(1889 – 1977) Sir Charles Spencer ‘Charlie’ Chaplin was a versatile actor, director and music producer whose prolific entertainment career spanned over 75 years. Influential film roles included the films, The Kid (1921) and The Great Dictator (1940)
“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot”
Short bio Charlie Chaplin
Chaplin was born in London, 16 April 1889, to parents who worked in the entertainment industry. At an early age, his alcoholic father passed away, and later his mother had a breakdown and was taken to an asylum. This left Charlie and his brother to fend for themselves. Following in their parent’s footsteps, they were drawn to the musical hall, and Charlie gained a prominent reputation as a performer.
In 1910, Charlie travelled to America and gained experience in the fledgeling film industry. It was here in America that he was to develop his first famous characters such as the Tramp – the trademark Charlie Chaplin character of a bowler hat, moustache and ill-fitting clothes. Charlie Chaplin became the great star of the silent era, and his popularity spread throughout the globe.
Charlie Chaplin had tremendous intensity. He would finance, write and direct all his films himself. He was a great perfectionist and would make his actors perform scenes up to 100 times to get it just right. Yet he also liked to improvise much of his performances and would not stick rigidly to a script.
Some of his most famous films include – City Lights
(1931) and The Great Dictator
(1940). The Great Dictator
was a satire on the totalitarian dictators of and Mussolini. Chaplin himself played two roles – a Jewish barber, who was discriminated against. He also played the role of the “Adenoid Hynkel – dictator of Tomania a clear parody of Adolf Hitler.
The film was made one year before the US entered the war against Germany, and was controversial at a time when anti-Semitism was rife in America. Despite his parody of Hitler in this film, Chaplin refused to publicly endorse the war effort in 1942 – causing the authorities to become suspicious of his political leanings.
“Wars, conflict, it’s all business. One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify.”
Monsieur Verdoux (1947);
In the post-war period, the FBI under J Edgar Hoover kept close tabs on Chaplin because of his perceived left-wing ‘ Communist views’ Eventually, the US authorities decided to revoke his entry visa into the US and Chaplin was forced to live in Switzerland.
“Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America’s yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States.”
Charlie Chaplin later said he was not a Communist but refused to condemn Communists because he disliked the nature of the McCarthy era.
“Friends have asked how I came to engender this American antagonism. My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist. Although I am not a Communist I refused to fall in line by hating them.
Secondly, I was opposed to the Committee on Un-American Activities a dishonest phrase to begin with, elastic enough to wrap around the throat and strangle the voice of any American citizen whose honest opinion is a minority of one.”
– My Autobiography (1964)
Chaplin had great comic talent; this was a talent that shone through in his silent films but also in later years.
“I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.”
Chaplin was put forward for a knighthood in 1956, but, it was blocked by the Conservative cabinet who feared a backlash from the American government.
Chaplin was eventually knighted in 1975. He also was awarded an Oscar in 1972 for his music score in the 1952 film Limelight . He was also awarded an honorary award in 1972 for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.”
He came out of exile to receive the award and the longest standing ovation in the history of the Oscars.
Charlie Chaplin had a turbulent personal life. He had 11 children with three different women and had several other girlfriends and marriages.
He died in his sleep in Vevey, Switzerland on Christmas Day 1977.
Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. “Biography of Charlie Chaplin”, Oxford, UK. , 30th Nov. 2009. Last updated 16 February 2018.
Charlie Chaplin – Autobiography
The inventors of cinema were French, not Americans. The cinema became popular very quickly. In 1908 the USA had 10 000 cinemas.
Chaplin was born in England in 1889. His mother was so poor that she couldn’t look after him. But he started acting at the age of five and was soon a successful comic in the theater. When he went to America he got into films and became a star immediately.
In 1916, Chaplin earned $10 000 a week, and an extra $150 000 per film. In 1929 the age of the silent film came to an end. A new technology made it possible to record sound and pictures together. But some old directors couldn’t change their style. And some great silent actors had terrible voices. They couldn’t get parts in normal films.
