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.

His mother and father had married four years previously, at which time Chaplin Sr. became the legal carer of Hannah's illegitimate son, Sydney John ( 1885 – 1965 ).

In September 1918, Chaplin married the 17-year-old actress Mildred Harris.

While making The Gold Rush, Chaplin married for the second time.

Some time later, Chaplin revealed that they married in Canton during this trip.

Chaplin later wrote, " Although we were somewhat estranged we were friends and still married.

Of those who did, Cukor preferred Paulette Goddard, but her supposedly illicit relationship with Charlie Chaplin ( they were, in fact, secretly married ) concerned Selznick.

Chaplin married Grey in mid-1924, and she was replaced in the film by Georgia Hale.

Prince married Judy Chaplin, daughter of Saul Chaplin, on October 26, 1962.

Although she was romantically involved with Chaplin for several years, Purviance eventually married John Squire, a Pan-American Airlines pilot, whom she wed in 1938 and who died in 1945.

Chaplin maintained that they were married in China in 1936, but to private associates and family, he claimed they were never legally married, except in common law.

She married Robert Walpole, 10th Baron Walpole in 1962 with whom she had two sons and two daughters, however their marriage was ultimately dissolved in 1979, and she married Michael Chaplin in 1984.

Two men were nominated for the position — Edwards's son-in-law, Chichester Chaplin, seen as the representative for the newly arrived immigrants, and Samuel Norris, an American who had married the daughter of a long-time resident and was sympathetic to the more established residents.

I'm married to a Charlie Chaplin impersonator and we have a daughter who is a Shirley Temple impersonator.

( Sir John Hamby's daughter Elizabeth married in 1657 John Chaplin, son of Sir Francis Chaplin.

In 1933 Rubbra married Antoinette Chaplin, a French violinist.

Colonel Reginald Chaplin served in the 10th Hussars and married Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir, their daughter June Isabel Chaplin married Sir Rudolph de Trafford 5th Baronet.

Chaplin married twice and had no children.

Pathescope produced a large number of home versions of significant films, including Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop cartoons, classic features such as Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail, and comedies by such well-known stars as Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin.

Chaplin, 71, who met K. when the Soviet boss visited England in 1956, confided that he hopes to visit Russia some time this summer because `` I have marveled at your grandiose experiment and I believe in your future ''.

Karno was initially wary, thinking Chaplin a " pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster " who " looked much too shy to do any good in the theatre.

For The Pawnshop he recruited the actor Henry Bergman, who was to work with Chaplin for 30 years.

Chaplin decided not to re-enter the United States, writing: " Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted.

Its protagonist is an exiled king, played by Chaplin, who arrives in New York with a plan to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Chaplin believed his first influence to be his mother, who would entertain him as a child by sitting at the window and mimicking passers-by.

Animator Chuck Jones, who lived near his Lone Star studio as a boy, remembered his father saying he watched Chaplin shoot a scene more than a hundred times until he was satisfied with it.

This combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism — which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense — often proved very taxing for Chaplin, who in frustration would often lash out at his actors and crew, keep them waiting idly for hours or, in extreme cases, shutting down production altogether.

This was already noted by Chaplin's contemporaries, such as Sigmund Freud, who thought that Chaplin " always plays only himself as he was in his dismal youth ", and by some of his collaborators, such as actress Claire Bloom, who starred in Limelight.

Although some of Chaplin's critics have claimed that credit for his film music should be given to the composers who worked with him, for example Raksin, who worked with Chaplin on Modern Times, has stressed Chaplin's creative position and active participation in the composing process.

where he would meet Florence Eleanor Chaplin who would become his first wife.

Sidney Drew was the leader in developing " polite comedy ", while slapstick was refined by Fatty Arbuckle and Charles Chaplin, who both started with Mack Sennet's Keystone company.

COINTELPRO was first used to disrupt the Communist Party, where Hoover went after targets that ranged from suspected everyday spies to larger celebrity figures such as Charlie Chaplin who were seen as spreading Communist Party propaganda, and later organizations such as the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King, Jr .' s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and others.

Only Charlie Chaplin — who reportedly slightly surpassed Pickford's popularity in 1916 — had a similarly spellbinding pull with critics and the audience.

Another, more obvious reference to Hollywood is the Charlie Chaplin impersonator who provides comic relief throughout the film.

Eisenstein and his entourage spent considerable time with Charlie Chaplin, who recommended that Eisenstein meet with a sympathetic benefactor in the person of American socialist author Upton Sinclair.

Other prominent IWW song-writers include Ralph Chaplin who authored " Solidarity Forever ", and Leslie Fish.

However, Berle's claims to have appeared in many of these films, particularly the 1914 Chaplin Keystone comedy Tillie's Punctured Romance, are hotly disputed by some, who cite the lack of supporting evidence that Berle even visited the West Coast until much later.

She also told Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Ambassador who later became the Foreign Minister of Germany, that Hitler looked too much like Charlie Chaplin to be taken seriously.

Chaplin's half-brother Sydney Chaplin directed and starred in a 1921 film called King, Queen, Joker in which, like Charlie, he played the dual role of a barber and ruler of a country who is about to be overthrown.