CHARLIE CHAPLIN

 

Sir Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914. From the April 1914 one-reeler Twenty Minutes of Love onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was even composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919.

Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin was identified with left-wing politics during the McCarthy era and he was ultimately forced to resettle in Europe from 1952.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th greatest male screen legend of all time. In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A Life, wrote: “Chaplin was not just ‘big’, he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. … It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most”. George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin “the only genius to come out of the movie industry

EARLY YEARS (1889-1913)

Background and childhood hardship

Hannah Chaplin, mother

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin (née Hill, 1865–1928) and Charles Chaplin Sr. (1863–1901). There is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in South London. His mother and father had married four years previously, at which time Chaplin Sr. became the legal carer of Hannah’s illegitimate son, Sydney John(1885–1965) At the time of his birth, Chaplin’s parents were both entertainers in the music hall tradition: Hannah, the daughter of a shoemaker, had a brief and unsuccessful career under the stage name Lily Harley, while Charles Sr., a butcher’s son, worked as a popular singer. The Chaplins became estranged in around 1891; a year later, Hannah gave birth to a third son—George Wheeler Dryden—fathered by music hall entertainer Leo Dryden. The child was taken by Dryden at six months old, and did not re-enter Chaplin’s life for 30 years.

Chaplin’s childhood was fraught with poverty and hardship, prompting biographer David Robinson to describe his eventual trajectory as “the most dramatic of all the rags to riches stories ever told.” His early years were spent with his mother and brother in the London district of Kennington; Hannah had no means of income, other than occasional nursing and dressmaking, and Chaplin Sr. provided no support for his sons.Because of this poverty, Chaplin was sent to a workhouse at seven years old. The council housed him at the Central London District School for paupers, which Chaplin remembered as “a forlorn existence”. He was briefly reunited with his mother at nine years old, before Hannah was forced to readmit her family to the workhouse in July 1898. The boys were promptly sent to Norwood Schools, another charity institution.

In September 1898, Hannah Chaplin was committed to Cane Hillmental asylum—she had developed a psychosis seemingly brought on by malnutrition and an infection of syphilis. Chaplin recalled his anguish at the news: “Why had she done this? Mother, so light-hearted and gay, how could she go insane?”For the two months she was there, Chaplin and his brother were sent to live with their father, whom the young boy scarcely knew.Charles Chaplin Sr. was by then a severe alcoholic, and life with the man was bad enough to provoke a visit from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.He died two years later, at 37 years old, from cirrhosis of the liver.

Hannah entered a period of remission, but in May 1903 became ill again. Chaplin, then 14, had the task of taking his mother to the infirmary. He lived alone for several days, searching for food and occasionally sleeping rough, until his brother Sydney returned from the navy. Hannah was released from the asylum eight months later, but in March 1905 her madness returned, this time permanently. “There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother’s fate”, Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in care until her death in 1928.

Young performer

Chaplin’s first stage appearance came at five years old, when he took over from his mother one night in Aldershot. Hannah had been booed off stage, and the manager chose Chaplin, who was standing in the wings, to go on as her replacement. The young boy confidently entertained the crowd, and received laughter and applause.It was an isolated performance, but at nine years old Chaplin became interested in the theatre. He credited his mother, later writing “[she] imbued me with the feeling that I had some sort of talent.” Through his father’s connections, Chaplin became a member of The Eight Lancashire Lads clog dancingtroupe. He began his professional career in this way, as the group toured English music halls from 1899 to 1902.Chaplin worked hard and the act was popular with audiences, but dancing did not satisfy the child and he dreamt of forming a comedy act.

What had happened? It seemed the world had suddenly changed, had taken me into its fond embrace and adopted me.

—Chaplin reflecting on his change in fortunes

By age 13 Chaplin had fully abandoned education. He supported himself with a range of jobs, but said he “never lost sight of my ultimate aim to become an actor.At 14, shortly after his mother’s relapse, he registered with a theatrical agency in London’s West End. The manager sensed potential in Chaplin and he was soon on the stage. His first role was a newsboy in H. A. Saintsbury’s Jim, a Romance of Cockayne. It opened in July 1903 in Kingston upon Thames but the show was unsuccessful and it closed after two weeks. Chaplin’s comic performance, however, was singled out for praise in many of the reviews.From October 1903 to June 1904, Chaplin toured with Saintsbury in Charles Frohman s production of Sherlock Holmes He repeated his performance of Billy the pageboy for two subsequent tours,and was so successful that he was called to London to play the role alongside William Gillette, the original Holmes.”It was like tidings from heaven”, Chaplin recalled.Chaplin starred in the West End production at the Duke of York’s Theatrefrom 17 October to 2 December 1905.^[He completed one final tour of Sherlock Holmes in early 1906, eventually leaving the play after more than two and a half years.

Stage comedy and vaudeville

Star of the Karno comedy company, c. 1912

Chaplin quickly began work in another role, touring with his brother—who was also pursuing an acting career—in a comedy sketch called Repairs. He left the troupe in May 1906, and joined the juvenile comedy act Casey’s Court Circus. Chaplin’s speciality with the company was a burlesqueof Dick Turpin and the music hall star “Dr. Bodie”. It was popular with audiences and Chaplin became the star of the show. When they finished touring in July 1907, the 18-year-old was an accomplished comedian.Several months of unemployment followed, however, and Chaplin lived a solitary existence while lodging with a family in Kennington. He attempted to develop a solo comedy act, but his Jewish impersonation was poorly received and he performed it only once.

