" As a blog writer am proud to write about him; as I was collecting his details, I thought to publish the same those who like to know about him, am one of Sir Charlie Chaplin's fans, I don't think nothing wrong to collect information from the Internet to publish ' a great legend on his Birthday".
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Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was his full name, better known as Charlie Chaplin, He acted in, directed, scripted, produced, and eventually scored his own films. Chaplin was also one of the most creative and influential personalities in the silent film era. His working life in entertainment spanned over 65 years, in the United Kingdom as he started his life as a child artist, until the age of eighty eight; he was as a performer, till his death.
Charlie Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889, in East Street, Walworth, and London. His parents were both entertainers in the Music Hall tradition and separated before Charlie was three. He learned singing from his parents. Chaplin's father was also an alcoholic and had little contact with his son, though Chaplin and his brother briefly lived with their father, Chaplin’s father died when Charlie was twelve in 1901.Chaplin's mother died in 1928 in Hollywood, seven years after being brought to the U.S. by her sons. The young Chaplin brothers forged a close relationship to survive. They gravitated to the Music Hall while still very young, and both of them proved to have considerable natural stage talent. Chaplin's early years of desperate poverty were a great influence on his characters.
Chaplin first toured America with the Fred Karno troupe from 1910 to 1912. Then, after five months back in England, he returned for a second tour and arrived in the United States with the Karno Troupe on October 2, 1912. In the Karno Company was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, who would later become known as Stan Laurel. Chaplin and Laurel shared a room in a boarding house. Stan Laurel returned to England but Chaplin remained in the United States. In late 1913, Chaplin's act with the Karno Troupe was seen by film producer Mack Sennett, who hired him for his studio, the Keystone Film Company. Chaplin's first film appearance was in making a Living a one-reel comedy released on February 2, 1914.
Chaplin's earliest films were made for Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, The tramp was first presented to the public in Chaplin's second film Kid Auto Races at Venice, and Chaplin’s early Keystones use the standard Mack Sennett formula of extreme physical comedy and exaggerated gestures.
The visual gags were pure Keystone, however; the tramp character would aggressively assault his enemies with kicks and bricks. Moviegoers loved this cheerfully earthy new comedian, even though critics warned that his antics bordered on vulgarity. Chaplin was soon entrusted with directing and editing his own films, Most of the Chaplin films in circulation date from his Keystone, Essene, and Mutual periods. After Chaplin assumed control of his productions in 1918 (and kept exhibitors and audiences waiting for them), entrepreneurs serviced the demand for Chaplin by bringing back his older comedies. The films were reacting, retitled, and reissued again and again, first for theatres, then for the home-movie market, and in recent years, for home video. Even Essa nay was guilty of this practice, fashioning "new" Chaplin comedies from old film clips and out-takes. The twelve Mutual comedies were revamped as sound movies in 1933
After the arrival of sound films, he made City Lights (1931), as well as Modern Times (1936) before he committed to sound. These were essentially silent films scored with his own music and sound effects. His dialogue films made in Hollywood were The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdict (1947), and Limelight (1952).
While Modern Times (1936) are a non-talkie, it does contain talk —- usually coming from inanimate objects such as a radio or a TV monitor. This was done to help 1930s audiences, who were out of the habit of watching silent films, adjust to not hearing dialogue. Modern Times was the first film where Chaplin's voice is heard. However, for most viewers it is still considered a silent film. Although "talkies" became the dominant mode of movie making soon after they were introduced in 1927, Chaplin resisted making such a film all through the 1930s. He considered cinema to be essentially a pantomimic art. He said: "Action is more generally understood than words.
It is a tribute to Chaplin's versatility that he also has one film credit for choreography for the 1952 film Limelight, and another as a singer for the title music of The Circus (1928). The best known of several songs he composed are "Smile", composed for the film "Modern Times" and given lyrics to help promote a 1950s revival of the film, famously covered by Nat King Cole. "This Is My Song" from Chaplin's last film, "A Countess from Hong Kong," was a number one hit in several different languages in the 1960s.
In 1915, Chaplin signed a much more favorable contract with Essa nay Studios, and further developed his cinematic skills, adding new levels of depth and pathos to the Keystone-style slapstick. Most of the Essa nay films were more ambitious, running twice as long as the average Keystone comedy. Chaplin also developed his own stock company, including ingenue Edna Purveyance and comic villains Leo White and Bud Jamison.
