1889-1977
Sir Charles Chaplin
UK actor, filmmaker
1. Introduction
Charlie Chaplin was a film actor, director, screenwriter and music composer, best known for his tragi-comedic character ‘The Tramp’ in the silent movie era. He grew up in the UK in difficult circumstances, then moved to the USA. He and Churchill first met in 1929 in Los Angeles, getting on well together despite widely differing political views. Chaplin came under suspicion in the USA for being a communist and spent his last 24 years living in Switzerland. He received a UK knighthood in 1975, two years before his death. His coffin was dug up and held for ransom in a bizarre finale to his own tragi-comic story.
2. Stories
- Chaplin’s childhood hardships shaped his films and strong political views.
- Chaplin and Churchill met several times during Churchill’s visit to California in 1929.
- Chaplin’s first dinner at Chartwell began awkwardly, but soon lightened with Chaplin’s antics.
- Chaplin’s second visit to Chartwell was a two-night stay during which he was impressed by Churchill’s activities.
- Chaplin’s fame and political interests brought him into contact with a very wide array of people.
- Chaplin’s equivalent of Chartwell was Manoir de Ban in Switzerland, a country house with large gardens and impressive views.
- Chaplin’s body was stolen by graverobbers and held for ransom.
Chaplin’s childhood hardships shaped his films and strong political views.
Chaplin is believed to have been born in Walworth, south London in 1889, although no birth certificate exists. His parents were both music hall entertainers who separated when he was a baby. His mother Hannah had three sons (Sydney, Charlie and Wheeler) by three partners, looking after the two eldest while Wheeler lived with his father. Charlie’s father did not provide any financial support and died from alcohol abuse when Charlie was 12. Hannah and her two eldest were in and out of public workhouses and charitable institutions.
Hannah was committed to a mental institution when Charlie was 14, around the time that he gained parts in touring stage shows. He joined Sydney in a slapstick troupe and went on two tours to the USA. There he was signed by the Keystone Film Company in Los Angeles (creator of the incompetent Keystone Cops) and developed his ‘tramp’ character with ill-fitting clothes and eccentric walk. He soon became the highest paid actor in the world. He and three other actors then formed United Artists to distribute their own movies, later being joined by Alexander Korda.
His parents’ demise and his early struggles gave him the inclination to introduce pathos to slapstick, with many of his movies incorporating grim plots behind the humour. His hardships also contributed to his political views, often interpreted as left-wing. However, he said ‘my radical views have been much misunderstood. I am not a Socialist.’1 Later he commented, ‘As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and – fetters. … Can’t stand caged animals. … People must be free.’2 On another occasion he declared, ‘what I want is that every child should have enough to eat, shoes on his feet, and a roof over his head!’3
Chaplin’s views came to the attention of the FBI in the early McCarthy anti-communist era, as did his behaviour with young actresses. On a trip out of the USA in 1952, his re-entry visa was cancelled. He decided not to reapply and did not return until 20 years later, receiving a 12-minute standing ovation when he collected an Academy Honorary Award.
Chaplin and Churchill met several times during Churchill’s visit to California in 1929.
Hollywood actress Marion Davies lived in the enormous ‘Beach House’ in Santa Monica, California, and hosted a large dinner party there for Churchill. Davies was the mistress of the tycoon William Randolph Hearst, and between the two of them they invited many celebrities, including Chaplin. Chaplin recalled that Churchill was standing next to Hearst, ‘Napoleon-like with his hand in his waistcoat, watching the dancing. He seemed lost and out of place.’4 Hearst saw Chaplin, waved him over and left them to converse. Churchill was somewhat abrupt initially, and only brightened up when Chaplin raised the subject of the English Labour government.
Churchill’s son Randolph, brother Jack and nephew Johnnie were also there. Randolph failed to recognise Chaplin at first without his trademark moustache. Johnnie wrote that Marion Davies and Chaplin did a comic dance and that Chaplin’s feet were small enough to fit into Davies’s shoes (he was 5’4” (1.63 m)). After the evening’s entertainment, the Churchills and Chaplin stayed up talking until three a.m.
Chaplin invited the Churchills to lunch at his studios on Sunset Boulevard. He showed them Shoulder Arms (1918) and raw footage from City Lights (1931), which he was making at the time. He also played the piano and sang some English ballads. Some film was taken of the visit, with Churchill looking a little stiff next to Chaplin.
That evening the Churchills attended a movie premiere and after-party with Chaplin and Marion Davies. A few days later, Chaplin joined the Churchills at their Biltmore Hotel suite for dinner. Chaplin wrote that Randolph was ‘a handsome stripling of sixteen, who was esurient for intellectual argument and had the criticism of intolerant youth. I could see that Winston was very proud of him. It was a delightful evening in which father and son bantered about inconsequential things. We met several times after that at Marion’s beach house before he returned to England.’5
Churchill wrote to Clementine, ‘We made g[rea]t friends with Charlie Chaplin. You c[oul]d not help liking him. The boys were fascinated by him. He is a marvellous comedian – bolshy [Bolshevik] in politics – delightful in conversation.’6
Chaplin’s first dinner at Chartwell began awkwardly, but soon lightened with Chaplin’s antics.
