Author Patrice Chaplin
Author Patrice Chaplin

1.   I've published over 30 fiction and non-fiction books, including Albany Park and Siesta, which was made into a film with Jodi Foster. My new book Hollywood to Kentish Town is an episodic memoir published by Quadrant Books this June and describes a very specific time in my life.

2.   I’ve spent years in Hollywood by swimming pools, but I love the grey, muddy puddles of Kentish Town. There’s something about Kentish Town that gets under your skin. I love living in its fold. 

3.   I am also a playwright  and my play ‘From the Balcony’ was commissioned for Radio 3 and the National Theatre.

4.   I was initiation into the Kabbalisitic tradition preserved since the Middle Ages by a secret society in the pre-Roman city of Girona, Spain. Salvador Dalí was a member of that society, as was the renowned author Umberto Eco, the filmmaker Jean Cocteau, and Ancient Verdeguer. This is the basis of a series of my books… 

5.   I started a charity - Northern Bridge Productions which is centred around creativity against addiction. Creativity. The neurological pathway of creativity and craving are the same, so if you can get someone doing something creative when the cravings are there, before they take drink or drugs, you can help them…

6.   Alan Ladd Jr wanted to turn my book into a film, but I hated the change he wanted to make to the script, so I turned him down…

7.   I was married to Charlie Chaplin’s son Michael Chaplin.

Author Bio

Patrice Chaplin is an internationally renowned playwright and author who has written twenty-six books; her novel Siesta became a film starring Jodie Foster and Isabella Rossellini. As a Bohemian in Paris during the 50's and 60's, she spent time with Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

Married to Charlie Chaplin's son Michael and living and working in Hollywood, she was friends with everyone from Lauren Bacall and Miles Davis, to Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau, who gave her a starring role in one of his films. with Lauren Bacall, Miles Davis, and Salvador Dali. Chaplin has contributed to collections of short stories, including Black Valentine and The Minerva Book of Short Stories.

Her plays, documentaries, and short stories have been extensively written and adapted for radio. The short story Night in Paris has been translated in many countries, and other short stories of hers have appeared in magazines and newspapers, including The Independent.

Her stage play From the Balcony was commissioned by The National Theatre in London in conjunction with Radio 3 and was performed at the Cottesloe Theatre. She has also written articles for publications including The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Jewish Chronicle, The Daily Mail, Marie Claire, and The London Magazine.

Today, Chaplin finds herself thrown deep into the Grail culture, and at the heart of a raging new controversy about the reality of the Rennes-le-Château mystery. Chaplin is the director of The Bridge(R), a non-profit organization that leads workshops based in the performing arts as a new and unique way to help fight addiction. She resides in London and is currently writing The Garden of the Frenchwoman.

Hollywood to Kentish Town by Patrice Chaplin
Hollywood to Kentish Town by Patrice Chaplin

The Book

When Patrice Chaplin left Kentish Town for Hollywood she did not envisage the extent of the excitement of the lives of its biggest stars, but she quickly found herself in its fold. And when Lauren Bacall and Alan Ladd Jr wanted to turn Patrice Chaplin's book into a film, many expected her to jump at the chance, but she didn't...

In this series of vignettes, established novelist Patrice Chaplin takes us through some extraordinary moments in time. Her time. From spider spotting by the swimming pool with Jack Nicholson and plotting ways to get him to take off his glasses, to food shopping for Marlon Brando's fridge, to meeting Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles, this is a mini-memoir of an enthralling and bygone world of Hollywood.

Hollywood to Kentish Town by Patrice Chaplin (£10.99) will be published by Quadrant Books on 20th June.