Oona O'Neill, Lady Chaplin (14 May 1925 – 27 September 1991) was a British actress, the daughter of American playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton, and the fourth and last wife of actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin.
O'Neill's parents divorced when she was four years old, after which she was raised by her mother in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and rarely saw her father. She first came to the public eye during her time at the Brearley School in New York City from 1940 to 1942, when she was photographed attending fashionable nightclubs with her friends Carol Marcus and Gloria Vanderbilt. In 1942, she received a large amount of media attention after she was chosen as "The Number One Debutante" of the 1942–1943 season at the Stork Club. Soon after, she decided to pursue a career in acting and, after small roles in two stage productions, headed for Hollywood.
In Hollywood, O'Neill was introduced to Chaplin, who considered her for a film role. The film was never made, but O'Neill and Chaplin began a romantic relationship and married in June 1943, a month after she turned 18. The 36-year age gap between them caused a scandal and severed O'Neill's relationship with her father, who was only six months older than Chaplin and who had already strongly disapproved of her wish to become an actress. Following the marriage, O'Neill gave up her career plans. She and Chaplin had eight children together and remained married until his death. The first decade of their marriage was spent living in Beverly Hills, but after Chaplin's reentry permit to the United States was cancelled during a voyage to London in 1952, they moved to Manoir de Ban in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey. In 1954, O'Neill renounced her US citizenship and became a British citizen. Following Chaplin's death in 1977, she split her time between Switzerland and New York. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 66 in Corsier-sur-Vevey in 1991. Her daughter Geraldine Chaplin named her daughter after her in 1986.
Biography
Early life (1925–1942)
Oona O'Neill was born on 14 May 1925 in the British colony of Bermuda, where her parents had relocated six months before her birth in the hopes that it would be a good place to write during the winter.Ranald, p. 118; Sheaffer, p. 150 and p. 179. She had an older brother, Shane Rudraighe O'Neill (1919–1977).Scovell, p. 40 Both of her parents also had children from previous relationships, Eugene O'Neill Jr. and Barbara Burton, but they did not live with the family and O'Neill saw them only occasionally during her childhood.Scovell, p. 71 for Burton
O'Neill's early childhood was spent between Bermuda —where the family spent winters and in 1926 purchased a house, Spithead (originally the home of privateer Hezekiah Frith)— and various places on the East Coast of the United States.Ranald, pp. 66–7; Sheaffer, pp. 180–183 and p. 203. Her parents' marriage had been for a long time strained by Eugene's alcoholism, and started to disintegrate after he had an affair with actress Carlotta Monterey while they were living in Belgrade, Maine, in the summer of 1926.Sheaffer, p. 211 and p. 216 for affair; Ranald, p. 67 for disintegration of marriage. He rekindled his romance with Monterey during a trip to New York in the early autumn of 1927, and after a brief return to Bermuda, separated from Agnes in November.Shaeffer, p. 270 for separation; Ranald, p. 67 for separation and Monterey. Agnes and the children stayed in Bermuda until the following summer, when they moved to her parents' old house in West Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Agnes was granted a divorce in Reno, Nevada, in July 1929, and three weeks later, Eugene married Monterey in France.Ranald, p. 65; Sheaffer, pp. 331–332
After the divorce, O'Neill's childhood was mostly spent living with her mother and brother in West Point Pleasant and occasionally at Spithead, in which Agnes had a lifetime interest.Ranald, p. 67 and p. 119 Although the divorce had granted joint custody, she seldom saw her father, and mainly communicated with him through letters, which were usually answered by Monterey.Ranald, p. 118; Sheaffer, p. 332 and pp. 439–440.
O'Neill first attended a Catholic convent school, but it was deemed unsuitable for her, and she was then enrolled at the Ocean Road Public School in Point Pleasant.Sheaffer, p. 440; Scovell, p. 73. According to the divorce settlement, both children were to attend top boarding schools from the age of 13 and, in 1938, O'Neill was sent to study at the Warrenton Country School in Warrenton, Virginia.Ranald, p. 68 and Sheaffer, p. 332 for divorce settlement and studying in Virginia; Scovell, p. 73 for name of the school. Agnes did not find the school satisfactory, and had her transferred to the Brearley School in New York for her sophomore year in 1940.Sheaffer, p. 508 for transfer; Scovell, p. 75 for reasons for transfer.
At Brearley, O'Neill became a close friend of Carol Marcus, and through her was introduced to Gloria Vanderbilt and Truman Capote.Scovell, p. 88 for Marcus and Vanderbilt Although she was still underage, the group often spent time at popular nightclubs, and began to appear in the society pages of magazines. During this time, O'Neill dated newspaper cartoonist Peter Arno and the then-unknown author J. D. Salinger.Scovell, p. 88 for Arno; Ranald, p. 188 and for Salinger. Arno was 21 years older than O'Neill, and Salinger 6. In April 1942, during her senior year at Brearley, she was crowned as "The Number One Debutante" of the 1942–1943 season at the Stork Club.Ranald, p. 118; Sheaffer, p. 531 The event gained a large amount of publicity around the country, and she received offers from film studios and modeling agencies.Sheaffer, pp. 531–532 and p. 537; Bowen, Exit Oona The publicity infuriated her father, who used his contacts in the Hollywood film industry to prevent her from signing a film contract.Ranald, p. 118 and Sheaffer, pp. 531–2 for O'Neill's reaction; Bowen, Exit Oona for preventing her from signing a film contract.
