October 9, 2017 • 21 mins
Wooed by perhaps the greatest American writer of the 20th century, born from the loins of its greatest playwright and ultimately wed to the most famous performer on the planet, Oona O'Neill Chaplin lived in the shadow of three of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and her story is interwoven with them all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Why Ozzy Media productions. History books are filled with big
names and big events, but sometimes the most influential people
are behind the scenes, in the shadows across the dining
room table. Sometimes just one chance encounter or one broken
heart can change the course of history. I'm Sean Braswell
(00:26):
and this is the thread of podcast from Azzi Media.
This season, we pulled the thread on the death of
rock star John Lennon and actually connected back to the
communist leader Vladimir Lenin. Here's a quick recap of our
thread so far, but please listen to the previous episodes
if you haven't already. John Lennon is dead, shopped several
(00:49):
times by young American as he was going into his
home in New York. December eight, Mark David Chapman fired
five bullets at John Lennon in front of the Dakota
A building in New York. Police have a suspect and custody,
whom they describe only as a local screwball. Chapman was
a disturbed loner, and he was obsessed with the classic
(01:10):
American novel The Catcher and the Rye by J. D. Salinger.
Chapman believed that he embodied the book's main character, Holden Caulfield,
and he railed against the phonies and hypocrites he saw everywhere,
including John Lennon. Here's Mark David Chapman describing the morning
of the murder to see an end's Larry King. I
bought a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, signed
(01:32):
it to Holding Caulfield from Holding Caulfield and wrote underneath
that this is my statement. Why would a character like
Holding Caulfield speak to Mark David Chapman. The answer has
to do with the author, J. D. Salinger. For one thing,
Salinger's great novel was shaped by his own dark and
traumatic experiences as a soldier in World War Two. But
(01:55):
the other part of the story has to do with
the beautiful girl that helped inspire The Catcher in the
Rye and then broke Salinger's heart before he shipped off
for war. That girl was Una O'Neill. Without Una, there
might never have been a world of phonies for Holding
Caulfield and then Mark David Chapman to rail against. So
today we find out what's the big deal with Una O'Neill.
(02:19):
When you were sitting in the bunker, did you have
a wonder about it catching all Charlie's eye. Don't worry
in body, Jerry, which he made you carry turned you
into one hell of a guy. So tell me what's
the big deal Falcon alone, what's the big deal about Una? One?
(02:48):
Una O'Neil Chaplin is the fulcrum of our story, the
strand holding our thread together. And yet UNA's influence is
often lost in the shadow of the great men whose
lives and works she helps shape. I was walking on
I want to say, Madison Avenue in New York, and
(03:09):
there was a headline and it said wife of Charlie Chaplin,
daughter of Eugene O'Neill, dead at sixty six. And what
I was struck by was, as I remembered the headline,
it didn't mention her name. This is Jane Scoville, writer, playwright, biographer,
(03:30):
and the woman she was reading about that day on
Madison Avenue was Una O'Neil Chaplin. I would describe her
as the daughter of the postage stamp and the wife
of a postage stamp. In other words, she was in
the middle of two great men. When we last heard
from Una, she had left J. D. Salinger behind heartbroken.
(03:54):
Salinger spent more than a year of his life pursuing
the attracted debutante. He paid for dinners and dates he
could and afford. Salinger would write Una, long, beautiful, effusive letters,
and then totally switched tax and pretend he didn't like
her at all. Here's UNA's daughter, Annie Chaplin, reading from
one of those letters. I've seen the folly of my ways,
(04:15):
and never again will I shovel heavy and more into
your pretty ear. In the future, I shall be gay.