In 1916, the Mutual Film Corporation paid Chaplin US$670, 000 to produce a dozen two-reel comedies. He was given near complete artistic control, and produced twelve films over an eighteen-month period that rank among the most influential comedy films in cinema. Practically every Mutual comedy is a classic: Easy Street, One AM, The Pawnshop, and The Adventurer are perhaps the best known. Edna Purveyance remained the leading lady, and Chaplin added Eric Campbell, Henry Bergman, and Albert Austin to his stock company; Campbell, a Gilbert and Sullivan veteran, provided superb villainy, and second bananas Bergman and Austin would remain with Chaplin for decades. Chaplin regarded the Mutual period as the happiest of his career.
His first dialogue picture, The Great Dictator (1940), was an act of defiance against German dictator Adolf Hitler and Nazism, filmed and released in the United States one year before it abandoned its policy of isolationism to enter World War II. Chaplin played the role of a Nazi-like dictator "Adenoid Hynkel, Dictator of Tomasina, clearly modeled on Hitler, The Napoleonic character was clearly a jab at Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Fascism. His silent films made prior to the Great Depression typically did not contain overt political themes or messages, apart from the Tr amp's plight in poverty and his run-ins with the law, but his 1930s films were more openly political. Modern Times depicts workers and poor people in dismal conditions. The final dramatic speech in The Great Dictator, which was critical of following patriotic nationalism without question, and his vocal public support for the opening of a second European front in 1942 to assist the Soviet Union in World War II were controversial. In at least one of those speeches, according to a contemporary account in the Daily Worker, he intimated that Communism might sweep the world after World War II and equated it with human progress.
Apart from the controversial 1942 speeches, Chaplin declined to support the war effort as he had done for the First World War which led to public anger.
Although Chaplin had his major successes in the United States and was a resident from 1914 to 1952, he always retained his British nationality. During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist sympathizer, In 1952, Chaplin left the US for what was intended as a brief trip home to the United Kingdom;
In 1972, he won an Oscar for the Best Music in an Original Dramatic Score for the 1952 film Limelight, which co-starred Claire Bloom. The film also features a cameo with Buster Keaton, which was the only time the two great comedians ever appeared together. Due to Chaplin's political difficulties, the film did not play a one-week theatrical engagement in Los Angeles when it was first produced.
Chaplin was also nominated for Best Comedy Director for The Circus in 1929, for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Music for The Great Dictator in 1940, and again for Best Original Screenplay for Monsieur Verdoux in 1948. During his active years as a filmmaker, Chaplin expressed disdain for the Academy Awards; his son Charles Jr wrote that Chaplin invoked the ire of the Academy in the 1930s by jokingly using his 1929 Oscar as a doorstop.
When the first Oscars were awarded on May 16 1929, the voting audit procedures that now exist had not yet been put into place, and the categories were still very fluid. Chaplin had originally been nominated for both Best Actor and Best Comedy Directing for his movie The Circus, but his name was withdrawn and the Academy decided to give him a special award "for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus" instead. The other film to receive a special award that year was The Jazz Singer.
Chaplin's second honorary award came forty-four years later in 1972, and was for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century". He came out of his exile to accept his award, and received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes.
Chaplin's two final films were made in London: A King in New York (1957) in which he had starred, written, directed and produced; and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, in which Chaplin had made his final on-screen appearance in a brief cameo role as a seasick steward, and in which he had directed, produced, and written.
Hetty Kelly,Edna Purveyance,Mildred Harris, Paola Negri, Marion Davies, Lita Grey, Georgia Hale, Louise Brooks, May Reeves, Paulette Juliet Goddard, Joan Berry, Oona O'Neill, charlie Chaplin had relationship with all these woman, ended up with other reasons.
Chaplin's lifelong attraction to younger women remains another enduring source of interest to some. His biographers have attributed this to a teenage infatuation with Hetty Kelly, whom he met in Britain while performing in the music hall, and which possibly defined his feminine ideal. Chaplin clearly relished the role of discovering and closely guiding young female stars; with the exception of Mildred Harris, all of his marriages and most of his major relationships began in this manner.
For Chaplin's entire career, some level of controversy existed over claims of Jewish ancestry. Nazi propaganda in the 1930s prominently portrayed him as Jewish (named Karl Ton stein) relying on articles published in the US press before, and FBI investigations of Chaplin in the late 1940s also focused on Chaplin's racial origins. Paranoia about Jewish domination of the film industry was probably the root cause underlying this controversy. There is no documentary evidence of Jewish ancestry for Chaplin himself. For his entire public life, he fiercely refused to challenge or refutes claims that he was Jewish, saying that to do so would always "play directly into the hands of anti-Semites". Although baptized in the Church of England, Chaplin was thought to be an agnostic for most of his life.
