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You're listening

1:22

to Badlands. To hear all episodes

1:24

of Badlands right now, go listen

1:26

on Amazon Music or say, Alexa,

1:29

play the Badlands podcast.

1:30

Badlands is

1:32

the production of Amazon Music and

1:35

Double Elvis.

1:54

The stories about Charlie Chaplin

1:57

are insane. He had an

1:59

affair with the girlfriend

1:59

as the most powerful man in America,

2:02

an affair that someone else may have

2:04

caught a bullet for. He made

2:06

fun of the Nazis a few years too

2:09

early and found himself kicked out

2:11

of the United States.

2:13

He was held at gunpoint by a jealous

2:15

lover nearly murdered by a cabal

2:17

of Japanese assassins, and his

2:19

corpse was stolen and held for

2:21

ransom. and Charlie

2:23

Chaplin make great films.

2:26

Some of the most influential films of the silent

2:28

and talkieris, Unlike

2:30

that clip, I played you at the top of the

2:32

show. That

2:33

wasn't a clip from a great film.

2:35

That was a fair use sample from the library

2:38

of congress of the Peerless Court performing

2:40

where the red red roses grow in

2:43

nineteen fourteen.

2:45

I played you that clip because I can't afford

2:47

the rights to Francis Ford Coppola's the

2:49

godfather. And why would

2:51

I play you that specific slice

2:53

of leave the gun, take the cannoli cheese,

2:56

could I afford it? because

2:58

that was the number one movie in America

3:01

on April tenth, nineteen seventy

3:03

two. And that was the day

3:05

that Charlie Chaplin was allowed legal

3:07

reentry into the United States

3:09

after a twenty year ban, so

3:11

that he could receive an honorary Oscar.

3:14

On this episode, Nazzis,

3:17

a cabal of Japanese assassins, a

3:19

stolen corpse, and Charlie

3:21

Chaplin I'm Jake Brennan,

3:24

and this is Badlands.

3:27

Season five, all the

3:29

land.

4:03

George Orwell was dying on a cold

4:05

and rocky island in Scotland.

4:08

tuberculosis ravaged his lungs.

4:10

He

4:10

woke up at night, drenched and sweat.

4:13

his chest burned. He coughed

4:15

until his throat ached. He spat blood

4:17

into handkerchiefs. He was forty

4:19

seven. Orwell

4:20

struggled with illness his entire

4:22

life, but now wasn't just ill.

4:25

He was lonely and depressed. ever

4:27

since his wife died, he'd gotten in the habit

4:29

of proposing to young women in letters.

4:32

One of those women was celia

4:34

Kirkwin. Celia turned them

4:36

down. Most women did, but

4:38

she was different from the others. She

4:40

worked for Britain's Information Research Department

4:43

A propaganda factory right out of Orwell's

4:45

own dystopian masterpiece nineteen

4:48

eighty four published

4:49

just months earlier in June

4:51

of nineteen forty nine.

4:53

Orwell was a political oddball,

4:56

a socialist who spoke out against Stalin's

4:58

Soviet Union. Celia

5:01

went to visit Orwell at Sanitarium where

5:03

he was dying. She tried to recruit

5:05

him to write propaganda for the government. Orwell

5:08

was too weak to do it, but he

5:10

gave Cely the names of people she could

5:12

ask, and also the names of people

5:14

she shouldn't. There were people he didn't

5:17

trust to be on England's side. If she

5:19

really wanted to know more, he had his little

5:21

notebook. What

5:23

George Orwell handed over became one of the

5:25

best kept secrets of the Cold War. It

5:28

wouldn't be seen by anyone outside of British

5:30

intelligence for more than fifty years. In

5:32

two thousand three, when Ceilia's daughter

5:34

found a copy in her deceased mother's papers.

5:38

The notebook listed people or well considered

5:40

to be crypto communist and fellow

5:42

travelers. He kept it

5:44

for years, adding footnotes, crossing

5:47

out names, names like

5:49

Catherine Hepburn, Alex Comfort,

5:51

author of the joy of sex,

5:53

CECL Day Lewis, poet and father

5:55

of Daniel Day Lewis. But

5:58

the most famous name on Orwell's List

6:00

was Charlie Chaplin.

6:03

Charlie Chaplin's politics are

6:06

tough to nail down. He

6:07

let his films speak for themselves. But

6:10

by the end of the nineteen thirties, chaplain

6:12

would be forever linked in the public's mind

6:14

with the most notorious man ever to step

6:16

on the world stage.

6:18

Charlie

6:18

Chaplin and Adolf Hitler

6:20

were born four days apart in eighteen

6:23

eighty nine. The similarities in

6:25

their appearance was fodder for political tune

6:27

since Hitler first came to power.

