Charlie Nelson Presents

Today, 105 years after the birth of Charlie Chaplin’s tramp character on film, he is still instantly recognisable. The shabby clothing with the Derby hat, the too tight jacket, the baggy trousers, the outsize shoes and the bendy bamboo cane all add up to a man who, although he has seen the hard side of life, is too proud to remain a victim. But on top of the clothing, we have to add his unique style of movement. Even the great ballet dancer Nijinsky, having seen Chaplin in motion in Easy Street, recognised him as a fellow dancer*.

 

The most important part of his movement was his iconic walk – bandy-legged, feet turned out, sometimes kicking his feet backwards almost to his backside, as if to shake the dust off them. Many imitated it, and even Charlie himself once anonymously entered a competition to emulate the Chaplin walk, and came third! But where did that walk come from?

 

Some say it began at the Queen’s Head Pub, Broad Street (now known as Black Prince Road), Lambeth. For a while this establishment was run by his uncle, Spencer Chaplin, and was a favourite watering hole of his father, Charles senior. Perhaps Charlie, like so many children, was forced to wait outside?

 

It is here, one version of the story goes, that Charlie first observed the silly walk he was to use in his tramp character. It is said that a man called ‘Rummy’ Binks used to ‘work’ at the pub – shuffling up to cab drivers to offer to hold the horses for a penny tip. It is doubtful that ‘Rummy’ was his real name, but was a nickname. The word ‘Rummy’ at that time could refer to a card game, but it’s more likely that it could be linked to his oddness or strangeness, or it could have been linked to drunkenness, which, considering the nearness of the pub and the drinking culture in working class London at the time, would seem another likely explanation. His unique gait could also have been the result of arthritis (see below), rickets or a neurological condition causing him to walk with bandy legs or a stomping style. No matter the reason for the strange gait, it is probably (if the story is true) that Charlie watched Rummy for a long time, as he certainly managed to get his walk off pat.

 

Years later Chaplin would recall: “He (Rummy Binks) had a bulbous nose, a crippled up rheumatic body, a swollen and distorted pair of feet and the most extraordinary pair of trousers I ever saw. He must have got the trousers from a giant and he was a little man. When I saw Rummy shuffle his way across the pavement to hold a cabman’s horse for a penny tip, I was fascinated. The walk was so funny to me that I imitated it. When I showed my mother how Rummy walked, she begged me to stop because it was cruel to imitate a misfortune like that. But she pleaded while she had her apron stuffed into her mouth. Then she went into the pantry and giggled for ten minutes. Day after day I cultivated that walk. It became an obsession. Whenever I pulled it, I was sure of a laugh. Now no matter what else I may do that is amusing, I can never get away from the walk.”

 

The piece described above was said by Chaplin to McLure’s Magazine in an interview in 1916, this date is only two years after his invention of the Tramp character, and only a few years more from his youth in Lambeth. His memory was probably fairly accurate, but was he telling the truth?

 

In the interview he said that he had observed Rummy outside his Uncle Spencer Chaplin’s pub, however, other reports say that Rummy was a neighbour when they lived at 39, Methley Street, Kennington between 1898 and 1899 (when Chaplin was aged 9 to 10), about the time his mother’s career as a Lily Harley the music hall singer was coming to an end. In fact, Methley Street and Broad Street are only a few hundred metres apart, so it is quite possible that Rummy lived near the Chaplin’s and worked at the Queens Head.

 

I looked at the Lambeth census for 1881, 1891, 1901 to try and trace Rummy (?Archibald Binks), but there was no one with a name or an occupation in the area that matched. However, it could have been that Rummy was homeless, possibly ‘sofa-surfing’ in the area or sleeping in the pub, his homelessness preventing him from being registered on the census. Or he may have lived in Lambeth between the census dates.

 

We know from Chaplin’s biography that he sometimes stretched the truth. But I think this story has a ring of true. It was certainly felt important enough to be included in Richard Attenborough’s 1992 Chaplin movie, where the audience sees a young Charlie copying Rummy’s walk. Have a look, and see for yourself.

 

*To observe his wonderful choreographed movements at their best, see ‘The Rink’ (1916).

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References

David Robinson. 2013. Chaplin: His Life in Art. Penguin Books.

Charlie Chaplin. 2016. Chaplin’s Own Story. The Bobbs-Merrill Company.