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Quarterly
Small Starts to Large Lives
By
Graceann
Macleod
I have been
spending some time thinking about the beginnings of celebrated
lives, and that made me think about how those people have inspired
my travel choices. I love seeing where those I admire spent their
formative years. It tells me a lot about the people they became,
and what informed their art.
I decided to
concentrate on three people: Mark Twain, Charles Chaplin and Buster
Keaton.
Be good and you will
be lonesome – Mark Twain
I've written
in the past about Hannibal, Missouri and how it has managed to
retain much of its character in a modern, and sometimes unpleasant,
world. What makes this very special to me is how easy it makes it
for someone like myself to imagine tousle-headed, barefooted Sam
Clemens running down to the River with a fishing pole. I would not
be surprised to find a raft waiting when I walk down to the pier.
Samuel
Clemens was born in 1835 in Florida, Missouri, and his family moved
to Hannibal when he was four years old. They moved into the house
that is now the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum when he was nine
or so. Hannibal was home for young Sam until 1853, when he left to
become a journeyman printer. This was just the beginning of his
travel, and all of it provided fodder for his pen, much to our
benefit.
The Little Tramp
Nobody seems
to be quite sure what house Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in, but
I've spent a fair amount of time in a place that had a far deeper
and harsher impact on him; the Lambeth Workhouse (now the Cinema
Museum) in
 London. Charlie and his brother Sidney were in and out
of this place over and over again until they escaped into the music
hall, and the ugliness of life within these walls would insinuate
itself into Chaplin's films. I re-watched The Kid (1921) shortly
after my first trip to the site, and I could see everything Chaplin
experienced in the most dramatic scenes of the film.
The
workhouse is largely unchanged and I don't mind saying that I find
it a bit creepy to wander the grounds on a grey, rainy day. I tune
out the air traffic above and I feel very much as if I've stepped
back more than a century to a time when it was perfectly acceptable
to imprison children for the sin of being poor. The Cinema Museum's
use of the space is a fitting tribute to Chaplin's later life and
work, in my opinion, and they are attempting to raise funds for a
work of art nearby in celebration of him.
Keep Your Eye on the
Kid
Buster
Keaton was born, almost literally, in a trunk. His parents, Joe and
Myra Keaton, were on a vaudeville tour in the town of Piqua, Kansas
on October 4, 1895, when he made his appearance in a theatrical
boarding house. There is very little left of Piqua from that time,
given that most of the town was blown off the map by a tornado
several years later. His birthplace is memorialized by a plaque and
a museum which is well worth a visit. On the final weekend of
September each year, Keaton fans gather from all over the World in
order to hear about the man and his work, in nearby Iola.
Buster was
the third Keaton in The Three Keatons almost as soon as he could
toddle. Myra sewed a valise handle in the back of his little suit,
and Buster's dad threw him all over the stage, much to the delight
of the audience and, I suspect, Buster. Buster said that it was the
roughest act in vaudeville, and I can think of little else that
would be as appealing to a little boy than to tumble and jump
around, and be applauded for it.
Young Buster
toured with his family all over the country and the World until he
was 17, when he started his journey into film history. He's now
recognized as one of the “Big Three” of silent comedy, and my
personal favorite. I have a great family of friends due to Buster,
and I love one of them so much that I married him.
These three
places are terribly disparate. The home that Mark Twain lived in as
a boy is fairly modest by today's standards, but comfortable. The
house that Buster was born in no longer exists. The workhouse that
Chaplin escaped from speaks more to how far we've come than to the “good old days.” In looking at each of them and then looking at the
abundant work that each man left us to enjoy, one understands a bit
better what it is that gave each person his point of view. When I
visit with the people of Piqua, who welcome my husband and me warmly
each September, I am reminded of Buster's straightforward, simple
attitude toward life. When I stand in the rain outside the Lambeth
Workhouse, I wonder how Chaplin could revisit, even in the land of
make-believe, that experience for the purposes of cinema. When I
look up Mark Twain's childhood home, and feel the warmth that
emanates from it more than 150 years after Twain lived there, I am
once again charmed by his wit and intelligence.
Scientists
have spent their entire working lives trying to determine whether a
person's character is formed by their genes or by the circumstances
of their childhood. In these three instances, I don't think you
need look further than two Midwestern towns and an historic building
in London.
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