Unexpected facts from the life of Charlie Chaplin. Interesting facts about history He had blue eyes

Charlie Chaplin is the most famous actor of the early 20th century. One of the few representatives of the silent film era whose name we hear through the decades.

U Charles Spencer Chaplin, popularly known as "Charlie Chaplin" had a tragic childhood. His father died when he was 12 due to alcohol abuse. His mother suffered from periodic bouts of insanity and was committed to a mental hospital. As a result, Charlie had to start working at a very early age to support himself.

He chose the stage and made his professional debut at the age of eight as part of a children's dance group called the Eight Lancashire Lads.

At the age of eighteen, he toured the United States and this was the beginning of his brilliant career. The Great Actor's journey spanned more than 75 years, starting as a child in the Victorian era and ending a year before his death at the age of 88.

We have selected for you some little-known facts about Chaplin:

He was the first actor to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

He married 4 times and fathered 12 children.

Charlie Chaplin took third place in the competition of his own doubles.

He portrayed Adolf Hitler in the film The Great Dictator.

He won an Academy Award for Best Score for Footlights.

His daughter, actress Geraldine Chaplin, played the role of his mother in the film Chaplin.

Due to suspicions that he was a communist, his prints were removed from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and were subsequently lost.

His body was stolen after he died. The criminals tried to extort money from his family. Chaplin's body was returned 11 weeks later after the robbers were found and detained. The burial is now under 2 meters of concrete to prevent further theft attempts.

Charlie Chaplin never became a US citizen and was expelled from the country in 1953 because he renounced his US citizenship. He spent the rest of his life in Switzerland, dying in his sleep in the city of Vevey on the night of December 25, 1977 at the age of 88.

Interesting facts about Charlie Chaplin is a great opportunity to learn more about great artists. Many consider him the best silent film actor in the history of the film industry. Many films with his participation are more than a century old, but they do not lose their popularity today.

We bring to your attention the most interesting facts about Charlie Chaplin.

1. (1889-1977) - American and British actor, director, film producer, composer, screenwriter and editor.
2. Charlie was born in London (see), in a family of variety actors.
3. Charlie Chaplin's first appearance on stage took place at the age of 5.
4. Chaplin repeatedly admitted that on his father's side he had gypsy roots, which he was very proud of.
5. Did you know that Charlie Chaplin was left-handed?
6. Charlie's childhood can hardly be called happy. His father died due to alcoholism, and his mother eventually went crazy.
7. An interesting fact is that due to serious financial difficulties in the family, Chaplin was forced to start working early. He delivered newspapers, worked in a printing house and was a doctor's assistant.
8. Due to frequent absences from school, Charlie was illiterate. Once, when he had to undergo an interview, the future actor was afraid that he would have to read out some text, since he read very poorly.
9. In his youth, Charlie Chaplin mastered playing the violin. Later he worked for several years as a musician in a variety show.
10. It is curious that Chaplin was the first actor in history whose photo appeared on the cover of a magazine.
11. Charlie won 3 Oscars, despite the fact that all these awards were not awarded to him for his acting.
12. Once he spoke about Chaplin as the only genius who came out of the film industry.
13. In 1975, the Queen of Great Britain (see) awarded Charlie Chaplin a knighthood.
14. Charlie loved to dance, and his favorite dance was the tango.
15. In 1954, Charlie Chaplin received the International Peace Prize.
16. For the film “The Great Dictator,” where the actor ridiculed, he ended up on the list of the Fuhrer’s personal enemies.
17. Chaplin was married 4 times, leaving behind 12 children.
18. An interesting fact is that the last time the comedian became a father was at the age of 72!
19. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Charlie Chaplin one of the TOP 10 greatest male actors of the last 100 years.
20. Until the age of 33, Chaplin did not have his own home, which is why he had to live in rented houses or hotels. In 1922, he built a house in the Beverly Hills area, which had 40 rooms, a movie theater and an organ.
21. Being already a famous actor, the artist secretly decided to take part in the Chaplin look-alike competition. Alas, he failed to win the competition.
22. In 1917, Charlie Chaplin became the first film actor in the history of the film industry to be signed to a $1 million contract!
23. The comedian was a fan of boxing, as a result of which he often attended boxing matches.
24. One of Charlie Chaplin's wives later married (see).
25. Did you know that Chaplin is the only owner of 2 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
26. In 1928, Charlie Chaplin was able to predict the collapse of the exchange-traded fund, which became a harbinger of the Great Depression, by selling all his shares in advance.
27. Chaplin was the author of the music for most of his own films.
28. After the death of the great actor, his grave was opened and his body was stolen. The criminals wanted to get a ransom, but the police managed to track them down and put them behind bars.
29. Chaplin wrote an autobiography giving it a simple title - “My Autobiography”.

