Biografia

A tramp with toothbrush mustache, undersized bowler hat and bamboo cane who struggled to survive while keeping his dignity in a world with great social injustice.

Highly descriptive facial expressions

Stories often reflect his liberal political beliefs

Comedy with a deep undercurrent of pathos

On-screen and off-screen, favored the company of much younger women, who were often innocent if troubled

A much-repeated story claims that he once entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest and finished third! In some versions of the story, he came in second.

Long after becoming a millionaire, he continued to live in a shabby hotel room, and kept his studio checks in a trunk for months.

Most people (now and during his lifetime) believe that Chaplin had brown eyes because they had only seen him in black and white with black eye makeup on. It fact they were very blue. Chaplin remarked in his autobiography that people meeting him for the first time were always struck by his blue eyes. And his future wife Oona Chaplin wrote "Just met Charlie Chaplin. What blue eyes he has!" to a girlhood friend in 1942.

As of 2021, he is the only person to receive a 12-minute standing ovation at the Academy Awards when he appeared to accept an honorary award "for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century." It is the longest in the history of the Academy Awards up to 2021.

He and Buster Keaton had an interesting relationship. Long considered rivals but always having avoided commenting about each other in the press, Chaplin hired Keaton for a part in Luzes da Ribalta (1952). Keaton, who was flat broke at the time, went into a career decline after having been signed by MGM in 1928, as the studio would not let him improvise in any of his films nor allow him any writing or directorial input, and he was eventually reduced to writing gags--often uncredited--for other comedians' films. Chaplin, at this point, felt sorry for Keaton due to his hard luck, but Keaton recognized that, despite Charlie's better fortune and far greater wealth, he was (strangely) the more depressed of the two. In one scene in "Limelight", Chaplin's character was dying. While the camera was fading away, Keaton was muttering to Chaplin without moving his lips, "That's it, good, wait, don't move, wait, good, we're through." In his autobiography Keaton called Chaplin "the greatest silent comedian of all time".

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.

[Returning to Los Angeles after a 20-year self-imposed exile to accept his honorary Oscar in 1971] Thank you so much. This is an emotional moment for me and words seem so futile, so feeble... I can only say that... thank you for the honor of inviting me here and... oh... you're wonderful, sweet people. Thank you.

I like friends as I like music, when I am in the mood. To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.

The minute you bought your ticket you were in another world.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

The Tramp (1915) - $1,250 /week

A Night Out (1915) - $1,250 /week

Caught in the Rain (1914) - $150 /week

Twenty Minutes of Love (1914) - $150 /week

Carlitos no Hotel (1916) - $150 /week