I shall right up and down Park Avenue on a
white horse, throwing bottles of champagne at blind beggars. But
the relationship wasn't meant to be. America entered the Second
World War, Salinger was drafted and reported to boot camp. Una,
(04:37):
who would soon break his heart, moved to Hollywood in
pursuit of stardom. Una O'Neil biographer Jane Scoville. There's a
charming screen test of her. She was supposed to be
a Russian peasant. She's got a babusha on she she
(04:58):
looks about as Russian as more Rena O'Hara. I mean,
this is not a Russian face. She speaks in the
screen test, and it's all very Park Avenue This screen
test is just over a minute long. Una looks a
(05:19):
bit lost. She has an unsure smile, her eyes sparkling
as she tries to follow the director's instructions to look
this way and that. We'll never know if Una O'Neill
could have been a movie star, but this screen test
is a haunting glimpse of what might have been if
fate did not have other plans for Una in Hollywood. J. D.
(05:44):
Salinger was just one in a long list of well
known men who were infatuated with Una O'Neill. Another man
on the list Orson Wells, the famous actor and director,
took Una out for a night on the town when
she first moved to Hollywood, in the back corner of
some literary nightclub, Wells took her hand and offered to
read her poem. He traced her love line, looked her
(06:06):
in the eyes, and told her that it led directly
to an older man. But it wasn't him. There was
someone else, someone even more famous screen legend, Charlie Chaplin.
Years later, Wells described the night in an interviews exactly
the girl that would be happy with with Charlie, I suppose,
(06:27):
and instead of thinking maybe you will meet him. I
just twtted I lose. I said you're gonna marry him?
And she did. Una met Charlie Chaplin just as Orsen
Wells predicted. Chaplin described encountering Una for the first time
in his autobiography, I became aware of a luminous beauty
with a sequestered charm and a gentleness that was most appealing.
(06:50):
Chaplin had a reputation as a womanizer. He once bragged
that he had slept with two thousand women by the
age of fifty. He had also gone through three wives,
each of them significantly younger than himself. After a brief courtship,
Una became wife number four in nineteen forty three. She
was eighteen, he was fifty four. J. D. Salinger read
(07:13):
about the wedding and the papers while at boot camp.
He was devastated. Many were skeptical the marriage would last,
but Charlie and Una proved them wrong. Una gave up
any chance of a film career to focus on Charlie
and their growing family, and they eventually had eight children together.
Their house was a social gathering point for celebrities, artists,
(07:33):
and intellectuals, from Dylan Thomas to Albert Einstein. Biographer Jane
Scovel one went to see Charlie and one came away
remembering Una. As the years went by, Charlie was pursued
by the US government and j Edgar Hoover's FBI. Like
many artists of his time, they wrongly accused him of
(07:56):
being a communist. This is the biggest joke in the world. Charlie,
each Applin. Nobody loved capitalism or money more than than Charlie.
The Chaplains decided to leave America behind. They set sail
for England in nineteen fifty two. They eventually settled in Switzerland,
where they would remain together for the rest of Charlie's life.
(08:17):
And he just doated on her. She was beautiful, she
was smart. So it worked. It worked for a while
for you know, quite a while. But uh, like all
good things, it came to an end. Their problem basically
was not love. It was time. The age difference between
(08:42):
Charlie and Una started to take its toll. As he
got older, he became very feeble, very feeble, and he
demanded that Una be with him constantly, never let her
out of his sight, and she didn't try to get
(09:02):
out of it. But at the same time, This is
no way to live. Meanwhile, Una struggled against a long
term demon that plagued the O'Neill family, alcoholism. She drank alone,
often locking herself in her room, and Una was I
think literally pouring the booze into teacups so that Nolby
(09:27):
would know, but everybody knew. Charlie Chaplin died on Christmas Day,
v s Una was devastated, isolated, and lost an alcohol
her life spiraled. She would sometimes take one of Chaplin's
white gloves and hold it in her hand as if
(09:47):
still holding his. One night in Switzerland, Una was quite drunk.
She turned to a friend and asked, Charlie was a
great man, wasn't he? Then all of a sudden Una
burst out, what the did I do with my life?
