12 Best Old School Hollywood Feuds

Contrary to his unassuming onscreen persona, comic legend Charlie Chaplin was actually one of the silent film era’s biggest cads. Reportedly an early pioneer of the casting couch, Chaplin also bragged sleeping with thousands of women and took no less than four wives, three of which were still in their teens when they wed.

Chaplin’s first wife was 17-year-old child star Mildred Harris who was 12 years his junior when they tied the knot after a pregnancy scare which turned out to be a false alarm. Neither were very happy with Chaplin feeling his teen bride wasn’t on the same intellectual level as him and Harris accusing him of mental cruelty. They ended up divorcing in 1920 after a months-long estrangement.

Meanwhile, Louis B. Mayer, co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, saw a golden opportunity to capitalise on the scandal surrounding Chaplin and Harris’ union and signed the actress to a multi-picture deal which enraged Chaplin.

The tension between Chaplin and Mayer came to a head one night while they both dined at Los Angeles’ formerly grand Hotel Alexandria. After engaging in some back and forth verbal sparring in which Chaplin accused Mayer of profiting off his name and Mayer accused Chaplin of being a pervert, the argument turned into fisticuffs.

Chaplin swung first but Mayer, a scrap metal worker in is youth before getting into the glitzy world of showbiz, quickly got the upper hand and deposited a punch so powerful that it reportedly sent Chaplin flying into a potted plant. You couldn’t make up a more befittingly slapstick end to a fight for an actor of Chaplin’s genre.