Quick Facts
- NAME: Charlie Chaplin
- OCCUPATION: Comedian
- BIRTH DATE: April 16, 1889
- DEATH DATE: December 25, 1977
- PLACE OF BIRTH: London, United Kingdom
- PLACE OF DEATH: Vaud
Best Known For
With the use of mime, slapstick and other comedic routines, Charlie Chaplin, "The Tramp," was the best known actor and director of the silent film era.
Charlie Chaplin. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 08:37, Feb 09, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327
Charlie Chaplin [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327, February 09
" Charlie Chaplin." 2012. Biography.com 09 Feb 2012, 08:37 http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327
' Charlie Chaplin', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327 [accessed Feb 09, 2012]
" Charlie Chaplin," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327 (accessed Feb 09, 2012).
Charlie Chaplin [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 09]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327.
Charlie Chaplin, http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Charlie Chaplin, http://www.biography.com/people/charlie-chaplin-9244327 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Synopsis
Quotes
Profile
British comedian, producer, writer, director, and composer. Born Charles Spencer Chaplin on April 16, 1889, in London, England, to parents Charles and Hannah Chaplin. Famous for his Little Tramp character, the sweet little man with a bowler hat, mustache, and cane, Chaplin was one of film's first superstars, elevating the industry in a way few could have ever imagined.
Chaplin's rise was a true rags-to-riches story. His father, a notorious drinker, abandoned Chaplin, his mother, and his older half-brother, Sydney, not long after his Charlie'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 of Lily Harley.
For a few years, anyway, Chaplin's mother, who would later suffer severe mental issues and have to be committed to an asylum, was able to support her family. But in a performance that would introduce her youngest boy to the world of performance, Hannah inexplicably lost her voice in the middle of a show, prompting the stage 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 anyway 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
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