And in a way, it's a it's a very good
question because this woman she wrote beautifully, she read, read
(10:12):
read a lot, and she wouldn't allow herself to be
the center of attention. She just served and that you
don't get medals for that. Most of UNA's life centered
around Charlie Chaplin, but in her teenage years she was
the center of attention. Up next, we go back back
(10:35):
to when Una was sixteen and had all of New York,
including Salinger, wrapped around her finger. The thread is brought
to you by Ausi fest. Azzi Fest brings together incredible music,
provocative ideas, laugh out loud comedy, and mouthwatering food in
New York City's Central Park. Check it out at aussi
(10:57):
dot com slash AUSI Fest. J. D. Salinger developed his
famous allergy to phoniness at Una O'Neill's side. Una and
her two best friends, Carol Marcus and Gloria Vanderbilt, were
Manhattan it girls, all from wealthy, upper class families. They
were the gossip girls of their day. These essentially were
(11:21):
three fatherless girls, and when they got together their main
activity I think was dating. They were out all the time.
Another literary giant and eyewitness to UNAH's life was the
author Truman Capodi. The three girls, Marcus, Vanderbilt, and O'Neill
(11:43):
inspired Holly Goo lightly the heroine of his classic story
Breakfast at Tiffany's, the one played by Audrey Hepburn in
the film. Una was popular, but shy. The sunny exterior
seemed to mask a deep sadness. She was intelligent but
didn't really apply herself, says biographer Jane Scoville, she was kind,
always kind, very sympathetic, very loving, but very bright. By
(12:09):
the time she was a teenager, her parents largely left
her to her own devices, and like any teenager, Una
acted out, albeit on a much grander scale than most.
At night, she became the queen of New York's Cafe Society,
and her home away from home was the Stork Club.
You see, the Stork Club is the mecca for celebrities
(12:29):
from all over the world. They come here to eat, see,
and be seen as part of our audience. They attract
an audience. Get it, Oh, no, I do. When you
talk about the Stork Club. It was the most famous
nightclub in all of New York. This is Ken Slowinski
who told us about Salinger's story. Only the rich and
famous content. You know, who's here with who, what's going on?
(12:55):
And it would all be in the columns the next
day in the paper. When own new, it was like
an old time movie premiere, with the photographers flashing lights
and everyone calling her name. She was treated like a queen.
She was voted the number one New York debutante at
(13:18):
the Store Club for Una appeared in newspapers and magazines
across the country. One night, a reporter asked how her
father felt about her winning Debutante of the Year. She said,
I don't know, and I'm not going to ask him.
He'll find out for himself. And that infuriated her father.
(13:40):
But by that point Una was fed up. She had
been chasing the love and attention of her father, a
tempestuous playwright, her whole life. UNA's father, Eugene O'Neill, probably
shouldn't have been a parent in the first place. O'Neil
always said he didn't want children, and he was right.
(14:03):
This is a guy who could have gotten a Nobel
Prize for bad parenting. Jane Scoville again. The only thing
he said that would make it bearable is if it
were a girl, and if she were pretty. And she
was a girl, and she was pretty, and that was Una.
Una was born in Bermuda in nineteen the daughter of
(14:25):
two artists, O'Neill and his wife, the writer Agnes Bolton.
It seemed like an ideal life, but as pretty as
little Una was, she was no match for the brooding
playwrights real children the characters in his plays. Una was
really a daddy's girl. She worshiped him, and then when
she was two years old, he walked out on them.
(14:48):
In nineteen Eugene O'Neil abandoned his family and married his mistress,
the actress Carlotta Monterey. Little Una was confused and hurt.
Una was absolutely just. She didn't know what to make
of it. She'd see a picture of her father and
she'd start jabbing it with her fingers, a daddy, Daddy, daddy.
(15:09):
And then one time she got so hysterical she just
broke down crying, and she could not be consoled. And
yet Eugene couldn't bring himself to leave the picture completely.
His guilty conscience kept the young Una on a thread.
He wrote her loving letters periodically, saying he missed her
(15:31):
a lot. In one he enclosed some pictures of himself
and into the letter by saying, I love you very much,
don't forget me. UNA's mother, Agnes or Aggie Bolton, wasn't
much comfort either. Aggie was better, but she also was
a writer, and she was busy with her work, and
(15:52):
so Aggie was not exactly a hands on mother. She
may mean, I wanted to say she was there, but
she wasn't. As Una grew up, she longed to see
her father. Aside from a short visit when she was six,
Una didn't see Eugene O'Neil again until she was fourteen.
