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Academy Awards

Chaplin won one Oscar in a competitive category, and was given two honorary Academy Awards.

Competitive award
In 1972, he won an Oscar for the Best Music in an Original Dramatic Score for the 1952 film Limelight, which co-starred Claire Bloom. The film also features an appearance with Buster Keaton, which was the only time the two great comedians ever appeared together. Due to Chaplin's political difficulties, the film did not play a one-week theatrical engagement in Los Angeles when it was first produced. This criterion for nomination was unfulfilled until 1972.

Chaplin was also nominated for Best Comedy Director for The Circus in 1929, for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay (although the Academy no longer lists these nominations in their official records because he received a Special Award instead of being included in the final voting for the competitive ones), and Best Original Music for The Great Dictator in 1940, and again for Best Original Screenplay for Monsieur Verdoux in 1948. During his active years as a filmmaker, Chaplin expressed disdain for the Academy Awards; his son Charles Jr wrote that Chaplin invoked the ire of the Academy in the 1930s by jokingly using his 1929 Oscar as a doorstop. This may help explain why City Lights and Modern Times, considered by several polls to be two of the greatest of all motion pictures,[9][10][11] were not nominated for a single Academy Award.

Honorary awards

When the first Oscars were awarded on May 16, 1929, the voting audit procedures that now exist had not yet been put into place, and the categories were still very fluid. Chaplin had originally been nominated for both Best Actor and Best Comedy Directing for his movie The Circus, but his name was withdrawn and the Academy decided to give him a special award "for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus" instead. The other film to receive a special award that year was The Jazz Singer.

Chaplin's second honorary award came forty-four years later in 1972, and was for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century". He came out of his exile to accept his award, and received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes.

Final works
Statue of Chaplin in Leicester Square, London.
Statue of Chaplin in Leicester Square, London.

Chaplin's two final films were made in London: A King in New York (1957) in which he had starred, written, directed and produced; and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, in which Chaplin had made his final on-screen appearance in a brief cameo role as a seasick steward, and in which he had directed, produced, and written.

In his autobiography My Autobiography, published in 1974, Chaplin indicated that he had written a screenplay for his youngest daughter, Victoria; entitled The Freak, the film would have cast her as an angel. According to Chaplin, a script was completed and pre-production rehearsals had begun on the film (the book includes a photograph of Victoria in costume), but were halted when Victoria married. "I mean to make it some day," Chaplin wrote; however, his health declined steadily in the 1970s and he died before this could happen.

In the 1970s, Chaplin wrote original music compositions and scores for his silent pictures and re-released them. He composed the scores of all his First National shorts, and of The Kid and The Circus.

One of Chaplin's last completed works, the score for his 1923 film A Woman of Paris, was finished in 1976.

Relationships with women, married life and children

Hetty Kelly

Hetty Kelly was Chaplin's 'true' first love, a dancer with whom he "instantly" fell in love when she was fifteen and almost married when she was nineteen. At the time Kelly was performing before him in a London music hall and Chaplin asked if she would meet him the following weekend; she agreed.[citation needed] It is said Chaplin fell madly in love with her and asked her to marry him. When she refused, Chaplin suggested it would be best if they did not see each other again; he was reportedly crushed when she agreed. Years later, her memory would remain a 'fetish' with Chaplin. He was devastated in 1921 when he learned that she had died of influenza during the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918. There is a slight controversy over whether or not Chaplin and Kelly had a child; if so, the child has yet to be brought to light.

Edna Purviance
Edna Purviance
Edna Purviance

Chaplin and his first major leading lady, Edna Purviance, were involved in a close romantic relationship during the production of his Essanay and Mutual films in 1916–1917. The romance seems to have ended by 1918, and Chaplin's marriage to Mildred Harris in late 1918 ended any possibility of reconciliation. Purviance would continue as leading lady in Chaplin's films until 1923, and would remain on Chaplin's payroll until her death in 1958. She and Chaplin spoke warmly of one another for the rest of their lives.

Mildred Harris
Mildred Harris ca 1918 - 1920.
Mildred Harris ca 1918 - 1920.

On October 23, 1918, Chaplin, age twenty-nine, married the popular child-actress, Mildred Harris, age sixteen. They had one son, Norman Spencer Chaplin (also known as "The Little Mouse"), born July 7th, 1919, who died three days later. The couple divorced on April 4, 1921.[citation needed] Chaplin admitted that he "was not in love, now that [he] was married [he] wanted to be and wanted the marriage to be a success." During the divorce, Chaplin claimed Harris had an affair with noted actress of the time Alla Nazimova, rumoured to be fond of seducing young actresses. Harris in turn claimed Chaplin was a sexual addict.[citation needed]

Pola Negri

Chaplin was involved in a very public relationship and engagement to the Polish actress Pola Negri in 1922–23, after she arrived in Hollywood to star in films. The stormy on-off engagement was halted after about nine months, but in many ways it foreshadowed the modern stereotypes of Hollywood star relationships. Chaplin's public involvement with Negri was unique in his public life. By comparison he strove to keep his other romances and relationships very discreet and private (usually without success). Many biographers have concluded the affair with Negri was largely for publicity purposes.

