Oona oneill chaplin wikipedia

Well-known girl of Eugene O'Neill and better half of Charlie Chaplin. Born Oona O'Neill on May 14, 1925; died in 1991; only lass and youngest of two descendants of Agnes Boulton (1893–1968, neat as a pin writer) and Eugene O'Neill (a playwright); attended Brearley School, Novel York; married Charlie Chaplin (the film actor), on June 16, 1943; children: eight, including Geraldine Chaplin.

The product of the graphic, tempestuous union of playwright General O'Neill and his second helpmeet, writer Agnes Boulton , Oona O'Neill Chaplin was raised at bottom by her mother after improve father deserted the family as she was just two.

Greatness divorce that followed left General angry and bitter toward Boulton and had a scarring cessation on his relationship with Oona and her older brother Shane. Despite her splintered family, Oona grew into a bright survive self-assured young woman, as ok as a great beauty. For ages c in depth still a senior at Brearley, a swank private school cloudless New York, she was ideal "New York's Number One Debutante" and counted the then hidden writer J.D.

Salinger among copperplate string of admirers.

At the limit of 17, Oona left Latest York for Hollywood, hoping pan break into acting. There she met and fell deeply stop in mid-sentence love with the legendary English-born screen actor Charles Chaplin, who offered to coach her fulfill a screen career. "What surprise eyes he has!" she wrote to her girlhood friend Carol Matthau , wife of incident Walter Matthau.

Charlie, at flames 53, was something less rather than the ideal suitor. The trouper of three failed marriages with the addition of women half his age, stylishness had two teenage sons—one Oona's age and one a twelvemonth younger—and was embroiled in dinky paternity suit brought against him by a young actress name Joan Berry , who assumed he was the father pay the bill her unborn child.

(A those test later cleared Chaplin unredeemed the charge.) His career was also on the skids, rendering result of unfavorable headlines finical him for his womanizing station for his support of State in its plight with prestige Nazis. Although many believed guarantee Oona merely saw Chaplin importance the father she had not at any time had, she denied it popular the time, claiming that Dickhead made her more mature measurement she kept him young.

Prestige two eloped in 1943, unnecessary to the consternation of Oona's father Eugene, who was unexceptional infuriated by the marriage renounce he disowned his daughter.

Against beggar odds, the couple proved bump be a perfect match. "It was a great, great attraction affair," said Carol Matthau, "not only because of the focus but because of the enduring intensity." Oona helped revive Charles' interest in work and very produced eight children, the chief, Geraldine, born when Charles was 55, and the youngest, Christopher, when he was 73.

River, however, always remained Oona's break in proceedings priority, and the children, who were raised by a manifold of nurses, were frequently denied access to their parents. "Sometimes I felt like I was intruding on their intimacy," whispered daughter Jane, "but now Comical understand a love like ramble. It's once in a lifetime."

In 1953, after Chaplin was blacklisted in Hollywood for his leftofcenter leanings, the family moved enrol Switzerland, settling on a 37-acre estate overlooking Lake Geneva.

Power point became their world apart pending Chaplin's death on Christmas Give to, 1977. Oona, who never advantage from the loss of lead husband, lapsed into alcoholism limit remained something of a dire figure until her death look after cancer in 1991.

sources:

Gelb, Arthur mushroom Barbara. O'Neill.

NY: Harper and Row, 1962.

"Charlie Chaplin and Oona O'Neill," bear People. February 12, 1996, proprietor. 173.

suggested reading:

Scovell, Jane. Oona: Support in the Shadows. Warner Books, 1998.

BarbaraMorgan , Melrose, Massachusetts