Chaplin was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1972, having been previously excluded because of his political beliefs.
Golden Lion
Chaplin received a special Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1972.
Academy Awards
Chaplin received three Academy Awards: an Honorary Award for "versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing, and producing The Circus" in 1929, a second Honorary Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century" in 1972, and a Best Score award in 1973 for Limelight (shared with Ray Rasch and Larry Russell).
Order of the British Empire
Chaplin was made a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1975.
Order of the Legion of Honour
Chaplin was appointed a Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government in 1971.
Chaplin received three Academy Awards: an Honorary Award for "versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing, and producing The Circus" in 1929, a second Honorary Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century" in 1972, and a Best Score award in 1973 for Limelight (shared with Ray Rasch and Larry Russell).
(Charlie Chaplin's Own Story enables readers to discover h...)
Charlie Chaplin's Own Story enables readers to discover how at the age of twenty-seven "the most popular man in the world" wished to be viewed by a public who knew him almost exclusively as the inefatigable Tramp. This work is the most elaborate and intriguing of Chaplin's fictionalized self-portraits.
(In presenting the first edition of Chaplin’s full memoir,...)
In presenting the first edition of Chaplin’s full memoir, Lisa Stein Haven provides her own introduction and notes to supplement Chaplin’s writing and enhance the narrative.
(This extraordinary film evokes a seminal moment in cinema...)
This extraordinary film evokes a seminal moment in cinema history: the rise of the creative genius of Charlie Chaplin. His iconic characters, from the era of silent movies, sum up what was most moving and inventive in the emerging cinematic arts. The film explores the factors that led his almost instant popular success to become a universal image, the silhouette, that is recognizable to this day.
(In Kid Charlie stars as his lovable Tramp character, this...)
In Kid Charlie stars as his lovable Tramp character, this time raising an orphan (a remarkable young Jackie Coogan) he has rescued from the streets. Chaplin and Coogan make a miraculous pair in this nimble marriage of sentiment and slapstick, a film that is, as its opening title card states, a picture with a smile and perhaps, a tear.
(Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin's last outing as the Little...)
Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin's last outing as the Little Tramp, puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard).
(n his first full talking film, Chaplin plays two roles: r...)
n his first full talking film, Chaplin plays two roles: ruthless dictator Adenoid Hynkel of Tomania and a meek Jewish barber. An outlandish and poignant satire of Europe just before World War II, the film co-stars Paulette Goddard and Jack Oakie in his best role, as a Mussolini caricature.
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. Chaplin became a worldwide icon through his screen persona "the Tramp" and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry.
Background
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 in London to Hannah Chaplin and Charles Chaplin Sr. 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 Charles became the legal carer of Hannah's illegitimate son, Sydney John Hill. At the time of his birth, Chaplin's parents were both music hall entertainers. Hannah, the daughter of a shoemaker, had a brief and unsuccessful career under the stage name Lily Harley, while Charles, a butcher's son, was a popular singer. Although they never divorced, Chaplin's parents were estranged around 1891.
Education
Charlie and his half brother Sydney were sent to a series of bleak workhouses and residential schools. He had no higher education.
Later he was awarded honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by the University of Oxford and the University of Durham in 1962.
Career
Chaplin became a member of the male dance troupe, "The Eight Lancashire Lads" and toured across the music halls in Great Britain, all through 1899 and 1900.
In 1903, he was cast in his first show titled "Jim, a Romance of Cockayne", in which he played the role of a newsboy. The show opened in July that year, in the "Kingston upon Thames" in Southwest London and was not very successful.
From October 1903 to June 1904, he travelled with Saintsbury, and his plays were immensely successful, which lead him to travel to London to act with William Gillette, an actor.
In 1906, he became part of the amateur comedy troupe "Casey's Circus". He performed comedy acts with them and soon rose to prominence. When the troupe finished touring in July 1907, Charlie was left without a job for a few months and lived with a family in Kennington.
In 1910, he played the lead role in the sketch "Jimmy the Fearless", which was an immediate success and soon after he started getting a lot of media attention, catapulted his fame and popularity.