Marion Davies

In 1924, during the time he was involved with the underage Lita Grey, Chaplin was rumored to have had a fling with actress Marion Davies, companion of William Randolph Hearst. Davies and Chaplin were both present on Hearst's yacht the weekend preceding the mysterious death of Thomas Harper Ince. Charlie allegedly tried to persuade Marion to leave Hearst and remain with him, but she refused and stayed by Hearst's side until his death in 1951. Chaplin made a rare cameo appearance in Davies' 1928 film Show People, and by some accounts supposedly continued an affair with her until 1931.

Lita Grey

Chaplin first met Lita Grey during the filming of The Kid. Three years later, at age thirty-five, he became involved with the then 16-year-old Grey during preparations for The Gold Rush in which she was to star as the female lead. They married on November 26, 1924 after she became pregnant (a development that resulted in her being removed from the cast of the film). They had two sons, the actors Charles Chaplin Jr. (1925–1968) and Sydney Earle Chaplin (1926–). The marriage was a disaster, with the couple hopelessly mismatched. The couple divorced on August 25, 1927.[citation needed] Their extraordinarily bitter divorce in 1928 had Chaplin paying Grey a then-record-breaking US$825,000 settlement, on top of almost one million dollars in legal costs. The stress of the sensational divorce, compounded by a federal tax dispute, allegedly turned his hair white. The Chaplin biographer Joyce Milton asserted in Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin that the Grey-Chaplin marriage was the inspiration for Vladimir Nabokov's 1950s novel Lolita.

Georgia Hale

Lita Grey's replacement on The Gold Rush was Georgia Hale. In the documentary series, Unknown Chaplin, Hale, in a 1980s interview states that she had idolized Chaplin since childhood and that the then-19-year-old actress and Chaplin began an affair that continued for several years, which she details in her memoir, Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups. During production of Chaplin's film City Lights in 1929-30, Hale was called in to replace Virginia Cherrill as the flower girl. Seven minutes of test footage survives from this recasting, and is included on the 2003 DVD release of the film, but economics forced Chaplin to rehire Cherrill. In discussing the situation in Unknown Chaplin, Hale states that her relationship with Chaplin was as strong as ever during filming.

Louise Brooks

A specialty dancer in Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies, Louise Brooks met Chaplin when he came to New York for the opening there of The Gold Rush. For two months, they cavorted together at the Ritz, and with film financier A.C. Blumenthal and Follies dancer Peggy Fears in Blumenthal's penthouse suite at the Ambassador Hotel. Brooks was with Chaplin when he spent four hours watching a musician torture a violin in a Lower East Side restaurant, an act he would recreate in Limelight.

May Reeves

May Reeves was originally hired to be Chaplin's secretary on his 1931-1932 extended trip to Europe, dealing mostly with reading his personal correspondence. She worked only one morning, and then was introduced to Chaplin, who was instantly infatuated by her. May became his constant companion and lover on the trip, much to the disgust of Chaplin's brother, Syd. After Reeves also became involved with Syd, Chaplin ended the relationship and she left his entourage. Reeves chronicled her short time with Chaplin in her book, "The Intimate Charlie Chaplin".

Paulette Juliet Goddard
Paulette Goddard in Second Chorus (1940)
Paulette Goddard in Second Chorus (1940)

Chaplin and actress Paulette Goddard were involved in a romantic and professional relationship between 1932 and 1940, with Goddard living with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home for most of this time.

Chaplin "discovered" Goddard and gave her starring roles in Modern Times and The Great Dictator. Refusal to clarify their marital status is often claimed to have eliminated Goddard from final consideration for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. After the relationship ended in 1940, Chaplin and Goddard made public statements that they had been secretly married in 1936; but these claims were likely a mutual effort to prevent any lasting damage to Goddard's career. In any case, their relationship ended amicably in 1942, with Goddard being granted a settlement. Goddard went on to a major career in films at Paramount in the 1940s, working several times with Cecil B. DeMille. Like Chaplin, she lived her later life in Switzerland, dying in 1990.

