Charlie Chaplin: A Short Bio

What could be said about this great and prolific actor? An article isn’t sufficient to describe the life of this immortal legend. A library of books written on him may still fall short of portraying the life of this never to be forgotten hero of Hollywood who gave innumerable memorable movies to us. Though he rose to fame mostly due to his silent movies but he conveyed so many things that many actors couldn’t do through speech. Charles Spencer Chaplin popularly known as Charlie Chaplin was born in Walworth, London, U.K. on April 16, 1889. The people had given him nick names like Charlie, Charlot and The Little Tramp.

Charlie Chaplin was born in the family of entertainers. His parents Charles and Hannah Chaplin were musical entertainers. No wonder why he took to stage so early. He was only five years old when he had to sing a song on his mother’s behalf as she became ill. There was no stopping this boy who toured in a musical called “The Eight Lancaster Lads” at the age of eight. The wonder kid continued his marvelous work appearing in “Giddy Ostende” at London’s Hippodrome. After that he worked with Fred Karno who had an English Vaudeville Troupe until the age of twenty-four. The troupe also brought him to New York in 1921 at the age of twenty one. He got his first break in December 1913 with Mack Sennet of Keystone. He moved to Hollywood, California the every next month to begin his long carrier both as actor and director. Charlie Chaplin’s first movie was “Making a Living” which released in February 1914. He acted and directed about thirty-five films with Keytone before moving to Essanay in 1915 where he did another fourteen films. Then he signed up with Mutual in 1916 and did another 12 films. He worked with Mutual until 1917. Then again next year he joined First National, which was later, acquired by Warner Bros. After a year i.e. in the year 1919 Charlie Chaplin formed United Artists collaborating with Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks. Then he gave his first ever full-length movie “The Kid” in 1921 produced under the banner of United Artists which was directed by him.

Charles Chaplin won a special award in 1929 Oscar Awards for his excellence in Writing, Producing, Directing and Acting for the movie “The Circus” which was released in 1928. Charlie Chaplin has the premiere of his 1931 movie “City Lights” in London where he stayed until 1932 and then returned to U.S. Chaplin’s next movie was five years called “Modern Times which was released in 1936. The movie was one of the biggest all time hits. He made another movie after four years by name “The Great Dictator” in 1940 in which he portrayed as Hitler, which was criticized by many. But the film created a stir at the box office and also won many awards. He made Monsieur Verdouz in 1947 and released a talkie in 1952 called “Limelight” which is still remembered as his best talkie.

Chaplin had his share of controversies too. The U.S. Authorities accused him of spreading communism through his movies. After being devastated by these allegations he left for Switzerland. While being outside U.S. he produced two more films “A King in New York” in 1957 and his last film “A Countess from Hong Kong” in 1967. It saw a bad end to this wonderful artist’s works when it flopped on the box office, which was the only failure that the great actor had in his professional career. He tried his hands at new scores in 1969 including “The Kid” and “The Circus”. Academy Award honored him for his contribution to the film industry in 1972. Queen Elizabeth II knighted Charlie Chaplin in 1975. Charlie Chaplin ascended to peace on Christmas Day of 1977 while in his sleep leaving an era of artistic brilliance behind him and cherished memories to the avid viewers of his movies.