In 1913, he signed a contract for a period of one year with the New York Motion Picture Company, which promised him pay of $150 a week.
In 1914, he made his feature film debut with "Making a Living", in which he played, "Edgar English", a womaniser.
In 1914, he appeared in several films for Keystone Studios including, "Kid Auto Races at Venice", "Between Showers", "A Film Johnnie", "His Favorite Pastime" and "Tillie's Punctured Romance".
In 1915, he also directed and wrote films for the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. Some of them include "A Night Out", "The Champion", "The Tramp", "Work", "A Woman", "The Bank", "Triple Trouble" and "Police".
From 1916 to 1917, he worked for the "Mutual Film Corporation" - he directed, wrote, produced and acted in their films. Some these films included - "The Floorwalker", "The Vagabond", "The Pawnshop", "The Count", "The Cure" and "The Adventurer".
From 1918 to 1923, he made a total of nine films which were distributed by the "First National Exhibitors' Circuit". Some of the films were "A Dog’s Life", "The Bond", "The Kid", "Pay Day", "The Pilgrim", "Sunnyside" and "The Idle Class".
From September 26, 1923 onwards, he released his films under the United Artists label. He directed, acted, produced, wrote and composed tunes for many of these movies.
In 1925, his Academy Award winning film "The Gold Rush", which he directed, starred in and produced, was released. It is one of his classics and most memorable films.
In 1928, his film "The Circus" was released. In this 70-minute silent film, he played the role of a clown. It was one of his highest grossing silent films.
Released in 1936, one of his most remembered films, "Modern Times", is a satirical portrayal of the struggle to cope in the industrialised world. The film is considered one of his most popular silent films.
In 1940, he came up with "The Great Dictator", which was one of his most commercially successful films. He played the role of a Jewish barber in the film.
In 1952, his Academy Award winning film "Limelight" was released. The film was set in London, during the eve of World War I and he played the role of a former clown named "Calvero".
In 1957, he directed and acted in the comedy film "A King in New York", a satirical film about the political and social life in the United States of America. The film was only a moderate success and received mixed reviews.
Released in the year 1967, "A Countess from Hong Kong", was his last film. He died at the age of 88 in his sleep, after he suffered from a stroke.
Chaplin is widely regarded as the greatest comic artist of the screen and one of the most important figures in motion-picture history. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin received many awards and honours, especially later in life. He was awarded honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by the University of Oxford and the University of Durham in 1962. In 1965, he and Ingmar Bergman were joint winners of the Erasmus Prize and, in 1971, he was appointed a Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. In the 1975 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE).
From the film industry, Chaplin received a special Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1972, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lincoln Center Film Society the same year. The latter has since been presented annually to filmmakers as The Chaplin Award. Chaplin was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1972, having been previously excluded because of his political beliefs.
Chaplin received three Academy Awards: an Honorary Award for "versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing, and producing The Circus" in 1929, a second Honorary Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century" in 1972, and a Best Score award in 1973 for Limelight (shared with Ray Rasch and Larry Russell). He was further nominated in the Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture (as producer) categories for The Great Dictator, and received another Best Original Screenplay nomination for Monsieur Verdoux.
Six of Chaplin's films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Immigrant , The Kid , The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times , and The Great Dictator.
Despite asking for an Anglican funeral, Chaplin appeared to be agnostic.
Politics
Chaplin strongly criticised capitalism and argued that the world encourages mass killing through wars and weapons of mass destruction. An avowed socialist, Chaplin expressed a hatred for right-wing dictatorship which made him politically suspect during the early days of the cold war.
Views
Regardless of the size the part, Chaplin walked each actor through every scene. He knew that a successful scene was not simply about the star, but about everyone on the screen. Charlie Chaplin demanded that the entire cast work together in every performance. The only way to achieve that unity was to maintain overall control over every scene.