Joan Barry

Chaplin had a brief affair with Joan Barry (1920-1996) in 1942, whom he was considering for a starring role in a proposed film, but the relationship ended when she began harassing him and displaying signs of severe mental illness (not unlike his mother). Chaplin's brief involvement with Barry proved to be a nightmare for him. After having a child, she filed a paternity suit against him in 1943. Although blood tests proved Chaplin was not the father of Barry's child, Barry's attorney, Joseph Scott, convinced the court that the tests were inadmissible as evidence, and Chaplin was ordered to support the child. The injustice of the ruling later led to a change in California law to allow blood tests as evidence. Federal prosecutors also brought Mann Act charges against Chaplin related to Barry in 1944, of which he was acquitted.[12] Chaplin's public image in America was gravely damaged by these sensational trials.[13] Barry was institutionalized in 1953 after she was found walking the streets barefoot, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child's ring, and murmuring: "This is magic."[14]

Oona O'Neill

During Chaplin's legal trouble over the Barry affair, he met Oona O'Neill, daughter of Eugene O'Neill, and married her on June 16, 1943. He was fifty-four; she had just turned eighteen. The elder O'Neill refused all contact with Oona after the marriage, up until his death in 1953. O'Neill and Chaplin each seemed to provide elements missing in the other's life -- she longed for the love of a father figure, and Chaplin craved her loyalty and support as his public popularity declined.[citation needed] The marriage was a long and happy one, with eight children. They had three sons: Christopher, Eugene and Michael Chaplin and five daughters: Geraldine, Josephine, Jane, Victoria and Annette-Emilie Chaplin. Oona survived Chaplin by fourteen years, but her final years were unhappy, with grief over Chaplin's death eventually leading to alcoholism. She died from pancreatic cancer in 1991.

Knighthood

He was named in the New Year's Honours List in 1975 and, on March 4, was knighted at age eighty-five as a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. The honour was first proposed in 1931, and again in 1956, when it was vetoed by the then Conservative government for fears of damage to relations with the United States at the height of the Cold War and planned invasion of Suez of that year.

Death

His robust health began to slowly fail in the late 1960s, after the completion of his final film A Countess from Hong Kong. In his final years he grew increasingly frail. He died in his sleep on Christmas Day, 1977, in Vevey, Switzerland, aged 88.[15] He was interred in Corsier-Sur-Vevey Cemetery, Vaud, Switzerland. On March 1, 1978, his corpse was stolen by a small group of Polish and Bulgarian mechanics in an attempt to extort money from his family.[16] The plot failed, the robbers were captured, and the corpse was recovered eleven weeks later near Lake Geneva. His body was reburied under two meters of concrete to prevent further attempts.

Other controversies

During World War I Chaplin was criticised in the British press for not joining the Army. He had in fact presented himself for service, but was denied for being too small and underweight. Chaplin raised substantial funds for the war effort during War bond drives, by making, at his own expense, The Bond, a comedic propaganda film used in 1918. The lingering controversy reportedly is thought to have prevented Chaplin from receiving a knighthood in the 1930s.

For Chaplin's entire career, some level of controversy existed over claims of Jewish ancestry. Nazi propaganda in the 1930s prominently portrayed him as Jewish (named Karl Tonstein) relying on articles published in the US press before,[1] and FBI investigations of Chaplin in the late 1940s also focused on Chaplin's ethnic origins. Paranoia about Jewish domination of the film industry was probably the root cause underlying this controversy. There is no documentary evidence of Jewish ancestry for Chaplin himself. For his entire public life, he fiercely refused to challenge or refute claims that he was Jewish, saying that to do so would always "play directly into the hands of anti-semites". Although baptised in the Church of England, Chaplin was thought to be an agnostic for most of his life.[17]

Chaplin has also figured in the mysterious events surrounding the death of producer Thomas Ince aboard the yacht of William Randolph Hearst in 1924, one of Hollywood's greatest mysteries. A fictionalized version of these events is depicted in Peter Bogdanovich's 2001 film The Cat's Meow. The precise circumstances of Ince's death will likely never be known.

Chaplin's lifelong attraction to younger women remains another enduring source of interest to some. His biographers have attributed this to a teenage infatuation with Hetty Kelly, whom he met in Britain while performing in the music hall, and which possibly defined his feminine ideal. Chaplin clearly relished the role of discovering and closely guiding young female stars; with the exception of Mildred Harris, all of his marriages and most of his major relationships began in this manner.

Legacy
A caricature of Charlie Chaplin by cartoonist Greg Williams.
A caricature of Charlie Chaplin by cartoonist Greg Williams.