6:30

Some even suggested that Hitler clipped his

6:32

mustache to look more like Chaplin's beloved

6:34

Trump character. Whether

6:36

you buy that or not, the

6:37

Nazis were not Chaplin

6:39

fans. When

6:40

Chaplin passed through Germany, Dotsie

6:43

newspapers scolded crowds for getting

6:45

excited over the man they called a little

6:47

Jewish acrobat.

6:49

Chaplin wasn't Jewish. but he often

6:51

got asked if he was. He stopped

6:53

publicly denying that he was Jewish because he

6:55

thought that denials played into the hands of the

6:57

anti semites. The

6:59

world didn't yet know the full extent to the

7:01

horrors of Nazi Germany, but the country's

7:04

violent anti semitism had been clear

7:06

since nineteen thirty eight's, Crystal, or

7:08

the night of broken glass, violent

7:10

assaults against Jewish people swept across

7:13

Germany. Chaplin thought the best

7:15

way to deal with Hitler was to summarize

7:17

him. So he wrote a film in which he

7:19

played the protagonist, a lovable

7:21

Jewish barber, and also the antagonist,

7:25

a frothing, spot on, send up,

7:27

of Adolf Hitler. No

7:29

one but Chaplin could have made the great dictator

7:31

in nineteen thirty nine. America

7:33

was still on good terms with Germany.

7:35

it wouldn't enter the war for another year.

7:37

Most Hollywood studios did

7:39

business there, then therefore wouldn't risk

7:41

a boycott by the German government. But

7:44

Chaplin was producing his own movies

7:46

and distributing them through United Artist,

7:49

the company he co founded. He

7:51

could make whatever movie he wanted.

7:53

Germany banned the great dictator. It

7:55

wasn't shown there for almost twenty years.

7:58

Meanwhile, somewhere in Washington

7:59

DC, the United States government

8:02

started keeping a file on Charlie Chaplin.

8:04

Chaplin gave him plenty of material to fill

8:07

in, in addition to his personal scandals,

8:09

more on those in a minute. Chapeland

8:11

gave speeches supporting a second front

8:13

to help the Russians. He spoke

8:15

about the brave Soviet Army fighting for

8:17

the cause of freedom. Their boys were

8:19

dying just like ours. He wasn't alone,

8:22

but those who took pro Russia stance during

8:24

the war became suspect as the

8:26

alliance between the US and Russia collapse

8:28

into a cold war. Chaplin's speeches

8:30

in support of Russian troops made it to the desk

8:33

of commie actors like Jay McGarver and

8:35

Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy's house

8:37

on American Activities Committee was especially

8:40

interested in Hollywood. They were

8:42

convinced it was a lostness of secret

8:44

communism. When they had used tools

8:46

for hunting reds in Tinsultown. The

8:48

first was the Waldorf statement. A

8:50

proclamation issued by the studio heads

8:52

after a nineteen forty seven meeting at the Waldorf

8:55

Astoria Hotel in New York. It

8:57

condemned communism, instituted loyalty

8:59

oaths for studio employees. that

9:02

effectively blacklisted anyone who

9:04

ever associated with communist.

9:07

Their second weapon was the network

9:09

of informers the blacklist helped create

9:12

With actor Ronald Reagan at the head of the screen

9:14

actors killed, the Hollywood community

9:16

turned on its own. You get dragged in

9:18

front of Hugh and the next thing you know, you're

9:20

giving up a half dozen names. The next

9:22

week, those half dozen got their subpoenas served.

9:25

You might never work again. Chapelina

9:28

was subpoenaed in the fall of nineteen

9:30

forty seven. The House Committee had

9:32

some questions. Paraguay never

9:34

applied for US citizen a chip after being

9:36

in the country for thirty years. Chaplin's

9:39

response in the press that he was a citizen

9:41

of the world didn't make him look any less

9:43

like a fellow traveler. After three postponements,

9:46

the comedian formed Chaplin. This testimony

9:48

was no longer needed. Chaplin considered

9:51

the matter settled, except it wasn't.

9:54

Chaplin had tickets

9:56

to sail on the Queen Elizabeth back to

9:58

England with his new bride, his fourth

10:00

and final wife, Una. And

10:02

there was just a little matter of his reentry

10:04

papers. They were delayed. Immigration

10:07

called and asked Chappen to come to the federal building

10:09

and answer some questions. better yet,

10:12

they'd come to him. An FBI

10:14

agent, an ethnographer, showed up at Chaplin's

10:16

house, and the agent began asking

10:18

questions. Was

10:19

Chaplin Jewish? What can he tell

10:22

them about his sex life?

