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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Charlie Chaplin
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(1889–1977, KBE 1975)
The greatest comic actor of the silent cinema. Born in London to parents who were in the *music hall, Chaplin's first public performance was at the age of eight in a *clog dancing act. He was on stage with the Fred *Karno company from 1906. When performing on tour in New York in 1913, he was offered a part in one of the Keystone company's short slapstick films; he never returned to the stage and the rest of his career, until the 1950s, was in the USA.
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For his second film with Keystone, Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), Chaplin improvised the costume of baggy trousers, walking cane, bowler hat and moustache which soon provided both his trademark and his character in films. His special appeal lay in his timing in slapstick farce together with the pathos which he found in the character of the tramp. The combination turned him into one of the cinema's first great stars, with sufficient wealth and power to form a production company, United Artists, in partnership with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.
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The best of his shorter films was The Kid (1921), while his great silent features were The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936). In The Great Dictator (1940), a satire on Hitler, Chaplin spoke coherent dialogue for the first time. He later added narrative sound-tracks to the silent films but his patronizing attitude to the 'little fellow' does them considerable disservice.
Chaplin was among those persecuted for supposed Communist sympathies in the Hollywood witch-hunts of the 1950s. In 1952 he moved to Switzerland, not setting foot again in the USA until 1972 when he returned to receive an honorary Oscar.
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