Page "Charlie Chaplin" Paragraph 6

In September 1898, Hannah Chaplin was committed to Cane Hill mental asylum — she had developed a psychosis seemingly brought on by malnutrition and an infection of syphilis.

Chaplin recalled his anguish at the news: " Why had she done this?

Mother, so light-hearted and gay, how could she go insane?

" For the two months she was there, Chaplin and his brother were sent to live with their father, whom the young boy scarcely knew.

Charles Chaplin Sr. was by then a severe alcoholic, and life with the man was bad enough to provoke a visit from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

He died two years later, at 37 years old, from cirrhosis of the liver.