City Lights premiered in London in February 1931, which Churchill was disappointed not to be able to attend due to a political commitment. Chaplin, however, made it to Churchill’s home with a cartoonist friend, Ralph Barton. Other guests were Robert Boothby, Churchill’s former parliamentary private secretary, and Brendan Bracken. ‘We had a cold, bitter drive getting there’, wrote Chaplin. ‘Chartwell is a lovely old house, modestly furnished but in good taste, with a family feeling about it.’7
Boothby wrote that at dinner ‘Chaplin opened the conversation by saying to Churchill: “You made a great mistake when you went back to the Gold Standard at the wrong parity of exchange in 1925.” [See John Maynard Keynes.] This was not at all what had been expected; and Churchill, who not unnaturally hated to talk about monetary policy, relapsed into moody silence as Chaplin continued to discourse upon the subject with great knowledge and, as I thought, great sense.’8
However, the situation soon recovered: ‘Then, suddenly, [Chaplin] picked up two rolls of bread, put two forks in them, and did the famous dance from The Gold Rush. Immediately the atmosphere relaxed, and thereafter we spent a happy evening, with both Churchill and Chaplin at the top of their form.’9
It could have become tense again when Chaplin mentioned that he was going to meet Gandhi. Bracken responded that Gandhi should be put in jail and kept there. Chaplin replied that the Indian people would produce one Gandhi after another until they got what they wanted. Churchill simply smiled and said, ‘You would make a good Labour Member.’10
Chaplin noticed that Churchill had a number of books on Napoleon and commented on this. Churchill said he was a great admirer. They had also discussed Napoleon in their late-night discussion in Santa Monica, during which Churchill said he had read that Chaplin wanted to make a movie about Napoleon and urged him to do so. If it went ahead, Churchill said, he would write the script. Chaplin developed two versions, with other scriptwriters, but neither reached the screen.
Chaplin’s second visit to Chartwell was a two-night stay during which he was impressed by Churchill’s activities.
Chaplin returned in September 1931 for a weekend with other guests including Churchill’s godson Freddy Smith, Clementine’s cousins Tom Mitford and Venetia Montagu (née Stanley), German journalist Rudolf Kommer and Gabrielle L’Honoré who gave the Churchill children French lessons. Churchill’s daughter Sarah, who had missed Chaplin’s first visit, said he was a ‘rather good-looking, desperately serious man with almost white hair’.11
Chaplin gave an insight into the household dynamics: ‘I was amused at meal-times, for Winston would politically perorate at the dinner table, while the family sat complacently unmoved. One felt it was a frequent procedure and they were used to it.’12 During one of the meals, as a break from politics, Churchill asked Chaplin who he was going to play next. ‘Jesus Christ’, said Chaplin. ‘Have you cleared the rights?’ asked Churchill. After a pause, Clementine steered the conversation back to politics.13
Chaplin was given a tour of the property and was ‘charmed by the simplicity and almost spartan taste’. As he was studying a still-life painting over a fireplace, Churchill mentioned that he had painted it. ‘But how remarkable!’ said Chaplin. ‘Nothing to it’, replied Churchill; ‘saw a man painting a landscape in the South of France and said: “I can do that”.’14 Chaplin was also amazed by Churchill’s bricklaying and mentioned that he believed it is harder to do than it looks. ‘I’ll show you how’, said Churchill, ‘and you’ll do it in five minutes.’15
Churchill and his family met Chaplin on other occasions, including Randolph seeing him again in Hollywood and being given permission to confirm publicly that Chaplin and actress Paulette Goddard had married secretly. Churchill’s last encounter was in 1956 when he came across Chaplin in the Savoy Grill in London. ‘Well!’, said Churchill. Chaplin recalled that ‘There seemed to be a disapproving note in the ‘Well!’.16 He had not responded to Churchill’s latest letter but explained that he thought that it was charming but that it did not need a response. Somewhat mollified, Churchill commented that he always enjoyed Chaplin’s pictures, and they bade their goodbyes.
Chaplin’s fame and political interests brought him into contact with a very wide array of people.
His February 1931 visit to the UK, for example, resulted in numerous invitations, summarised in his autobiography: ‘One was from the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, another from Winston Churchill, others from Lady Astor, Sir Philip Sassoon and so on down the regal line’.17 At the top of the line was the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII. At Lady Astor’s residence he dined with George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes and David Lloyd George.
The next month, he was invited by the Duke of Westminster (see Coco Chanel) to his estate in Normandy but was ill prepared for a long horse ride. He borrowed some clothes that were too big for his small frame, evoking images of his Tramp persona, and was unable to sit down for several days, having to eat his meals standing up from a mantlepiece.