Chaplin’s voice was good but he didn’t really want to talk in such films. His love was the silent films. In 1931 he made another classic film, City lights, but again it was silent. In the «Kid» (1921) Charlie Chaplin is a window repairer. The little boy helps him by breaking windows! In most of his films, Chaplin plays a poor man on the streets. But the actor was a millionaire. His silent films were perfect works of art. He created a language with his face and his body. Without words he could say everything.
Questions:
1. What is silent film?
2. Who was the inventor of it?
3. Chaplin was born in England, wasn’t he?
4. When did the age of silent films come to an end?
5. What language did Chaplin create?
Vocabulary:
inventor - изобретатель
immediately - сразу же
technology - технология
Чарли Чаплин
Основателями кинематографа были французы, не американцы. Кино очень быстро стало популярным. В 1908 году в США было 10 000 кинотеатров.
Чаплин родился в 1889 году в Англии. Его мать была такой бедной, что не могла его содержать. Но он начал играть в пятилетнем возрасте и впоследствии стал успешным комиком в театре. Когда он приехал в Америку и начал сниматься в фильмах и вскоре стал звездой. В 1916 году Чаплин зарабатывал десять тысяч долларов в неделю и дополнительно сто пятьдесят тысяч долларов за фильм. В 1929 году эра немого кино кончилась. Новые технологии сделали возможным воспроизводить звук и изображение одновременно. Но некоторые актеры не могли изменить свой стиль. А в некоторых выдающихся немых актеров был ужасный голос. Они не могли сниматься в нормальных фильмах.
Голос Чаплина был хорошим, но он не желал разговаривать в таких фильмах. Его любовью было немое кино. В 1931 году он снял другой классический фильм «Огни большого города», но опять же таким он был немым, В «Крохе» (1921) Чарли Чаплин - стекольщик. Маленький мальчик помогает ему, разбивая окна! В большинстве фильмов Чаплин играет бедного человека с улицы. Но актер был миллионером. Его немое кино было высоким произведением искусства. Он создал язык лица и тела. Он мог сказать все без слов.
Charlie Chaplin was a comedic British actor who became one of the biggest stars of the 20th century"s silent-film era.
Born on April 16, 1889, in London, England, Charlie Chaplin worked with a children"s dance troupe before making his mark on the big screen. His character "The Tramp" relied on pantomime and quirky movements to become an iconic figure of the silent-film era. Chaplin went on to become a director, making films such as City Lights and Modern Times, and co-founded the United Artists Corporation. He died in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland, on December 25, 1977.
Famous for his character "The Tramp," the sweet little man with a bowler hat, mustache and cane, Charlie Chaplin was an iconic figure of the silent-film era and one of film"s first superstars, elevating the industry in a way few could have ever imagined.
Born Charles Spencer Chaplin in London, England, on April 16, 1889, Charlie Chaplin"s rise to fame is a true rags-to-riches story. His father, a notorious drinker, abandoned Chaplin, his mother and his older half-brother, Sydney, not long after Chaplin"s birth. That left Chaplin and his brother in the hands of their mother, a vaudevillian and music hall singer who went by the stage name Lily Harley.
Chaplin"s mother, who would later suffer severe mental issues and have to be committed to an asylum, was able to support her family for a few years. But in a performance that would introduce her youngest boy to the spotlight, Hannah inexplicably lost her voice in the middle of a show, prompting the production manager to push the five-year-old Chaplin, whom he"d heard sing, onto the stage to replace her.
Chaplin lit up the audience, wowing them with his natural presence and comedic angle (at one point he imitated his mother"s cracking voice). But the episode meant the end for Hannah. Her singing voice never returned, and she eventually ran out of money. For a time, Charlie and Sydney had to make a new, temporary home for themselves in London"s tough workhouses.
Armed with his mother"s love of the stage, Chaplin was determined to make it in show business himself, and in 1897, using his mother"s contacts, landed with a clog-dancing troupe named the Eight Lancashire Lads. It was a short stint, and not a terribly profitable one, forcing the go-getter Chaplin to make ends meet any way he could.
