The Charles Chaplin Biography
(1889-1977)
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London on 16th April 1889. His parents, Charles and Hannah, were music hall singers, who separated before Charles was three years old. Mrs Chaplin struggled to bring up Charles and his older step-brother, born illegitimate, despite her own failing health (she was eventually confined in mental hospitals). Often living in extreme poverty, the boys spent part of their infancy in homes for destitute children.
At 10 years old, however, Charles embarked on his professional career, as a member of a troupe of juvenile clog- dancers. For several years he played Billy the pageboy in touring productions of Sherlock Holmes, even appearing in the role in LondonŐs West End. Other jobs in the music hall led to his eventual recruitment by Fred Karno, the leading impresario of comedy sketches. ChaplinŐs exceptional skills for comedy quickly made him a star of the Karno company. In late 1913, while touring the American music hall circuits, he was recruited by Mack Sennett for the Keystone Comedy Company in Hollywood and embarked on a long series of one- and two- reel films. For the second of these he created the costume and make- up which were to become famous; and within a year he was on the road to an international fame and affection such as no other performer had ever known.
Rapidly he moved between film companies, with ever- increasing salaries, always in quest of greater creative independence. In 1918 he established his own studio and in 1919 he was a co- founder with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W.Griffith of their own distribution organization United Artists.
With masterpieces like The Immigrant, Shoulder Arms, The Kid or The Gold Rush, Chaplin brought new dimensions to comedy, not just in the phenomenal skills of his performance and gag invention, but in the range of character study, emotion and social commentary he brought to his films. The coming of talking pictures was a greater problem for Chaplin than for other silent film stars. He had built up a world- wide audience thanks to a universal language of pantomime; and in his first sound films, City Lights and Modern Times he continued to make silent films, using the new medium only to provide synchronized musical accompaniments. When finally he embarked on dialogue films, with The Great Dictator (1940) he showed that he could use sound and speech with perfect skill.
Chaplin had enjoyed a universal idolatry granted to few; but in the paranoia of AmericaŐs post- Second World War years he came increasingly under attack from the political right for his suspected radical views. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, under its notorious chief J. Edgar Hoover, orchestrated a much- publicized paternity suit against him which further eroded his popularity; and in 1952 he chose permanently to set up residence in Switzerland rather than to continue in conflict with the United States. In Europe he made two more films, published two autobiographical books and continued to write scripts and compose new musical accompaniments for his old silent films practically until his death, in the early hours of Christmas Day 1977.
1914
Making a Living
Kid Auto Races at Venice
Mabel's Strange Predicament
Between Showers
A Film Johnnie
Tango Tangles
His Favorite Pastime
Cruel, Cruel Love
The Star Boarder
Mabel at the Wheel
Twenty Minutes of Love
Caught in a Cabaret
Caught in the Rain
A Busy Day
The Fatal Mallet
Her Friend the Bandit
The Knockout
Mabel's Busy Day
Mabel's Married Life
Laughing Gas
The Property Man
The Face on the Bar Room Floor
Recreation
The Masquerader
His New Profession
The Rounders
The New Janitor
Those Love Pangs
Dough and Dynamite
Gentlemen of Nerve
His Musical Career
His Trysting Place
Tillie's Punctured Romance
1915
His New Job
A Night out
The Champion
In the Park
A Jitney Elopement
The Tramp
By the Sea
Work
A Woman
The Bank
Shanghaied
A Night in the Show
1916
Burlesque on Carmen
Police
Triple Trouble (Mutual Film Company)
The Floorwalker
The Fireman
The Vagabond
One A. M
The Count
The Pawnshop
Behind the Screen
The Rink
1917
Easy Street
The Cure
The Immigrant
The Adventurer (First National Pictures)
1918
A Dog's Life
How to Make Movies
The Bond
Shoulder Arms
1919
Sunnyside
A Day's Pleasure
1921
The Kid
The Idle Class
1922
Pay Day
The Pilgrim (United Artists)
1923
A Woman of Paris
1925
The Gold Rush
1928
The Circus (Films sonores)
1931
City Lights
1936
Modern Times
1940
The Great Dictator
1947
Monsieur Verdoux
1952
Limelight (autres productions)
1957
A King in New York