* A minor planet 3623 Chaplin, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1981 is named after him.[18]
* There is a statue of Chaplin in front of Colosseum Theatre in Oslo.
* In 1915, Charlie Chaplin joined the Los Angeles Athletic Club (LAAC). A mural of him in his "Tramp" costume adorns one large panel on the north wall of the seventh floor, alongside the running track.
* There is a statue of Chaplin in front of the alimentarium in Vevey to commemorate the last part of his life, and a replica also stands in Leicester Square in London.
* Amongst his many honours, Chaplin has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Chaplin's star was not dedicated until the 1970s, due to controversies over his politics in the 1950s and 1960s). In 1985 he was honoured with his image on a postage stamp of the United Kingdom, and in 1994 he appeared on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. He has also a bronze statue in Waterville, County Kerry in Ireland, to show Irish appreciation for his love of the country.
* Chaplin has a waxwork in Madame Tussauds.
* In Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson put on a show for William Holden dressed up as the "Tramp."
* Italian films such as Pier Paolo Pasolini's La ricotta, Ermanno Olmi's Il posto, Sergio Leone's Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and especially Federico Fellini's La strada, 8½ and I clowns pay heartfelt homage to Chaplin's works.
* In 1992 a film was made about his life entitled Chaplin, directed by Oscar-winner Richard Attenborough, and starring Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, and Geraldine Chaplin (Charlie's daughter, portraying Charlie's mother, her own grandmother), for which Downey was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar in 1993.
* In 2001, British comedian Eddie Izzard played Chaplin in the film, The Cat's Meow, which speculated about the still-unsolved death of producer Thomas Ince aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht, on which Chaplin was a guest.
* Chaplin's Tramp character was portrayed by, amongst others, musician and artist Steve Fairnie in a famous 1980s advertising campaign for the IBM PC personal computer and later IBM PCjr.
* In Spanish, charlotada means a show of comedy in bullfighting, and a ridiculous or grotesque public performance. It is named after the comedic bullfighter Carmelo Tusquellas, nicknamed Charlot because his attire and style are reminiscent of Chaplin (also named Charlot in Spanish markets).
* Sridevi dressed and acted as Charlie Chaplin in a scene for the Hindi Film Mr. India.
* Raj Kapoor modelled his character on Charlie Chaplin in Hindi films like Shri 420 and Mera Naam Joker
* Chiranjeevi, a telugu actor imitated Chaplin in his movie "Chantabbai".
* Kamal Haasan, another Indian actor moulded his character "Chaplin Chellappa" in the tamil film Punnagai Mannan
* In an episode of Class of 3000, one of the main characters, Lil' D, dresses up as Charlie Chaplin (extending his moustache) for a costume party. One of the girls says to him, "Go away, you little tramp!"
* Chaplin was left-handed. In one book of left-handed lore, he is shown playing a violin left-handed. He rebuilt a violin to make left-handed playing easier; this would require disassembling it, moving inside parts around, and reboring the holes in the neck for the tuning pegs to allow him to restring the instrument.
* Spencer Dryden, the drummer for Jefferson Airplane from 1967-1970, was the son of Chaplin's half-brother Wheeler Dryden, thus making him Charlie Chaplin's nephew. Reportedly he kept this fact from most people, including even his band mates, in order to avoid unwelcome attention.
* Chaplin station in Willimantic, Connecticut is named after the famous comedian.
* A Clockwork Orange refers to the prison pastor as "Charlie", a play on the homophone "Chaplain".

Comparison with other silent comics

Since the 1960s, Chaplin's films have been unendingly compared to those of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd (the other two great silent film comedians alongside Charlie Chaplin), especially among the loyal fans of each comic.

The three had very different styles: Chaplin had a strong affinity for sentimentality and pathos (which was popular in the 1920s), Lloyd was renowned for his everyman persona and classic 1920s optimism, and Keaton adhered to on screen stoicism with a cynical tone more suited to modern audiences. On a historical level, Chaplin was behind the pioneering generation of film comedians, and both the younger Keaton and Harold Lloyd built upon his groundwork (in fact, Lloyd's early characters "Willie Work" and "Lonesome Luke" were obvious Chaplin ripoffs, something that Lloyd acknowledged and tried hard to move away from - eventually succeeding). Chaplin's period of film experimentation ended after the Mutual period (1916-1917), just before Keaton entered films.

Commercially, Charlie Chaplin made some of the highest-grossing films in the silent era; The Gold Rush is the fifth with US$4.25 million and The Circus is the seventh with US$3.8 million. However, Chaplin's films combined made about US$10.5 million while Harold Lloyd's grossed US$15.7 million (Lloyd was far more prolific, releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just three). Buster Keaton's films were not nearly as commercially successful as Chaplin's or Lloyd's even at the height of his popularity, and only received belated critical acclaim in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Beyond a healthy professional rivalry, Chaplin and Keaton thought highly of one another. Keaton stated in his autobiography that Chaplin was the greatest comedian that ever lived, and the greatest comedy director. Chaplin also greatly admired Keaton: he welcomed him to United Artists in 1925, advised him against his disastrous move to MGM in 1928, and for his last American film, Limelight, wrote a part specifically for Keaton as his first on-screen comedy partner since 1915.

Chaplin was an admirer of his predecessor, the French silent movie comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films.

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