By 1908, Sydney Chaplin had become a star of Fred Karno’s prestigious comedy company. In February, he managed to secure a two-week trial for his younger brother. Karno was initially wary, thinking Chaplin a “pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster” who “looked much too shy to do any good in the theatre.” But the teenager made an impact on his first night at the London Coliseum winning more laughs in his small role than the star, and he was quickly signed to a contract. His salary was £3 10s a week. Chaplin’s most successful role with the Karno company was a drunk called the Inebriate Swell, a character recognised by Robinson as “very Chaplinesque”.He took it to Paris in the autumn of 1909. In April 1910, he was given the lead role in a new sketch, Jimmy the Fearless, or The Boy ‘Ero. It was a big success, and Chaplin received considerable press attention.

Karno selected his new star to join a fraction of the company that toured North America’s vaudeville circuit; he also signed Chaplin to a new contract, which doubled his pay. The young comedian headed the show and impressed American reviewers, being described as “one of the best pantomime artists ever seen here.The tour lasted 21 months, and the troupe—which also included Stan Laurel of later Laurel and Hardy fame—returned to England in June 1912.Chaplin recalled: “I had a disquieting feeling of sinking back into a depressing commonplaceness”, and was therefore “elated” when a new tour began in October.

INDEDENCEPEN (1923-1938)

A Woman of Paris and The Gold Rush

Having satisfied his First National contract, Chaplin was free to make his first picture for United Artists. In November 1922 he began filming A Woman of Paris, a romantic drama about ill-fated lovers. Chaplin intended it as a star-making vehicle for Edna Purviance, and did not appear in the picture himself other than in a brief, uncredited cameo.His aim for the film was realism, resulting in a restrained acting style that was revolutionary for the era; in real life, he later explained, “men and women try to hide their emotions rather than seek to express them”. Filming took seven months, followed by three months of editing the large negative. A Woman of Paris premièred in September 1923 and was widely acclaimed by critics for its subtle approach and flawed characters. The public, however, seemed to have little interest in a Chaplin film without Chaplin, and it was a box-office disappointment. The filmmaker was hurt by this failure—he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result—and withdrew A Woman of Paris from circulation as soon as he could. During production of the film Chaplin had been involved with the actress Pola Negri a romantic pairing that received vast media interest. In January 1923 the pair announced their engagement; by July they had separated, leading to speculation that the relationship was a publicity stunt.

The Tramp resorts to eating his boot in a famous scene from The Gold Rush (1925)

For his next film Chaplin returned to comedy. Setting high standards, he told himself, “This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!” A photograph from the 1898 Klondike Gold Rushprovided his inspiration.The Tramp was to become a lonely prospector fighting adversity and looking for love amid the historic event. With Georgia Halehis new leading lady, Chaplin began filming the picture in February 1924.It was an elaborate production that included location shooting in the Truckee mountains with 600 extras, extravagant sets, and special effects The last scene was not shot until May 1925, after 15 months. At a cost of almost $1,000,000, Chaplin felt it was the best film he had made to that point. The Gold Rushopened in August 1925 and earned a profit of $5,000,000. It contains some of Chaplin’s most famous gags, such as the Tramp eating his shoe and the “Dance of the Rolls”,and he later said it was the film he would most like to be remembered for.

Lita Grey and The Circus

Lita Grey, Chaplin’s second wife (photographed in 1921). Their unhappy marriage and bitter divorce was a great strain for the star.

While making The Gold Rush, Chaplin married for the second time. Mirroring the circumstances of his first union, Lita Grey was a teenage actress—originally set to star in The Gold Rush—whose surprise announcement of pregnancy forced Chaplin into marriage. She was 16 and he was 35, meaning Chaplin could have been charged with de facto rape under California law. He therefore arranged a discreet marriage in Mexico on 24 November 1924. When their son, Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr, was born on 5 May 1925, Chaplin sent Grey and the child into hiding: it was seen as too close to their wedding, so a fake birth announcement was made to the press at the end of June.

Chaplin was markedly unhappy with the marriage, and spent long hours at the studio to avoid seeing his wife. Soon after The Gold Rush’s release he was at work on a new film: The CircusChaplin built a story around the idea of walking a tightrope while besieged by monkeys, which became the film’s “climactic incident”, and turned The Tramp into the accidental star of a circus. David Robinson notes that the film provided “a welcome distraction” from the “wretchedness” of his home life; Grey was pregnant for a second time, frustrating Chaplin and exacerbating difficulties between the pair. Their second son, Sydney Earle Chaplin, was born on 30 March 1926.Filming on The Circus was continuing steadily when a fire broke out on 28 September, destroying the set. Although the studio was quickly brought back into operation, it marked the beginning of severe difficulties for Chaplin. In November, Grey took their children and left the family home. Unwilling to allow his film to be drawn into the divorce proceedings, Chaplin announced that production on The Circus had been temporarily suspended.