She kept writing, can't I come to see you? Can't
(16:13):
I come to see you? Uh? And finally he agreed
to let her come out to visit. And he was
working all the time, but he they had meals together
and he gave her an hour in the afternoon. We're
just the two of them were together, and he would
play her his jazz records. She returned to New York
(16:42):
and he returned to his work, and despite UNA's best
efforts to stay in touch, he pretty much ignored her.
She didn't have much adult supervision in her life, but
Una seemed to gravitate to the adults who did pay attention.
The adults the Stork Club. Eugene O'Neil was not happy
about the public that his daughter was getting. Una announced
(17:02):
she was going to Hollywood instead of college. A reporter
asked if her father approved. Una replied, he's my guardian
until I'm eighteen, adding with a twinkle in her big
brown eyes. The reporter wrote, I'll be eighteen next May.
A girl ought to earn her own living. O'Neil wrote
a blistering letter to his daughter in response. All I
(17:24):
know of what you have become since you blossomed into
the nightclub racket is derived from newspaper clippings of your interviews.
He wrote. All the publicity you have had is the
wrong kind unless your ambition is to be a second
rate movie actress of the floozy variety. The relationship whn't
even further downhill until Eugene cut all ties with Una.
(17:45):
That was it. She never saw him again. I could
read you just a little bit from the final letter
that he ever wrote her. This is Robert Dowling, Eugene
O'Neill biographer. Here's open you change as you grow out
of the callows stage. I had hoped there was the
making of a fine, intelligent woman in you which would
(18:07):
remain fine in whatever she did. I still hope. So
if I am wrong, goodbye. If I am right, you
will sometimes see the point in this letter and be
grateful in which case or of war. That was their
last correspondence, and then she went on to marry a
man more than twice her age. You know it's it's
(18:30):
Penny Anti psychological whatever. But if ever anyone was looking
for a father, it was Una Jane Scoville. Again, let's
put it this way. O'Neill was cold and distant. Charlie
(18:50):
was worn and distant, but he was there far more
then O'Neill ever was for his kids. So she worshiped
him as she worshiped her father. And UNA's marriage drove
her father crazy. He was furious, furious. Charlie was one
(19:15):
year younger than Eugene o'hell, and he was a hundred
times more famous. Una O'Neil Chaplin had a certain gravity,
a gravity that held the brightest minds in art and
literature in her orbit. Unfortunately, UNA's intelligence, her grace, and
in the end, her entire life was eclipsed by the
(19:37):
men that surrounded her. In the same way Una holds
our thread together. She introduced J. D. Salinger to the
dazzling and frivolous world of New York's cafe society. She
helped inspire his greatest novel, the one that in turn
inspired Mark David Chapman to murder John Lennon. But would
Salinger have become the writer he did if he had
(19:58):
landed the girl of his dreams. What if Una hadn't
left him for someone like Charlie Chaplin, a man that
she could worship like she worshiped the father that abandoned her.
In our next episode, we continue our thread with UNA's father,
Eugene O'Neil. He's been called America's Shakespeare and the poet
(20:20):
Laureate of gloom. He almost single handedly transformed American theater
from vaudeville to riveting drama. But o'neia lived his life
on the stage in his mind and could only really
connect with his family and his lovers through the world
of his plays. The Threat is produced by Meredith hot Nutt,
(20:45):
Libby Coleman, and me Sean braswell. Our editors are Carlos
Watson and samir Rao. Meredith Hotnot engineered our show with
mixing and sound design from James Rowland's special thanks to
Cindy Carpian, David Boyer, Tracy Moran, Sean Cole, Agan, Sun,
Jeeve Tandon, Cameo, George, and k A. Lw. This episode
(21:05):
featured the song Una O'Neil by Lindsay and Russell John.