"I (was) newsvendor, printer, toymaker, doctor"s boy, etc., but during these occupational digressions, I never lost sight of my ultimate aim to become an actor," Chaplin later recounted. "So, between jobs I would polish my shoes, brush my clothes, put on a clean collar and make periodic calls at a theatrical agency."
Eventually other stage work did come his way. Chaplin made his acting debut as a pageboy in a production of Sherlock Holmes. From there he toured with a vaudeville outfit named Casey"s Court Circus and in 1908 teamed up with the Fred Karno pantomime troupe, where Chaplin became one of its stars as the Drunk in the comedic sketch A Night in an English Music Hall.
With the Karno troupe, Chaplin got his first taste of the United States, where he caught the eye of film producer Mack Sennett, who signed Chaplin to a contract for a $150 a week.
In 1914 Chaplin made his film debut in a somewhat forgettable one-reeler called Make a Living. To differentiate himself from the clad of other actors in Sennett films, Chaplin decided to play a single identifiable character, and "The Little Tramp" was born, with audiences getting their first taste of him in Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914).
Over the next year, Chaplin appeared in 35 movies, a lineup that included Tillie"s Punctured Romance, film"s first full-length comedy. In 1915 Chaplin left Sennett to join the Essanay Company, which agreed to pay him $1,250 a week. It is with Essanay that Chaplin, who by this time had hired his brother Sydney to be his business manager, rose to stardom.
During his first year with the company, Chaplin made 14 films, including The Tramp (1915). Generally regarded as the actor"s first classic, the story establishes Chaplin"s character as the unexpected hero when he saves the farmer"s daughter from a gang of robbers.
By the age of 26, Chaplin, just three years removed from his vaudeville days, was a superstar. He"d moved over to the Mutual Company, which paid him a whopping $670,000 a year. The money made Chaplin a wealthy man, but it didn"t seem to derail his artistic drive. With Mutual, he made some of his best work, including One A.M. (1916), The Rink (1916), The Vagabond (1916) and Easy Street (1917).
Through his work, Chaplin came to be known as a grueling perfectionist. His love for experimentation often meant countless takes, and it was not uncommon for him to order the rebuilding of an entire set. Nor was it uncommon for him to begin filming with one leading actor, realize he"d made a mistake in his casting and start again with someone new.
But the results were hard to refute. During the 1920s Chaplin"s career blossomed even more. During the decade he made some landmark films, including The Kid (1921), The Pilgrim (1923), A Woman in Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), a movie Chaplin would later say he wanted to be remembered by, and The Circus (1928). The latter three were released by United Artists, a company Chaplin co-founded in 1919 with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and D.W. Griffith.
Chaplin became equally famous for his life off-screen. His affairs with actresses who had roles in his movies were numerous. Some, however, ended better than others.
In 1918 he quickly married 16-year-old Mildred Harris. The marriage lasted just two years, and in 1924 he wed again, to another 16-year-old, actress Lita Grey, whom he"d cast in The Gold Rush. The marriage had been brought on by an unplanned pregnancy, and the resulting union, which produced two sons for Chaplin (Charles Jr. and Sydney) was an unhappy one for both partners. They divorced in 1927.
In 1936, Chaplin married again, this time to a chorus girl who went by the film name of Paulette Goddard. They lasted until 1942. That was followed by a nasty paternity suit with another actress, Joan Barry, in which tests proved Chaplin was not the father of her daughter, but a jury still ordered him to pay child support.
In 1943, Chaplin married 18-year-old Oona O"Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O"Neill. Unexpectedly the two would go on to have a happy marriage, one that would result in eight children.
Nearing the end of his life, Chaplin did make one last visit to the United States in 1972, when he was given an honorary Academy Award. The trip came just five years after Chaplin"s final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), the filmmaker"s first and only color movie. Despite a cast that included Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, the film did poorly at the box office. In 1975, Chaplin received further recognition when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
In the early morning hours of December 25, 1977, Charlie Chaplin died at his home in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. His wife, Oona, and seven of his children were at his bedside at the time of his passing. In a twist that might very well have come out of one of his films, Chaplin"s body was stolen not long after he was buried from his grave near Lake Geneva in Switzerland by two men who demanded $400,000 for its return. The men were arrested and Chaplin"s body was recovered 11 weeks later.