After graduating from Brearley, O'Neill declined an offer for a place to study at Vassar College and instead chose to pursue an acting career, despite her father's resistance.Scovell, p. 83 for Vassar; Sheaffer, p. 537, for everything else. She made her debut in a small supporting role in a production of Pal Joey at the Maplewood Theatre in New Jersey in July 1942.Ranald, p. 188; Sheaffer, p. 537; Bowen, Exit Oona. The production was a flop and was cancelled after a two-week run.Bowen, Exit Oona Later that summer, O'Neill travelled to California with Carol Marcus, who was due to marry author William Saroyan.Sheaffer, p. 537; Bowen, Exit Oona. During the trip, O'Neill briefly appeared in a production of Saroyan's play, The Time of Your Life, in San Francisco and unsuccessfully attempted to meet her father, who was living nearby.Sheaffer, p. 537 for attempting to meet father; Bowen, Exit Oona, for play.
Marriage to Chaplin (1943–1977) From San Francisco, O'Neill headed to Los Angeles, where her mother and stepfather were living.Robinson, p. 518 She soon found herself a film agent, Minna Wallace, and made her first and only screentest, for Eugene Frenke's The Girl From Leningrad. In October 1942, Wallace introduced her to Charlie Chaplin, who was looking for a lead actress for his next project, an adaptation of the play Shadow and Substance. Chaplin found O'Neill beautiful but at 17, too young for the role.Robinson, p. 519 However, due to her and Wallace's persistence, he agreed to give O'Neill a film contract.
Shadow and Substance was shelved in December 1942, but the relationship between O'Neill and Chaplin soon developed from professional to romantic. On 16 June 1943, a month after O'Neill had turned 18, they eloped and married in a civil service in Carpinteria.Robinson, pp. 521–522 The ceremony was witnessed only by Chaplin's studio secretary, Catherine Hunter, and friend and assistant, Harry Crocker. Crocker photographed the event for gossip columnist Louella Parsons, to whom Chaplin had given exclusive rights to publicize news of the marriage in the hopes that she would write a more positive article about it than her rival, Hedda Hopper, who strongly disliked him. The elopement received a large amount of media attention due to the 36-year age gap between O'Neill and Chaplin and because his ex-girlfriend, Joan Barry, had filed a paternity suit against him only two weeks earlier. Although Agnes had given the union her blessing, it cemented O'Neill's estrangement from her father, who disowned her and her issue and refused all future attempts of reconciliation.Ranald, p. 118; Sheaffer, p. 623 and 658.
Following the marriage, O'Neill gave up her career plans and settled into the role of housewife. She rarely spoke in public, but in 1952 she commented that she was "happy to stay in the background" and help Chaplin where needed.Robinson, p. 574 They spent the first nine years of their marriage living in Beverly Hills and had the first four of their eight children, Geraldine Leigh (b. July 1944), Michael John (b. March 1946), Josephine Hannah (b. March 1949) and Victoria Agnes (b. May 1951), during this time.Robinson, pp. 671–675 Although she focused on her home and children, O'Neill also spent time at the studios if Chaplin was working. He often consulted O'Neill for her opinion. She also acted as a stand-in for lead actress Claire Bloom in Limelight (1952), when a scene had to be reshot after filming had wrapped, and Bloom was already working on another project.Robinson, p. 569 for acting as a stand-in
The 1940s and 1950s were a difficult time for Chaplin in the United States, where he was accused of communist sympathies and was investigated by the FBI.Maland, pp. 265–266 In September 1952, while travelling with O'Neill and their children to London for the premiere of Limelight on board the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth, his re-entry permit was revoked.Maland, p. 280 The family soon decided to move permanently to Europe, and in November 1952, O'Neill flew back to the US to transfer Chaplin's assets to European bank accounts and to close up their house and the studio.Robinson, p. 580 In early January 1953, they moved to their new home, Manoir de Ban, a estate in the rural village of Corsier-sur-Vevey in Switzerland. The following year, O'Neill renounced her American citizenship, and became a British citizen.Robinson, p. 584
While living in Switzerland, the Chaplins added four more children to their family: Eugene Anthony (b. August 1953), Jane Cecil (b. May 1957), Annette Emily (b. December 1959), and Christopher James (b. July 1962). When Chaplin's health gradually started to fail in the late 1960s, he became increasingly dependent on Oona's support. He died of a stroke at the age of 88 on 25 December 1977, and was buried two days later.
In March 1978, O'Neill became the victim of an extortion plot. Chaplin's coffin was stolen from his grave by two unemployed mechanics, Roman Wardas and Gantcho Ganev, who unsuccessfully demanded a ransom from O'Neill in exchange for the body.Robinson, pp. 629–631 The pair were caught in a large police operation two months later, and Chaplin's unopened coffin was reinterred, having been found buried in a field in the nearby village of Noville.
Later life and death (1978–1991)