Check us out at ausy dot com. That's o z
y dot com. Or on Twitter and Facebook. To learn
more about the thread, visit ausy dot com, slash the
thread all one word, and make sure to subscribe to
the thread on Apple Podcasts. If you love surprising and
(21:26):
engaging stories from history like this one, look no further
than the flashback section of AZZI. Thanks for listening. What's
Why Ozzy Media productions. History books are filled with big
names and big events, but sometimes the most influential people
are behind the scenes, in the shadows across the dining
room table. Sometimes just one chance encounter or one broken
heart can change the course of history. I'm Sean Braswell
(00:26):
and this is the thread of podcast from Azzi Media.
This season, we pulled the thread on the death of
rock star John Lennon and actually connected back to the
communist leader Vladimir Lenin. Here's a quick recap of our
thread so far, but please listen to the previous episodes
if you haven't already. John Lennon is dead, shopped several
(00:49):
times by young American as he was going into his
home in New York. December eight, Mark David Chapman fired
five bullets at John Lennon in front of the Dakota
A building in New York. Police have a suspect and custody,
whom they describe only as a local screwball. Chapman was
a disturbed loner, and he was obsessed with the classic
(01:10):
American novel The Catcher and the Rye by J. D. Salinger.
Chapman believed that he embodied the book's main character, Holden Caulfield,
and he railed against the phonies and hypocrites he saw everywhere,
including John Lennon. Here's Mark David Chapman describing the morning
of the murder to see an end's Larry King. I
bought a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, signed
(01:32):
it to Holding Caulfield from Holding Caulfield and wrote underneath
that this is my statement. Why would a character like
Holding Caulfield speak to Mark David Chapman. The answer has
to do with the author, J. D. Salinger. For one thing,
Salinger's great novel was shaped by his own dark and
traumatic experiences as a soldier in World War Two. But
(01:55):
the other part of the story has to do with
the beautiful girl that helped inspire The Catcher in the
Rye and then broke Salinger's heart before he shipped off
for war. That girl was Una O'Neill. Without Una, there
might never have been a world of phonies for Holding
Caulfield and then Mark David Chapman to rail against. So
today we find out what's the big deal with Una O'Neill.
(02:19):
When you were sitting in the bunker, did you have
a wonder about it catching all Charlie's eye. Don't worry
in body, Jerry, which he made you carry turned you
into one hell of a guy. So tell me what's
the big deal Falcon alone, what's the big deal about Una? One?
(02:48):
Una O'Neil Chaplin is the fulcrum of our story, the
strand holding our thread together. And yet UNA's influence is
often lost in the shadow of the great men whose
lives and works she helps shape. I was walking on
I want to say, Madison Avenue in New York, and
(03:09):
there was a headline and it said wife of Charlie Chaplin,
daughter of Eugene O'Neill, dead at sixty six. And what
I was struck by was, as I remembered the headline,
it didn't mention her name. This is Jane Scoville, writer, playwright, biographer,
(03:30):
and the woman she was reading about that day on
Madison Avenue was Una O'Neil Chaplin. I would describe her
as the daughter of the postage stamp and the wife
of a postage stamp. In other words, she was in
the middle of two great men. When we last heard
from Una, she had left J. D. Salinger behind heartbroken.
(03:54):
Salinger spent more than a year of his life pursuing
the attracted debutante. He paid for dinners and dates he
could and afford. Salinger would write Una, long, beautiful, effusive letters,
and then totally switched tax and pretend he didn't like
her at all. Here's UNA's daughter, Annie Chaplin, reading from
one of those letters. I've seen the folly of my ways,
(04:15):
and never again will I shovel heavy and more into
your pretty ear. In the future, I shall be gay.
I shall right up and down Park Avenue on a
white horse, throwing bottles of champagne at blind beggars. But
the relationship wasn't meant to be. America entered the Second
World War, Salinger was drafted and reported to boot camp. Una,
(04:37):
who would soon break his heart, moved to Hollywood in
pursuit of stardom. Una O'Neil biographer Jane Scoville. There's a
charming screen test of her. She was supposed to be
a Russian peasant. She's got a babusha on she she
(04:58):
looks about as Russian as more Rena O'Hara. I mean,
this is not a Russian face. She speaks in the
screen test, and it's all very Park Avenue This screen
test is just over a minute long. Una looks a
(05:19):
bit lost. She has an unsure smile, her eyes sparkling
as she tries to follow the director's instructions to look
this way and that. We'll never know if Una O'Neill
could have been a movie star, but this screen test
is a haunting glimpse of what might have been if
fate did not have other plans for Una in Hollywood. J. D.
