Charlie Chaplin
If one had to pick a single iconic image to define the golden age of silent cinema, surely it would be the derby hat, cane, and unique walk of the "little tramp". Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr., was born in 1889 in London to a family of music hall performers. His early years were marked by a traumatic family life, including his mother's mental illness, and times of desperate poverty. His talent for the music hall stage led him to tour the USA with the Fred Karno troupe from 1910 until 1913, when Chaplin was discovered by film producer Mack Sennett. His first one-reeler, Making a Living, was released in 1914. Chaplin created the "little tramp" character for his second film, Kid Auto Races at Venice, and quickly developed it into a popular signature role. Between 1914 and 1918 Chaplin starred in sixty-two films at the Keystone Studios, Essanay Studios, and the Mutual Film Corporation. From 1918 onwards, Chaplin insisted upon having complete creative control over production, using the resulting films to build up his own film studio, and co-founding the United Artists film distribution company in 1919 with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith. His focus also switched to more ambitious feature-length films, including The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928). His earliest sound films - City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936) - can best be described as "sound-silent hybrids", with creative use of music and sound effects. Full-fledged dialogue made its debut in Chaplin films in 1940, with The Great Dictator, followed by Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952). Chaplin's sympathies had always been with the poor and disenfranchised - amidst the paranoia of the McCarthy era, this liberal philosophy was seen by some as communism, and J. Edgar Hoover had Chaplin's visa re-entry permit revoked during a visit to the UK in 1952. Chaplin then established his residency in Vevey, Switzerland; his next-to-last film, A King in New York (1957) satirized the world-view of McCarthy and his HUAC fellow travelers. His last film was A Countess from Hong Kong (1967). Five years before his death in 1977, Chaplin returned briefly to the USA to accept an honorary Academy Award: the resulting standing ovation, lasting five minutes, was a fitting tribute to the man who made film into an art form with a smile.
