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Oona O'Neill is a Actor and Stand In American born on 14 may 1925 at Warwick Parish (Bermudes)
Oona O'Neill Chaplin, Lady Chaplin (May 14, 1925 – September 27, 1991) was the daughter of Nobel- and Pulitzer-Prize-winning American playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton, and the fourth and last wife of English 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 very rarely saw her father. She first came to the public eye during her time at the Brearley School in New York City in 1940–1942, 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 had turned 18. The 36-year age gap between them caused a scandal, and severed O'Neill's relationship with her father, 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 in 1977. The first decade of their marriage was spent living in Beverly Hills, but after Chaplin's re-entry permit to the United States was canceled 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 American citizenship and became a British citizen.
Following Chaplin's death, 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.
Oona O'Neill was born on May 14, 1925, in Bermuda, where her parents had relocated to six months before her birth in the hopes that it would be a good place to write during the winter. She also had an older brother, Shane Rudraighe O'Neill (1919–1977). 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.
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. 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. He rekindled his romance with Monterey a year later, in the early autumn of 1927 during a trip to New York, and after briefly returning to Bermuda, separated from Agnes in November. Agnes and the children stayed in Bermuda until the next 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. However, Agnes did not find the school satisfactory, and had her transferred to the Brearley School in New York for her sophomore year in 1940.
At Brearley, O'Neill became a close friend of Carol Marcus, and through her also met Gloria Vanderbilt and Truman Capote. Although still underage, they often spent time at popular nightclubs, and began to appear in the society pages of magazines. During this time, O'Neill also dated newspaper cartoonist Peter Arno and the still unknown J.D. Salinger. 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. The event gained a large amount of publicity around the country, and she received offers from film studios and modelling agencies. The publicity infuriated her father, who used his contacts in Hollywood to prevent her from signing a film contract.
Although she had been offered a place to study at Vassar College, O'Neill declined the offer and instead chose to pursue an acting career, despite her father's resistance. 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. However, the production was a flop and was cancelled after a two-week run. Later that summer, O'Neill travelled to California with Carol Marcus, who was due to marry author William Saroyan. 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 near the city.
Marriage to Chaplin (1943–1977)
From San Francisco, O'Neill headed to Los Angeles, where her mother and stepfather were living. 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. 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. 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.
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 commented that she was "happy to stay in the background", and help Chaplin where needed. 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 (b. May 1951), during this time. 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.
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. In September 1952, while travelling with O'Neill and their children to London for the premiere of Limelight on board the Queen Elizabeth, his re-entry permit was revoked. 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. In early January 1953, they moved to their new home, Manoir de Ban, a 14-hectare (35-acre) 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.
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, and early 1970s, he became increasingly dependent on Oona's support. He died at age 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. 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)
Following Chaplin's death, O'Neill divided her time between Switzerland and New York. In 1981, she appeared in a minor supporting role in Broken English, but otherwise avoided publicity. According to unofficial biographer Jane Scovell and ex-daughter-in-law, Patrice Chaplin, O'Neill was an alcoholic. In the late 1980s she returned permanently to Manoir de Ban, becoming almost a recluse. She died at the age of 66 of pancreatic cancer in Corsier-sur-Vevey and was buried next to her husband in the village cemetery.
In her last will, O'Neill, who was a prolific writer of diaries and letters during her life, ordered that all her writings be destroyed, and never published.
(1952)
(Stand In)
Source : Wikidata
Oona O'Neill
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Nationality USA
Birth 14 may 1925 at Warwick Parish (Bermudes)
Death 27 september 1991 (at 66 years) at Corsier-sur-Vevey (Suisse)
Birth 14 may 1925 at Warwick Parish (Bermudes)
Death 27 september 1991 (at 66 years) at Corsier-sur-Vevey (Suisse)
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 very rarely saw her father. She first came to the public eye during her time at the Brearley School in New York City in 1940–1942, 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 had turned 18. The 36-year age gap between them caused a scandal, and severed O'Neill's relationship with her father, 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 in 1977. The first decade of their marriage was spent living in Beverly Hills, but after Chaplin's re-entry permit to the United States was canceled 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 American citizenship and became a British citizen.
Following Chaplin's death, 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.
Biography
Early life (1925–1942)Oona O'Neill was born on May 14, 1925, in Bermuda, where her parents had relocated to six months before her birth in the hopes that it would be a good place to write during the winter. She also had an older brother, Shane Rudraighe O'Neill (1919–1977). 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.
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. 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. He rekindled his romance with Monterey a year later, in the early autumn of 1927 during a trip to New York, and after briefly returning to Bermuda, separated from Agnes in November. Agnes and the children stayed in Bermuda until the next 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. However, Agnes did not find the school satisfactory, and had her transferred to the Brearley School in New York for her sophomore year in 1940.
