After Zombie I began reading The Autobiography of Charlie Chaplin, which I picked up in Seattle. I've been fascinated with Charlie Chaplin for years. He's one of those very rare mythic people like Bruce Lee and Johnny Cash that came from very meager or strange beginnings to become a huge figure. All three of those people; Johnny, Charlie and Bruce had become some of the most famous figures in the world (Chaplin was THE most famous person in the world in his lifetime), which is even more amazing considering how they got there.



Charlie was the product of an alcoholic father that left his mother, who was a struggling actress. There was an incident where five year old Chaplin had to take his mother's place on stage to amuse a rowdy crowd when her voice failed. The Victorian crowd responded with applause and thrown change which Charlie stopped singing to pick up.

He came from very meager beginnings and chose the vaudville stage because that's all he knew. From vaudeville to plays, Britain to America, the stage to one reel films, he spent all his time perfecting his character. His creation; the Little Tramp, was a sensation that afforded him both untold wealth and success and the ability to go out in public unrecognized.
In fact, he once entered a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest and came in third. A young Milton Berle got first place.



Despite his wealth and fame he faced many struggles. He was highly intelligent, which is rare for someone with such an upbringing, and struggled with his new wealth in light of his past poverty. His mother, who sacrificed herself to raise him and his brother, suffered bouts of insanity at a time when the treatments were often worse than the affliction. Thanks to his wealth, he was finally able to provide for her in the last years of her life.

Though he enjoyed all that came with stardom; seeing the world, meeting the famous and the royal, he remained a solitary figure and kept closest to his brother and one of his oldest friends.

He believed in Socialism and spoke out against the evils of war, a difficult task during two world wars, especially when one as privileged as he doesn't have to fight in them. His first talkie, made years after the process was introduced, spoke out against Nazism and upset an America adamant in their isolationism. The final moments of the Great Dictator, when Chaplin fans finally got to hear the voice of the Little Tramp is remembered as one of the greatest moments in film history.



Hounded by J. Edgar Hoover, he eventually had his visa revoked and could never return to America. Instead he took up residence in Switzerland, where he lived with his wife and several children. Having narrowly avoided the Depression, World War I and lived through the rise of Hollywood, the advent of talking films and the beginning of the Cold War he found solace in the only woman to stay true to him, a woman twenty years his junior.