Grey’s lawyers issued their divorce complaint on 10 January 1927. The document, which ran to an exceptional 52 pages, not only sought heavy material gains but was designed to ruin Chaplin’s public image. Accusations of infidelity and abuse were bolstered with lurid details of his sexual preferences. Chaplin was reported to be in the state of a nervous breakdown, as the story became headline news and pirated copies of the document were read by the public. The star’s fanbase was nevertheless strong enough to survive this smear campaign, and he was heartened by declarations of support.Eager to end the case without further scandal, Chaplin’s lawyers agreed to a cash settlement of $600,000—the largest awarded by American courts at that time.

Production on The Circus resumed, and the film was completed in October 1927.It was released the following January to a positive reception. At the 1st Academy Awards, Chaplin was given a special award “For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus.The Lita Grey affair was soon forgotten, but Chaplin was deeply affected by it: the stress of the ordeal turned his hair white, and both his second wife and The Circus received only a passing mention in his autobiography. He permanently associated the film with this stress and misery, and struggled to work on it in his later years.

City Lights

“I was determined to continue making silent films … I was a pantomimist and in that medium I was unique and, without false modesty, a master.

—Chaplin explaining his defiance against soundin the 1930s

By the time The Circus was released, Hollywood had witnessed the introduction of sound films. Chaplin was cynical about this new medium and the technical shortcomings it presented, believing that “talkies” lacked the artistry of silent films. He was also hesitant to change the formula that had brought him such success,and feared that giving the Tramp a voice would limit his international appeal. He therefore rejected the new Hollywood craze and proceeded to develop a silent film. Chaplin was nonetheless anxious about this decision, and would remain so throughout its production.The movie in question was to become City Lights.

City Lights (1931), regarded as some of Chaplin’s finest work

When filming began at the end of 1928, Chaplin had been working on the story for almost a year.City Lights followed the Tramp’s love for a blind flower girl and his efforts to raise money for her sight-saving operation. It was a challenging production that lasted 21 months, with Chaplin later confessing that he “had worked himself into a neurotic state of wanting perfection”.Halfway through filming Chaplin fired his leading lady, Virginia Cherrill, only to ask her back a week later. One advantage Chaplin found in sound technology was the ability to record a musical score for the film; he also took the opportunity to mock the talkies, opening City Lights with a squeaky, unintelligible speech that “burlesqued the metallic tones of early talky voices”.

Chaplin finished editing the picture in December 1930, by which time silent films were an anachronism. The surprise preview showing in Los Angeles was not a success, and Chaplin left the movie theatre “with a feeling of two years’ work and two million dollars having gone down the drain.” A showing for the press, however, produced positive reviews. One journalist wrote: “Nobody in the world but Charlie Chaplin could have done it. He is the only person that has that peculiar something called ‘audience appeal’ in sufficient quality to defy the popular penchant for movies that talk.”Given its general release in January 1931, City Lights proved to be a popular and financial success—eventually grossing over $5 million. It is often referred to as Chaplin’s finest accomplishment, and film critic James Agee believed the closing scene to be “the greatest piece of acting and the highest moment in movies”.

 

Travels, Paulette Goddard, and Modern Times

City Lights had been a success, but Chaplin was unsure if he could make another picture without dialogue. He remained convinced that sound would not work in his films, but was also “obsessed by a depressing fear of being old-fashioned.In this state of uncertainty, Chaplin decided to attend the London première of City Lights in February 1931.^]He planned to give himself a brief European holiday, but ended up away from the United States for 16 months. While in London he visited the Central London District School of his childhood, somewhere he had avoided on the 1921 trip, and found it an emotional experience. He spent months travelling Western Europe, including extended stays in France and Switzerland, and spontaneously decided to visit Japan. Chaplin returned to Los Angeles in June 1932. “I was confused and without plan, restless and conscious of an extreme loneliness”, he remembered. The option of retiring and moving to China was briefly considered.

Modern Times (1936), described by Jérôme Larcher as a “grim contemplation on the automatization of the individual”

Chaplin’s loneliness was relieved when he met Paulette Goddard, a 21-year-old actress, in July 1932. Their relationship brought him much happiness, and Chaplin intended to use her as his next leading lady. He was not ready to commit to a film, however, and busied himself with writing a 50,000 word serial of his travels. The trip had been a stimulating experience for Chaplin, including meetings with several prominent thinkers, and he became increasingly interested in world affairs. The state of labour in America was troubling to Chaplin; he told an interviewer, “Something is wrong. Things have been badly managed when five million men are out of work in the richest country in the world.”He felt that capitalism and machinery in the workplace would lead to more unemployment, and professed support for Roosevelt s New Deal. It was these concerns that stimulated Chaplin to develop his new film.

Modern Times was announced by Chaplin as “a satire on certain phases of our industrial life.”Featuring the Tramp and Goddard s endurers of the Great Depression, it took ten and a half months to film. Chaplin prepared to use spoken dialogue, but upon rehearsal changed his mind. Like its predecessor, Modern Times employed sound effects but almost no speaking. Chaplin’s performance of a gibberish song did, however, give the Tramp a voice for the only time on film. After recording the music, Chaplin released Modern Times in February 1936. Charles J. Maland notes that it was his first feature in 15 years to adopt political references and social realism. The film received considerable press coverage for this reason, although Chaplin tried to downplay the issue. It earned less at the box office than his previous features and received mixed reviews; some viewers were displeased with Chaplin’s politicising. Today, the film is seen by the British Film Institute as one of Chaplin’s “great features”,while David Robinson says it shows the star at “his unrivalled peak as a creator of visual comedy.”

