Charlie Chaplin and White Slavery

 

Medford Mail Tribune, 29th March 1944

In 1912, politician Arthur Lee announced in Parliament that 

"the United Kingdom, and particularly England, is increasingly becoming a clearing-house and depot and dispatch centre of the white slave traffic"

His comment related to a Criminal Law Amendment Bill which was being debated, and which was born of widespread fears around issues of sex trafficking. For more on this, I recommend Julia Laite's book The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey, her appearance on this episode of the History Extra podcast and, if you want even more, this brilliant discussion of the book on the History Workshop podcast. 

While the Bill did not pass, Britain was not the only nation experiencing a similar moral panic, which centred around the notion that white women and girls were being kidnapped or coerced into sex work, usually by 'foreign' men. In the United States, Congress passed the White Slave Traffic Act in 1910, better known as the Mann Act. In essence, the Act made it a felony crime to transport a woman or girl across state lines (or out of the country entirely) for 'immoral purposes'. Immoral purposes could, conveniently, be whatever law enforcement felt it to be, including premarital or interracial sex and (usually Mormon) polygamy. 

In 1913, the Act was used to prosecute African American boxer, Jack Johnson, who had relationships with white women (in 2018, Johnson was, perhaps surprisingly, pardoned by the well-known racial equality campaigner, President Donald Trump). Also in 1913, two men took their mistresses on a jolly to Reno, but their wives reported them to the police. They too were charged under the Mann Act. In 1960, the Mann Act was also used against Charlie Manson when he transported two sex workers across state lines, though the charges were dropped. Some charges under the Act may seem far more reasonable to us in the 21st century, such as the prosecution of Chuck Berry, who took a fourteen-year-old girl out of state for sex and was convicted in 1962. 

Jack Johnson

Charlie Chaplin is another famous example of prosecution under the Mann Act and it all centred around one woman, Joan Barry. She was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1920, though the family moved to New York City five years later. Soon after she graduated High School in 1938, Barry moved across the country to California, where she hoped to pursue an acting career. A short while later, down on her luck, she was arrested for stealing dresses from a department store and, as part of her probation, was forced to go back to New York. Late the following year, Barry returned to California, where she met and began a relationship with a millionaire, J. Paul Getty. He introduced her to his associate, Tim Durant, who worked for a theatrical promoter. He in turn introduced her, in June 1941, to the very well-known director, Charlie Chaplin. 

Joan Barry

The two seemed to get on very well right from the off and by the end of the month Barry was contracted to Chaplin's studio on $75 a week. The two also began a secret sexual relationship. By the close of 1941, Joan Barry had fallen pregnant twice, and both times had undergone a termination, allegedly at Chaplin's insistence. Despite this difficulty, Chaplin cast Barry in an upcoming film, describing to his sons that

"She has a quality, an ethereal something that's marvellous... a talent as great as any I've seen in my whole life"

Sadly, Barry seems to have begun to experience mental health difficulties, allegedly getting drunk and turning up at Chaplin's house in the middle of the night, where she would smash windows if he didn't answer the door. This continued into 1943 and in the June, Barry announced to the media that she was pregnant with Chaplin's child, and her mother filed a paternity suit. Two weeks later, at the age of 52, Chaplin married his 18 year old girlfriend, which probably didn't help his reputation all that much.

Baby Carol Ann was born in the October of 1943. Blood tests were taken which seemed to indicate that Chaplin was not Carol Ann's father but he was still ordered to pay child support when Barry's lawyer had the blood tests ruled inadmissible in court. Chaplin supported Carol Ann until she was 21. To add even more spice to an already sufficiently dramatic story, Chaplin's ex-wife alleged that he had paid government officials to tamper with the evidence and there was no doubt whatsoever that he was Carol Ann's father. 

Allegedly as part of a smear attempt by none other than Communist-Finder General, J. Edgar Hoover, Chaplin was charged under the Mann Act of having transported Barry across state lines for illicit sexual encounters. If convicted, Chaplin faced over twenty years in prison. 

Spokane Chronicle, 4th April 1944

Luckily for Chaplin and sadly for Hoover, the verdict was Not Guilty. Friendly with known Communists and sometimes found hanging out with Soviet Diplomats in LA, there were strong suspicions about Chaplin's political leanings. One Congressman even stated in 1947 that 

"[His] very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America [...] He should be deported and gotten rid of at once"

In the end, Chaplin had had enough of America and moved to Europe, and America had had enough of Chaplin and revoked his re-entry permit. 

The Tennessean, 14th May 1949 

Chaplin basically managed to get embroiled in two moral/ social panics at the exact same time, which is fairly impressive. The Mann Act and its application is also a great example of the ways in which vague legislation supposedly designed to help women can actually be used to further capitalist and white supremacist agendas. Something for the carceral feminists to consider, maybe.

This post has deviated from my initial plan to stay close to home and talk about the history of British crime, so next week will be back to normal. In fact, I will be talking about university-educated gay Communist spies - what could really be more British?