Near broke, but no tramp: Billie Ritchie, Charlie Chaplin and ‘that costume’

摘要

This article revisits the various claims and counter‐claims that have been made over the years as to whether the 1910s music hall comedian turned slapstick film star Billie Ritchie stole his costume and comic persona from Charlie Chaplin, or was himself the victim of plagiarism on Chaplin’s part. It proposes that neither of these arguments can be definitively supported on the basis of evidence available in the public domain, but also draws attention to the fact that there are other factors in play that may plausibly explain the various similarities between the two comedians as the result of shared formative influences rather than outright imitation, and that some contemporaries deemed it eminently reasonable to take such a view. The article moves on to consider the significance of the fact that, although their costumes were practically identical, Ritchie typically played dissolute gentlemen of ambiguous class status rather than tramps. It concludes that there is a stronger argument to be made that, rather than seeking to represent vagrancy, both Chaplin and Ritchie originally used the iconic ‘tramp’ costume to poke fun at the culturally ubiquitous Edwardian figure of the ‘masher’ - a lower‐middle‐ or working‐class male pleasure‐seeker trying (and in their incarnations, failing) to emulate the fashions of his social superiors.View full textDownload full textKeywordsCharlie Chaplin, Billie Ritchie, slapstick comedy, costume, imitation, mashersRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2010.498162