(05:44):
Salinger was just one in a long list of well
known men who were infatuated with Una O'Neill. Another man
on the list Orson Wells, the famous actor and director,
took Una out for a night on the town when
she first moved to Hollywood, in the back corner of
some literary nightclub, Wells took her hand and offered to
read her poem. He traced her love line, looked her
(06:06):
in the eyes, and told her that it led directly
to an older man. But it wasn't him. There was
someone else, someone even more famous screen legend, Charlie Chaplin.
Years later, Wells described the night in an interviews exactly
the girl that would be happy with with Charlie, I suppose,
(06:27):
and instead of thinking maybe you will meet him. I
just twtted I lose. I said you're gonna marry him?
And she did. Una met Charlie Chaplin just as Orsen
Wells predicted. Chaplin described encountering Una for the first time
in his autobiography, I became aware of a luminous beauty
with a sequestered charm and a gentleness that was most appealing.
(06:50):
Chaplin had a reputation as a womanizer. He once bragged
that he had slept with two thousand women by the
age of fifty. He had also gone through three wives,
each of them significantly younger than himself. After a brief courtship,
Una became wife number four in nineteen forty three. She
was eighteen, he was fifty four. J. D. Salinger read
(07:13):
about the wedding and the papers while at boot camp.
He was devastated. Many were skeptical the marriage would last,
but Charlie and Una proved them wrong. Una gave up
any chance of a film career to focus on Charlie
and their growing family, and they eventually had eight children together.
Their house was a social gathering point for celebrities, artists,
(07:33):
and intellectuals, from Dylan Thomas to Albert Einstein. Biographer Jane
Scovel one went to see Charlie and one came away
remembering Una. As the years went by, Charlie was pursued
by the US government and j Edgar Hoover's FBI. Like
many artists of his time, they wrongly accused him of
(07:56):
being a communist. This is the biggest joke in the world. Charlie,
each Applin. Nobody loved capitalism or money more than than Charlie.
The Chaplains decided to leave America behind. They set sail
for England in nineteen fifty two. They eventually settled in Switzerland,
where they would remain together for the rest of Charlie's life.
(08:17):
And he just doated on her. She was beautiful, she
was smart. So it worked. It worked for a while
for you know, quite a while. But uh, like all
good things, it came to an end. Their problem basically
was not love. It was time. The age difference between
(08:42):
Charlie and Una started to take its toll. As he
got older, he became very feeble, very feeble, and he
demanded that Una be with him constantly, never let her
out of his sight, and she didn't try to get
(09:02):
out of it. But at the same time, This is
no way to live. Meanwhile, Una struggled against a long
term demon that plagued the O'Neill family, alcoholism. She drank alone,
often locking herself in her room, and Una was I
think literally pouring the booze into teacups so that Nolby
(09:27):
would know, but everybody knew. Charlie Chaplin died on Christmas Day,
v s Una was devastated, isolated, and lost an alcohol
her life spiraled. She would sometimes take one of Chaplin's
white gloves and hold it in her hand as if
(09:47):
still holding his. One night in Switzerland, Una was quite drunk.
She turned to a friend and asked, Charlie was a
great man, wasn't he? Then all of a sudden Una
burst out, what the did I do with my life?
And in a way, it's a it's a very good
question because this woman she wrote beautifully, she read, read
(10:12):
read a lot, and she wouldn't allow herself to be
the center of attention. She just served and that you
don't get medals for that. Most of UNA's life centered
around Charlie Chaplin, but in her teenage years she was
the center of attention. Up next, we go back back
(10:35):
to when Una was sixteen and had all of New York,
including Salinger, wrapped around her finger. The thread is brought
to you by Ausi fest. Azzi Fest brings together incredible music,
provocative ideas, laugh out loud comedy, and mouthwatering food in
New York City's Central Park. Check it out at aussi
(10:57):
dot com slash AUSI Fest. J. D. Salinger developed his
famous allergy to phoniness at Una O'Neill's side. Una and
her two best friends, Carol Marcus and Gloria Vanderbilt, were
Manhattan it girls, all from wealthy, upper class families. They
were the gossip girls of their day. These essentially were
(11:21):
three fatherless girls, and when they got together their main
activity I think was dating. They were out all the time.
