When people think about the era of silent movies, the first name that comes to mind is almost certainly Charlie Chaplin. He is, perhaps, the most famous of all the silent movie stars. Charlie Chaplin (April 16, 1889 - December 25, 1977) was born in London to a couple of Music Hall entertainers; his father was an alcoholic who had little contact with the family, while his mother suffered from mental illness. He had a brief career in London before relocating to the United States, where he was roommates with fellow Englishman and future film star Stan Laurel. Like many stage and vaudevillian performers, he sought a transition to film, which didn’t require a life spent on the road traveling from venue to venue.
At Mack Sennett’s studio (home to the "Keystone cops" and other films based around zany chase sequences), he developed his signature character, the Little Tramp. The Tramp’s formal attire and false mustache were designed in part to conceal Chaplin’s youth he was only 24 at the time. With his baggy clothes, poorly fitting suit, and derby hat set askew, he was an almost instantly beloved figure. Chaplin made more than 30 movies for Sennett in only one year, a rate of less than two weeks per movie. He later signed more lucrative contracts with Essanay Studios and the Mutual Film Corporation, each contract giving him more control over his work as producers noted how popular his films were; in fact, in later years many of these shorts would be recut, with "new" Chaplin movies made by reassembling old footage in order to take advantage of Chaplin’s popularity.
Harold Lloyd’s genius at physical comedy depended on his conception of dangerous stunts; Buster Keaton’s approach to the craft relied on complex situations, closer to the sitcoms of later decades. While all three men were more or less equals at the physical aspects of the job, Chaplin’s gift was that of subtlety. Even at Sennett’s studio, he avoided going over the top. This was a large part of what made the Tramp so endearing, because Chaplin was able to imbue him with a vulnerability that persisted even when the Tramp was hurling bricks at his enemies. Chaplin also relied on his stage experience to improvise in front of the camera, exploring the situation to discover the comedy inherent in it, and generally stayed away from the melodrama that was the hallmark of so much silent cinema.
As a director, the perfectionist in Chaplin demanded excellence of all of his actors. From the smallest role to the star performer, each actor was taken through every scene step by step. Chaplin wanted everyone on the screen to shine in his or her role. He also demanded a unified presence during filming to allow the subtleties of the characters to show through, even without speaking. He controlled every scene with an iron fist to accomplish this. He constantly had sets redone and rebuilt when they were not to his liking. He also would create many different variations of each scene, until he found the ones that flowed together well to create the final product.
After working with Essanay and the Mutual Film Corporation, Chaplin co-founded the United Artists studio with a number of filmmakers who wanted more control over their own work. Movies were becoming longer, meanwhile, as technology became more sophisticated; Chaplin’s days of 30 shorts a year were behind him, and his output slowed considerably as he made feature-length films with more detailed plots and multiple shooting locations. He was slow to adopt sound; City Lights and Modern Times were both made during the sound era, but he used the technology only to provide a soundtrack and to play dialogue through the radio in Modern Times. He didn’t make his first talkie until 1940, thirteen years after the Jazz Singer: The Great Dictator played on The Little Tramp’s resemblance to German dictator Adolf Hitler, and was one of the only movies to satirize (and vilify) Nazism during the pre-war period when the United States was still at peace with Germany.
During the McCarthy era, Chaplin -- still a British subject -- came under suspicion by J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, and was accused of communist sympathies and un-American sentiments. When Chaplin took a vacation in England in 1952, Hoover had his visa revoked. Disgusted by the reactionary politics of the day, Chaplin returned to the US only once, in 1972, to accept an Honorary Oscar. He spent the remainder of his life in Switzerland, and though he wasn’t officially retired, he did very little work. A movie meant to star his youngest daughter was still in pre-production when he died in 1977.
Chaplin had a number of wives and lovers, which contributed to his difficulties with the law and respectable authorities. His last marriage was to Oona O’Neill, daughter of the playwright Eugene O’Neill, who was himself five years younger than Chaplin; the marriage caused O’Neill to refuse all contact with his daughter, but the match seems to have been a good one. They remained married for thirty-four years, until Chaplin’s death, and had eight children together. One of their daughters, Geraldine, played his mother in the 1992 movie Chaplin, loosely based on his autobiography.
