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Charlie Chaplin: Icon of Silent Film

Charlie Chaplin was an English actor and film director during the silent film era. He became one of the most famous film stars in the world before World War I ended through his portrayal of the Tramp character. Chaplin co-founded United Artists in 1919 with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith. Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent film era, working in entertainment for over 75 years from childhood until close to his death at age 88.

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196 views1 page

Charlie Chaplin: Icon of Silent Film

Charlie Chaplin was an English actor and film director during the silent film era. He became one of the most famous film stars in the world before World War I ended through his portrayal of the Tramp character. Chaplin co-founded United Artists in 1919 with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith. Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent film era, working in entertainment for over 75 years from childhood until close to his death at age 88.

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drotar.minerva6200
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, (16


April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an
English comic actor and film director of the silent
film era. He became one of the best-known film stars
in the world before the end of the First World War.
Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual
comedy routines, and continued well into the era of
the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency
from the end of the 1920s.
His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in
the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914. From the April 1914 one-
reeler Twenty Minutes of Love onwards he was writing and directing most of his
films, by 1916 he was also producing, and from 1918 composing the music.
With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United
Artists in 1919.
Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-
film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent movie comedian 
Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment
spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the Music Hall in the United
Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-
profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's
identification with the left ultimately forced him to resettle in Europe during
the McCarthy era in the early 1950s.
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th greatest male
screen legend of all time. In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A
Life, wrote: "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-
torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself
apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great
Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. ... It is doubtful any
individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human
beings when they needed it the most". George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the
only genius to come out of the movie industry".

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