Another literary giant and eyewitness to UNAH's life was the
author Truman Capodi. The three girls, Marcus, Vanderbilt, and O'Neill
(11:43):
inspired Holly Goo lightly the heroine of his classic story
Breakfast at Tiffany's, the one played by Audrey Hepburn in
the film. Una was popular, but shy. The sunny exterior
seemed to mask a deep sadness. She was intelligent but
didn't really apply herself, says biographer Jane Scoville, she was kind,
always kind, very sympathetic, very loving, but very bright. By
(12:09):
the time she was a teenager, her parents largely left
her to her own devices, and like any teenager, Una
acted out, albeit on a much grander scale than most.
At night, she became the queen of New York's Cafe Society,
and her home away from home was the Stork Club.
You see, the Stork Club is the mecca for celebrities
(12:29):
from all over the world. They come here to eat, see,
and be seen as part of our audience. They attract
an audience. Get it, Oh, no, I do. When you
talk about the Stork Club. It was the most famous
nightclub in all of New York. This is Ken Slowinski
who told us about Salinger's story. Only the rich and
famous content. You know, who's here with who, what's going on?
(12:55):
And it would all be in the columns the next
day in the paper. When own new, it was like
an old time movie premiere, with the photographers flashing lights
and everyone calling her name. She was treated like a queen.
She was voted the number one New York debutante at
(13:18):
the Store Club for Una appeared in newspapers and magazines
across the country. One night, a reporter asked how her
father felt about her winning Debutante of the Year. She said,
I don't know, and I'm not going to ask him.
He'll find out for himself. And that infuriated her father.
(13:40):
But by that point Una was fed up. She had
been chasing the love and attention of her father, a
tempestuous playwright, her whole life. UNA's father, Eugene O'Neill, probably
shouldn't have been a parent in the first place. O'Neil
always said he didn't want children, and he was right.
(14:03):
This is a guy who could have gotten a Nobel
Prize for bad parenting. Jane Scoville again. The only thing
he said that would make it bearable is if it
were a girl, and if she were pretty. And she
was a girl, and she was pretty, and that was Una.
Una was born in Bermuda in nineteen the daughter of
(14:25):
two artists, O'Neill and his wife, the writer Agnes Bolton.
It seemed like an ideal life, but as pretty as
little Una was, she was no match for the brooding
playwrights real children the characters in his plays. Una was
really a daddy's girl. She worshiped him, and then when
she was two years old, he walked out on them.
(14:48):
In nineteen Eugene O'Neil abandoned his family and married his mistress,
the actress Carlotta Monterey. Little Una was confused and hurt.
Una was absolutely just. She didn't know what to make
of it. She'd see a picture of her father and
she'd start jabbing it with her fingers, a daddy, Daddy, daddy.
(15:09):
And then one time she got so hysterical she just
broke down crying, and she could not be consoled. And
yet Eugene couldn't bring himself to leave the picture completely.
His guilty conscience kept the young Una on a thread.
He wrote her loving letters periodically, saying he missed her
(15:31):
a lot. In one he enclosed some pictures of himself
and into the letter by saying, I love you very much,
don't forget me. UNA's mother, Agnes or Aggie Bolton, wasn't
much comfort either. Aggie was better, but she also was
a writer, and she was busy with her work, and
(15:52):
so Aggie was not exactly a hands on mother. She
may mean, I wanted to say she was there, but
she wasn't. As Una grew up, she longed to see
her father. Aside from a short visit when she was six,
Una didn't see Eugene O'Neil again until she was fourteen.