10:23

Chaplin wasn't sure why the agent was

10:25

asking. Since he seemed to know plenty about

10:28

Chaplin's sex life in explicit detail,

10:30

And how did chaplin feel about communist? Chaplin

10:33

said communist had won the war. They held

10:35

off the Germans before America even got boots

10:37

on the ground, and the FBI agents

10:40

suppressed a grin. The stenographer

10:42

wrote the answer down. It was

10:44

exactly the kind of statement the House

10:46

Committee needed to string Chaplin up.

10:49

And the FBI agent told Chaplin

10:51

he could expedite the paperwork if you would just

10:53

sign the transcript to the interview. Chapeland

10:56

held the pen in his hand. He stared

10:58

at the papers. It was a trap.

11:02

He

11:02

told the FBI agent he wouldn't need

11:04

paperwork after all. The

11:05

chaplains weren't going anywhere. Chaplin

11:08

got back to work on his next movie,

11:10

limelight, and owed to the British stages

11:12

where he got a start.

11:15

The movie took four years to complete. When

11:17

it was done, Chaplin insisted the premiere

11:19

be held on home soil. And

11:21

maybe he forgot about the interview with the FBI

11:24

agent. Maybe he thought the temperatures had

11:26

cooled,

11:27

either way. Crowds

11:28

cheered in New York Harbor as the chaplains

11:30

finally ordered the Queen Elizabeth bound

11:33

for London. Chaplin

11:34

felt unease for the first time in years.

11:37

He wasn't the subject of a federal witch hunt.

11:39

He wasn't the most famous face in the world.

11:42

He was a man on vacation with his family,

11:44

taking them to see the city where he was born.

11:48

On their third day at sea, Chaplin

11:50

walked by crew members have over around the radio.

11:52

He heard his name buzzing through

11:54

the static. He stopped in listen.

11:56

The US attorney general had revoked his

11:58

reentry papers.

11:59

Immigration and naturalization services

12:02

were under orders to hold him if he ever returned

12:04

to the US. Kaplan

12:06

looked up the ocean. It was September

12:09

nineteen fifty two. He could

12:11

see the vast, endless blue stretch out

12:13

to the horizon in every direction. but

12:15

he couldn't see the country of his birth

12:18

or the adopted homeland

12:21

to which he could never return.

12:42

The most famous man in the world was as

12:44

far from home as he could get.

12:47

On May fourteenth, nineteen

12:49

thirty two, Charlie Chaplin dined

12:51

in Tokyo with his brother Sydney and

12:53

Toriichi Kono, a longtime

12:56

assistant who grew up in Japan before moving

12:58

to Southern California. Kono

13:00

was Chaplin's Guide and translator. Chaplin

13:03

was a tourist. Everything he

13:05

knew about Japan came from books, mostly

13:08

pictures and books because Charlie Chaplin

13:10

was not much of a reader, but

13:12

he could read body language. The

13:14

six Japanese men approaching their table right

13:17

now. They weren't looking for an autograph. They

13:19

wanted something else. And by the

13:21

looks that we're getting chaplain, they're going

13:23

to do what they had to do in order

13:25

to get it. Charlie

13:27

Chaplin left the US tour Europe

13:29

after the huge success of city lights,

13:31

his nineteen thirty one romantic comedy.

13:34

He went to London where visited the pouring

13:36

hard to where he grew up, talked economics

13:39

and colonialism with Gandhi, and hobnob

13:41

with the upper crust. He watched

13:43

with disappointment as a conservative government

13:46

sailed to an easy electoral victory.

13:48

In France, police struggled to keep him

13:50

safe from adoring fans. In Germany,

13:53

where he dined with Albert Einstein, the

13:55

Nazi papers dismissed him for the first

13:57

time as a little Jewish

13:59

acrobat. Comparisons and

14:01

hangars on dropped off but Chaplin

14:03

wasn't ready to return to his studio in the

14:05

US. For the first time and

14:07

as long as he could remember, he didn't have

14:09

a new project to start, movies

14:11

were changing, and the changes threatened to

14:13

render Charlie Chaplin a relic. I

14:16

give the talkies six more months he told anyone

14:18

who asked, he didn't sound confident.

14:21

silent arrow was over, and his biggest

14:23

star didn't know where he belonged in the new world.

14:26

Instead of going home, he headed

14:28

further ended up in Japan.

14:31

After the reception of port, Chaplin's

14:33

entourage were taken by police escort to

14:35

the steps of the Imperial Palace On

14:37

the way, a man approached Chaplin and invited

14:39

him to come see pornographic silk paintings

14:42

at the man's house. Strange?

14:45

yeah, intriguing. Absolutely.

14:47

But something about the man didn't seem right,

14:50

so Chaplin politely refused. At

14:53

the Imperial Palace, Hirojito wasn't

14:55

in, but Chaplin was told it was customary

14:57

for visitors to pay their respects to the

14:59

absent emperor. Chapman

15:01

bowed on the steps of the empty palace. He

15:04

didn't know that this bow, this

15:06

one small act of deference, sent

15:08

signals of approval to the wrong people.

