In 1969, the Chaplin Studio in Hollywood was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. It was the second movie-related site to receive that designation, after Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Charlie was the founder of United Artists along with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith.
His handprints, footprints and signature were immortalized in cement at Grauman's (now Mann's) Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, but after his fall from grace with the Americans because of his political views, the section of cement was removed from public view. It cannot be located and is now feared lost.
He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6751 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on April 10, 1972, which he accepted during the same trip to Los Angeles in which he accepted his 1972 Honorary Academy Award.
Cinematic genius that he was, he never won an Academy Award in an acting category, his only non-honorary, competitive category Oscar victory being in the capacity of composer.
Invented his tramp costume with the help of Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's pants. Arbuckle's father-in-law's derby, Chester Conklin's cutaway, Ford Sterling's size-14 shoes, the diminutive Charles Avery's jacket, and some crepe paper belonging to Mack Swain (which became the tramp's mustache). The only item that actually belonged to Chaplin was the whangee cane.
His trademark character The Tramp appeared in about 70 movies, shorts and features, during a period of 26 years, from the one-reeler "Kid Auto Races at Venice" (1914) to his triumphant feature "The Great Dictator "(1940).
Most people (now and during his lifetime) believe that Chaplin had brown eyes because they had only seen him in black and white with black eye makeup on. It fact they were very blue. Chaplin remarked in his autobiography that people meeting him for the first time were always struck by his blue eyes. And his future wife Oona Chaplin wrote "Just met Charlie Chaplin. What blue eyes he has!" to a girlhood friend in 1942.
Grandfather of Dolores Chaplin, Carmen Chaplin, Kiera Chaplin, Oona Chaplin, Aurélia Thiérrée and James Thierrée. Great-uncle of Drunkfux.
As a child, he was confined to a bed for weeks due to a serious illness. At night, his mother would sit at the window and act out what was going on outside. This was a major reason Chaplin became a comedian.
His mother was so poor, she was once forced to pawn her son's spare clothes. She was also in and out of mental hospitals throughout her life.
His father, with whom he lived for only a brief period of time in his childhood while his mother was committed to a mental asylum, died as the result of alcohol abuse at age 37, when Charlie was age 12.
When Chaplin arrived in the United States with the Fred Karno troupe on October 2, 1912, in his second trip to America, according to Ellis Island immigration records, he had $45 in his pocket. He listed his half-brother Syd Chaplin, as his next of kin. Though his mother was still alive, she was in a mental hospital. Sailing with him was fellow Karno troupe member Arthur Stanley Jefferson--later to be known as Stan Laurel.
Did not receive screen credit on the many comedies he made for Keystone in 1914-15, as it was studio policy not to credit its actors (any Keystone film that credits Chaplin is a reissue print). His first screen credit appeared on "His New Job" (1915), his first film for Essanay.
Charlie resisted the arrival of 'talkies.' Starting with “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, films with sound rapidly replaced their silent counterparts. Yet Chaplin hesitated to adopt the new technology, fearing it would ruin the Little Tramp. In his two 1930s movies, “City Lights” and “Modern Times,” Chaplin included music but not dialogue, except for one scene in which he sings in nonsensical fake Italian. Finally, in 1940, he released a full sound film, “The Great Dictator,” an anti-Hitler satire featuring him as a character other than the Little Tramp for the first time in almost 20 years.
His film "The Great Dictator" (1940) was banned in Germany.
In 2018, his granddaughter Kiera Chaplin, created the Chaplin Awards in Asia. It is an award that goes to an actor or filmmaker whose work embodies Charlie Chaplin's qualities of realism, diversity and courage within their craft. So far recipients have been Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Zhang Yimou.
He composed about 500 melodies, including "Smile" and "This Is My Song".
On July 6, 1925, Charlie became the first actor to appear on the cover of Time magazine.
He was the first, and to date, the last artist to have regular and complete control over every aspect of the filmmaking process of almost all of his films. He acted in, wrote, directed, produced, edited, cast, and composed the music for his movies. Chaplin literally paid for this authority by financing his films and studio overhead entirely with his own money.
Charlie was 54 years old when he wed Oona O'Neill in 1943; Oona was age 18 at the time, which deeply disappointed her father Eugene O'Neill, who disowned his daughter as a result of his disappointment. Charlie's marriage to Oona became the longest of his four marriages by far, lasting until his own death.
Charlie was 73 years old when his youngest son, Christopher Chaplin, was born.
He was awarded the Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1975 Queen's New Year Honours List for his services to the film industry.
Despite living in the United States for almost 40 years, Chaplin never became an American citizen.
During the McCarthy era, the FBI put him under surveillance, and a Mississippi congressman called for his deportation. The U.S. government then revoked his re-entry permit in 1952 as he traveled to England on vacation. Rather than returning to answer charges before a board of immigration officials, Chaplin decided to uproot his family to Switzerland. He would visit the United States only one more time, in 1972, to accept an honorary Academy Award.
According to his daughter Geraldine Chaplin, in the last years of his life, Chaplin began to worry that he might not be remembered after his death. This was a major reason why he allowed his trademark character, the Little Tramp to appear on several commercial products in the 1970s and 1980s, most notably 1970s commercials for Ford Motor Company, and 1980s commercials and print ads for International Business Machines (IBM), officially the "IBM Tramp".
Received an Honorary Oscar at The 44th Annual Academy Awards (1972). He appeared on stage blowing kisses to the Hollywood audience with tears running down his face while he received a long standing ovation, sitting on stage in his wheelchair
As of 2021, he is the only person to receive a 12-minute standing ovation at the Academy Awards when he appeared to accept an honorary award "for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century." It is the longest in the history of the Academy Awards up to 2021.
During Chaplin's return visit to Hollywood in 1972, A & M Records offered to throw a big party for him at his former studio, which it owned at the time. The 82-year-old Chaplin declined because he didn't want the attention. Instead he arranged to be driven to the studio on a Sunday morning and stopped long enough to peer through the gates. It was the last time he saw the place he had built some 50 years earlier.
Just a few months after Chaplin’s death, two robbers stole his coffin from a Swiss cemetery and sent his wife a $600,000 ransom demand. When she refused to pay, they allegedly threatened her kids. The bungling robbers were soon caught, however, and the coffin was recovered. It was then reburied in a theft-proof concrete vault.
In 2016, his home in Vevey, Switzerland became a museum called Chaplin's World, and opened to the public for viewing.
Trivia items from IMDB
Listen to my fascinating conversation with Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Kiera Chaplin by clicking on the links below. Enjoy!
Episode 29 - HERE
Episode 30 - HERE
