Of The Elusive Victoria Chaplin and “The Freak”

I don’t know if I’ll get around to writing about ALL of Charlie Chaplin’s numerous progeny here but several have interested me, and so we have done posts on Charlie Jr, Sydney the Younger, Geraldine, Michael, and Josephine. Reasons for being equally intrigued by Victoria (b. 1951) ought to be readily apparent.

Like her older sisters, Victoria inherited the beauty of her famous parents. Like Geraldine, she favors Oona, whereas Josephine’s face was uncannily like her father’s. Victoria made her screen debut in Charlie’s last film A Countess from Hong Kong (1966). But the reason that she fascinates is that she MIGHT have starred in a potential final film that was still on the drawing board at the time of her father’s death a decade later. The legendary might-have-been was called The Freak, and would have starred Victoria as a girl who was born with angel wings (an image that seems to have captivated Charlie at least as far back as the fantasy sequence in The Kid).

Chaplin’s World, the museum at his former Switzerland estate recently had an exhibition about it, although it has closed now, and the description has been taken off its website. How I wish I had seen it. In my dream world, someone will finish it somehow, perhaps, an animated version with CGI. The premise seems to have certain similarities with a favorite book of my wife’s, Angela Carter’sNights at the Circus (1984), which I recently read for the first time, and very much enjoyed. A book that includes the screenplay of The Freak was published in 2020.

Look, here is Victoria in a costume fitting. It really was in the works:

Why didn’t the movie come to fruition? Victoria eloped! She also ran away and joined the circus! In one fell swoop! She married a French clown named Jean-Baptiste Thierrée. They appeared together in Federico Fellini’sThe Clowns (1970), and then managed and co-starred in a succession of small scale European circus organizations: Le Cirque Bonjour (1971), Le Cirque Imaginaire (1974),and Le Cirque Invisible (1990). Their two children Aurélia Thierrée (b. 1971) and James Thierrée (1974) followed them into the family business.

Obviously Charlie saw something special in his daughter, which is why he wanted to build a film around her. This seems to have been a lot of pressure for her and she had to break away. She prefers to be known as Victoria Thierrée and to make her way on her own terms, without relying on, or being smothered by, the family legend, which is quite understandable. Come to that, she not only has Charlie’s shadow to contend with, but Geraldine’s. If you think about it, Geraldine did manage to differentiate herself from her dad’s screen art quite effectively. But Victoria had to find yet a third way, and she seems to have done so. What an extraordinary family.

For more on Chaplin family artistry please check out my book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.