George Dryden Wheeler, Junior. was an English actor and film director
Background
He was the son of Hannah Chaplin and music hall entertainer Leo Dryden, and half brother of actors Charlie and Sydney Chaplin. Dryden was born in London. He was the youngest of three boys born to Hannah Hill, though he would be separated and therefore estranged from his mother and two older brothers.
While he was an infant, his father removed him from his mentally-troubled mother.
Career
He was also the father of rock musician Spencer Dryden. At this point, he wrote several letters to Chaplin and his half-brother Sydney, but received no response from either of them. In 1917, he got in touch with Chaplin"s lead actress, Edna Purviance, who is thought to have convinced Chaplin to recognise him as his relative.
He later appeared in Stan Laurel"s Mud and Sand and was the "other man" in the melodrama, False Women.
In 1928, he directed Syd Chaplin in A Little Bit of Fluff, and later, worked at the Chaplin Studios as Charlie"s assistant director on The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux. He also appears in the supporting roles of a doctor and a clown in Chaplin"s last American film, Limelight.
He played Plimsoll in the 1928 – 1929 Broadway theatre play, Wings Over Europe. After Charlie Chaplin left America for Switzerland in 1952, Dryden managed the winding down of Chaplin"s Hollywood business affairs until 1954, when the studio was sold.
In his final years, he suffered from mental illness and reclusiveness, which was exacerbated by aggressive Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiries into his brother"s politics.
Dryden died in Los Angeles in 1957. Family
Dryden was married from 1938–1943 to Radio City Music Hall prima ballerina Alice Chapple (1911–2005). Their son was Spencer Dryden.
Spencer would play with Jefferson Airplane, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and other bands, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.