Charlie Chaplin: The Tramp Who Transformed the Film Industry
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long shot.
~ Charlie Chaplin
His audiences recognize him as the clumsy, lovable, lonely tramp in his over-sized pants, large shoes, battered derby hat, and little black mustache. He made history as an actor, director, producer and composer. His movies are treasured as classic comedies. He is renowned for his ability to make people laugh. But is this really all that Charlie Chaplin was? Or was it a curtain, hiding the real Chaplin and his shadowed life? Audiences love to hear about the private lives of their idols. The drama, scandals and gossip of Hollywood stars are almost more entertaining than the movies they make. Charlie Chaplin’s story was no exception.
Charlie Chaplin was born on April 16, 1889 in London, England into a world of poverty. Perhaps out of embarrassment for his unglamorous birthplace, Chaplin claimed to have been born in France. His mother, Hannah Hill, ran away from home at the age of 16. She married Charles Chaplin, Sr, gave birth to illegitimate Sydney Chaplin, and later to Charlie. There is controversy about whether Charles Chaplin is the actual father of Charlie. Hannah had many romances, and the true identity of Charlie’s father remains unknown. Both Hannah and Charles were music-hall entertainers, though Hannah suffered chronic laryngitis and despised life on the stage. Charles Chaplin, Sr, was a self-destructively heavy drinker. Hannah sued him after they were separated for non-support of the children. After Charles, Sr died, she couldn’t make a living as a performer, and she and Charlie and Sydney entered a workhouse. Charlie went to a few schools, but he hardly learned to read.
Charlie Chaplin claimed that his mother was wise, well-mannered, charming, divine looking and spoke four different languages and presently dead. Why he felt compelled to lie about Hannah is a mystery. In truth, Hannah was insane. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia when Charlie was 12, and locked in an asylum. Sydney was at sea. For a while, Charlie was alone, barely getting enough food to live on.
At a young age, in 1903, Chaplin played Billy, the paperboy in Sherlock Holmes. After he was fired, he joined an English vaudeville company, Karno Pantomime Troupe. From Fred Karno, the owner of the company, Chaplin learned almost everything about comedy. Chaplin traveled with them to America in 1910, and in 1913 he was discovered by Adam Kessler and got an offer from director Mack Sennett to come to Hollywood. He signed on with Keystone, and began work as a movie actor. Although he was not enthusiastic about joining, he hoped performing in films would help him gain fame so he could return to vaudeville, where he could be in charge of his acts. After a few weeks at Keystone, he got in trouble because he refused to do as he was told. Eventually, Mack Sennett let him direct the films himself, and after making his first film, The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He began to get offers from many different movie companies, each one willing to pay him more money. Other actors tried to imitate Chaplin, but his style was too unique.
Aside from being a phenomenal actor, director and producer, Chaplin was also a musician. He played the violin, cello and piano. He dominated the sets while making his films, telling and showing everyone how to do their parts, offering critizcizism and advice. He could play any part. Mack Sennett thought him “just the greatest artist who ever lived.”
Chaplin strived for control and independence. He wanted to have complete freedom with his films. He finally achieved this when he and three other famous actors, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith, and Mary Pickford, started United Artists, a movie-making company, where Chaplin was free to write, cast, direct, produce, star in, score, and edit his own films. Shortly after United Artists was created, and Chaplin had come to be known for his tramp persona, he confessed that he was filled with “disgust of the character that circumstances… forced me to create.” Many of his own life experiences were reflected in his movies.
Chaplin was a complicated man, a self-doubting perfectionist. He seemed to have two sides to his personality. Sometimes he was charming, friendly, pleasing, amusing, the object of adoration, the character of the lovable tramp. Yet at other times he was despicable, rude, bossy, angry, resentful, egotistical, violent, a man feared by his young wives. He was also described as being shy, sensitive, inarticulate, and having a hatred of large crowds. His mind was divided about many things. As much as he loved America, he refused to become a citizen.
