By Elliott West
“Simplicity is a difficult thing to achieve”.
Charlie Chaplin
Introduction
Charlie Chaplin was and is an actor that defined comedic genius. The oversized suit, the bowler hat, the rhythmic moving moustache, the penguin-style walk and always be accompanied by a wooden walking stick represent an act that helped launch the birth of cinema. Yet behind this British comedy clown who lit up the black-and-white cinema reels, lies a very different man. Like so many comedy greats, he was someone who was aloof from his adoring audience, a constant performer who even those close to him, never really knew the real Charles Spencer Chaplin.
From Rags to Riches
Born in Victorian London, Chaplin knew precisely what it was like to be poor. His parents’ debts led to him being sent to a Lambeth workhouse at the age of seven and his mother ended up in a mental asylum. Charlie lived off the scraps from the workhouse table and one that escaped through his love for entertainment. Dance acts and small plays followed and it would be the legendary Fred Kano who would become his saviour, bringing him out of abject poverty to a career in the movies across the Atlantic Ocean.
His incarceration of ‘The Tramp’ was a personification of this past poverty. A period of his early life that he deemed humiliating and is etched in the eyes of the tramp character. An irony that this would become his springboard to fame and fortune, becoming the highest-paid actor in the world and a cinematic journey that was forever filled with soul searching. Yet Chaplin’s act was actually an extension of his own inner turmoil. A blank canvas that he served with the sadness of a Victorian urchin who chased the pot of gold of the American dream, who survived the Great Depression and the hooded claw of Adolf Hitler.
Inner Turmoil
Behind the mask of Charlie Chaplin, lay a man who was forever looking over his shoulder. Accused of being a Communist sympathizer, Chaplin was forever trying to keep his name out of the headlines for the wrong reasons. His own love life was littered with scandal, including an ugly divorce from his second wife Lita Grey who he accused of being a gold-digging liar. This was one of the most expensive divorces in history and Chaplin dragged his wife’s name through the mud, using his idolised reputation to force the deed to be done. This was a man who preached goodwill in his public life but was forever trying to hide his chequered life behind closed doors.
No Laughs
As fast as Charlie Chaplin tried to walk into the Hollywood sunset, he was chased by the looming accusations of being an abuser. A man who became anxious about being rejected through exposure and someone who was forever building a brick wall to hide the true Chaplin. An actor who was insecure about his wealth and scared that he would one day be thrown back into the darkened pit of poverty that he had come from. Charlie detested media intervention and was forever rejecting interviews when the journalists came knocking on his door. A human being who loved younger women but a love that eventually caused him to flee the USA and live in solidarity exile in Switzerland.
Although the majority of his films were silent, he did star in The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight, A King in New York and his last film in 1967, A Countess from Hong Kong, his mix of slapstick and pathos earned this perfectionist a worldwide army of fans with his style being enshrined in the DNA of comedy. Awarded an Honorary Academy Award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century” in 1972, Chaplin later died in 1975 at the age of 88 but his twilight years were not with scandal prior to his death, fathering a child when he was 73 with his last wife Oona O’Neil.