15:11

People who wanted to kill Charlie

15:14

Chaplin. Japan's

15:17

politics in the early thirties

15:19

were a lot like those that allowed the Nazis

15:21

to rise to power in Germany.

15:23

Japan was struggling through the worldwide depression.

15:26

And like Germany, the country's military

15:28

power was restricted by international treaties

15:30

signed by the prime minister. In

15:33

Germany, Hitler wrote a wave of nationalism

15:35

into office. In

15:36

Japan, members of the Navy officer

15:39

corps formed a secret far right cabal that

15:41

called its solve the league of blood,

15:43

their mission, overthrow

15:44

the civilian government, install

15:47

military rule with the emperor as its head.

15:49

The

15:49

League of Blood had already assassinated

15:52

a former finance minister.

15:54

And

15:54

now, they had their eyes on new

15:56

targets.

15:58

The six

15:59

Japanese men surrounded the restaurant

16:02

table were chaplains sat with his brother,

16:04

Sydney, and assistant, Torichi Kona.

16:07

Chapel knew one of them looked familiar, but

16:09

couldn't place the face. Wait.

16:12

It can't do them. The guy who wanted to show

16:14

him the silk porno prints earlier that day.

16:17

chaplin's stomach lurched. This

16:19

wasn't going to end well. That man sat

16:21

down next to Kono. He berated Kono

16:23

and Japanese while five other men loomed over

16:25

chaplain in the universal language of a shake

16:27

down. Chaplain had nowhere

16:30

to run. When the

16:32

man was done shouting, Kona stared

16:34

down at his dinner, and then he looked over

16:36

at Chaplin. He says you've insulted his

16:38

ancestors by refusing to see his pictures.

16:41

Chapman heard what Kona wasn't saying

16:43

and he sprang to action. He shoved

16:45

his hand into his coat pocket like a stick up man

16:47

pretending he had a gun. He

16:49

shouted at the strange man in his best American

16:51

accent, thick and blocky like

16:53

a tiny gangster, and

16:55

the men surrounded him were shocked and confused.

16:57

They looked at the bulge coming from Chaplin's co

17:00

pocket and backed away slowly, and

17:02

then they turned around and swiftly

17:04

walked away. Chapeland

17:06

scrapped his plans for rest of the

17:08

night. He

17:09

returned to the hotel only to find their

17:11

rooms and their luggage have been searched.

17:14

The next day,

17:15

Chaplin was scheduled to have dinner with the prime

17:17

minister. If his world tour

17:20

had taught him anything, it was the risk of

17:22

snubbing ahead of state. The year

17:24

before, he'd been invited participate in

17:26

the Royal Variety performance, an annual

17:28

charity event. It's the event

17:30

where in nineteen six three, John

17:32

Lennon licked his lips impatiently and told

17:34

the crowd. For our last number, I'd

17:36

like to ask your help. For the people in the

17:38

cheaper seats, clap your hands and the rest of you

17:41

if you just rattle your jewelry. What

17:43

the royal variety performance isn't

17:45

is a royal command performance. A

17:47

tradition is old as Shakespeare. For

17:49

a command performance, performers

17:51

are requested or compelled by the crown,

17:54

not

17:54

invited by an organizer.

17:56

The British press didn't make that distinction.

17:59

They accused Chaplin

17:59

of thumbing his nose at King George.

18:02

Chaplin didn't do himself any favors when

18:04

he responded. They say I have a duty

18:06

to England. I wonder just what that duty

18:08

is. The scrap was rumored

18:10

to have cost him a knighthood or

18:12

at least delayed it for forty years

18:14

until Chaplin was eighty five.

18:16

Knowing

18:16

the wrist, Chaplin decided to

18:18

ditch the dinner in Japan and go watch Sumo

18:21

matches with the prime minister's son instead.

18:23

Chapman loved boxing.

18:25

And at the end of a day of shooting at his studio,

18:28

Chaplin would regularly pack up the cast

18:30

and crew to go watch the fights. I

18:32

might assume wrestling sounded preferable

18:34

to a stuffy state reception anyway. Chaplin

18:36

might even get a gag out of it.