Following the release of Modern Times, Chaplin left with Goddard for another trip to the Far East. The couple had refused to comment on the nature of their relationship, and it was not known whether they were married or not. Some time later, Chaplin revealed that they married in Canton during this trip. By 1938 the couple had drifted apart, as both focussed heavily on their work. Chaplin later wrote, “Although we were somewhat estranged we were friends and still married.Goddard eventually divorced Chaplin in Mexico in 1942, citing incompatibility and separation for more than a year

CONTROVERSIES (1939-1952)

The Great Dictator

The 1940s saw Chaplin face a series of controversies, both in his work and his personal life, which changed his fortunes and severely affected his popularity in America. The first of these was a new boldness in expressing his political beliefs. Deeply disturbed by the surge of militaristic nationalism in 1930s world politics, Chaplin found that he could not keep these issues out of his work: “How could I throw myself into feminine whimsy or think of romance or the problems of love when madness was being stirred up by a hideous grotesque, Adolf Hitler?” He chose to make The Great Dictator—a “satirical attack on fascism” and his “most overtly political film”. There were strong parallels between Chaplin and the German dictator, having been born four days apart and raised in similar circumstances. It was widely noted that Hitler wore the same toothbrush moustache as the Tramp, and it was this physical resemblance that formed the basis of Chaplin’s story.

Chaplin satirising Adolf Hitler in The Great Dictator (1940)

Chaplin spent two years developing the script, and began filming in September 1939.He had submitted to using spoken dialogue, partly out of acceptance that he had no other choice but also because he recognised it as a better method for delivering a political message.^] Making a comedy about Hitler was seen as highly controversial, but Chaplin’s financial independence allowed him to take the risk. “I was determined to go ahead”, he later wrote, “for Hitler must be laughed at. Chaplin replaced the Tramp (while wearing similar attire) with “A Jewish Barber”, a reference to the Nazi party’s belief that the star was a Jew. In a dual performance he also plays the dictator “Adenoid Hynkle”, a parody of Hitler which Maland sees as revealing the “megalomania, narcissism, compulsion to dominate, and disregard for human life” of the German dictator.

The Great Dictator spent a year in production, and was released in October 1940. There was a vast amount of publicity around the film, with a critic for the New York Times calling it “the most eagerly awaited picture of the year”, and it was one of the biggest money-makers of the era.The response from critics was less enthusiastic. Although most agreed that it was a brave and worthy film, many considered the ending inappropriate. Chaplin concluded the film with a six-minutespeech in which he looked straight at the camera and professed his personal beliefs. The monologue drew significant debate for its overt preaching and continues to attract attention. Maland has identified it as triggering Chaplin’s decline in popularity, and writes, “Henceforth, no movie fan would ever be able to separate the dimension of politics from the star image of Charles Spencer Chaplin. The Great Dictator received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor

Joan Barry paternity case and Oona O’Neill

In 1942, Chaplin had a brief affair with Joan Barry whom he was considering for a starring role in a proposed film. The relationship ended when she began harassing him and displaying signs of mental illness. Chaplin’s brief involvement with Barry caused him much trouble and controversy. After having a child, she filed a paternity suit against him in 1943. Although blood tests proved Chaplin was not the father of Barry’s child, Barry’s attorney, Joseph Scott convinced the court that the tests were inadmissible as evidence, and Chaplin was ordered to support the child. The injustice of the ruling later led to a change in California law to allow blood tests as evidence. Federal prosecutors also brought Mann Act charges against Chaplin related to Barry in 1944, of which he was acquitted. Chaplin’s public image in America was gravely damaged by these sensational trials. Barry was institutionalised in 1953 after she was found walking the streets barefoot, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child’s ring, and murmuring: “This is magic”. Chaplin’s second wife, Lita Grey, later asserted that Chaplin had paid corrupt government officials to tamper with the blood test results. She further stated that “there is no doubt that she [Carol Ann] was his child.”

During Chaplin’s legal trouble over the Barry affair, he met Oona O’Neill daughter of Eugene O’Neill, and married her on 16 June 1943. He was fifty-four; she had just turned eighteen. The marriage produced eight children: Geraldine Leigh (b. 1944), Michael John (b. 1946), Josephine Hannah (b. 1949), Victoria(b. 1951), Eugene Anthony (b. 1953), Jane Cecil (b. 1957), Annette Emily (b. 1959), and Christopher James (b. 1962). They were married until Chaplin’s death; Oona survived him fourteen years, and died from pancreatic cancer in 1991.^[

Exile

During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of “un-American activities as a suspected communist. J. Edgar Hoover, who had instructed the FBI to keep extensive secret files on him, tried to end his United States residency. FBI pressure on Chaplin grew after his 1942 campaign for a second European front in the war and reached a critical level in the late 1940s, when Congressional figures threatened to call him as a witness in hearings. This was never done, probably from fear of Chaplin’s ability to lampoon the investigators. In February 2012 an MI5 file on Chaplin was opened to the public which revealed that the FBI had contacted the British secret service to provide them with information which would enable them to ban Chaplin from the US. In particular, it wanted MI5 to find out where Chaplin was born and pursue suggestions that his real name was Israel Thornstein. MI5 searched, but to no avail. A suggestion that he “may have been born in France” also came to nothing.

