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![Charles Spencer as unforgettable Charlot](/Hollywood/Mansion/8423/spencer2.jpg) ![The Little Tramp](/Hollywood/Mansion/8423/spencer.jpg)
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As
the king of silent screen comedies, Charlie Chaplin
achieved international stardom with his utterly
captivating portrayal of "The Little Tramp" in
such classic films as The Kid (1920), The Gold
Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), and Modern
Times (1936). The Tramp's shambling, yet winsome,
characteristics weren't such a stretch for Chaplin to
affect--growing up impoverished and often lonely in the
London slums, he and his brother Sydney spent the
majority of their childhood in orphanages and workhouses,
after their father expired from alcoholism and their
mother was confined to an insane asylum. During his
adolescence, Chaplin made his own way by working
variously as a lather boy in a barbershop, as a janitor
in music halls, and as a bit vaudeville player. While
traveling in the United States with the Fred Karno
Company, a British troupe, in 1913, Chaplin was
discovered onstage by producer Mack Sennett, who signed
him to Keystone Films to star in one-reelers for a
whopping $150 a week. Chaplin's fame as a great screen
comedian spread like a plague, and by the end of 1920, he
had appeared in sixty-nine films, and was commanding an
unheard-of salary of $10,000 a week. His production
output thereafter tapered off, as Chaplin, a gifted
director, producer, scriptwriter, and composer, began to
take full creative control of his projects. Something of
a workaholic and most definitely a perfectionist, Chaplin
became famous for shooting as much as fifty times the
amount of footage necessary in order to satisfy his
artistic vision. Taking his obsessive love of artistic
control a step further, Chaplin co-founded United
Artists, the first modern film production and
distribution company, with screen legends Mary Pickford,
D.W. Griffith, and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Trouble
first beset Chaplin when he was accused in the press of
being a Leftist, following the release of his anti-Hitler
satire, The Great Dictator (1940)--the film's
passionate plea for the launching of a second front in
Europe to aid the Russians caused politicians and
journalists to seriously doubt his nationalism. Again in
1947, censors and conservatives berated Chaplin over his
black comedy Monsieur Verdoux (1947), which
related an uncomfortably "contemporary" view of
society; the film was picketed, banned in Memphis, and
withdrawn from numerous theaters because of its
controversial themes. Further plagued by a pesky
paternity suit brought against him by actress Joan Barry
that earned him--fairly or unfairly--the reputation of a
debauching Svengali, Chaplin declared himself a
"citizen of the world" in 1952, and took up
permanent residence in Switzerland with his fourth and
last wife, Oona. He returned to the U.S. only once, in
1972, to receive an honorary Academy Award. Chaplin won
another Oscar, in 1973, for his 1952 score of Limelight
(a morass of legal difficulties had postponed the release
of the movie for two decades). In 1975, Chaplin received
the ultimate honor of being knighted for his many
legendary achievements in the entertainment field.
Photo 1 / Photo 2 / Photo 3
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