CHARLES SPENCER CHAPLIN

Frequently quoted  the eccentric man, with height around five feet and four inches, a head a little too large for his delicate body, eyes deep in blue, hair crinkly coal-black, teeth neat white and lips firm, was once sharing a light moment with the audience who had mustered strong to hear him. They were greatly amused the first time he extemporized a joke as usual. The reaction of spontaneity of ripples of laughter from the audience, however, received a challenge as only a few of them laughed the second time he repeated the same joke; there was hardly any laugher to be heard in them when he continued doing the same for a third time. The man then said when they couldn’t laugh on the same joke again and again, they had better not cry over the same worry again and again. ‘Enjoy every moment of life’. Given below are some legendary statements by Chaplin: ‘Nothing is permanent in this world, not even our troubles.’ ‘I like walking in the rain, because nobody can see my tears. ‘The most wasted day in life is the day in…….have not laughed.’ 

Was he really obsessed with girls? Certainly I have gone through articles on Chaplin’s affairs often with girls under eighteen. Let me first tell you he had married four times. He was 29 the first time he tied the knot with a girl aged sixteen. His second marriage was to a sixteen-year-old girl Lita Gray, when he was only thirty five. The third one, possibly a fictional one, was rumoured to have occurred at the age of forty-seven with a girl around twenty-eight. The final marriage to be solemnized was at the age of fifty-four when he decided to win a girl, Oona O’Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O’ Neiill, shortly after she turned eighteen. I wouldn’t conceal I was a little shocked the first time I came across the strong criticism by biographer Peter Ackroyd describing Chaplin as ‘incorrigible in making advances to female stars.’ But Chaplin himself confessed to having had sexual relations with more than 2000 women. His phenomenal success as an actor made him recognized across the globe might have played miracles here besides being handsome. ‘Chaplin never trusted women;’ Peter Ackroyd went on ‘as for his morals; they were few indeed at least when it came to women, whom he treated appallingly. One of the first to discover this was his co-star Edna Purviance, whom he met in 1915.’ Another, serious criticism against him was from one of his ex-wives describing him as a short-tempered man who treated her like a cretin. Having said that, he was an angel; his sorrows having been with a bliss of success in making love with or advances to girls or having them around, he was able to etch in every single detail with perfection at moments when he brought himself down to a poor figure and when his smiles with frozen tears send us reflective with lachrymose eyes.

Born on April 16, 1889 at Walworth, South London, Charles Spencer Chaplin, popularly known as Charlie Chaplin, found a place in the hearts of cinema lovers even in an age when the surging tide of sound films began to flow surfing over the landscape of cinematography. By the time he turned nine he had been sent twice to the workhouse for work as he had been struggling against penury which he discovered himself in after the premature death of his father Sir Charles Chaplin the Senior. His mother Mrs Hanna Hill, who was a music hall singer, was sent to a mental hospital in September 1898. Chaplin was a lad of fourteen years when he achieved a major breakthrough as he signed himself as an actor in the “West End’. He was then employed as the news boy in ‘H.A. Saintsbury’s Jim, a Romance of Cockayne’ as a compliment for his possibilities. As ill luck would have it, the show closed in 1903, two weeks after it had started. Theatre lovers were touched by the wit and humour of his dramatic renderings; his role as a pageboy in ‘Sharlock Holms’ was highly acclaimed in the three countries where the shows were staged. He was called in to share the stage in London with William Gillect, the renowned actor of the time. “It was like tidings from heaven” he said, and made his debut as the central figure in ‘Duke of York’s Theatre’. At the age of nineteen his arrival in the U.S. was as a comedy actor. His trousers hanging loose from the waist, a worn-out hat donned, the peculiar pair of shoes wrongly matched for his feet, a waist coat, and after all the toothbrush moustache―all went well with his roles. ‘Making a Living’ in 1914 earned distinction, and in few years he succeeded making a mark in the world of performing Arts, with a huge number of fans following him and growing every minute. By 1918 he was esteemed one of the best characters in films, leading up to the foundation of ‘United Artists’ the very next year. Glimpses at some of the masterpieces by Chaplin:

THE KID (1921): He is seen an expert widow repairman who offers services happening by in the nick of time when the window-panes lie broken with the rocks the little boy has hurled through the window. The combination of laughs and pathos changed the notion of what a screen comedy could be.

THE GOLD RUSH (1925): ‘The Gold Rush’, Chaplin famously said, is “the picture I want to be remembered by.” Leading movie critics and experts voted and acclaimed it as one of the American Film Institute’s Top 100 American films.

THE CIRCUS (1928): Chaplin was honoured with a special statuette for versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing, and producing ‘The Circus’ at the first ever Academy Awards ceremony. Desperately looking for work Chaplin was employed as a tramp in a circus tent. His possibilities to excite laughter in the audience placed him at a new height.

CITY LIGHTS (1931): The story involves a tramp who goes out of his way in his attempts to get money for an operation which, as he assured the blind girl, will restore eyesight.

MODERN TIMES (1936): Bounced into the ranks of the unemployed, he goes through a multi-coloured occupation―a company to a street waif, a roller-skating night watchman, a singing waiter, and a jailbird. The times and satire remain timeless in ‘Modern Times’.

THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940): This classic by Charlie Chaplin was honoured in 2000 as one of the American Film Institute’s top hundred American comedies. The dual roles of Hitler-like Adenoid Hynkel and a Jewish barber who is a dead-ringer look-alike for der Nutsie marks a new level of Chaplin’s film-making passion. Immortal bits include Hynkel’s besotted dance with a globe, the upside-down flight and Hynkel and a Mussolini-like Jack Oakie madly cranking their barber chairs higher and higher. 

A ROMANTIC CHARLIE CHAPLIN