The sex-obsessed Chaplin was attracted to younger girls who were weak and wouldn’t stand up to him. He unfortunately scorned contraceptives, the result being that he impregnated several young teenage girls when he was in his 30s and 40s. He was then blackmailed into marrying two of them. His first wife, Mildred, was 16. The couple had one child, who died after three days. The child’s death had a huge impact on Charlie, and for a while he and Mildred were miserable. His death-threats, insults, and encouragements of suicide led to their quick divorce. Chaplin never wanted to get married. The divorce with his second wife, Lita Grey, caused major complications with his present film, The Circus. Grey’s lawyers took over the studio when Chaplin refused to pay them for the divorce.
Chaplin had a series of unsuccessful romances. He was a neglectful and unfaithful husband and boyfriend. This occasionally drove his loves to suicide or insanity. Perhaps it was his fear of one day becoming like his mother or the fact that his life was shadowed with his insanity-haunted boyhood that made him like this. “He loved and admired women,” said Lilian Gish, a victim of Chaplin’s unsteady romances, “Yet he seemed afraid of them.” Was it fear that brought his romances so much suffering?
Thomas Burke, a good friend of Charlie’s, said that Chaplin was “a man of querulous outlook, self-centered, moody, and vaguely dissatisfied with life.” Burke also said Chaplin was the loneliest, saddest man he ever knew. This is hard to believe after seeing Chaplin’s hilarious quirks in films. Chaplin did not fight in any of the wars he lived through, and he expressed his loathing of violence and war. In 1918 he volunteered his services to the Liberty Loan Campaign, and sold over one million dollars worth of Liberty Bonds. His films kept up the morale of the soldiers. He worked hard on his on his movies, struggling for perfection in each scene.
After three tempestuous marriages, Chaplin finally found a woman and this time it was true love. Undaunted by their vast age difference, in 1943, 54-year-old Charlie Chaplin married 18-year-old Oona O’Niell, much to the chagrin of her father.
Chaplin brought his mother over from England and bought her a house on the beach. Distressed by her mental state, Chaplin didn’t spend much time with her. She died in 1928, and her death sent Charlie into a long fit of depression.
1930 was the first year of sound technology’s domination. Chaplin loathed this new technology. To him, adding sound to the films was like painting a marble statue. His area of expertise was pantomime, and though there was pressure for him to make a talkie, his next film, Modern Times, was also silent, though there was a scene in which Charlie’s voice was heard for the first time in movies, singing. Chaplin’s first talkie was The Great Dictator. Disgusted by Hitler and his dreams of world conquest, Chaplin lashed out at him with his own weapon: film. In 1940, against the advice of his distributors and ignoring threats on his life, Chaplin made The Great Dictator, a satire on Nazi Germany. He declined award for best screen actor for the movie.
Although Chaplin was accused for being a communist sympathizer, he was not a communist. This confusion led to his exile from America. He was denied re-entry into the country, and his films were banned. In 1953, he and Oona moved to Switzerland where they lived for many years and had eight children. He didn’t return to the U.S. until 1972 to accept a special Oscar from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and three years later, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In a 1995 worldwide survey of film critics, Chaplin was voted the greatest actor in movie history. His impact on the world of film was tremendous. His comedies won him awards, and his unique style a reputation that can never be surpassed. Chaplin’s influence inspired many modern comic acts.
Charlie Chaplin fought for something that many actors want but, because of the way the film industry works, can never have: control and independence. Vaudeville acts were what he originally wanted to do, because he could have complete control over the performances. In movies, there are so many people involved in creating the film that the actor has no control at all. Chaplin achieved this control by starting a film company where he was the boss. He was the star, the director, the producer, the composer, and the editor. Despite his poverty-stricken childhood, his mother’s mental problems, and his father’s alcoholism, he was able to overcome it all and make his childhood into a theme for his movies. He became one of the greatest actors of all time. His movies were classics, and he is widely known as a comic actor who transformed an industry into an art.
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