OONA
(OO-nuh)
Daughter
of Eugene O’Neil and wife of Charlie Chaplin
Common
clues:
Mrs. Chaplin; A Chaplin; One of the O'Neills; Charlie's
wife; Eugene O'Neill's daughter; The last Mrs. Chaplin; Wife of
“The Little Tramp”
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
5 times a year
Video:
Illumination
– The Chaplin-family
Oona
O'Neill, Lady Chaplin (May 13, 1926 – September 27, 1991)
was the daughter of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Eugene O'Neill and his second wife, writer Agnes Boulton, and the
fourth wife of actor Charlie Chaplin.
She
had romantic relationships with satirical cartoonist Peter Arno
and with the then 22-year-old author J. D. Salinger. To
Salinger's disappointment, the relationship ended when she met
British-born actor/director/producer Charlie Chaplin, after
having been suggested for a role in his never-completed film
Shadow and Substance.
Chaplin
later wrote that he was immediately smitten by Oona's "luminous
beauty" and "sequestered charm", and despite a
thirty-six-year age difference, they were married in Carpinteria,
California, on June 16, 1943, when he was fifty-four and she was
eighteen.
For
his part, Eugene O'Neill was so incensed at the union (he had
refused to give his consent so that Oona could marry Chaplin
before her eighteenth birthday), that he cut her out of his life,
refusing all attempts by her at a reconciliation. According to
Scovell, playwright Clifford Odets "saw something vindictive
in O'Neill's behaviour and thought that O'Neill could not forgive
Oona perhaps because he had abandoned her ..."
Chaplin
and Oona had eight children: three sons, Michael (born in 1946),
Eugene (born in 1953), and Christoper (born in 1962, when Chaplin
was seventy-three), and five daughters, actress Geraldine Chaplin
(born in 1944), Josie (born in 1949), Vicky (born in 1951), Jane
(born in 1957), and Annie (born in 1959). Despite the size of
their family, the temperamental Chaplin always insisted on being
put first in Oona's life, and he was – often to the
detriment of their children.
In
March, 1975 – three years after briefly returning to the
United States to receive a special Academy Award – Chaplin
was knighted. He died on Christmas Day, 1977, at the age of
eighty-eight.
In
the years immediately following Chaplin's death, Oona lived in
New York and attempted to create a life of her own. But after
years of being continually on call to a demanding husband (her
tasks were once described as being akin to those of a "duty
nurse"), Oona – who had given up the promise of an
acting career at the age of eighteen - returned to Switzerland
and became more and more reclusive. She increasingly sought
oblivion in the O'Neill "family curse" of alcoholism,
and died of pancreatic cancer on September 7, 1991, at the age of
66.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Oona
Chaplin".
OONA
(275) 57 We- >1 03 Mrs. Chaplin
24
We+ >1 00 O'Neill's daughter
19
We >1 05 A Chaplin
14
We- >1 97 The last Mrs. Chaplin
12
Tu >1 05 Eugene O'Neill's daughter
12
We+ >1 08 Geraldine Chaplin's mother
10
Tu >1 06 Chaplin's wife
8
We >1 05 Charlie's wife
8
Th- >1 01 Chaplin's widow
06
Ms. Chaplin
6
Th >1 06 Charlie's fourth wife
5
Tu+ NYT 04 One of the O'Neills
5
We >1 06 Eugene's daughter
5
We+ >1 05 A Mrs. Chaplin
5
Th >1 99 Lady Chaplin
4
>1 98 Mrs. Charlie Chaplin
4
We- >1 98 Geraldine Chaplin's mom
4
We >1 07 Wife of Charlie Chaplin
3
Mo+ >1 05 Chaplin, nee O'Neill
3
Tu >1 03 The last Mrs. Charlie Chaplin
3
Tu >1 98 Charlie Chaplin's wife
3
We+ >1 95 An O'Neill
3
Th- >1 08 Chaplin spouse
2
Mo >1 04 Charlie Chaplin's widow
2
Tu- >1 99 Chaplin nee O'Neill
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