CHARLIE
CHAPLIN
The
laughter he brought to the lives of others equaled the sufferings he experienced
in his own.Born in the eternally gray London of 1889, Charlie Chaplin started out bleakly. He was to endure some very tough years of childhood before his sweetly infectious stage persona and razor-sharp characterizations would pull him out of a desperate situation and into the limelight. And even after he achieved success, Chaplin maintained an ambiguous relationship with the society that brought him fame and fortune.
Reportedly, Chaplin "could sing before he could talk and dance as soon as he walked." Not unlikely, given his mother was a vaudeville performer. However, during all this precocious singing and dancing, Chaplin’s mother suffered mental breakdowns and his kind father was generally drunk. The stage proved to be a surrogate home for young Charlie --at the age of five he stood in for his mother when she was too hoarse to sing. The adulation was immediate, as patrons threw money and affection at the charming waif.
Throughout his youth, he performed any way he could –- clog dancing, miming, acting in circuses -- to keep himself out of orphanages and work houses. Chaplin’s luck turned when he returned to vaudeville in his late teens. His talent for comic mime quickly garnered him spots with various touring troupes. After visiting America, he decided to set up camp there in 1910. By 1914, he had debuted in his first feature film, "Making a Living," with Keystone Films.
And make a living he did, playing the baggy-suited, cane-carrying Tramp character. Chaplin's Tramp hit a nerve with audiences everywhere -– he was a passionate symbol of humanity’s triumph over adversity and persecution, of emotional individualism in the jaws of mechanized modernity. Chaplin was so popular that studios had a hard time keeping up with his asking salary. Plus, he was still single, a rarity for such a star.
He soon impulsively married, but he wouldn't stay wed for long -- a total of four marriages were tested against his intensely driven career. His first love was movies, and a controlling lover he was.
Not content with silver-screen stardom, Chaplin helped establish United Artists in 1919 in order to produce and distribute his films independently. Fully in charge, Chaplin rose to new levels of artistry. He relied heavily on improvisation and worked out the scenes on film with minimal prior rehearsal. He shot scenes over and over, experimenting with subtleties of expression and timing. As many as seven years could lapse before he released a film. The string of films he produced –- including "The Kid" (1925), "City Lights" (1931), "Modern Times" (1936), "The Great Dictator" (1940), "Monsieur Verdoux" (1947), and "Limelight" (1952) –- show the fruits of such painstaking labor. They reveal a physical expressiveness otherwise lost in the world of "talkies."
Full of both satire and pathos, they criticize and sympathize in equal measure. As he matured, Chaplin took on timely social issues. His "Modern Times" is a pointed commentary on industrialization and its alienating effects, while "The Great Dictator" made Hitler look ridiculous in a way only Chaplin could get away with.
His career moved along smoothly until the '50s, when he accused of ties with the Communist Party. His work made him an easy target for "Red" paranoia -- films like "The Idle Class" (1921) and "Modern Times" are blatantly suspicious of commerce and the idle rich. Chaplin was forbidden from leaving the United States until 1952, when the FBI admitted it had insufficient evidence to support its claims. He and his family immediately left the country and claimed permanent residence in Switzerland. He got his revenge in 1957 with the film "The King in New York," a satirical look at the House Committee on Un-American Activities, among other things.
Chaplin and America did make amends in 1972, when he returned briefly to receive a special Academy Award for lifetime achievement. Despite the controversy, Chaplin died in 1977 a universally loved cultural icon. He could provoke laughter with the roll of his eyes or that little ducky waddle. He could evince tears with the downturn of his shoulders. And he addressed social concerns from the heart, not the soap box.
His work embodies all those things we hope to not forget in our modern times: freedom from conformity, compassion for the downtrodden, humanity in times of danger. Perhaps his own encounters with adversity prompted him to address these topics with such a loving hand.