18:40

While chaplain and the prime minister's son

18:42

were at the matches, eleven members of the

18:44

league of blood broke into the prime minister's

18:46

residence. They weren't just looking for

18:48

the prime minister, they wanted Charlie

18:50

Chaplin. The head of Japan's civilian

18:52

government was an obvious target. One

18:54

of the group's main goals was a coup d'etat

18:56

that removed all elected officials in favor

18:59

of a military hooter headed by emperor

19:01

Hiroito. Chaplin had

19:03

simply fallen into their laps. The

19:05

members of the League of Blood believe that if they

19:07

assassinated chaplin along with the prime minister,

19:10

it would spark a war with the US that we

19:12

unite Asian countries under the rule of Hiro

19:14

Hito. The plan failed to account

19:16

the fact that Chaplin was British. But

19:19

when they didn't find Chaplin at the prime minister's

19:21

residence, the League of Blood settled for

19:23

their first tuck Then they found

19:25

him easily. They

19:26

drew pistols and held him point blank at the prime

19:28

minister's head. He

19:30

begged the legal blood assassins not to

19:32

kill him in front of his wife and daughter. and

19:34

the assassins told the women to leave the room.

19:36

The door closed quietly behind them.

19:39

And then the assassins open

19:42

fire. If

19:44

I could speak, you would understand the

19:46

prime minister said to his killers as he bled

19:48

out on floor. Dialog

19:51

is useless. The assassins replied.

19:55

At

19:55

the Tsumo match, the prime minister's

19:57

son was called away from his seat. He

19:59

returned,

19:59

sat down next to Chaplin,

20:02

and put his face in his hands. When

20:04

Chaplin understood what happened, he was

20:07

shaken. Key was supposed to be

20:09

at the prime minister's house when the assassin struck.

20:11

Could he have been at Target? Could he have been

20:14

him bleeding out on the floor? Nah.

20:17

He was a comedian. Convenience didn't

20:19

get assassinated. Right? The

20:21

assassination of the prime minister wasn't the

20:23

only incident of violence the league of blood

20:25

carried out that night. There

20:27

were bombings, more killings. Chaplin

20:30

and his entourage skirted back to their hotel

20:32

till the police could get the league of blood essence

20:34

in their custody. Chaplin

20:35

accompanied the prime minister's son

20:37

to the scene of the crime, and the blood

20:40

was still drying on the floor.

20:42

at their court martial later in nineteen thirty

20:44

two. The League of Blood Assassin revealed

20:46

that Charlie Chaplin had been, in fact, target

20:49

of the plot. Chaplin wouldn't learn

20:51

about it until ten years later. In

20:53

the league of blood used the public trial as

20:55

a soapbox spelled their views and advocate

20:58

for the restoration of Emperor Hirohito to

21:00

full authority. Hundreds of

21:02

thousands of letters of support poured in.

21:05

nine kids in the god of prefecture offered

21:07

to be tried instead of the assassins. They

21:09

sent the corded jar containing their nine

21:11

severed pinky fingers to show that they

21:13

weren't kidding. When the assassins

21:16

were given sentences of only a few years,

21:18

it sent a clear message. The

21:20

fires of violent nationalism that were already

21:23

raging in Germany and Italy had found

21:25

fuel to burn in Japan. And

21:27

soon, the whole world would

21:29

be a blaze.

21:32

We'll

21:34

be right back after this word,

21:36

word,

21:37

word.

21:40

It happened on a frigid winter

21:42

night, first a sudden moment

21:44

of terror, then a frantic

21:46

search to find a stunned

21:49

killer. I'm

21:51

Josh Maykowitz, and this is Internal Affairs,

21:54

an all new podcast from line.

21:56

It's the story of men and women who wore

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batches at work

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while living lies at home.

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fatal consequences. You

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What

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23:20

Charlie Chaplin was staring down the barrel

23:23

of a gun. The woman on the other end

23:25

of that barrel had come a long way, all

23:27

the way to California from New York City.

23:29

He didn't know if she would actually do it,

23:32

pull the trigger. She had it in her.

23:34

He wasn't even sure how to react, but what

23:36

to say? Chaplin had

23:38

been on the business end of a metaphorical shotgun

23:41

before. rumor had it that his romantic

23:43

escapies once landed a bullet at the back

23:45

of someone else's skull. But

23:47

this was his first time at literal

23:49

gunpoint.

23:51

He regretted giving her that money back in New

23:53

York. How could he've known that she'd used

23:55

it to finance her trip all the way across the

23:57

country? for the explicit purpose of shooting

23:59

him dead in his own house. Javelin

24:02

had a thing for underage women. And

24:04

in the early twentieth century, the Hollywood

24:07

storm sheen served young women to stars

24:09

on a platter. Chaplin met

24:11

his first wife, Mildred Harris. When

24:13

she was just sixteen, and he married

24:15

her when she was seventeen.

24:17

After Mildred's mother announced to the press

24:19

that Chaplin had gotten her daughter pregnant. Your

24:21

pregnancy turned out to be a false alarm.

24:24

and the couple split after a few months.

