped that evening when Edna showed up at my office wearing a very sad face. Her news was she'd decided to go back to The Louse, so it would have to strictly business between us from then on. It seemed strange she felt that way when Chaplin chased skirts no matter who he was "seeing." I wished her luck and meant it.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Story and design © Steve Eitzen
Header Graphic & HPO Logo © HPO Productions
Chaplin images modified from photographs in the public domain