Parents of Charles Spencer Chaplin were singers and actors of varieties of Jewish origin, in time, reached a reasonable success. Especially the mother, Hannah Hili, the daughter of a shoemaker, petite, graceful and with a pleasant voice . The boy was born at eight o'clock in the afternoon of April 16, 1889 in London's East Lane Street, Walworth. It was a good time for the family. The father, Charles, had left home in pursuit of their hobby alcoholic, and Hannah was forced to maintain itself for their children Sydney and Charles. Was at the height of his artistic career under the pseudonym Lily Harvey, but his voice began to fail. In 1894, during a function in Aldershot, broke his chirping in the middle of a song. The employer sent the little scene Charles, aged five, who imitated the voice of Lily including the final demise, much to the amusement of the public. That was his debut.
Failure and lack of money upset the mental health of Hanna Hill, who began to show signs of loss. She and the children went to live in the haven of Lambeth Street. Sydney and Charlie attended school time for poor children in Hanwell, suffering its severe discipline and mockery of the more fortunate children. In 1896 the state of Hannah forced her into a hospital mental hospital. The following year, Charlie joined the Eight Lancashire Lads (The eight boys from Lancashire), a group of young actors were amateurs who toured the villages. Later became part of other traveling companies, and professional but very modest. In 1898 his father died, while Charlie Chaplin was a child actor and an expert. In 1901, twelve years, performed the role of protagonist in Jim, the Romance of a Cockney, and four years later he toured with The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes. The year 1906 was fortunate for the young comic. It began with a contract in the Casey Court Circus as one of the first attractions, and ended with another contract for the company famous Fred Karno pantomime, which also acted as Stan Laurel. The beginnings in Hollywood:
At nineteen Charlie lived the first of many and intense romance, falling in love madly with the young actress Hetty Kelly. With Fred Karno's future Charlot had perfected and diversified its substantial resources mimic, and the director included in the troupe who was on tour to Paris in 1909 and the following year another six months by the United States. It was the time when Mack Sennett was a great success with his short film-goers and police officers, based on runs, exaggerated gestures, fighting with sticks and cream pies. Sennett sensed the cinematic possibilities of more sophisticated and complex mimicry of Chaplin, and when he made his second trip in 1912 convinced him to join his production company, the Keystone.
Chaplin in A Night in the Show
Charlie Chaplin arrived in Hollywood in the spring of 1913, and began work in November. On February 2, 1914 was premiered his first film, Making a Living (Making a living, also known as Charlot journalist.) In that year 35 films shot a roll (short between 0:16 in length), written and directed by Sennett, Charles himself and other directors. Characterizations were still only sketches of the naive and sentimental tramp would give fame throughout the world, but as Chaplin played in a trade or each different situation, they were baptized later as a dancer Charlot, Charlot waiter conquest Charlot, Charlot thief elegant, etc. The success was overwhelming, and in 1915 the production Essanay Sennett stole his star to a contract of $ 1,500 a week. Fabulous figure for a silent film comedy, that Keystone had been charging ten times less.
With the Essanay, Chaplin went on to write and direct the fourteen films that shot that year. They already had duration of two rolls, a more complicated story that introduced romantic touches and humorous melancholy in the recipe, and a carefully structured script rehearsed. Chaplin was the main protagonist (in addition to the female role), and most of them his partner was Edna Purviance. It is recalled A Night in the Show, The Champion, The Night Out and especially The Tramp (The Tramp), which rounded out the character who became known as Charlie. He would have after he was choosing almost at random, as would a real bum-hat, cane, wide pants, jacket and boots close. The result was the outfit's most famous and enduring in cinema history.
Also in 1918 a tour to sell war bonds with two other superstars of the era: Mary Pickford (called "America's Sweetheart") and heartthrob acrobatic Douglas Fairbanks. With First National filmed twelve films between then and 1922, some as classics in his films as A Dog Life (Life of dog) and Shoulder Arms (Shoulder Arms). And also what is considered his first masterpiece, in which chiseled tragicomic style, critical and subtly poignant: The Kid (The Kid), with Jackie Coogan, the inevitable Purviance and six rolls of life. In 1921 he returned for the first time to Europe for the premiere of the film and received a massive reception, while the severe European critics established him as a genius of cinema.
