J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [31]
If Salinger’s efforts to sell his works to Hollywood seemed to conflict with his writings, it was perhaps an act of disguised desperation. Since Oona O’Neill had moved to Los Angeles in the autumn of 1942, their relationship had rapidly disintegrated. Despite numerous lengthy letters to Oona, he had heard little from her since she had left New York. By early January, he was beginning to read gossip columns linking his girlfriend with the legendary actor Charlie Chaplin.
O’Neill had indeed become involved with Chaplin. When she and her mother arrived in California, Chaplin was casting a movie called Shadow and Substance, and Oona, who by now had had a few quick acting lessons, auditioned for the lead role. Chaplin never made the film and Oona’s career as a Hollywood star never left the station, but she pursued Chaplin despite the fact that he was thirty-six years her senior. Chaplin was notoriously attracted to younger women, and he succumbed to O’Neill’s advances. Their romance became a media sensation. At the same time Chaplin was embroiled in a scandal, accused of fathering the child of Joan Barry, an actress whose own youth (she was thirty-one years younger than he) added to the outrage. The resulting paternity suit consumed much of 1943 and provided a sensational backdrop for his romance with O’Neill. When the media learned of the affair, Chaplin was painted as a moral degenerate and “un-American.” There was a successful crusade to boycott his movies.*
Oona’s breakup with Salinger and her union with Chaplin were the great romantic tragedy of Jerry’s life. And there was no escaping the subject: the front pages of newspapers carried photos of Chaplin being fingerprinted in connection with his paternity suit and accompanying articles accused the actor of entrapping the young, “innocent” daughter of America’s favorite playwright in a diabolical act of “white slavery.” This man had stolen Jerry’s “little girl,” the one he had idealized and hoped to marry.26 The episode was also publicly humiliating for Salinger. Everyone knew how he felt about O’Neill. The same army buddies to whom he had proudly displayed Oona’s picture now looked at him with sympathetic eyes.
Despite these events, Salinger’s pride and tenacity prevented him from indulging in any public lamentation. Instead, he either ignored the situation or feigned stoic indifference. In a January 11 letter to Elizabeth Murray, who knew every detail of the romance, Salinger already claimed to have lost his passion for O’Neill, affecting a kind of romantic amnesia. As for the breakup itself, rather than finding fault with O’Neill or Chaplin, Salinger blamed Oona’s mother.27 In fact, apart from complaints about incessant but minor health problems (allergic reactions and constant toothache) and his shifting moods, Salinger avoided revealing any sense of resentment. It was not until July that he would finally admit to loathing Chaplin.28
Salinger’s reluctance to admit his hurt helps explain what are otherwise perplexing sections of a story written at Bainbridge entitled “Death of a Dogface.” Although it is a commercial story, penned with the intention of being sold to Collier’s or the Post, it is nevertheless interesting in the light of what Salinger was living through at the time and speaks powerfully of Salinger’s feelings about the army, war, and love.
The tale is of the unsightly but sensitive Sergeant Burke, who takes a new recruit named Philly Burns under his wing and gives him desperately needed confidence. The story makes it clear that Salinger was developing a growing sense of solidarity with his fellow soldiers. But when the sergeant dies at the end, saving lives during the attack at Pearl Harbor, Salinger condemns him to a bloody, lonely, and inglorious death—in sharp contrast to most stories of the day. “Death of a Dogface” also contains a section that, with unintentional irony, appears to relate directly to Salinger’s own life. Sergeant Burke takes Philly to see