He was born in Walworth, London, England to Charles Chaplin, Sr. and Hannah Harriette Hill, both Music Hall entertainers. His parents separated soon after his birth, leaving him in the care of his increasingly unstable mother. In 1896, she was unable to find work; Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney had to be left in the workhouse at Lambeth, moving after several weeks to Hanwell School for Orphans and Destitute Children. His father died an alcoholic when Charlie was 12, and his mother suffered a mental breakdown, and was eventually admitted to the Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon, near Croydon. She died in 1928.
Charlie first took to the stage when, aged 5, he performed in Music Hall in 1894, standing in for his mother. As a child, he was confined to a bed for weeks due to a serious illness, and, at night, his mother would sit at the window and act out what was going on outside. In 1900, aged 11, his brother helped get him the role of a comic cat in the pantomime Cinderella at the London Hippodrome. In 1903 he appeared in Jim, A Romance of Cockayne, followed by his first regular job, as the newspaper boy Billy in Sherlock Holmes, a part he played into 1906. This was followed by Casey"s Court Circus variety show, and, the following year, he became a clown in Fred Karno"s Fun Factory slapstick comedy company.
Move to America.
According to immigration records, he arrived in the USA with the Karno troupe on October 2, 1912. In the Karno Company was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, who would later become known as Stan Laurel. Chaplin and Laurel wound up sharing a room in a boarding house. Stan Laurel returned to England but Chaplin remained in the USA. His act was seen by film producer Mack Sennett, who hired him for his studio, the Keystone Film Company.
While Chaplin initially had difficulty adjusting to the Keystone style of film acting, he soon adapted and flourished in the medium. This was made possible in part by Chaplin developing his signature Tramp persona, and by eventually earning directorship and creative control over his films, which enabled him to become Keystone"s top star and talent.
His salary history suggests how rapidly he became world famous, and the skill of his brother, Sydney, at being his business manager.
1914: Keystone, worked for $150 a week.
1914-1915: Essanay Studios, of Chicago, Illinois, $1250 a week, plus $10,000 signing bonus.
1916-1917: Mutual, $10,000 a week, plus $150,000 signing bonus.
1917: First National, $1 million deal - the first actor ever to earn that sum. He also formed his own independent production company, the Charles Chaplin Film Corporation, which made him a very wealthy man.
Chaplin as Auteur.
Chaplin built his own Hollywood studio in 1918, and assumed an unparalleled degree of artistic and financial independence over his productions. Using this independence, over the next 35 years he created a remarkable, timeless body of work that remains entertaining and influential. These include comedy shorts (such as A Dog"s Life (1918) and Pay Day (1922)), longer films (Shoulder Arms (1918) and The Pilgrim (1923)), and his great silent feature length films: The Kid (1921), A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928). After the arrival of sound films, he made City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936), essentially silent films scored with his own music and sound effects. His dialogue films made in Hollywood were The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952).
Modern Times (1936), a silent movie, did feature some dialogue. It is actually his first movie where his own voice is heard. However, it is still, majorly and essentially, a silent film.
In 1919 he founded the United Artists film distribution company with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, and served on the board of UA until the early 1950"s.
Although "talkies" became the dominant mode of moviemaking soon after they were introduced in 1927, Chaplin resisted making a talkie all through the 1930s. It is a tribute to Chaplin"s versatility that he also has one film credit for choreography for the 1952 film Limelight, and one credit as a singer for the title music of the 1928 film The Circus. The best-known of several songs he composed are "Smile", famously covered by Nat King Cole, among others, and the theme from Limelight, which won a belated Oscar for best film score in 1973.