Chaplin in The Circus (1927)
In 1919 Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks, with director David W. Griffith (no doubt another cinematic genius) had formed the independent production company United Artists, but Chaplin did not work for it until you finish your contract with First National. In 1923, producing its own strong personal fortune and a lavish mansion in Beverly Hills, he was at last a free hand to develop unfettered creativity. That year he led, without acting, excellent A paula-antonio of Paris, with Edna admired and Adolphe Menjou. The multi operator he was thirty-five, and November 24, 1924 married in Mexico with the fledgling actress Lolita McMurray (or Lita Grey), only sixteen. The marriage lasted until 1927 and Chaplin got it her first two children (Charles Spencer and Sydney Earle) and paid a million dollars to divorce his Lolita.
At that time began the great final trilogy of character The Tramp, rolling in 1925 The Gold Rush (The Gold Rush), which in 1942 made an audio version narrated by his voice and his own music. As early as 1927 opened the first talkie, The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson, but Chaplin remained faithful to the silent film made in 1928 when The circus (Circus), a film he considered less successful than those that made the trilogy despite being a great comic film. This film received his first Academy Award in 1929. Two years later he opened City Lights (City Lights), a paradigm of tenderness and desolation of his cinematic alter ego, including sound and music scenes of Chaplin.
In 1932 he made a new and extended trip to Europe, where a reception he met the French actress Paulette Goddard. Both walked on together the itinerary of what became a world tour next year and Paulette would be his partner in the last film of the trilogy: Modern Times (Modern Times), a bitter parable about industrial machines and the miseries of capitalism .
At the outset of war and the German invasion of Europe, Chaplin filmed in 1940, The Great Dictator (The Great Dictator), fun and fierce parody of Nazi-fascism, in which the actor is unfolding in a Jewish barber become Charlot and a pathological liar and paranoid Hitler announced the provision of Chaplin to embody new roles, no bowler hat and boots. He was accompanied by the Goddard, whose character was named after the mother of Charles (Hannah), who died in 1928. Chaplin and Paulette moved away in 1941 and soon after the director was involved in a process over the paternity of the daughter of actress Joan Barry, named Carol Ann. Sentenced in April 1942 for violation of the Mann Act, should take over the maintenance of the child. The scandal did not prevent him from marrying his fifty-four, the daughter of famous playwright Eugene O'Neill, a beautiful girl of eighteen named Oona, who would remain by her side the rest of his life.
The patriarch of Vevey:
After filming in 1947 Monsieur Verdoux, Charles Chaplin fell under the wave of McCarthyism that had targeted intellectuals and artists in Hollywood. Social criticism that oozed his work, probably added his Jewish heritage and the fact of being a foreigner (never nationalized), led him to appear in 1949 before the House Un-American Activities Committee inquisicional . The following year, while he and his family traveled through Europe, ordered immigration authorities detained him on his return. Chaplin decided never to return and settled in a luxurious residence in Corsier-sur-Vevey, on the placid shores of Lake Geneva Swiss, compared to Geneva. Oona was commissioned to settle their economic and professional issues in the United States.England offered the prodigal son a place to continue their work. In 1952, filmed in London Limelight (Limelight), gorgeous and sentimental recollection of his days of walking funny, and two years later he received the International Peace Award. Their resentment against the United States was reflected in A King in New York (A King in New York), the 1957 film whose ups and downs do not hide the corrosive humor Chaplin. The great director was an old man patriarchal and vital beginning to write his memoirs in 1959. At seventy-eight years was the father of her eighth child with Oona, Christopher, born in 1962 and in 1964 was published in London his autobiography, Story of my life.
Charles Chaplin lived even a decade in the shelter of Vevey, surrounded by his children and accompanied by the loyal Oona. In 1972 accepted a brief triumphant return to Hollywood, to receive an Oscar for his work. In 1976 Richard Patterson filmed The Gentleman Tramp (The vagabond knight), based on his autobiography, which included family scenes in Vevey filmed by the director of photography, Nestor Almendros Spanish. Another Spanish, filmmaker Carlos Saura, Geraldine married daughter, Oona more consistent with the trade from his father. He died at eighty-eight, on Christmas Day 1977. Leaving a total of 79 films made in more than fifty years as a actor and director. In almost all of them was also the author of the screenplay, and dialogue and music in the sound. Besides those already mentioned, it should be added Carmen (1916), the novel by Merimee, The Vagabond (The Wanderer), 1916, A Day's Pleasure (A day of partying), 1919, Pay Day (Payday), 1922 and The Pilgrim (The Pilgrim), 1923, among the most appreciated by critics and celebrated by the public.
