In March 1978 two mechanics, one Polish and the other Bulgarian, went to the Corsier-sur-Vevey cemetery, in Switzerland, to unearth the bones of
Charles Chaplin
, the brilliant artist, actor, director and creator of legendary feature films such as
Modern Times.
,
The Great Dictator
and
The Kid
, among many others, and thus extort money from the widow, Oona O'Neill.
But not everything went as planned.
And from that moment on, the story became a parallel to the actor's life: it was a film of tangles, with
humor and tragicomedy.
Polish-born Roman Wardas and Bulgarian Gandscho Ganev came to Switzerland as refugees in the late 1970s and were surviving as best they could.
They were mechanics and they looked for a way to earn easy money.
They remembered that a few months before the cinema genius had died and his remains had been buried within reach of his hands, in the
small cemetery of Corsier-sur-Vevey.
They went there at dawn on March 2, 1978 with some shovels, some picks, and a truck.
Investigators at the Corsier-sur-Vevey cemetery, after the desecration.
(Archive)
The oak coffin with which he was buried weighed 150 kilos.
That's why it took them two hours to dig up the coffin.
He was simply taken away and
reburied in a cornfield at Noville
, not far away, two miles from the eastern end of Lake Geneva, near the headwaters of the Rhône.
The desecration was to collect a ransom for Chaplin's remains and the one who had to pay it was Oona O'Neill, the widow.
The
defilers-thieves-extortionists
telephoned the Chaplin family castle and asked to speak to his
wife Oona
.
The woman, 36 years his junior, and daughter of Eugene O'Neill, Nobel Prize winner for Literature and four times Pulitzer Prize winner, answered the call and listened to the kidnappers' demand: in exchange for returning her husband's body, they wanted to receive a payment of
600 thousand dollars
.
Oona's response shocked them:
"No,"
she told them.
Let them do with the remains of Charlie Chaplin what they want.
At that point, what was happening had already been leaked to the press, but the family remained secretive and Oona let out a single comment by way of explanation:
"Charlie would have found all this ridiculous
. "
Oona and Charlie Chaplin.
The kidnappers let a couple of days go by and became convinced that the problem had been with the currency.
They called again and Renato, the historic Chaplin butler, put them through to Oona again.
This time they told the widow that with
600,000 Swiss francs
she would have the coffin again with the remains of her husband.
"No
," the woman replied again.
Desperate, the two mechanics improved the offer and in a third call they lowered the ransom to 500,000 francs.
But Oona said no again
.
On May 16, the widow was warned by the kidnappers that the next day, at 9:30 a.m., she would receive the call with the “final” offer.
It was with that precision that she announced her call that allowed the police
to mount an operation to find the extortionists.
The story of Charlie Chaplin's corpse shook the world in the late '70s.
For the Swiss police it was easy to have covert surveillance at that time in the 200 available phone booths.
At 9:30 a.m. on May 17, a man aroused suspicion and was questioned.
His accent gave it away.
And Wardas confessed.
Meek in defeat, he first led the policemen to his accomplice and then to the place where they had hidden the coffin.
The case was closed, the two mechanics were arrested and Chaplin's body was taken to the Lausanne Forensic Institute.
Finally, 42 years ago today, he was reburied - with greater protection - in Corsier-sur-Vevey, where he remains to this day,
next to the tomb of Oona, who died in September 1991.
The graves of the couple, one next to the other in Corsier-sur-Vevey.
(Archive)
Later, the two mechanics, sentenced to less than 5 years, wrote letters to Oona to apologize, and she forgave them.
Later, when the wife of one of them wanted to send her another letter, she responded with annoyance:
"Look, I already forgave them."
In the corn field where Chaplin's body was for those ten weeks, the owner put up a sign with the legend:
“The remains of Charlie Chaplin rested here.
Briefly”
.
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