24:26

The divorce was ugly. It

24:28

was nineteen twenty. Chaplin

24:31

was in a battle with the studio, First

24:33

National. about the distribution terms for

24:35

his forthcoming film, the kid. The

24:37

movie had taken him a year and a half to make,

24:40

a lifetime for a man who once turned out

24:42

seventy one films in seven years. Now

24:45

Mildred was rejecting his settlement offer

24:47

and hiring new lawyers, paid for

24:49

by First National They wanted

24:51

to attach Chaplin's business assets to

24:53

the divorce settlement, and those assets

24:55

included the negatives of the kit. The

24:58

film cinematographer got a call from Chaplin

25:00

in the middle of the night. Go

25:02

down to the studio, Chaplin Toe, get

25:04

the negatives, and then get out of

25:06

town. And the cinematographer and

25:09

his assistant packed the film into coffee tents,

25:11

twelve crates worth. They

25:13

drove the crates to Santa Fe. They

25:15

met Chaplin at the train station. From

25:17

there, the group sped to Salt Lake City,

25:19

where they set up an editing suite in a hotel

25:21

room.

25:22

Handling film stock treated with incredibly

25:25

flammable chemicals, they made a rough cut

25:27

of the film. And the kid made its

25:29

debut in the theater down the block when they make

25:31

shift cutting room before shipping to New York

25:33

out of the clutches of Chaplin's studio and

25:35

his ex wife.

25:38

In that fall, the rumor mill went into overdrive.

25:40

The gossip column in the New York Daily News

25:43

wrote that Chaplin was having an affair with

25:45

actress Marion Davies, her

25:47

fling with Chapman may have only been a rumor,

25:49

but her long running affair with William Randolph

25:52

Hurst, the powerful and married

25:54

newspaper publisher, was very

25:56

much public knowledge. After

25:58

the Daily News published a squib about Davies

26:01

and Chaplin's involvement, Hearst invited

26:03

the party of Hollywood lead out on his yacht.

26:05

The group included Marion Davies, film

26:08

producer, Thomas Sints, and according

26:10

to some versions of the story, Charlie

26:12

Chaplin. After only a

26:14

few days out, the yacht returned port

26:16

in San Diego. where Inns was carried

26:19

to shore, unconscious. Chaplin's

26:21

assistant friend, Torres Chikona,

26:24

was there to meet the boat. And he swore

26:26

he saw a bullet wound against his head

26:28

and died a few hours later. There

26:31

was no inquest. The body was cremated

26:33

within two days. The papers

26:35

denied foul play. Hearst's

26:38

papers denied. There was even a boat.

26:40

They claimed the inns got sick and Hearst's

26:42

ranch, a days drive up the coast.

26:45

Chapel Clean. He wasn't on the boat, even though

26:47

his assistant was there to meet him on the shore.

26:49

The Marion Davey said there were no firearms

26:52

on port. Although Earth has kept twenty

26:54

two on the out so he can shoot at seagulls.

26:56

A little gun. Small caliber. The

26:58

kind of gun that might cause a headwind severe

27:01

enough cause death without being instantly

27:03

fatal.

27:04

And Orson Wells hurt

27:06

another rumor.

27:07

What Wells hurt What

27:10

he and Screenwriter Herman Mankowitz ultimately

27:12

decided was too outrageous to include in

27:14

the film they're making about William Randolph Hurst.

27:17

was that the newspaper magnate discovered

27:19

Thomas and Samarian Davies alone

27:21

together in the Lower Galli of the yacht.

27:24

In the dim light, Her thought he'd

27:26

stumbled upon a truce between davies

27:28

and Chaplin. Ince was

27:30

about the same height as the little tramp. Hers

27:33

grabbed a seagull shooting pistol and

27:35

thinking he was aiming at chaplain, shot

27:38

ins in the back of the head. Before

27:40

they got to port, Kurt swore everyone

27:43

aboard secrecy. Certainly,

27:45

he was powerful enough to make one little murder

27:47

go away. This was the man who started

27:49

the Spanish American war after all. So

27:52

whether or not they believed the story, Wells

27:55

and MEG thought it was too much to include

27:57

in their film. So citizen

27:59

came A movie that hangs its central

28:01

metaphor on William Randolphhurst's nickname

28:03

for Mary and Davies' ses' Cliterus, cut

28:06

out the story of Thomas Ins' murder.

28:10

Chapeland had a few quieter affairs

28:12

and two more marriages before he met

28:14

Joan Berry in nineteen forty two.

28:16

Barry came to Hollywood

28:18

from Brooklyn when she was twenty, dying

28:21

to make it in pictures. Chaplin

28:23

signed her to a contract and started sleeping

28:25

with her. When Barry proved to be an unstable

28:27

alcoholic, Chaplin canceled her

28:30

contract in bought her a one way ticket

28:32

back to New York. Unfortunately,

28:35

Chapeland's sideline as a political speaker

28:37

in support of the war brought him to New York

28:39

not long after. Barry found

28:41

out he was in town and called repeated

28:44

Chapeland brushed her off,

28:46

and then she showed up at Chaplin's hotel.

