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.

In 1917, Chaplin imitators were widespread enough for the star to take legal action, and it was reported that nine out of ten men attended costume parties dressed as Chaplin.

It was first reported by Theodore Chaplin in a 1915 USGS publication.

This joke may have its origins in Charlie Chaplin, who once did enter a look-alike contest and is often reported to have also come in third, although Chaplin's actual ranking in the contest is not known.

With their careful construction — and in the case of Easy Street and The Immigrant, their social commentary — these films are considered by Chaplin scholars to be among his finest work.

The name of Charlie Chaplin was said to be " a part of the common language of almost every country ", and according to Harper's Weekly his " little, baggy-trousered figure " was " universally familiar ".

The star's primary concern in finding a new distributor was independence ; Sydney Chaplin, then his business manager, told the press: " Charlie be allowed all the time he needs and all the money for producing the way he wants ...

Unwilling to allow his film to be drawn into the divorce proceedings, Chaplin announced that production on The Circus had been temporarily suspended.

Maland has identified it as triggering Chaplin's decline in popularity, and writes, " Henceforth, no movie fan would ever be able to separate the dimension of politics from the star image of Charles Spencer Chaplin.

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.

That Chaplin was unprepared to remain abroad, or that the revocation of his right to re-enter the United States was a surprise to him, may be apocryphal: An anecdote in some contradiction is recorded during a broad interview with Richard Avedon, celebrated New York portraitist.

Shortly after the publication of his memoirs, Chaplin began work on what would be his final completed film, A Countess from Hong Kong ( 1967 ), based on a script he had written for Paulette Goddard in the 1930s.

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.

Chaplin never spoke more than cursorily about his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion.

Chaplin could be inspired by tragic events when creating his films, as in the case of The Gold Rush ( 1925 ), which was inspired by the fate of the Donner Party.

Chaplin considered the musical accompaniment of a film to be important, and from A Woman of Paris onwards, he took an increasing interest in this area.

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.

Segar's ' Chaplin ' comics would later be collected in 1917 into five books, precursors of the later comic book format.

The musical is to be adapted for Broadway in 2012, retitled Chaplin – A Musical.

Hollywood was said to be a hotbed of Jewish bias, and films such as Charlie Chaplin ’ s The Great Dictator were offered as proof.

Considered to be one of the most important actors in American cinema, Brando was one of only three professional actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, named by Time magazine as one of its 100 Persons of the Century in 1999.

Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo were guests there, and Kaiser Wilhelm II himself held regular " gentlemens ' evenings " and other functions there in a room that came to be named after him-the Kaisersaal.

Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman suggested that the Doctor could be a " cosmic hobo " in the mould of Charlie Chaplin, and this was the interpretation eventually chosen.

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.

Filming the scene continued until February 1929 and again for ten days in early April before Chaplin put the scene aside to be filmed at a later time.

The scene included a young Charles Lederer and Chaplin later praised the scene but insisted that it needed to be cut.

Chaplin declared several times that this was the film that he most wanted to be remembered for.