Charlie Chaplin

Charles Spencer Chaplin's parents, Charles and Hannah Chaplin, were music hall entertainers. My first stage appearance, at age five, was singing a song in place of my mother who had become ill. At eight I toured in a musical, "The Eight Lancaster Lads". Nearly 11, I appeared in "Giddy Ostende" at London's Hippodrome. From age 17 to 24 I was involved with Fred Karno's English vaudeville troupe, which brought me to New York in 1910, aged 21. In November of 1913 I signed a contract with Mack Sennett at Keystone and left for Hollywood the next month. My first movie, Making a Living (1914), premiered in February of 1914. I then made 35 films that year, moved to Essanay in 1915 and did 14 more, then jumped over to Mutual for 12 two-reelers in 1916 and 1917. In 1918 I joined First National (later absorbed by Warner Bros.) and in 1919 formed United Artists along with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith. My first full-length film was The Kid (1921); my first for UA, which I produced and directed myself, was A Woman of Paris (1923). In 1929, at the first Oscar awards, I won a special award "for versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing" The Circus (1928). In 1943 I was accused of fathering a child; the papers made much of the scandal, but it was proved in a court trial that I was not the father. The same year I entered into my fourth marriage, to Oona Chaplin, daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. We had eight children - 3 Sons and 5 daughters. Tired of political and moralistic controversies and plagued with tax problems, I left the United States for Switzerland in 1952. I published my memoirs in 1964. In 1972 I returned to Hollywood to claim a special Oscar honoring my lifetime contributions to movies. I was Knighted by her majesty the queen in 1975.