28:49

He

28:49

gave her three hundred dollars in cash, That

28:52

seemed to do the trick.

28:53

He hoped it would be the last

28:55

he'd see for. Now,

28:58

here is Joan Barry.

28:59

in the flesh. Two nights before

29:01

Christmas in nineteen forty two,

29:03

holding Chaplin hostage in his

29:05

own house in California She

29:08

paid her way back west with the money Chaplin

29:10

gave her in New York. Chaplin's sons

29:12

were with him that night. But when they found their

29:14

father being held at gunpoint, he shoveled

29:17

them into the rooms. According to

29:19

Barry, the threat of violence turned Chaplin

29:21

on. Their relationship had always

29:23

been more turbulent than tradition really romantic.

29:26

She claimed the standoff led to sex,

29:29

and she left Chaplin's house on her own

29:31

the next morning. A

29:33

week later, she was back. Her

29:36

return visit came on the evisitive gossip

29:38

columnist, had a hopper, who went on to

29:40

prominence as one of the leading supporters the

29:42

House on American Activities Committee in the

29:44

National Press. Hopper

29:46

heard Barry's story and suggested she break

29:49

into Chaplin's house one more time. get

29:51

things on the record. The reasons

29:53

why would become apparent five months later.

29:56

Barry returned to California pregnant,

29:58

alleging Charlie Chaplin was

29:59

the father.

30:00

Her

30:02

mother filed a paternity suit.

30:04

Under

30:04

California law, the burden of proof was

30:06

on the father. Barry agreed to the

30:08

blood tests once the child was born.

30:11

But before that blessed event or the trial

30:13

that followed, Chaplin was indicted

30:15

by federal authorities under the Man Act

30:18

They said he paid Joan Barry to travel from

30:20

California to New York City for the purposes

30:23

of sex, setting her up there in

30:25

advance of his visit. chaplin

30:27

was ultimately vindicated at trial

30:29

and there was no evidence he had sex with

30:31

Barry while he was in New York and he'd never been

30:33

alone with her but the blow to his reputation

30:36

was severe. The

30:39

paternity trial was even worse.

30:41

Blood

30:41

tests showed chaplain couldn't be the

30:43

father, but blood tests were inadmissible in

30:45

California. Barry's lawyers

30:47

dredged up Chaplin's long history of

30:49

involvement with very young women. There

30:52

has been no one to stop Chaplin in his lecture

30:54

as conduct all these years except you,

30:56

her lawyer's told the jury. You'll sleep

30:58

well the night you give this baby a name.

31:02

The jury declared that despite scientific

31:05

evidence to the contrary, Charlie

31:07

Chaplin was the father Joan

31:09

Berry's child. The paternity

31:12

trial achieved were all chaplains messy

31:14

divorces, dalliances, and underage

31:16

starlets, and sex trafficking accusations

31:18

couldn't. His reputation was

31:21

in ruins. It didn't help

31:23

that his next film, Marcia Verde,

31:25

had Chaplin playing a big and miss wife

31:28

murder America was

31:30

finally ready to kick the little trim

31:32

to the curb.

31:51

March nineteen seventy eight,

31:53

A phone rang in the Boston field office

31:55

of the FBI. The

31:57

person on the line had information about

31:59

Charlie Chaplin, the subject of FBI

32:02

interest for years. But

32:03

Jay Edgar Hoover, the FBI director

32:06

who included Chapman in the long list

32:08

of suspected communist that haunted

32:10

his paranoid psyche was

32:12

dead, and

32:13

so too was

32:14

Charlie Chaplin. The call

32:16

was from a businessman in Portland, Maine.

32:19

who spoke with a local psychic he claimed

32:21

was one of the strongest in the area.

32:23

The psychic said she knew who stole

32:25

Charlie Chaplin's body from his grave and

32:27

swits went five days earlier.

32:30

She knew why they'd stolen, and

32:32

she knew where the body was now.

32:37

Charlie

32:37

Chaplin lived a quarter century

32:39

in exile from his adopted homeland.

32:41

He refused to contest his revoke reentry

32:44

papers when he sailed away on the Queen Elizabeth

32:46

in nineteen fifty two. Instead,

32:48

he sent UNA back to the states two months

32:50

later, did she dug up the small fortune

32:53

chaplain that buried in their backyard, sewing

32:55

the bills into the lining of her main coat to

32:57

bring back with her abroad. She

33:00

sold the house in the Chaplin studio, and

33:02

she wrapped up what remained of United artists.

