'Virginia Cherrill wasn't just Charlie's girl; she first married Cary Grant, then the Earl of Jersey, turned down the Maharajah of Jaipur and finally gave it all up in 1948 to marry Florian Martini, a Polish airman she'd met in Blackpool. Her showcase as a young actress was City Lights, Chaplin's 1931 silent movie in which she played the romantic lead and, at 21, became world famous. You couldn't make it up, and Seymour doesn't have to try: she presents Cherrill mostly in her own words. In life Cherrill was ravishing: Seymour, entranced by her beauty and vitality, gives her the enchanted afterlife she fully deserves' The Times 2/5 WHITEHALL by Colin Brown '[Cherrill's] intelligent worldliness shines through' Sunday Times 3/5 'Chaplin's Girl is nicely written, and tells the story of a fascinatingly picaresque 20th Century life that might otherwise have been overlooked' Book of the Week, Mail on Sunday 10/5 'The reader can judge whether this entertaining and elegantly written book is truly an inspiring tale of a poor girl who won riches but in the end chose love (her fourth husband, Florian Martini), or an account of a life that, like many in Hollywood, passed from sunshine through shadow until history shook her out of the delicious, malign dream' Guardian 9/5 'Anyone who has heard of Virginia Cherrill knows two things about her and no more - she was Charlie Chaplin's love interest in City Lights and Cary Grant's first wife. It turns out, though, that the delicate blonde beauty had a rich enough life, literally and figuratively, after leaving the public eye, to fill a book' Daily Telegraph 16/5 'She was the winsome blind flower-girl in City Lights, the diaphanous beauty who transfixed Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp. But the actress Virginia Cherrill disappeared after the movie became a worldwide hit in 1931. She's a blank in the many Chaplin biographies. Now thanks to Miranda Seymour's great book we have all the answers' Daily Express 15/5 'Seymour's exceptional gift for delivering visually atmospheric scenes never fails her, whether she is describing the bleak Chicago of the Twenties, the hedonism of Hollywood at its glittery zenith, the unchallenged sexual laxity at the court of the Magarajah of Jaipur or the tedious schoolboy pranks of the British upper classes in the Thirties and their jokey habit of tying rotting kippers to the exhausts of their gleaming Bentleys' Evening Standard 14/5 '[This] story needed to be told by a skilled biographer, and she was lucky to land in the hands of Miranda Seymour, albeit posthumously... This is a delightful book about one of those beautiful charmers who aim to do no harm, but leave broken hearts in their wake' Literary Review May issue 'The whirl of romance makes Virginia Cherrill's story very jolly' The Spectator 23/5 'I loved Chaplin's Girl - a great read about someone I had absolutely no knowledge of. It was a delight from start to finish. What a life!' Derek Jacobi CHAPLIN'S GIRL by Miranda Seymour 'This is a good, entertaining tale of a girl from nowhere who embarks on grand adventures, marries the Prince, wakes up and discovers all she really wants is love and to return to her humble roots' Daily Mail 5/6 'Biographer and critic Miranda Seymour says of the 1930s film star Virginia Cherrill, subject of her latest book Chaplin's Girl: "I wish I could have known this sexy, unpretentious, funny woman but writing her life has been the next best thing to it. I never get tired of watching Cherrill's beautiful face in City Lights, or of listening to stories of the friends she made, the hearts she broke, the splendour she gave up, all for love' Feature on writing biographies by Susie Boyt, Financial Times, 7/6 'Miranda Seymour fell almost unconditionally and unapologetically for the gorgeous, charismatic Virginia while watching her in her most famous film role... With fantastic biographer's luck, she discovered that the ageing actress had, before her death in 1996, dictated her life story from the propped pillows of her Californian bed into a family friend's tape machine' The Scotsman 13/6 'Charlie Chaplin made her the most famous girl in the world, and she gave it up for love' The Times 24/04 'A delightful biography' Daily Express 23/04