Chaplin could be a real pain at work and he expected absolute obedience. For example, he was inclined to have everyone do dozens of takes of even a simple movement on camera if it didn’t meet his high standards. For instance, the filming of The Immigrant had a leading lady, Edna Purviance, eat peas for a particular scene so many times that she became physically ill.
Quotations:
In his autobiography he wrote, "I am not religious in the dogmatic sense ... I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything ... My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that ... in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good."
"I was optimistic and still not convinced, " he wrote, "that I had completely lost the affection of the American people, that they could be so politically conscious or so humorless as to boycott anyone that could amuse them."
"A day without laughter is a day wasted."
"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles."
"You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down."
"We think too much and feel too little."
"The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish."
Membership
In 1976, Chaplin was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).
Personality
Charlie Chaplin was a born leader, with extraordinary drive and determination. Insisting on his right to make up his own mind, Chaplin demanded freedom of thought and action and does not let anything or anyone stand in his way to his goal.
Chaplin was really concerned with his status and fostered the appearance of success and self-satisfaction. Besides, he felt the responsibility to be the protector and provider for those he loved, but demanded their respect and attention in return.
He was rather adaptable, and he found it easy to fit into most social setups and vocational fields.
Quotes from others about the person
Chris Tucker: "Comedy comes from a place of hurt. Charlie Chaplin was starving and broke in London, and that's where he got his character 'the tramp' from. It's a bad situation that he transformed into comedic one."
Oona Chaplin: "When people say 'Charlie Chaplin' I still think now of the guy in the moustache and bowler hat and funny walk - I don't think of an old man who was my grandfather."
Emma Stone: "He [Charlie Chaplin] is my favorite! He wrote and produced, and starred in and cast all of his movies! Can you imagine? I get really excited when I talk about Charlie Chaplin."
Jack Reynor: "I was always a big fan of Charlie Chaplin movies. I love 'The Great Dictator' and 'City Lights.'"
Connections
The first wife of Charlie Chaplin was the 17-year-old actress Mildred Harris, who had revealed that she was pregnant with his child, and in September 1918, he married her quietly in Los Angeles to avoid controversy. Soon after, the pregnancy was found to be a false alarm. Chaplin was unhappy with the union. Harris was by then legitimately pregnant, and on 7 July 1919, gave birth to a son. Norman Spencer Chaplin was born malformed and died three days later. The marriage eventually ended in April 1920, with Chaplin explaining in his autobiography that they were "irreconcilably mismated".
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 film, whose surprise announcement of pregnancy forced Chaplin into marriage. She was 16 and he was 35, meaning Chaplin could have been charged with statutory rape under California law. He, therefore, arranged a discreet marriage in Mexico on 25 November 1924. Their first son, Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr., was born on 5 May 1925, followed by Sydney Earl Chaplin on 30 March 1926.
It was an unhappy marriage, and Chaplin spent long hours at the studio to avoid seeing his wife. In November 1926, Grey took the children and left the family home. A bitter divorce followed, in which Grey's application – accusing Chaplin of infidelity, abuse, and of harbouring "perverted sexual desires" – was leaked to the press.
In 1932 Chaplin began a relationship with young starlet Paulette Goddard. Following the release of Modern Times, Chaplin left with Goddard for a 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 focused heavily on their work, although Goddard was again his leading lady in his next feature film, The Great Dictator. She eventually divorced Chaplin in Mexico in 1942.
In 1943 he married his newest protegee, 18-year-old Oona O'Neill – daughter of the American playwright Eugene O'Neill. Chaplin, then 54, had been introduced to her by a film agent seven months earlier. In his autobiography, Chaplin described meeting O'Neill as "the happiest event of my life", and claimed to have found "perfect love". Chaplin's son, Charles Jr., reported that Oona "worshipped" his father. The couple remained married until Chaplin's death, and had eight children.
Father:
Charles Chaplin Sr.
Charles Spencer Chaplin (18 March 1863 – 9 May 1901) was an English music hall entertainer. He achieved considerable success in the 1890s, and was the father of the actor and filmmaker Sir Charlie Chaplin.
