Mo Rothman, studio exec, Chaplin fan, dies

Mo Rothman, a veteran studio executive who helped pave the way for Charlie Chaplin to end an acrimonious, two-decade exile from the United States and returned some of the filmmaker's classic movies to American screens, died Sept. 15 in Los Angeles.

He was 92 and had Parkinson's disease, his family said.

Rothman had met Chaplin in the 1950s when he was a European manager for United Artists. Chaplin, a studio founder along with D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, was one of Hollywood's most powerful and creative figures until his image was tarnished by affairs with underage women and his leftist politics, which made him a target of McCarthy-era Communist hunters.

In 1952, U.S. Attorney General James P. McGranery announced that if Chaplin, a native of England, left the United States, where he had lived for 40 years, he would be denied re-entry. After attending the London premiere of "Limelight," Chaplin moved to Switzerland, vowing never to return. He took with him the rights to nearly all his movies.

In 1971, Rothman, a top executive at Columbia Pictures, left the studio to head a group of investors who sought access to a number of Chaplin's films. They paid Chaplin $6 million and 50 percent of the royalties for distribution rights to some of his most celebrated movies. These included "City Lights," "Modern Times," "Limelight," "The Gold Rush" and "The Great Dictator."

By then, anti-Communist fervor had waned and Hollywood was eager to honor the aging cinema pioneer. Persuaded by Rothman that a visit to America would help draw attention to the reissued films, Chaplin, 83, agreed to return.

On April 2, 1972, Chaplin, accompanied by his wife, Oona, and Rothman, arrived in New York, where he received a warm, extended ovation at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's tribute to his films. The following week he was given an honorary Academy Award in Los Angeles.

His triumphant return created the perfect conditions for a Chaplin revival. Rothman was the "brave and clever reviver of Charlie Chaplin worldwide," the filmmaker's actress-daughter, Geraldine Chaplin, wrote in a recent statement released by Rothman's family.