Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on April 16, 1889 in Walworth, London, and lived a Dickensian childhood, shared with his brother, Sydney, that included extreme poverty, workhouses and seeing his mother"s mental decline put her into an institution. Both his parents, though separated when he was very young, were music hall artists, his father quite famously so. But it was his mother Charlie idolized and was inspired by during his visits backstage while she performed, to take up such a career for himself. He achieved his ambition when he joined a dancing troop, the Eight Lancashire Lads, and this eventually...
America.

McCarthyite political maneuverings effectively ejected him from the country and he wasn"t to return until 1972, when he received a special Academy Award. In the meantime, though heartily welcomed back to Britain, he moved to Switzerland with his wife, Oona O" Neill, and their children.

He made two more films, A King In New York 1957, with Dawn Addams and A Countess From Hong Kong 1967, with Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando and spent his final years writing music for his films and enjoying his family life before he died, at 4 A.M. on Christmas Day in 1977.