His first dialogue picture, The Great Dictator (1940) was an act of defiance against Adolf Hitler and fascism, filmed and released in the United States one year before it abandoned its policy of isolationism to enter World War II. Chaplin played a fascist dictator clearly modeled on Hitler (also with a certain physical likeness), as well as a Jewish barber cruelly persecuted by the Nazis. Hitler, who was a great fan of movies, is known to have seen the film twice (records were kept of movies ordered for his personal theater). After the war and the uncovering of the Holocaust, Chaplin stated that he would not have been able to make such jokes about the Nazi regime had he known about the actual extent of the pogrom.
Chaplin: The Later Years.
Chaplin won the honorary Oscar twice. When the first Oscars were awarded on May 16, 1929, the voting audit procedures that now exist had not yet been put into place, and the categories were still very fluid. Chaplin had originally been nominated for both Best Actor and and Best Comedy Directing for his movie The Circus, but his name was withdrawn and the Academy decided to give him a special award "for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus" instead. The other film to receive a special award that year was The Jazz Singer.
Chaplin"s second honorary award came 44 years later in 1972, and was for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century". He came out of his exile and collected his award less than a month before the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Upon receiving the award, Chaplin received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes from the delighted, enthralled star-studded studio audience.
Chaplin was also nominated without success for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay for The Great Dictator, and again for Best Original Screenplay for Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
In 1973, he received an Oscar for the Best Music in an Original Dramatic Score for the 1952 film Limelight, which co-starred Claire Bloom. The film also features a cameo with Buster Keaton, which was the first and last time the two great comedians ever appeared together. Because of Chaplin"s difficulties with McCarthyism, the film did not open in Los Angeles when it was first produced. This criterion for nomination was not fulfilled until 1972.
His final films were A King in New York (1957) and A Countess From Hong Kong (1967), starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando.
Chaplin"s professional successes were repeatedly overshadowed by his private life, particularly with regard to his politics and his pattern of relationship with young women. On October 23, 1918, the 28 year old Chaplin married the 16-year-old Mildred Harris. They had one child, Norman Spencer Chaplin, who died in infancy; they divorced in 1920. At 35, he became involved with 16-year-old Lita Grey during preparations for The Gold Rush. They married on November 26, 1924 after she became pregnant. They had two sons, the actors Charles Chaplin Jr. (1925-1968) and Sydney Earle Chaplin. Their extraordinarily bitter divorce in 1928 had Chaplin paying Grey a then-record-breaking $825,000 settlement. The stress of the sensational divorce, compounded by a tax dispute, allegedly turned his hair white. The publication of court records, which included many intimate details, led to a campaign against him. Chaplin and actress Paulette Goddard were involved in a romantic and professional relationship between 1932 and 1940, with Goddard living with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home for most of this time. After the relationship ended, Chaplin made public statements that they had been secretly married in 1936, but in private he claimed they were in fact never officially married. In any case, their common-law marriage ended amicably in 1942, with Goddard being granted a divorce and settlement. Afterwards, Chaplin briefly dated actress Joan Barry, but ended it when she started harrassing him and displaying signs of severe mental illness. In May 1943, she filed a paternity suit against him. Blood tests proved Chaplin was not the father, but as blood tests were inadmissible evidence in court, he was ordered to pay $75 a week until the child turned 21. Shortly thereafter, he met Oona O"Neill, daughter of Eugene O"Neill, and married her on June 16, 1943. He was 54; she was 17. This marriage was a long and happy one, with eight children. They had three sons Christopher Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin and Michael Chaplin and five daughters Geraldine Chaplin, Josephine Chaplin, Jane Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin and Annette-Emilie Chaplin.
In April 1972, Chaplin returned to America to accept an Honorary Academy Award. The presentation is remembered as one of the emotional highlights in all of Academy Award history. Chaplin"s weeklong return visit to the US, his last, also included numerous honors in both New York and Los Angeles.
On March 4, 1975 he was knighted as a Knight of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. The honour was first proposed in 1956, but vetoed by the British Foreign Office on the grounds that he sympathized with the left and that it would damage British relations with the United States, at the height of the Cold War and with planning for the ill-fated invasion of Suez underway.