In 1952, Chaplin left the US for what was intended as a brief trip home to the United Kingdom for the London premiere of Limelight. Hoover learned of the trip and negotiated with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to revoke Chaplin’s re-entry permit. Chaplin decided not to re-enter the United States, writing: “Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America’s yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States.”

That Chaplin was unprepared to remain abroad, or that the revocation of his right to re-enter the United States, was a surprise to him, may be apocryphal: An anecdote in some contradiction is recorded during a broad interview with Richard Avedon, celebrated New York portraitist.

Avedon is credited with the last portrait of the entertainer to be taken before his departure to Europe and therefore the last photograph of him as a singularly “American icon”. According to Avedon, Chaplin telephoned him at his studio in New York while on a layover before the final leg of his travel to England. The photographer considered the impromptu self-introduction a prank and angrily answered his caller with the riposte, “If you’re Charlie Chaplin, I’m Franklin Roosevelt” To mollify Avedon, Chaplin assured the photographer of his authenticity and added the comment, “If you want to take my picture, you’d better do it now. They are coming after me and I won’t be back. I leave … (imminently).” Avedon interrupted his production commitments to take Chaplin’s portrait the next day, and never saw him again.

EUROPEAN YEARS (1953-1977)

Final works

Chaplin in 1965, by Erling Mandelmann

Following his exile from the United States, Chaplin made his home in Vevey, Switzerland. His final two films were made in London: A King in New York (1957) in which he starred, wrote, directed and produced; and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), which he directed, produced, and wrote. The latter film stars Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, and Chaplin made his final on-screen appearance in a brief cameo role as a seasick steward. He also composed the music for both films with the theme song from A Countess From Hong Kong, “This is My Song”, reaching number one in the UK as sung by Petula Clark

Chaplin compiled a film The Chaplin Revue from three First National films A Dog’s Life (1918), Shoulder Arms (1918) and The Pilgrim (1923) for which he composed the music and recorded an introductory narration. Chaplin also wrote My Autobiography, between 1959 and 1963, which was published in 1964. He briefly returned to the United States in 1972 to receive an honorary Academy Award.

In his pictorial autobiography My Life In Pictures, published in 1974, Chaplin indicated that he had written a screenplay for his daughter, Victoria; entitled The Freak, the film would have cast her as an angel. According to Chaplin, a script was completed and pre-production rehearsals had begun on the film (the book includes a photograph of Victoria in costume), but were halted when Victoria married. “I mean to make it some day,” Chaplin wrote. However, his health declined steadily in the 1970s which hampered all hopes of the film ever being produced.

From 1969 until 1976, Chaplin wrote original music compositions and scores for his silent pictures and re-released them. He composed the scores of all his First National shorts: The Idle Class in 1971 (paired with The Kid for re-release in 1972), A Day’s Pleasure in 1973, Pay Day in 1972, Sunnyside in 1974, and of his feature length films, firstly The Circus in 1969 and The Kid in 1971. Chaplin worked with music associate Eric James whilst composing all his scores.

He received a knighthood on 4 March 1975, at the age of 85. Chaplin’s last completed work was the score for his 1923 film A Woman of Paris, which was completed in 1976, by which time Chaplin was extremely frail, even finding communication difficult.

Death

Chaplin’s grave in Vevey, Switzerland. His fourth wife, Oona Chaplin, is buried next to him.

Chaplin’s health began to slowly fail after he broke his foot during the production of his final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), and had to give up his formerly very active lifestyle. David Robinson writes that it is possible that Chaplin experienced a series of minor strokes during this time. His health started to decline more rapidly in the early 1970s. He suffered several strokes which left him with a difficulty communicating. His ability to walk was also impaired, and he had to use a wheelchair.

Chaplin died in his sleep from the complications of a stroke in the early morning of 25 December 1977 at his home in Switzerland. The funeral, held two days later on 27 December, was a small and private Anglican ceremony, according to Chaplin’s wish.He was interred in the Vevey cemetery.

Two months later, on 1 March 1978, Chaplin’s coffin was dug up and stolen from its grave by two unemployed mechanics, Polish Roman Wardas and Bulgarian Gantcho Ganev, in an attempt to extort money from Chaplin’s widow, Oona Chaplin. After she refused to pay the ransom, they started to threaten Chaplin’s youngest children with violence. Ganev and Wardas were caught in a large police operation in May, and Chaplin’s coffin was found buried in a field in the nearby village of Noville It was reburied in the Vevey cemetery under 6 feet (1.8 m) of concrete. In December 1978, Wardas received a sentence of four and a half years’ imprisonment and Gantcho a suspended sentence for disturbing the peace of the dead and for the attempt of extortion.

