Prince Henry of Greece did not have an appointment, but had heard that one did not leave the state of California without visiting its leading avatar of culture. He signed the guestbook, about six spaces below the last prince who had visited, and he entered the courtyard of the studio with minimal retinue, for he was on vacation. Chaplin had Rollie set up his camera and filmed Prince Henry sitting at the drum kit, and the surviving footage shows the languid playboy monarch striking up a simple time signature on the snare and high hat while Chaplin dances in place. Henry asks him something, Chaplin nods and turns his toes out and walks like the Tramp until they both laugh, and then the film is over.

Afterward, it was lunch, which Chaplin took alone. There was a new stack of five books to look at, key passages underlined for him, on the topics of psychoanalysis, the Gnomonism of Sydney Hen, Milton’s broadsides, the pursuit of the Anti-Life Equation, and the palaces of Alhambra.

Later, in his dressing room, there was a knock on the edge of the doorframe while Chaplin was uncorking his Max Factor. Carlyle Robinson, with a telegram. He was, like all publicity men, exceptionally well presented without actually being handsome. To be handsome would be a distraction; it was as if he had damped himself down to fit in his lovely suit. He seemed game for anything Chaplin said, although, when his memoirs were published twenty years later, they were so excoriating they only appeared in French.

“I’m sorry about this, Charlie,” he said. He tapped the telegram. “I’m doing all I can for your mother.”

Chaplin tidied his desk. He didn’t look at Robinson for the rest of the conversation. “What’s the news?”

“The authorities won’t release her.” There was a great, unoiled bureaucracy in England, he explained, citing names Chaplin had heard many times: immigration councils, physicians’ bureaux, a hundred branches of the War Office, all of them squaring against one another in interoffice warfare that prevented one fragile lady from boarding a ship to America.

“This is frustrating,” Charlie said carefully. He decided to get angry. “Why isn’t she coming? Goddamn it!”

“I don’t know. Every time I make headway with one welfare organization, another steps in and says, ‘It is regrettable …’”

Chaplin smoothed out the cream on his neck. “It was a good idea. Having her come over would do wonders. Just wonders.”

“Don’t be too discouraged,” Robinson said. “I haven’t even started with the American side of things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have some muscle with the War Department over here. You’ve bought a lot of bonds. We can use pressure on this side of the ocean to bring her. I’m positive. Syd is very excited about this.” Robinson knocked on the doorframe a couple of times, and left.