*****************************************
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was his full name, better known as Charlie Chaplin, He acted in, directed, scripted, produced, and eventually scored his own films. Chaplin was also one of the most creative and influential personalities in the silent film era. His working life in entertainment spanned over 65 years, in the United Kingdom as he started his life as a child artist, until the age of eighty eight; he was as a performer, till his death.
Charlie Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889, in East Street, Walworth, and London. His parents were both entertainers in the Music Hall tradition and separated before Charlie was three. He learned singing from his parents. Chaplin's father was also an alcoholic and had little contact with his son, though Chaplin and his brother briefly lived with their father, Chaplin’s father died when Charlie was twelve in 1901.Chaplin's mother died in 1928 in Hollywood, seven years after being brought to the U.S. by her sons. The young Chaplin brothers forged a close relationship to survive. They gravitated to the Music Hall while still very young, and both of them proved to have considerable natural stage talent. Chaplin's early years of desperate poverty were a great influence on his characters.
Chaplin first toured America with the Fred Karno troupe from 1910 to 1912. Then, after five months back in England, he returned for a second tour and arrived in the United States with the Karno Troupe on October 2, 1912. In the Karno Company was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, who would later become known as Stan Laurel. Chaplin and Laurel shared a room in a boarding house. Stan Laurel returned to England but Chaplin remained in the United States. In late 1913, Chaplin's act with the Karno Troupe was seen by film producer Mack Sennett, who hired him for his studio, the Keystone Film Company. Chaplin's first film appearance was in making a Living a one-reel comedy released on February 2, 1914.
Chaplin's earliest films were made for Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, The tramp was first presented to the public in Chaplin's second film Kid Auto Races at Venice, and Chaplin’s early Keystones use the standard Mack Sennett formula of extreme physical comedy and exaggerated gestures.
The visual gags were pure Keystone, however; the tramp character would aggressively assault his enemies with kicks and bricks. Moviegoers loved this cheerfully earthy new comedian, even though critics warned that his antics bordered on vulgarity. Chaplin was soon entrusted with directing and editing his own films, Most of the Chaplin films in circulation date from his Keystone, Essene, and Mutual periods. After Chaplin assumed control of his productions in 1918 (and kept exhibitors and audiences waiting for them), entrepreneurs serviced the demand for Chaplin by bringing back his older comedies. The films were reacting, retitled, and reissued again and again, first for theatres, then for the home-movie market, and in recent years, for home video. Even Essa nay was guilty of this practice, fashioning "new" Chaplin comedies from old film clips and out-takes. The twelve Mutual comedies were revamped as sound movies in 1933
After the arrival of sound films, he made City Lights (1931), as well as Modern Times (1936) before he committed to sound. These were essentially silent films scored with his own music and sound effects. His dialogue films made in Hollywood were The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdict (1947), and Limelight (1952).
While Modern Times (1936) are a non-talkie, it does contain talk —- usually coming from inanimate objects such as a radio or a TV monitor. This was done to help 1930s audiences, who were out of the habit of watching silent films, adjust to not hearing dialogue. Modern Times was the first film where Chaplin's voice is heard. However, for most viewers it is still considered a silent film. Although "talkies" became the dominant mode of movie making soon after they were introduced in 1927, Chaplin resisted making such a film all through the 1930s. He considered cinema to be essentially a pantomimic art. He said: "Action is more generally understood than words.
It is a tribute to Chaplin's versatility that he also has one film credit for choreography for the 1952 film Limelight, and another as a singer for the title music of The Circus (1928). The best known of several songs he composed are "Smile", composed for the film "Modern Times" and given lyrics to help promote a 1950s revival of the film, famously covered by Nat King Cole. "This Is My Song" from Chaplin's last film, "A Countess from Hong Kong," was a number one hit in several different languages in the 1960s.
In 1915, Chaplin signed a much more favorable contract with Essa nay Studios, and further developed his cinematic skills, adding new levels of depth and pathos to the Keystone-style slapstick. Most of the Essa nay films were more ambitious, running twice as long as the average Keystone comedy. Chaplin also developed his own stock company, including ingenue Edna Purveyance and comic villains Leo White and Bud Jamison.
