Charlie Chaplin 1889-1977
Charlie Chaplin was many things to many people; he was first and foremost a great silent artist, he was also a complex individual who equally delighted and enraged those around him. Born in London in 1889, Chaplin spent his childhood in shabby furnished rooms, state poorhouses and an orphanage. He was never sure who his real father was; his mother's husband Charles Chaplin, a singer, deserted the family early and died of alcoholism in 1901. His mother Hannah, a small-time actress, was in and out of mental hospitals. Though he pursued learning passionately in later years, young Charlie left school at 10 to work as a mime and roustabout on the British vaudeville circuit. The poverty of his early years inspired the Tramp's trademark costume, a creative travesty of formal dinner dress suggesting the authoritative adult reimagined by a clear-eyed child, the guilty class reinvented in the image of the innocent one
Charlie grew up in the London slums that were prevalent in Victorian England. It is a testament to his character that he was able to become the best-known actor ever in silent comedy, after enduring a childhood grafting in the workhouses and orphanages so graphically depicted in Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’. However the encouragement given to him as a child, willing him to go on and use his dancing and singing skills, stuck with him, and he was determined to be a success. He became one of the most loved child actors in London at that time, under the careful nurturing of his agent and half brother Sidney.
Although Charlie enjoyed a long and fruitful career in most aspects of filmmaking, he is undoubtedly most well known for his portrayal of ‘the tramp’, a short man with a black moustache who waddled like a penguin, in several films. By 1920, Chaplin was earning $10,000 dollars per week, which in those days was an absolutely astronomical amount. It was in films such as ‘The Kid’, where he played the role of ‘the tramp’, that he became legendary. ‘The tramp’ is reminiscent of the nineteenth century, and Chaplin’s experiences of that time were obviously drawn on to make this apparent to the audience. His character appeared ostentatiously refined, and that is where the humour of ‘the tramp’ stemmed from. For example, in one scene in ‘The Gold Rush’ Chaplin is seen to be eating a boiled shoe as if it is poached salmon! The actions of ‘the tramp’ were also out of character with the behaviours of the era that the film was set in, and this too was a great tool for generating humour.
Charlie's first performance was at five, when he pitched in for his mother as her voice went hoarse on stage while singing. This singing episode was a grand success. He was so entertaining that the crowd threw coins onto the stage. The audience gave him his first taste of applause and laughter, when the young Charlie stopped singing midway to retrieve the coins!
In 1910 he made his first trip to America, with Fred Karno's Speechless Comedians. He walked around the theater district, dazzled by its lights and movement. "This is it!" he told himself. "This is where I belong!" In 1913 he joined Sennett's Keystone Studios in New York
City
Chaplin’s naivety caused him to be suspected of holding extreme political views. As the Depression gave way to World War II and the cold war, the increasingly politicized message of his films, his expressed sympathies with pacifists, communists and Soviet supporters became suspect. It didn't help that Chaplin, a bafflingly complex and private man. He create the anti Hitler satire ‘The Great Dictator’, but because of it was accused of backing communism. His 1947 creation ‘Monsieur Verdoux’ was also considered to cut a bit too close to the bone, and was banned in Memphis.
Because of these problems in the United States Charlie Chaplin moved to Switzerland. It was here that he spent many of his happiest years, away from the bright lights of the big city, and with the people he loved. He later produced a comedy in London, ‘The King In New York’ (1957), in which he uses humour to attack the suspicious nature of the American government of that time. The king of silent comedy only returned to the United States once to receive an Oscar in 1972. At the ceremony the masses who had turned out revelled in his unique brand of comedy. He was knighted in 1975, but two years later on Christmas day, he died of natural causes at his home in Switzerland.
Charlie had incredible business acumen. He carefully saved and preserved, as well as owned, his own pictures. Maybe he had foresight - or just good common sense. Chaplin loved exposure and early in the game re-released many of his films to generations that followed. He never had a period of no exposure, which was not the case of other giants of the silent era.
Charlie's deep desire to maintain the art of silent film foreshadowed the silent screen renaissance decades later - the rediscovery, the preservation and the appreciation by new generations. Perhaps there is a place today for the new silent films being produced. One image is worth a million words. If you want to give credit where credit is due - thank Charlie.
Slapstick acrobatics made him famous, but the subtleties of his acting made him great. While Harold Lloyd played the daredevil, hanging from clocks, and Buster Keaton maneuvered through surreal and complex situations, Chaplin concerned himself with improvisation. For Chaplin, the best way to locate the humor or pathos of a situation was to create an environment and walk around it until something natural happened..
Though Chaplin is of the silent movie era, we see his achievements carried through in the films of today. With the advent of the feature-length talkies, the need for more subtle acting became apparent. To maintain the audience's attention throughout a six-reel film, an actor needed to move beyond constant slapstick. Chaplin had demanded this depth long before anyone else.
1913 Accepts job with Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios
1915 The Tramp debuts
1919 Forms United Artists with Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith
1940 First talkie: The Great Dictator
1952 Denied re-entry into U.S.; settles in Switzerland
1972 Returns to U.S. to accept a special Oscar
1975 Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
1977 Dies on Dec. 25