FLIMMAKING

Influences

Chaplin believed his first influence to be his mother, who would entertain him as a child by sitting at the window and mimicking passers-by. “She was one of the greatest pantomime artists I have ever seen”, he said, “it was through watching her that I learned not only how to express emotions with my hands and face, but also how to observe and study people.”Chaplin’s early years in music hall allowed him to see stage comedians at work; he also attended the Christmas pantomimes at Drury Lane, where he studied the art of clowning. Chaplin’s years with the Fred Karno company had a formative effect on him as an actor and filmmaker; Simon Louvish writes that the company was his “training ground”. The concept of mixing pathos with comedy was likely learnt from Karno: Stan Laurel, Chaplin’s co-performer at the company, remembered that Karno’s sketches regularly inserted “a bit of sentiment right in the middle of a funny music hall turn”. The impresario also taught his comedians to vary the pace of their comedy, that a hectic speed was not necessary, and used elements of absurdity that would become familiar in Chaplin gags.For his film A Night in the Show (1915), Chaplin directly transferred the Karno sketch Mumming Birds onto the screen. From the film industry, haplin drew upon the work of French comedian Max Linder, whose films he greatly admired.^[2 In developing the Tramp costume and persona, he was likely inspired by the American vaudeville scene, where tramp characters were common.

Method

A 1922 image of Charlie Chaplin Studios, where all of Chaplin’s films between 1918 and 1952 were produced

Chaplin never spoke more than cursorily about his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion. After his death, film historians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill examined out-takes from the Mutual films and presented their findings in a three-part documentary Unknown Chaplin(1983).^[According to Brownlow and Gill, Chaplin developed a unique method of filmmaking after achieving independence to direct his own films. Until he began making spoken dialogue films with The Great Dictator (1940), he never shot from a completed script, but instead usually started with only a vague premise —for example “Charlie enters a health spa” or “Charlie works in a pawn shop.”He then had sets constructed and worked with his stock company to improvise gags and “business” around them, almost always working the ideas out on film.As ideas were accepted and discarded, a narrative structure would emerge, frequently requiring Chaplin to reshoot an already-completed scene that might have otherwise contradicted the story.Due to the lack of a script, all of his silent films were usually shot in sequence.

This is one reason why Chaplin took so much longer to complete his films than most other filmmakers at the time. If he felt out of ideas on what to do with the story, he would often take a break from the shoot that could last for days, while keeping the studio ready for when he felt inspired again.In addition, Chaplin was an incredibly exacting director, showing his actors exactly how he wanted them to perform and shooting scores of takes until he had the shot he wanted. Animator Chuck Jones, who lived near his Lone Star studio as a boy, remembered his father saying he watched Chaplin shoot a scene more than a hundred times until he was satisfied with it. The ratio between shot footage and footage forming the final edited film would often be high, for example 53 takes per a finished take in The Kid.This combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism—which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense—often proved very taxing for Chaplin, who in frustration would often lash out at his actors and crew, keep them waiting idly for hours or, in extreme cases, shutting down production altogether.^[

Due to his complete independence as a filmmaker, Chaplin has been identified by Andrew Sarris as one of the first auteur filmmakers.However, he also often relied on help from his closest collaborators, such as his long-time cinematographer Roland Totheroh, brother Sydney Chaplin and various assistant directors, such as Harry Crocker and Charles Reisner.^[

Style and themes

Instead of a tightly unified storyline, Gerald Mast has seen Chaplin’s films as consisting of sketches tied together by the same theme and setting. Although most of Chaplin’s films are characterised as comedies, most of them also employ strong elements of drama and even tragedy. Chaplin could be inspired by tragic events when creating his films, as in the case of The Gold Rush (1925), which was inspired by the fate of the Donner PartySome scholars, such as Constance B. Kuriyama, have also identified more serious underlying themes, such as greed (The Gold Rush) or loss (The Kid), in Chaplin’s comedies.

It is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule…ridicule, I suppose, is an attitude of defiance; we must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature – or go insane.

—Chaplin on comedy and tragedy in The Gold Rush

Chaplin’s silent films usually follow the Tramp’s struggles to survive in an often hostile world. According to David Robinson, unlike in more conventional slapstick comedies, the comic moments in Chaplin’s films centred on the Tramp’s attitude to the things happening to him: the humour did not come from the Tramp bumping into a tree but from his lifting of his hat to the tree in apology.Chaplin also diverged from conventional slapstick by slowing down his pace and exhausting each scene of its comic potential, and focusing more on developing the viewer’s relationship to the characters.He also often employed inanimate objects in his films, often transforming them into other objects in an almost surreal way, such as in The Pawnshop (1916) and One A.M.(1916), where Chaplin is the only actor aside Chester Conklins brief appearance in the very first scene.

Chaplin disliked unconventional camera angles and only used close-ups to highlight an emotional scene, and usually preferred to employ a static, “stage-like” camera setting where the scenes were portrayed as if set on a stage. To some scholars, such as Donald McCaffrey, this is an indication that Chaplin never completely understood film as a medium, but Gerald Mast has argued that by deliberately adopting this approach, Chaplin made “all consciousness of the cinematic medium disappear so completely that we concentrate solely on the photographic subject rather than the process”. Both Richard Schickel and Andrew Sarris have also written that many of the gags in his silent films needed the “intimacy of the camera” to work and could not have been performed on the stage to the same effect.

Chaplin portrayed social outcasts and the poor in a sympathetic light in his films from early on. His silent films usually centred on the Tramp’s plight in poverty and his run-ins with the law, but also explored controversial topics, such as immigration (The Immigrant, 1917), illegitimacy (The Kid, 1921) and drug use (Easy Street 1917). Although this can be seen as social commentary, Chaplin’s films did not contain overt political themes or messages until later on his career in the 1930s. Modern Times (1936), which depicted factory workers in dismal conditions, was the first of his films that was seen by critics to contain an anti-capitalist message, although Chaplin denied the film being in any way political. However, his next films, The Great Dictator (1940), a parody on Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini that ended in a dramatic speech criticising the blind following patriotic nationalism, and Monsieur Verdoux (1947), which criticised war and capitalism, as well as his first European film A King in New York (1957), which ridiculed the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, were more clearly political and caused controversy.