In 1916, the Mutual Film Corporation paid Chaplin US$670, 000 to produce a dozen two-reel comedies. He was given near complete artistic control, and produced twelve films over an eighteen-month period that rank among the most influential comedy films in cinema. Practically every Mutual comedy is a classic: Easy Street, One AM, The Pawnshop, and The Adventurer are perhaps the best known. Edna Purveyance remained the leading lady, and Chaplin added Eric Campbell, Henry Bergman, and Albert Austin to his stock company; Campbell, a Gilbert and Sullivan veteran, provided superb villainy, and second bananas Bergman and Austin would remain with Chaplin for decades. Chaplin regarded the Mutual period as the happiest of his career.
His first dialogue picture, The Great Dictator (1940), was an act of defiance against German dictator Adolf Hitler and Nazism, filmed and released in the United States one year before it abandoned its policy of isolationism to enter World War II. Chaplin played the role of a Nazi-like dictator "Adenoid Hynkel, Dictator of Tomasina, clearly modeled on Hitler, The Napoleonic character was clearly a jab at Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Fascism. His silent films made prior to the Great Depression typically did not contain overt political themes or messages, apart from the Tr amp's plight in poverty and his run-ins with the law, but his 1930s films were more openly political. Modern Times depicts workers and poor people in dismal conditions. The final dramatic speech in The Great Dictator, which was critical of following patriotic nationalism without question, and his vocal public support for the opening of a second European front in 1942 to assist the Soviet Union in World War II were controversial. In at least one of those speeches, according to a contemporary account in the Daily Worker, he intimated that Communism might sweep the world after World War II and equated it with human progress.
Apart from the controversial 1942 speeches, Chaplin declined to support the war effort as he had done for the First World War which led to public anger.
Although Chaplin had his major successes in the United States and was a resident from 1914 to 1952, he always retained his British nationality. During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist sympathizer, In 1952, Chaplin left the US for what was intended as a brief trip home to the United Kingdom;
In 1972, he won an Oscar for the Best Music in an Original Dramatic Score for the 1952 film Limelight, which co-starred Claire Bloom. The film also features a cameo with Buster Keaton, which was the only time the two great comedians ever appeared together. Due to Chaplin's political difficulties, the film did not play a one-week theatrical engagement in Los Angeles when it was first produced.
Chaplin was also nominated for Best Comedy Director for The Circus in 1929, for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Music for The Great Dictator in 1940, and again for Best Original Screenplay for Monsieur Verdoux in 1948. During his active years as a filmmaker, Chaplin expressed disdain for the Academy Awards; his son Charles Jr wrote that Chaplin invoked the ire of the Academy in the 1930s by jokingly using his 1929 Oscar as a doorstop.
When the first Oscars were awarded on May 16 1929, the voting audit procedures that now exist had not yet been put into place, and the categories were still very fluid. Chaplin had originally been nominated for both Best Actor and Best Comedy Directing for his movie The Circus, but his name was withdrawn and the Academy decided to give him a special award "for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus" instead. The other film to receive a special award that year was The Jazz Singer.
Chaplin's second honorary award came forty-four years later in 1972, and was for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century". He came out of his exile to accept his award, and received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes.
Chaplin's two final films were made in London: A King in New York (1957) in which he had starred, written, directed and produced; and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, in which Chaplin had made his final on-screen appearance in a brief cameo role as a seasick steward, and in which he had directed, produced, and written.
Hetty Kelly,Edna Purveyance,Mildred Harris, Paola Negri, Marion Davies, Lita Grey, Georgia Hale, Louise Brooks, May Reeves, Paulette Juliet Goddard, Joan Berry, Oona O'Neill, charlie Chaplin had relationship with all these woman, ended up with other reasons.
Chaplin's lifelong attraction to younger women remains another enduring source of interest to some. His biographers have attributed this to a teenage infatuation with Hetty Kelly, whom he met in Britain while performing in the music hall, and which possibly defined his feminine ideal. Chaplin clearly relished the role of discovering and closely guiding young female stars; with the exception of Mildred Harris, all of his marriages and most of his major relationships began in this manner.
For Chaplin's entire career, some level of controversy existed over claims of Jewish ancestry. Nazi propaganda in the 1930s prominently portrayed him as Jewish (named Karl Ton stein) relying on articles published in the US press before, and FBI investigations of Chaplin in the late 1940s also focused on Chaplin's racial origins. Paranoia about Jewish domination of the film industry was probably the root cause underlying this controversy. There is no documentary evidence of Jewish ancestry for Chaplin himself. For his entire public life, he fiercely refused to challenge or refutes claims that he was Jewish, saying that to do so would always "play directly into the hands of anti-Semites". Although baptized in the Church of England, Chaplin was thought to be an agnostic for most of his life.
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