These were the most interesting facts about Charlie Chaplin. If you liked this article, share it on social networks. If you love at all

This giant was only 165 cm tall and weighed about 60 kg. In his youth he could boast not only of blue eyes, but also of dark curly hair. This handsome young man was magically transformed when, having pasted on a touching mustache, put on a bowler hat and picked up a cane, with a funny “heels together” gait he entered the frame outlined by the most primitive, from today’s point of view, movie camera... Great Charlie. Charles Spencer Chaplin.

One day his mother was booed on the stage of an English variety show. Then the director, in order to somehow fill the pause, led five-year-old Charlie onto the stage by the hand. The boy sang a song. Surprisingly, he was not booed - on the contrary, they began throwing coins onto the stage. Charlie suddenly fell silent mid-sentence and said: I will collect the coins, and then I will sing to the end. The hall thundered. The director blushed. He helped Charlie collect the coins, but the boy did not leave his side until he was sure that his mother had received all the money. And only after that I finished my speech. They say he got a standing ovation. This was the debut of Great Charlie.

After this, his artistic career continued uninterrupted until his death on Christmas Day 1977. As a fourteen-year-old teenager in 1903, Charlie received a permanent job in the theater. But Billy was afraid of his role as a messenger in the play “Sherlock Holmes” - he had to hide the fact that he was... illiterate. His brother Sidney helped him with the role. Charlie learned the role, but understood that he couldn’t take any further risks. Two years later, he finally learned to read and write.

Charlie Chaplin is rightfully among the top most talented left-handers in the world. His left hand was a real working one. But this did not stop him from playing the violin. And he did this regularly, from the age of 16. He could spend four or sixteen hours on lessons or exercises.

In 1914, before filming Mabel's Extraordinary Predicament, Charlie Chaplin found himself in a real quandary: he didn't know how to put on his makeup. I had to improvise. A funny little man in baggy pants, oversized shoes, a bowler hat and a cane in his hands came out of the dressing room into the filming pavilion. A small mustache darkened under the nose to hide excessive youth, but not expressive facial expressions. Thus the image of the Tramp was born. Charlie Chaplin's calling card. Silent film symbol. A symbol of all cinema when he was still young...

In 1917, French film director and film critic Louis Delluc called 28-year-old Charlie Chaplin the most famous person in the world, eclipsing the glory of Joan of Arc, Louis XIV and Clemenceau, and becoming on a par with Jesus Christ and Napoleon. That same year, the film studio First National Pictures signed a contract with him for one million dollars. You can imagine how much a dollar was worth back then and what crazy money it was. The most expensive actor in history!

The following year, Charlie Chaplin married 16-year-old actress Mildred Harris for the first time. It must be said that Great Charlie preferred young teenage girls. His third wife, Paulette Goddard (at the end of her life, who became the wife of the great writer Erich Maria Remarque) was 19 years old at the time of their marriage, and his fourth, Una O’Neill, was 18 years old. And Chaplin's second wife, 16-year-old Lita Gray, is a completely different matter. Chaplin biographer Joyce Milton claims that the relationship between Chaplin and Gray formed the basis of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita.

There is a special connection between Charlie Chaplin and... Adolf Hitler. Firstly, Charlie is only four days older than the Fuhrer. Secondly, in 1940, Chaplin made a poignant anti-war film, The Great Dictator, which ridiculed the image of Hitler. At that time, relations between the United States and Nazi Germany were neutral, and Chaplin was under pressure from above to avoid an international scandal. After Germany attacked the USSR, the pressure stopped. There is evidence that Hitler ordered a copy of The Great Dictator and watched it. After this, Goebbels propaganda called the Englishman Chaplin a Jew. By the way, “The Great Dictator” is Chaplin’s first sound film, and the last where he appeared in the image of the Tramp.

Because of his leftist views, Chaplin had troubles with American law enforcement officers.

Especially after speaking at a rally demanding the opening of a second front and starting with the appeal “Comrades!” Chaplin was never a communist, but the FBI listed him as such. The persecution peaked in 1952, during the McCarthy era. When Chaplin went to London for the world premiere of his film Footlights, FBI Director Edgar Hoover, accusing the artist of anti-American activities, secured a ban on his entry into the United States. From then until his death, the great actor lived in the Swiss city of Vevey.

Charles Spencer Chaplin had to be buried twice. A few months after the funeral, criminals dug up the coffin with Chaplin's body in order to obtain a ransom for it. The Swiss police managed to quickly find and arrest the attackers. For the second time, Charlie Chaplin was buried, “covering” the coffin on top with a six-foot layer of concrete to avoid similar attempts in the future.

The brilliant Horowitz plays
for the brilliant Chaplin

Various celebrities often visited Charlie Chaplin's house. Arthur Rubinstein, Igor Stravinsky, Rachmaninov visited him, and once Vladimir Horowitz came with his wife Wanda (Toscanini’s daughter) and their eight-year-old daughter Sonya. Chaplin could not get enough of Horowitz, he asked to play again and again. When Horowitz left, Chaplin said admiringly:
– When he plays, it seems as if there is an orchestra in the room. His performance just blows my mind!