Partly due to Chaplin’s complete control over the production of his films, Stephen M. Weissman has also seen them as containing autobiographical elements. This was already noted by Chaplin’s contemporaries, such as Sigmund Freud, who thought that Chaplin “always plays only himself as he was in his dismal youth” and by some of his collaborators, such as actress Claire Bloom who starred in Limelight. For example The Kid is thought to reflect Chaplin’s own childhood trauma of being sent into an orphanage and the main characters in Limelight (1952) are thought to contain elements from the lives of his parents.Many of his sets, especially in street scenes, bear a strong similarity to Kennington, where he grew up. Weissman has also argued that Chaplin’s problematic relationship to his mentally ill mother was often reflected on the female characters in his films and the Tramp’s desire to save them.

Music

Chaplin playing the cello in 1915

Alongside acting, directing, writing, producing, and editing, Chaplin also composed the musical scores for his films. He developed a passion for music as a child, and taught himself to play the piano, violin, and cello. After achieving fame, he founded a short-lived music company, the Charles Chaplin Music Corporation, through which he published some of his own compositions, such as “Oh, That Cello!” and “Peace Patrol” in 1916. He published two more of his compositions in 1925.Chaplin considered the musical accompaniment of a film to be important, and from A Woman of Paris onwards, he took an increasing interest in this area.With the advent of sound technology, Chaplin immediately adopted the use of a synchronised soundtrack—composed by himself—for City Lights (1931).He thereafter composed the score for all of his films, and from the late 1950s to his death, he re-scored all of his silent features and some of his short films.

Because Chaplin was not a trained musician, he could not read notes and needed the help of professional composers, such as David Raksin, Raymond Rasch and Eric James, when creating his scores. Although some of Chaplin’s critics have claimed that credit for his film music should be given to the composers who worked with him, for example Raksin, who worked with Chaplin on Modern Times, has stressed Chaplin’s creative position and active participation in the composing process. This process, which could take months, would start with Chaplin describing to the composer(s) exactly what he wanted and singing or playing a tune he had come up with on the piano. These tunes were then developed further in a close collaboration between the composer(s) and Chaplin. According to film historian Jeffrey Vance, “although he relied upon associates to arrange varied and complex instrumentation, the musical imperative is his, and not a note in a Chaplin musical score was placed there without his assent.”

Chaplin’s compositions produced two popular songs. “Smile”, composed originally for Modern Times (1936) and later set to lyrics by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, was a hit for Nat King Cole in 1954.This Is My Song, performed by Petula Clark for A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), reached #1 on the UK Charts. Chaplin also received his only competitive Oscar for his composition work, receiving the Academy Award for Best Original Score for Limelight (along with Raymond Rasch and Larry Russell) in 1973.

 

LEGACY

Chaplin’s “tramp” character is possibly the most imitated on all levels of entertainment. The influence of his ‘Tramp’ character could be seen on other artists and media providers. Beginning early on there were many tributes, and parodies made. E. C. Segar’s 1916 comic strip “Charlie Chaplin’s Comedy Capers” is an early example.Segar’s ‘Chaplin’ comics would later be collected in 1917 into five books, precursors of the later comic book format.Two different animated cartoon series also starred ‘Charlie’ a tramp character, the first a series of nine shorts from 1916 by Movca Film Service. And later ten filmsby the Pat Sullivan Studio from 1918–1919, which would later use the ‘Charlie/Charley’ gestures to create Felix the Cat, the character made one later appearance in one of Felix’s 1923 cartoons “Felix in Hollywood”.

• From 1917 to 1918, silent film actor Billy West made more than 20 films as a comedian precisely imitating Chaplin’s tramp character, makeup and costume.
• The third of composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s 1929–30 composition Wachsfigurenkabinett: Fünf kleine Opern (Waxworks: Five Little Operas) is entitled ‘Chaplin-Ford-Trot’, and features the character of Charlie Chaplin (in a speaking rather than operatic role).
• Shree 420 and Awaara main characters are heavily influenced by The Tramp.* Kamal Haasan moulded his character “Chaplin Chellappa” on Chaplin in the Tamil film Punnagai Mannan
• John Woo directed a parody film of Chaplin’s “The Kid” called Hua ji shi dai (1981), also known as “Laughing Times.”
• In 2002, on a UK poll broadcast by the BBC, Chaplin was ranked number 66 on a list of the 100 Greatest Britons

Memorials and tributes

Statue of Chaplin as the Tramp by John Doubleday in Leicester Square, London

Several memorials have been dedicated to Chaplin. In London, a statue of him as the Tramp was unveiled in Leicester Squarein 1981 and a permanent exhibition on his life and career,Charlie Chaplin – The Great Londoner, opened at the London Film Museumin 2010. The Swiss town of Vevey, where he was a resident during his final years, honored him with a statue on his centennial anniversary in 1989, and in 2011 unveiled murals depicting him on two 14-storey buildings.His final home in the area, Manoir de Ban, is in the process of being converted into a museum exploring his life and career, to be opened in 2013. Chaplin’s photographic archives are held by the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne, and some of the images in the collection were presented in an exhibition, Charlie Chaplin – Images d’Un Mythe, in 2011–2012.In 1998, Chaplin also received a statue in Waterville, Ireland where he spent several summers with his family in the 1960s. Since 2011 the town has also been host to the annual Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival, which was founded to celebrate Chaplin’s legacy and to showcase new comic talent.

