Short Biography: Charlie Chaplin

CHARLIE CHAPLIN Early Life

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889, in London, England. When he was about twelve, he got his first chance to act in a stage show, and appeared as "Billy" the page boy, in "Sherlock Holmes". Charlie started his career as a comedian in vaudeville, which eventually took him to the United States in 1910 as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company. Famous for his character "The Tramp" the sweet little man with a bowler hat, mustache and cane, Charlie Chaplin relied on the quirky movements to become an iconic figure of the silent-film era and one of film's first superstars, elevating the industry in a way few could have ever imagined.

Charlie Chaplin's rise to fame is a true rags to riches

In 1915 Chaplin left Sennett to join the Essanay Company, which agreed to pay him $1,250 a week. It is with Essanay that Chaplin, who by this time had hired his brother Sydney to be his business manager.

During his first year with the company, Chaplin made 14 films, including The Tramp (1915). Generally regarded as the actor's first classic, the story establishes Chaplin's character as the unexpected hero when he saves the farmer's daughter from a gang of robbers.

By the age of 26, Chaplin, just three years removed from his vaudeville days, was a superstar. He'd moved over to the Mutual Company, which paid him a huge amount of money, $670,000 a year. Chaplin became a wealthy man, but it didn't seem to make him stop what he loved. He made some of his best work, including One A.M. (1916), The Rink (1916), The Vagabond (1916), and Easy Street (1917). During the 1920s Chaplin's career blossomed even more. During the decade he made some landmark films, including The Kid (1921), The Pilgrim (1923), A Woman in Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), a movie Chaplin would later say he wanted to be remembered by, and The Circus (1928). The latter three were released by United Artists, a company Chaplin co-founded in 1919 with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and D.W.

The trip came just five years after Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), the filmmaker's first and only color movie. Despite a cast that included Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, the film did poorly at the box office. In 1975, Chaplin received further recognition when he was honored by Queen Elizabeth.

In the early morning hours of December 25, 1977, Charlie Chaplin died at his home in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. His wife, Oona, and seven of his children were at his bedside at the time of his passing. In a twist that might very well have come out of one of his films, Chaplin's body was stolen not long after he was buried from his grave near Lake Geneva in Switzerland by two men who demanded $400,000 for its return. The men were arrested and Chaplin's body was recovered 11 weeks later. Legacy n 1998, the film critic Andrew Sarris called Chaplin " the single most important artist produced by the cinema, certainly its most extraordinary performer and probably still its most universal icon". He is described by the British Film Institute as "a towering figure in world culture", and was included in Time magazine's list of the "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century" for the laughter he brought to