A Brief Biography of Charlie Chaplin

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16th April 1889 in Walworth, London, and
lived a Dickensian childhood, shared with his brother, Sydney, that included
extreme poverty, workhouses and seeing his mother's mental decline put her into
an institution. Both his parents, though seperated when he was very young, were
music hall artists, his father quite famously so. But it was his mother Charlie
idolised and was inspired by during his visits backstage while she performed, to
take up such a career for himself.

He acheived his ambition when he joined a dancing troup, the Eight Lancashire
Lads, and this eventually led onto parts in Sherlock Holmes and Casey's Court
Circus. Sydney, meanwhile, had joined the famous Fred Karno Company and
quickly became a leading player and writer therein. He managed to get Charlie
involved, and he too became a Karno star. For both boys, Karno was almost a
college of comedy for them, and the period had a huge impact on Charlie
especially.

In 1910 Charlie toured the U.S with the Karno group and returned for another in
1912. It was on this tour that he was head hunted by Mack Sennett and
his Keystone Film Company, and Charlie was thus introduced into the medium of
film. His first film, in 1914, was aptly titled Making A Living, and it was directed
by Henry Lehrman. He starred in many of his Keystones along side Mabel
Normand, who also directed three of his films, but it wasn't until Twenty Minutes
of Love that he had a taste of directing himself, and this quickly became the only
way he worked.

His success was such that he was able to move from one company to another, each
time into a better deal. In 1915 , after thirty-five films, he moved to Essanay, and
it was here he really found his feet, not to mention his longest serving leading lady,
Edna Purviance. Notable films during this period include The Champion, The
Tramp and The Bank. In 1916 he moved to Lone Star Mutual, with even greater
control and financial rewards. Here he made the definitive Chaplin short
comedies, The Rink, Easy Street, The Cure and The Immigrant. First
National were next, and it was here he constructed his full length masterpiece, The
Kid. Shorter comedies of note at this time included Sunnyside and The Idle
Class.

Along with his great friend, Douglas Fairbanks, as well as Mary Pickford and D.W
Griffith, Chaplin formed United Artists in 1919. He made his first film for them in
1923, the Edna Purviance vehicle, A Woman of Paris, perhaps the least known of
his films, but it was followed by the Chaplin classics - The Gold Rush, The
Circus, City Lights and Modern Times. It wasn't until 1940 that he made his first
talkie, The Great Dictator, to be followed by the more refined Monsieur
Verdoux and Limelight, a look back to the music hall world of his youth.

Limelight (1952) was the last film he made in America. McCarthyite political
manouverings effectively ejected him from the country and he wasn't to return
until 1972, when he received a special Academy Award. In the meantime, though
heartily welcomed back to Britain, he moved to Switzerland with his wife, Oona O'
Neill, and their children. He made two more films, A King In New York (1957,
with Dawn Addams) and A Countess From Hong Kong (1967, with Sophia
Loren and Marlon Brando) and spent his final years writing music for his films and
enjoying his family life before he died, at 4 a.m on Christmas Day in 1977.