Sir Charles Spencer " Charlie " Chaplin, KBE ( 16 April 188925 December 1977 ) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era.

Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era.

Chaplin was identified with left-wing politics during the McCarthy era and he was ultimately forced to resettle in Europe from 1952.

In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A Life, wrote: " Chaplin was not just ' big ', he was gigantic.

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin ( née Hill, 1865 – 1928 ) and Charles Chaplin Sr. ( 1863 – 1901 ).

There is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in South London.

Because of this poverty, Chaplin was sent to a workhouse at seven years old.

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.

" 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.

" There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother's fate ", Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in care until her death in 1928.

Hannah had been booed off stage, and the manager chose Chaplin, who was standing in the wings, to go on as her replacement.

It was an isolated performance, but at nine years old Chaplin became interested in the theatre.

Chaplin worked hard and the act was popular with audiences, but dancing did not satisfy the child and he dreamt of forming a comedy act.

The manager sensed potential in Chaplin and he was soon on the stage.

" It was like tidings from heaven ", Chaplin recalled.

Chaplin quickly began work in another role, touring with his brother — who was also pursuing an acting career — in a comedy sketch called Repairs.

It was popular with audiences and Chaplin became the star of the show.

She went on to appear in 35 films with Chaplin over eight years.

Chaplin asserted a high level of control over his pictures, and started to put more time and care into each film.

It was completed in January 1918, and Chaplin was given freedom over the making of his pictures.

Chaplin felt that marriage stunted his creativity, and he struggled over the production of his next film, Sunnyside.

Keller and Chaplin shared anti-capitalist views ; Keller and Twain were both considered radicals at the beginning of the 20th century, and as a consequence, their political views have been forgotten or glossed over in popular perception.

According to Janiss Garza, Chaplin was sued in the 1940s over plagiarism problems with The Great Dictator.

In 1967, Chaplin composed a new musical score for the film and a recording of him singing " Swing High Little Girl " playing over the opening credits.

In 1919 along with Charlie Chaplin, her husband Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith she founded United Artists giving her complete control over her films.

On February 16, 1951, two lawyers-turned-producers Arthur Krim ( of Eagle-Lion Films ) and Robert Benjamin approached Pickford and Chaplin with a wild idea: let them take over United Artists for five years.

The film's box office failure was painful for Chaplin, and after its initial release it was not seen by the public for over fifty years.

It was not until he learned that Keaton was going through hard times ( before Limelight, Keaton had gone through a disastrous marriage, lost most of his fortune in the divorce in the process, and had appeared infrequently in films over the previous years ) that Chaplin insisted that Keaton should be cast in the film.

She possessed a rubbery face capable of the broadest expressions — Life magazine compared her to Beatrice Lillie and Charlie Chaplin, and described her characterizations as taking " people or situations suspended in their own precarious balance between dignity and absurdity, and push ( ing ) them over the cliff with one single, pointed gesture "— the magazine noted a " particularly high-brow critic " as observing, " The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer to smash a butterfly.

A speculation over this case was that it was a conspiracy from Nazi Germany to discredit Chaplin ; À Nous la Libertés production company,, was German.

In later years, Foy told of an altercation over a girl with fellow actor Charles Chaplin ( not the later film star ), who was drunkenly taking pot-shots at Foy.

By 1959, Cura claimed to have taken over 250, 000 tele-snaps and that sets of his tele-snaps had been “ presented to and graciously accepted by the Royal Family ; Their Majesties the King of Denmark ; the late King of Norway ; Queen Juliana of the Netherlands ; Ex-president Auriol of France ; Earl Attlee ; Sir Winston Churchill ; Mr Charles Chaplin ; Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt ” as well as a wide range of newspapers and periodicals.

Humphries ' outlandish Australian caricatures, including Dame Edna Everage, Barry McKenzie and Les Patterson have starred in books, stage and screen to great acclaim over five decades and his biographer Anne Pender described him in 2010 as the most significant comedian since Charles Chaplin.

Following the media hype over the accession of Elizabeth II, the Treetops attracted a large number of rich and famous people every year, Some famous personalities who visited the Treetops before or after the accession of Elizabeth II are Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford and Lord Mountbatten, and a much-publicized return visit by Elizabeth II in 1983.

Chaplin and Sterling play two young men, Masher and Rival Masher, who fight over the chance to help a young woman ( Clifton ) cross a muddy street.

The music video for " Buddy Holly " was directed by Spike Jonze and filmed at Charlie Chaplin Studios in Hollywood over the course of one full day of shooting.

Stars like Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks enjoyed stupendous popularity and their films were reissued over and over throughout the silent era, meaning prints of their films were likely to surface decades later.

Since Chaplin did not have legal control over the films made during his time with Essanay, he could not prevent its release.

He began using the Chaplin surname following his mother's marriage to Charles Chaplin Sr., a year after his birth.

As young children, he and his brother were used as pawns in their mother's bitter divorce from Charlie Chaplin, during which a lot of the couple's " dirty linen " was aired in sensational — and very public — divorce hearings.