Facts about Charlie Chaplin

Facts about Charlie Chaplin

In the light of our own egos we’re all dethroned monarchs 
 Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. {1889 – 1977} was absolutely the master of silent films. Charlie was an actor, producer, screenwriter, director and composer. His acting career spanned over 65 years. He is considered a genius in silent film history.

He was an English comic actor and film director of the silent film era who became one of the best-known film stars in the world before the end of the First World War. 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, and from 1918 composing the music. 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 movie 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’s identification with the left ultimately forced him to resettle in Europe during the McCarthy era in the early 1950s.

He was the first actor to appear on Time magazine. Chaplin appeared on the July 6, 1925 issue of Time magazine, a U.S.-based news magazine. He was the first actor ever to appear on the magazine known for its influential cover photo.

He won only one non-honorary Oscar, and it was 21 years “late”. Chaplin won an honorary Academy Award (”Oscar”) in 1929, during the first presentation of awards. Originally nominated in a couple of categories, his name was withdrawn and he was presented instead with a special award. He also received an honorary award in 1972. The next year, however, he won a Best Music Oscar for Limelight, a film he had made 21 years earlier, yet had not been shown in Los Angeles until 1972, thus enabling his nomination and subsequent award.

He purposely avoided dialogue in two “talkies”. Chaplin wrote, produced, and acted in two movies in the 1930s, well after conversations were prevalent in the “talkies” (motion pictures in which sound was added). Surprisingly, the actors did not talk in these two movies, relying instead on the musical score to set the tone for the movies, and the few spoken words coming from objects such as a radio.

He had a fondness for young wives. Chaplin was married for 4 times. He was 29 and his first wife was 16 when they married. His second marriage was to 16-year-old Lita Grey, when he was 35. His third and possibly fictional marriage to Paulette Goddard, was rumored to have occurred when he was 47 and she was 28. He married his last wife, Oona O’Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill, occurred when Oona had just turned 18. Chaplin was 54.

Three months after Chaplin died on Christmas, 1977, his body was stolen in an effort to extort money from his family. Chaplin’s body was recovered 11 weeks later after the grave-robbers were captured. He is now buried under 6 feet of concrete to prevent further theft attempts.Four years after his death, Ukrainian astronomer, Lyudmila Karachkina, named an asteroid after him. Ms. Karachkina, discoverer of 131 asteroids, named one of them 3623 Chaplin. It resides in the asteroid “belt” between Mars and Jupiter and appears as a magnitude 12.1 object, making it visible in a moderately strong telescope.The accomplished actress, Geraldine Chaplin, is Charlie’s daughter with his last wife Oona. In the 1992 Hollywood movie adaptation of Charlie Chaplin’s life, Chaplin, she portrayed Hannah Chaplin, Charlie’s mother.

Charlie Chaplin In Tribute