Chaplin died on Christmas Day, 1977 in Vevey, Switzerland, following a stroke, aged 88, and was interred in Corsier-Sur-Vevey Cemetery in Corsier-Sur-Vevey, Vaud. On 1 March 1978, his body was stolen in an attempt to extort money from his family. The plot failed. The robbers were captured, and the body was recovered 11 weeks later near Lake Geneva. There is a statue of Chaplin in front of the alimentarium in Vevey to commemorate the last part of his life.
He was born in Walworth, London, England to Charles Chaplin, Sr. and Hannah Harriette Hill, both Music Hall entertainers. His parents separated soon after his birth, leaving him in the care of his increasingly unstable mother. In 1896, she was unable to find work; Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney had to be left in the workhouse at Lambeth, moving after several weeks to Hanwell School for Orphans and Destitute Children. His father died an alcoholic when Charlie was 12, and his mother suffered a mental breakdown, and was eventually admitted to the Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon, near Croydon. She died in 1928.
Charlie first took to the stage when, aged 5, he performed in Music Hall in 1894, standing in for his mother. As a child, he was confined to a bed for weeks due to a serious illness, and, at night, his mother would sit at the window and act out what was going on outside. In 1900, aged 11, his brother helped get him the role of a comic cat in the pantomime
Cinderella at the London Hippodrome. In 1903 he appeared in Jim, A Romance of Cockayne, followed by his first regular job, as the newspaper boy Billy in Sherlock Holmes, a part he played into 1906. This was followed by Casey’s Court Circus variety show, and, the following year, he became a clown in Fred Karno’s Fun Factory slapstick comedy company.
Move to America.
According to immigration records, he arrived in the USA with the Karno troupe on October 2, 1912. In the Karno Company was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, who would later become known as Stan Laurel. Chaplin and Laurel wound up sharing a room in a boarding house. Stan Laurel returned to England but Chaplin remained in the USA. His act was seen by film producer Mack Sennett, who hired him for his studio, the Keystone Film Company.
While Chaplin initially had difficulty adjusting to the Keystone style of film acting, he soon adapted and flourished in the medium. This was made possible in part by Chaplin developing his signature Tramp persona, and by eventually earning directorship and creative control
Over his films, which enabled him to become Keystone’s top star and talent.
His salary history suggests how rapidly he became world famous, and the skill of his brother, Sydney, at being his business manager.
1914: Keystone, worked for $150 a week.
1914-1915: Essanay Studios, of Chicago, Illinois, $1250 a week, plus $10,000 signing bonus.
1916-1917: Mutual, $10,000 a week, plus $150,000 signing bonus.
1917: First National, $1 million deal — the first actor ever to earn that sum. He also formed his own independent production company, the Charles Chaplin Film Corporation, which made him a very wealthy man.
Chaplin as Auteur.
Chaplin built his own Hollywood studio in 1918, and assumed an unparalleled degree of artistic and financial independence over his productions. Using this independence, over the next 35 years he created a remarkable, timeless body of work that remains entertaining and influential. These include comedy shorts and Pay Day), longer films and The Pilgrim), and his great silent feature length films: The Kid, A Woman of Paris, The Gold Rush, and The Circus. After the arrival of sound films, he made City Lights and Modern Times, essentially silent films scored with his own music and sound effects. His dialogue films made in Hollywood were The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux, and Limelight.
Modern Times, a silent movie, did feature some dialogue. It is actually his first movie where his own voice is heard. However, it is still, majorly and essentially, a silent film.
In 1919 he founded the United Artists film distribution company with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, and served on the board of UA until the early 1950’s.
Although «talkies» became the dominant mode of moviemaking soon after they were introduced in 1927, Chaplin resisted making a talkie all through the 1930s. It is a tribute to Chaplin’s versatility that he also has one film credit for choreography for the 1952 film Limelight, and one credit as a singer for the title music of the 1928 film The Circus. The best-known of several songs he composed are «Smile», famously covered by Nat King Cole, among others, and the theme from Limelight, which won a belated Oscar for best film score in 1973.