33:05

The Chaplin settled in Switzerland on Lake

33:07

Geneva, Chapel never saw American

33:09

citizenship. Unum, renounced

33:12

hers. He

33:14

made two more films before dead kitting

33:16

his time to re editing and rescoring his

33:18

older films. He came back

33:20

to America once in nineteen seventy

33:22

two, to accept an honorary academy

33:25

award. The film industry

33:27

had been forced to reckon with its complicity in

33:29

the red scare in the history of the Hollywood

33:31

blacklist. The Lifetime Award

33:33

for Chaplin was part of that. And

33:36

so was the twelve minute standing ovation

33:38

you received from the crowd? Once

33:40

the applause died down, he went

33:42

back to Switzerland. In nineteen

33:45

seventy five, he was knighted by Queen

33:47

Elizabeth four decades after her

33:49

grandfather. George the fifth had

33:51

declined to do so. Chaplin

33:53

had suffered a series of strokes and wasn't able

33:56

to get out of his wheelchair to kneel before the

33:58

queen. On Christmas

34:00

morning, nineteen seventy seven,

34:02

Chaplin died at home in his sleep.

34:05

He left over a hundred million dollars

34:07

to Oona, She laid him to rest

34:09

in a small ceremony and a cemetery near

34:11

the family's home, but his body

34:14

didn't rest there long. On

34:17

the morning of March second, UNIT Chaplin

34:19

got a call from the cemetery. Charlie's

34:21

body was gone. There were marks in

34:23

the mud where it had been dragged. Tire

34:25

tracks led to the nearby road. The

34:28

search for Chaplin's

34:29

body was international news,

34:31

speculation was rampant. Some said

34:33

neo Nazi stole the body and desecrated it

34:35

as revenge for chaplain mocking Hitler

34:37

and the great dictator. And

34:39

the psychic department, however, had a

34:41

different vision.

34:42

Hers involved three gray robbers, two

34:45

men and a woman. all Germans. In

34:47

her vision, they stole the body because

34:49

they hated Americans.

34:51

But like the assassins in the League of Blood,

34:53

they failed to notice that Chaplin was British.

34:56

According to the Psyche, they had the

34:58

body enduring Germany and had no

35:00

intention of asking for a ransom. And

35:03

the FBI agents in Boston passed

35:05

the psychic's tip up to chain of command

35:07

all the way to FBI director William Hedgecock

35:09

Webster who relayed the emation to

35:11

authorities and bond. And

35:13

the Swiss authorities thanked Webster, but

35:15

informed him that the body snatchers had already

35:17

phoned Una Chaplin with the ransom demands

35:20

to the tune of six hundred thousand. dollars

35:22

UNA refused. Charlie

35:25

would have found their demands ridiculous, and

35:27

there was no way she was going to pay them.

35:30

The calls kept coming. The police

35:32

tapped Una's phone and stationed officers

35:34

to stake out two hundred pay phones in the area.

35:37

Five weeks after the body disappeared, they

35:39

caught a man phoning in another desperate demand

35:41

for cash from Chaplin's widow. Roman

35:44

Varda. A twenty four year old

35:46

Polish refugee, heard all about

35:48

Chaplin's death along with the rest of the world.

35:51

He also heard all about Chaplin's money.

35:54

money that now belong to his widow.

35:56

That one hundred million dollar inheritance, more

35:59

money than one person needed. Roman

36:01

Vardis needed money. That

36:04

led him to an idea.

36:06

But now he was leading police to a

36:08

body, buried in a cornfield a

36:10

mile from the chaplains home. He

36:12

explained they hadn't land on stealing

36:14

it. And they were going to stage a grave robbery,

36:16

digging up the coffin, rebarrying it deeper,

36:18

the grave, and covering it up. And after

36:21

they got their money from Una, they'd reveal that

36:23

Chaplin's body had been in the grave the whole time,

36:25

but it rained the night of the crime, and

36:27

the mod in the grave turned to suit. In

36:30

a real grave robbery, became easier than

36:32

a fake one.

36:33

Roman Vardis was sentenced to four

36:36

and a half years hard labor, his

36:38

partner who'd only driven the getaway horse

36:40

and helped re bury the body was laid off

36:42

with a suspended sentence. Vargas

36:45

wrote to Una asking for forgiveness,

36:47

which she gave him. And Charlie

36:49

Chaplin's body, now sealed in

36:51

concrete, to prevent another theft, was

36:53

put back in its original plot and swits

36:56

away after one last adventure.

36:58

An adventure that might have amused

37:00

the little trap in a dark final

37:03

story that to be in

37:05

pictures. I'm

37:07

Jake Brennan, and this

37:10

is badlands.

37:18

If you like

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37:55

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Sources for this episode are available

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This episode was mixed by Matt Boden.

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Good. That's a wrap.

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