At Brearley, O'Neill became a close friend of Carol Marcus, and through her also met Gloria Vanderbilt and Truman Capote. Although still underage, they often spent time at popular nightclubs, and began to appear in the society pages of magazines. During this time, O'Neill also dated newspaper cartoonist Peter Arno and the still unknown J.D. Salinger. 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. The event gained a large amount of publicity around the country, and she received offers from film studios and modelling agencies. The publicity infuriated her father, who used his contacts in Hollywood to prevent her from signing a film contract.
Although she had been offered a place to study at Vassar College, O'Neill declined the offer and instead chose to pursue an acting career, despite her father's resistance. 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. However, the production was a flop and was cancelled after a two-week run. Later that summer, O'Neill travelled to California with Carol Marcus, who was due to marry author William Saroyan. 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 near the city.
Marriage to Chaplin (1943–1977)
From San Francisco, O'Neill headed to Los Angeles, where her mother and stepfather were living. 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. 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. 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.
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 commented that she was "happy to stay in the background", and help Chaplin where needed. 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 (b. May 1951), during this time. 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.
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. In September 1952, while travelling with O'Neill and their children to London for the premiere of Limelight on board the Queen Elizabeth, his re-entry permit was revoked. 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. In early January 1953, they moved to their new home, Manoir de Ban, a 14-hectare (35-acre) 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.
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, and early 1970s, he became increasingly dependent on Oona's support. He died at age 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. 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)
Following Chaplin's death, O'Neill divided her time between Switzerland and New York. In 1981, she appeared in a minor supporting role in Broken English, but otherwise avoided publicity. According to unofficial biographer Jane Scovell and ex-daughter-in-law, Patrice Chaplin, O'Neill was an alcoholic. In the late 1980s she returned permanently to Manoir de Ban, becoming almost a recluse. She died at the age of 66 of pancreatic cancer in Corsier-sur-Vevey and was buried next to her husband in the village cemetery.
In her last will, O'Neill, who was a prolific writer of diaries and letters during her life, ordered that all her writings be destroyed, and never published.
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(1952)(Stand In)
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Filmography of Oona O'Neill (2 films)
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Broken English (1981)
, 1h33Origin USA
Genres Drama, Romance
Actors Oona O'Neill, Jacques Martial, Oona Chaplin
Roles Sarah's mother
Rating68%
Partly subtitled, the film follows the story of Sarah, who comes under fire from her family, friends and colleagues when she marries an African man, Maas. When she discovers that Maas is part of an underground group of South African freedom fighters, she must analyze her own political and sexual beliefs.
Limelight (1952)
, 2h17Directed by Charlie Chaplin
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Musical, Romance
Themes Dance films, Films about music and musicians, Musical films
Actors Charlie Chaplin, Claire Bloom, Nigel Bruce, Buster Keaton, Sydney Chaplin, Wheeler Dryden
Roles Extra (uncredited)
Rating79%
The movie is set in London in 1914, on the eve of World War I (and the year Chaplin made his first film). Calvero (Chaplin), once a famous stage clown but now a washed-up drunk, saves a young dancer, Thereza "Terry" Ambrose, (Claire Bloom), from suicide. Nursing her back to health, Calvero helps Terry regain her self-esteem and resume her dancing career. In doing so he regains his own self-confidence, but his attempts to make a comeback meet with failure. Terry says she wants to marry Calvero despite their age difference, although she has befriended Neville (Sydney Earl Chaplin), a young composer Calvero believes would be better suited to her. In order to give them a chance, Calvero leaves home and becomes a street entertainer. Terry, now starring in her own show, eventually finds Calvero and persuades him to return to the stage for a benefit concert. Reunited with an old partner (Keaton), Calvero gives a triumphant comeback performance. He suffers a heart attack during a routine, however, and dies in the wings while watching Terry, the second act on the bill, dance on stage.
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Limelight (1952)
, 2h17Directed by Charlie Chaplin
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Musical, Romance
Themes Dance films, Films about music and musicians, Musical films
Actors Charlie Chaplin, Claire Bloom, Nigel Bruce, Buster Keaton, Sydney Chaplin, Wheeler Dryden
Roles Stand In
Rating79%
The movie is set in London in 1914, on the eve of World War I (and the year Chaplin made his first film). Calvero (Chaplin), once a famous stage clown but now a washed-up drunk, saves a young dancer, Thereza "Terry" Ambrose, (Claire Bloom), from suicide. Nursing her back to health, Calvero helps Terry regain her self-esteem and resume her dancing career. In doing so he regains his own self-confidence, but his attempts to make a comeback meet with failure. Terry says she wants to marry Calvero despite their age difference, although she has befriended Neville (Sydney Earl Chaplin), a young composer Calvero believes would be better suited to her. In order to give them a chance, Calvero leaves home and becomes a street entertainer. Terry, now starring in her own show, eventually finds Calvero and persuades him to return to the stage for a benefit concert. Reunited with an old partner (Keaton), Calvero gives a triumphant comeback performance. He suffers a heart attack during a routine, however, and dies in the wings while watching Terry, the second act on the bill, dance on stage.