Chaplin and Einstein

Einstein once wrote to Charlie Chaplin: “Your film The Gold Rush is understood throughout the world, and you are sure to become a great man.” To which Chaplin replied: “I admire you even more. Nobody in the world understands your theory of relativity, but you still became a great man.”

They say: once Einstein and Chaplin were greeted by enthusiastic Americans, and the great artist said to the great scientist: “They applaud you because no one understands you, but they applaud me because everyone understands me.”

Unusual fee

In 1964, Charlie Chaplin published his autobiography. The great comedian sold the rights to its English and American editions for half a million dollars. And the Soviet newspaper Izvestia, having published an excerpt of 1000 words, sent Chaplin to Switzerland its fee - four kilograms ("nine pounds" - writes Chaplin's biographer D. Robinson) of black caviar due to the non-convertibility of the ruble. That's how they paid in typical Russian fashion. Well, at least not with hemp and wax.

Is there at least one person in the world who has watched a movie at least once in his life and at the same time has no idea who Charlie Chaplin is? It’s unlikely, because this brilliant actor, who stood at the origins of silent cinema and became famous throughout the world, made such a contribution to the development of cinema that, perhaps, no one has been able to repeat so far.

Interesting facts from the life of Charlie Chaplin

• Chaplin ranks tenth in the hundred brightest American film stars of the century among men.
• He also mastered all professions related to cinema in one way or another - he was an actor, director, wrote scripts and music, was an editor and much more.
• Bernard Shaw considered Chaplin the only person from cinema worthy of being called a genius.
• Chaplin is the winner of 3 Oscar awards, including two non-competitive awards. One of the awards went to him for “transforming cinema into art.”
• The actor’s paternal grandmother came from a gypsy family, which Charlie himself was very proud of.
• Chaplin's parents were stage actors. His father’s life ended suddenly at the age of 37 due to the artist’s addiction to alcohol. Charlie was barely 12 at the time.
• Charlie Chaplin performed for the first time in the music hall of the British capital at the age of 5 - he replaced his sick mother. The audience rewarded the boy with an enthusiastic ovation.
• Having lost her husband, Chaplin's mother fell ill due to illness. The family quickly ended up in a workhouse, and then Charlie and his brother were sent to a school for orphans and the poor. Soon the boys' mother lost her mind, she was placed in a mental hospital, and the children began to earn their own living.
• Young Charlie rarely went to school and worked wherever he could - he sold newspapers, worked in a printing house and was a doctor's assistant.
• At the age of 14, Chaplin received his first role in the theater - an illiterate teenager could not read the text of the role, but learned the words thanks to the help of his brother.
• His career continued in variety shows - from the age of 16 he played the violin every day from 4 to 16 hours.

• Chaplin himself came up with the image of the “Little Tramp”, which then brought him worldwide fame - baggy trousers, huge shoes, an overly narrow business card, a small bowler hat on his head, a cane and a black mustache.
• Chaplin's famous pose, when he stood leaning on a thin cane, was borrowed by him from his father - Charlie noticed it in one of the family photographs.
• To make his characters more comical, the actor put his shoes on the wrong feet.
• Chaplin made his first independent film when he was 25 years old - he was simultaneously the leading actor, director and screenwriter of the film.
• Chaplin was the highest paid film actor of his time - he managed to sign a contract with a film studio for a million dollars.
• He crossed the Atlantic on the luxurious ship Olympic, the twin brother of the Titanic.
• When Chaplin arrived from the USA to his native London, he received 73 thousand letters from fans in 3 days.
• The actor’s house in Los Angeles had 4 dozen rooms, a cinema hall and an organ.
• Chaplin was friends with a deaf artist who helped the actor hone his pantomime skills.
• In the early 1950s, he went to London for the premiere of his film, but the actor was no longer allowed back to the USA, where he was considered a secret supporter of the communists. Chaplin's main persecutor was FBI head Edgar Hoover (

Charlie Chaplin was born in England (London) in 1889. But he became famous in the USA, where he first arrived in 1921. His portrayal of the Little Tramp is considered one of the best of the silent film era. Apart from the art, however, there are many interesting things that you may not know about Chaplin himself. He lived a difficult life and often found himself at odds with the American political and social mores of his time. Which ultimately led to his voluntary exile to Switzerland, where he died at the age of 88. In addition, the actor was known for his love for very young girls, he was married 4 times and each time the difference in the ages of the spouses was more and more significant. Here are some more interesting facts about the life of the great actor.

He started performing as a child

First job

He didn't win the look-alike contest

He was a talented composer

He earned more than the president

He refused to talk

He never became a US citizen

He had four wives and 11 children

He helped Disney

He had blue eyes

He knew Albert Einstein

His daughter played his mother in the biopic

Chaplin VS. Hitler

He received a star on the Walk of Fame in 1972

After death