His first dialogue picture, The Great Dictator was an act of defiance against Adolf Hitler and fascism, filmed and released in the United States one year before it abandoned its policy of isolationism to enter World War II. Chaplin played a fascist dictator clearly modeled on Hitler, as well as a Jewish barber cruelly persecuted by the Nazis. Hitler, who was a great fan of movies, is known to have seen the film twice. After the war and the uncovering of the Holocaust, Chaplin stated that he would not have been able to make such jokes about the Nazi regime had he known about the actual extent of the pogrom.
Chaplin: The Later Years.
Chaplin won the honorary Oscar twice. When the first Oscars were awarded on May 16, 1929, the voting audit procedures that now exist had not yet been put into place, and the categories were still very fluid. Chaplin had originally been nominated for both Best Actor and and Best Comedy Directing for his movie The Circus, but his name was withdrawn and the Academy decided to give him a special award «for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus» instead. The other film to receive a special award that year was The Jazz Singer.
Chaplin’s second honorary award came 44 years later in 1972, and was for «the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century». He came out of his exile and collected his award less than a month before the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Upon receiving the award, Chaplin received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes from the delighted, enthralled star-studded studio audience.
Chaplin was also nominated without success for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay for The Great Dictator, and again for Best Original Screenplay for Monsieur Verdoux.
In 1973, he received an Oscar for the Best Music in an Original Dramatic Score for the 1952 film Limelight, which co-starred Claire Bloom. The film also features a cameo with Buster Keaton, which was the first and last time the two great comedians ever appeared together. Because of Chaplin’s difficulties with McCarthyism, the film did not open in Los Angeles when it was first produced. This criterion for nomination was not fulfilled until 1972.
His final films were A King in New York and A Countess From Hong Kong, starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando.
Chaplin’s professional successes were repeatedly overshadowed by his private life, particularly with regard to his politics and his pattern of relationship with young women. On October 23, 1918, the 28 year old Chaplin married the 16-year-old Mildred Harris. They had one child, Norman Spencer Chaplin, who died in infancy; they divorced in 1920. At 35, he became involved with 16-year-old Lita Grey during preparations for The Gold Rush. They married on November 26, 1924 after she became pregnant. They had two sons, the actors Charles Chaplin Jr. and Sydney Earle Chaplin. Their extraordinarily bitter divorce in 1928 had Chaplin paying Grey a then-record-breaking $825,000 settlement. The stress of the sensational divorce, compounded by a tax dispute, allegedly turned his hair white. The publication of court records, which included many intimate details, led to a campaign against him. Chaplin and actress Paulette Goddard were involved in a romantic and professional relationship between 1932 and 1940, with Goddard living with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home for most of this time. After the relationship ended, Chaplin made public statements that they had been secretly married in 1936, but in private he claimed they were in fact never officially married. In any case, their common-law marriage ended amicably in 1942, with Goddard being granted a divorce and settlement. Afterwards, Chaplin briefly dated actress Joan Barry, but ended it when she started harrassing him and displaying signs of severe mental illness. In May 1943, she filed a paternity suit against him. Blood tests proved Chaplin was not the father, but as blood tests were inadmissible evidence in court, he was ordered to pay $75 a week until the child turned 21. Shortly thereafter, he met Oona O’Neill, daughter of Eugene O’Neill, and married her on June 16, 1943. He was 54; she was 17. This marriage was a long and happy one, with eight children. They had three sons Christopher Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin and Michael Chaplin and five daughters Geraldine Chaplin, Josephine Chaplin, Jane Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin and Annette-Emilie Chaplin.
In April 1972, Chaplin returned to America to accept an Honorary Academy Award. The presentation is remembered as one of the emotional highlights in all of Academy Award history. Chaplin’s weeklong return visit to the US, his last, also included numerous honors in both New York and Los Angeles.
On March 4, 1975 he was knighted as a Knight of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. The honour was first proposed in 1956, but vetoed by the British Foreign Office on the grounds that he sympathized with the left and that it would damage British relations with the United States, at the height of the Cold War and with planning for the ill-fated invasion of Suez underway.