She kept writing, can't I come to see you? Can't
(16:13):
I come to see you? Uh? And finally he agreed
to let her come out to visit. And he was
working all the time, but he they had meals together
and he gave her an hour in the afternoon. We're
just the two of them were together, and he would
play her his jazz records. She returned to New York
(16:42):
and he returned to his work, and despite UNA's best
efforts to stay in touch, he pretty much ignored her.
She didn't have much adult supervision in her life, but
Una seemed to gravitate to the adults who did pay attention.
The adults the Stork Club. Eugene O'Neil was not happy
about the public that his daughter was getting. Una announced
(17:02):
she was going to Hollywood instead of college. A reporter
asked if her father approved. Una replied, he's my guardian
until I'm eighteen, adding with a twinkle in her big
brown eyes. The reporter wrote, I'll be eighteen next May.
A girl ought to earn her own living. O'Neil wrote
a blistering letter to his daughter in response. All I
(17:24):
know of what you have become since you blossomed into
the nightclub racket is derived from newspaper clippings of your interviews.
He wrote. All the publicity you have had is the
wrong kind unless your ambition is to be a second
rate movie actress of the floozy variety. The relationship whn't
even further downhill until Eugene cut all ties with Una.
(17:45):
That was it. She never saw him again. I could
read you just a little bit from the final letter
that he ever wrote her. This is Robert Dowling, Eugene
O'Neill biographer. Here's open you change as you grow out
of the callows stage. I had hoped there was the
making of a fine, intelligent woman in you which would
(18:07):
remain fine in whatever she did. I still hope. So
if I am wrong, goodbye. If I am right, you
will sometimes see the point in this letter and be
grateful in which case or of war. That was their
last correspondence, and then she went on to marry a
man more than twice her age. You know it's it's
(18:30):
Penny Anti psychological whatever. But if ever anyone was looking
for a father, it was Una Jane Scoville. Again, let's
put it this way. O'Neill was cold and distant. Charlie
(18:50):
was worn and distant, but he was there far more
then O'Neill ever was for his kids. So she worshiped
him as she worshiped her father. And UNA's marriage drove
her father crazy. He was furious, furious. Charlie was one
(19:15):
year younger than Eugene o'hell, and he was a hundred
times more famous. Una O'Neil Chaplin had a certain gravity,
a gravity that held the brightest minds in art and
literature in her orbit. Unfortunately, UNA's intelligence, her grace, and
in the end, her entire life was eclipsed by the
(19:37):
men that surrounded her. In the same way Una holds
our thread together. She introduced J. D. Salinger to the
dazzling and frivolous world of New York's cafe society. She
helped inspire his greatest novel, the one that in turn
inspired Mark David Chapman to murder John Lennon. But would
Salinger have become the writer he did if he had
(19:58):
landed the girl of his dreams. What if Una hadn't
left him for someone like Charlie Chaplin, a man that
she could worship like she worshiped the father that abandoned her.
In our next episode, we continue our thread with UNA's father,
Eugene O'Neil. He's been called America's Shakespeare and the poet
(20:20):
Laureate of gloom. He almost single handedly transformed American theater
from vaudeville to riveting drama. But o'neia lived his life
on the stage in his mind and could only really
connect with his family and his lovers through the world
of his plays. The Threat is produced by Meredith hot Nutt,
(20:45):
Libby Coleman, and me Sean braswell. Our editors are Carlos
Watson and samir Rao. Meredith Hotnot engineered our show with
mixing and sound design from James Rowland's special thanks to
Cindy Carpian, David Boyer, Tracy Moran, Sean Cole, Agan, Sun,
Jeeve Tandon, Cameo, George, and k A. Lw. This episode
(21:05):
featured the song Una O'Neil by Lindsay and Russell John.
Check us out at ausy dot com. That's o z
y dot com. Or on Twitter and Facebook. To learn
more about the thread, visit ausy dot com, slash the
thread all one word, and make sure to subscribe to
the thread on Apple Podcasts. If you love surprising and
(21:26):
engaging stories from history like this one, look no further
than the flashback section of AZZI. Thanks for listening. What's
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