Club. The event gained a large amount of publicity around the country, and she received offers from film studios and modeling agencies. The publicity infuriated her father, who used his contacts in the Hollywood film industry to prevent her from signing a film contract. After graduating from Brearley, O'Neill declined an offer for a place to study at Vassar College and instead chose to pursue an acting career, despite her father's resistance. She made her debut in a small supporting role in a production of Pal Joey at the Maplewood Theatre in New Jersey in July 1942. The production was a flop and was cancelled after a two-week run. Later that summer, O'Neill travelled to California with Carol Marcus, who was due to marry author William Saroyan. During the trip, O'Neill briefly appeared in a production of Saroyan's play, The Time of Your Life, in San Francisco and unsuccessfully attempted to meet her father, who was living nearby. Marriage to Chaplin (1943–1977) From San Francisco, O'Neill headed to Los Angeles, where her mother and stepfather were living. She soon found herself a film agent, Minna Wallace, and made her first and only screentest, for Eugene Frenke's The Girl From Leningrad. In October 1942, Wallace introduced her to Charlie Chaplin, who was looking for a lead actress for his next project, an adaptation of the play Shadow and Substance. Chaplin found O'Neill beautiful but, at 17, too young for the role. However, due to her and Wallace's persistence, he agreed to give O'Neill a film contract. Shadow and Substance was shelved in December 1942, but the relationship between O'Neill and Chaplin soon developed from professional to romantic. On 16 June 1943, a month after O'Neill had turned 18, they eloped and married in a civil service in Carpinteria. The ceremony was witnessed only by Chaplin's studio secretary, Catherine Hunter, and friend and assistant, Harry Crocker. Crocker photographed the event for gossip columnist Louella Parsons, to whom Chaplin had given exclusive rights to publicize news of the marriage in the hopes that she would write a more positive article about it than her rival, Hedda Hopper, who strongly disliked him. The elopement received a large amount of media attention due to the 36-year age gap between O'Neill and Chaplin, and because his ex-girlfriend, Joan Barry, had filed a paternity suit against him only two weeks earlier. Although Agnes had given the union