Chaplin’s 100th birthday anniversary in 1989 was celebrated with several events. On his birthday, 16 April, City Lights was screened at a gala at the Dominion Theatre in London, the site of its British premiere in 1931.In Hollywood, a premiere screening of How to Make Movies, a previously unreleased short film that Chaplin produced in 1918 to show his new studio, was held at his former studio and in Japan, he was honoured with a musical tribute.Retrospectives of his work were presented that year at The National Film Theatre in London, the Munich Stadtmuseum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which also dedicated a gallery exhibition, Chaplin: A Centennial Celebration, to him. On 15 April 2011, a day before his 122nd birthday anniversary, Google celebrated him with a special Google Doodle video on its global and other country-wide homepages.

Chaplin has also been remembered in several other ways. A minor planet, 3623 Chaplin discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina in 1981, is named after him. In 1985, he was honoured with his image on a postage stamp of the United Kingdom, and in 1994 he appeared on a United States postage stampdesigned by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld In 2010 the New York Guitar Festival commissioned new scores on some of Chaplin’s silent films from a number of contemporary artists, including Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Marc Ribot, David Bromberg, and Alex de Grassi

Characterizations

Chaplin has been portrayed in several films. Richard Attenborough directed a film on Chaplin’s life, Chaplin (1992), which starred Robert Downey, Jr. as Chaplin and also included Chaplin’s oldest daughter Geraldine Chaplin playing his mother, Hannah Chaplin. Downey Jr. was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance. Chaplin is also a supporting character in several other films, such as The Cat’s Meow (2001), in which he was played by Eddie Izzard and The Scarlett O’Hara War(1980), in which he was played by Clive Revill.

Chaplin has also been the subject of a musical, Limelight –The Story of Charlie Chaplin by Christopher Curtis and Thomas Meehan, which was performed at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2010.The musical is to be adapted for Broadway in 2012, retitled Chaplin – A Musical. Chaplin is portrayed by Robert McClure in both.

Chaplin is also one of the central characters in Glen David Gold’s novel Sunnyside, which is set in the World War I period

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Chaplin received several awards and recognitions during his lifetime, especially during his later career in the 1960s and the 1970s. In 1975, he was knighted a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. The honour had already been proposed in 1931 and 1956, but was vetoed after a Foreign Office report raised concerns over Chaplin’s political views and private life; it was felt that honouring him would damage both the reputation of the British honours system and relations with the United States. Chaplin was also awarded honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by the University of Oxfordand the University of Durham in 1962.In 1965 he received a joint Erasmus Prizewith film director Ingmar Bergmanand in 1971 he was made a Commander of the national order of the Legion of Honor by the French Minister of Culture Jacques Duhamel at the Cannes Film Festival

Chaplin’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6751 Hollywood Blvd. Although the project started in 1958, Chaplin only received his star in 1970 because of his political views.

Chaplin also received several special film awards. He was given a special Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festivalin 1972. When he briefly returned to the United States in 1972, the Lincoln Center Film Societyhonoured him with a gala and awarded him a lifetime achievement award, which has since been awarded annually to filmmakers as The Chaplin Award.Chaplin was also given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1970, after having been excluded due to his political beliefs when the project was initially started in 1958.

Chaplin also received three Academy Awards, one competitive award for Best Original Score, and two Honorary Awards, and was nominated for three more:

• 1st Academy Awards (1929): Special Award “for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus. Chaplin had originally been nominated for Best Production, Best Director in a Comedy Picture, Best Actor and Best Writing (Original Story)for The Circus. However, the Academy decided to withdraw his name from all the competitive categories and instead give him a special award.
• 13th Academy Awards (1941): Best Actor and Best Writing, nominations, for The Great Dictator. The film was also nominated for further three awards.
• 20th Academy Awards (1948): Best Screenplay, nomination, for Monsieur Verdoux
• 44th Academy Awards (1972): Honorary Award for “the incalculable effect he [Chaplin] has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century”. Stepping onto the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Chaplin received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full twelve minutes.
• 45th Academy Awards (1973): Best Original Score, win, for Limelight. Although the film had originally been released in 1952, due to Chaplin’s political difficulties at the time, it did not play for one week in Los Angeles, and thus did not meet the criterion for nomination until it was re-released in 1972.

Six of Chaplin’s films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry: The Immigrant (1917), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940).

FLIMOGRAPHY

Chaplin appeared in 82 films throughout his 53 years in the industry. Nearly all of his output is owned by Roy Export S.A.S. in Paris, which enforces the library’s copyrights and decides how and when this material can be released.

Directed features:

• The Kid (1921)
• A Woman of Paris (1923)
• The Gold Rush (1925)
• The Circus (1928)
• City Lights(1931)
• Modern Times (1936)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• Monsieur Verdoux(1947)
• Limelight (1952)
• A King in New York (1957)
• A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)