Mother:
Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill
Hannah Chaplin (6 August 1865 – 28 August 1928), birth name Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill, stage name Lily Harley, was an English actress, singer and dancer who performed in British music halls from the age of 16. Chaplin was the mother of Charlie Chaplin and his two half-brothers, the actor Sydney Chaplin and the film director Wheeler Dryden and grandmother of musician Spencer Dryden.
ex-wife:
Lita Grey
Lita Grey (born Lillita Louise MacMurray; April 15, 1908 – December 29, 1995), who was known for most of her life as Lita Grey Chaplin, was an American actress and the second wife of Charlie Chaplin.
ex-wife:
Mildred Harris
Mildred Harris (November 29, 1901 – July 20, 1944) was an American film actress during the early part of the 20th century. Harris began her career in the film industry as a child actress when she was 11 years old.
ex-wife:
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress, a child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl; she became a major star of Paramount Pictures in the 1940s. Her most notable films were her first major role, as Charlie Chaplin's leading lady in Modern Times, and Chaplin's subsequent film The Great Dictator. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Her husbands included Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque.
Wife:
Oona O'Neill
Oona O'Neill Chaplin, Lady Chaplin (14 May 1925 – 27 September 1991) was an actress who became a British citizen after renouncing her American citizenship. She was the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton, and the fourth and last wife of English actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin.
Daughter:
Josephine Hannah Chaplin
Josephine Hannah Chaplin (born March 28, 1949) is an American actress and the daughter of filmmaker Charlie Chaplin and his last wife, Oona O'Neill. Chaplin had a featured role in Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales (1972).
Daughter:
Annette Emily
Daughter:
Victoria Chaplin
Victoria Chaplin (born May 19, 1951) is a British-American circus performer. She is the daughter of film actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin from his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill, and the granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill.
Daughter:
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born July 31, 1944) is an American-born British-Spanish actress. She is the fourth child of Charlie Chaplin, the first of eight with fourth wife Oona O'Neill. After beginnings in dance and modeling, she turned her attention to acting, and made her English-language acting debut (and came to prominence in what would be a Golden Globe-nominated role) in her portrayal of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965). She made her Broadway acting debut in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes in 1967, and received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville (1975). She received a BAFTA nomination for her role in Welcome to L.A. (1976). She played her grandmother Hannah Chaplin in the biopic, Chaplin (1992) for which she received her third Golden Globe nomination.
Daughter:
Jane Cecil Chaplin
Jane Chaplin was born on May 23, 1957 as Jane Cecil Chaplin. She is an actress and producer.
Son:
Charles Spencer Chaplin
Charles Spencer Chaplin III (May 5, 1925 – March 20, 1968) was an American actor. He was a son of Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey. He is known for appearing in 1950s films such as The Beat Generation and Fans of the Wild.
Son:
Norman Spencer Chaplin
Son:
Sydney Earl Chaplin
Sydney Earl Chaplin (March 30, 1926 – March 3, 2009) was an American actor. He was the second son of Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey. One of his major roles was his father's film Limelight (1952). In theater, Chaplin won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his 1957 performance in Bells Are Ringing.
Son:
Christopher James Chaplin
Christopher James Chaplin (born 8 July 1962) is a Swiss-born English composer and actor. He is the youngest son of film comedian Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill
Son:
Michael John Chaplin
Michael John Chaplin (born March 7, 1946) is an American actor born in Santa Monica, California. He is the second child and eldest son from Charlie Chaplin's fourth and final marriage, to Oona O'Neill.
Son:
Eugene Anthony Chaplin
Eugene Anthony Chaplin (born August 23, 1953) is a Swiss recording engineer and documentary filmmaker. He is the fifth child of Oona O'Neill and Charlie Chaplin, the grandson of playwright Eugene O'Neill, and the father of film actress Kiera Chaplin. He is the president of the International Comedy Film Festival of Vevey, Switzerland. He directed the documentary film Charlie Chaplin: A Family Tribute and created the musical "Smile", which is a narration of Charlie Chaplin's life through his music. As a recording engineer, he worked with The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and Queen.