Continuing his travels, he was due to meet psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in Vienna but left early because he was too cold. Freud wrote about him to a friend, ‘He is undoubtedly a great artist; certainly he always portrays one and the same figure; only the weakly, poor, helpless, clumsy youngster for whom, however, things turn out well in the end. Now do you think that for this role he has to forget his own ego? On the contrary, he always plays only himself as he was in his early dismal youth.’18
In Japan the following year, Chaplin was the guest of Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai and narrowly missed being assassinated along with his host (see Hideki Tojo). Back in California, he mingled not only with Hollywood friends but also Russian émigré composers Sergei Rachmaninov and Igor Stravinsky.
While living in Switzerland, he hosted Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India at his home and met Zhou Enlai, the first premier of the People’s Republic of China, after Zhou had watched a private screening of City Lights at the Chinese embassy in Geneva. He met Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in London in 1956.
In a Swiss radio interview in 1961, Chaplin said that he had only ever met three geniuses: Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Clara Haskil, a Romanian classical pianist.
Chaplin’s equivalent of Chartwell was Manoir de Ban in Switzerland, a country house with large gardens and impressive views.
Like Churchill, Chaplin had various residences before settling down. An early one was Flat 15, Glenshaw Mansions on Brixton Road, south London, shared with his brother in 1908 to 1910. It is commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque, unveiled in 2017 by comedian Paul Merton and Chaplin’s granddaughter Kathleen.
His best-known property before moving to Switzerland was a Spanish-style mansion in Beverly Hills, made by his studio carpenters who were not used to building long-lasting structures. It creaked loudly and various bits fell off it, earning it the local name Breakaway House. It had a tennis court which Chaplin used for his popular tennis parties. He also played at a nearby club, coached by former Wimbledon champion Fred Perry.
After Chaplin’s exclusion from the USA, he decided to settle in Switzerland for tax reasons, bidding for homes in the Lake Geneva area under the pseudonym Crocker. He purchased Manoir de Ban in 1953, an 18-room house with 37 acres (15 hectares), from a diplomat representing the country that had excluded him. He built a swimming pool, converted the basement into a climate-controlled storage area for his works and continued his screenwriting from home.
He lived there for 24 years with his fourth wife Oona, daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill, and their eight children while they were growing up. Oona was 36 years younger than him and Chaplin was 73 when his youngest child was born. His first three wives were Hollywood actresses Mildred Harris, Lita Grey and Paulette Goddard. Chaplin had three children with his former wives (one died in infancy) and was ruled to be the father in a paternity suit brought by his former partner Joan Barry, although inadmissible blood tests indicated otherwise. All his children became performers except a son who became a recording engineer.
After Chaplin’s death in 1977, Manoir de Ban was owned by Oona until her death in 1991, when it was inherited by her children. It is now Chaplin’s World, a museum and showpiece for his life and work.
Chaplin’s body was stolen by graverobbers and held for ransom.
Chaplin’s health deteriorated after a series of strokes and he died on Christmas Day 1977. He was buried in Corsier-sur-Vevey, a mile from his house, but three months later his coffin was dug up and stolen. A few days afterwards the Swiss police received a phone call demanding a ransom of 600,000 francs (£400,000, equivalent to £2,250,000 today). Oona refused to pay, believing that ‘Charlie would have thought it ridiculous’.19 The amount demanded shrank to 100,000 francs as the weeks went by.
The thieves started making threats against Oona’s children and demanded that the money be dropped off by the Chaplins’ chauffeur in the family Rolls Royce. The police decided to do a fake drop with a policeman posing as the chauffeur, but the local postman started following the car, believing it was being stolen. The police arrested the postman, suspecting him of being involved, and the sting was ruined, Keystone Cops-style.
The police bugged Oona’s phone and had agents watch 200 public phone boxes in the area. They caught Roman Wardas and Gantscho Ganev, unemployed car mechanics. Wardas had read about a kidnap incident in Italy and decided to try something similar with the help of Ganev. Two and a half months after the theft, they led the police to a nearby corn field where the buried coffin was retrieved. The farmer was initially furious about crop damage but later placed a plaque nearby to indicate Chaplin’s temporary resting place. Wardas received a four-year jail sentence and Ganev an 18-month suspended jail sentence.
Chaplin’s coffin was re-buried in its original plot, this time under a couple of tonnes of concrete. The thieves wrote letters of apology to Oona, who replied, ‘Look, I have nothing especially against you and all is forgiven’.20 Oona later said to her family, ‘In a way, it’s a shame that we found him’.21 A film about the incident was proposed which the family was initially against, but they eventually warmed to the idea, remembering some of Chaplin’s own dark plotlines. In The Price of Fame (2014), his son Eugene plays a circus manager and his granddaughter Dolores Chaplin is a character based on Oona.
3. Biographical summary
| Occupation | Actor, director, composer, screenwriter, producer, editor |
| Country | UK nationality; lived in UK, USA and Switzerland |
| Career | Performed in music halls as a teenager. Signed up by Fred Karno, taking him to the US (1910-13). Joined Keystone Studios (1914). Constructed Chaplin Studios (1918-19). Co-founded distribution company United Artists (1919). Silent movies (1923-38). His first ‘talkie’ was The Great Dictator (1940). Excluded from the USA (1952). World Peace Council’s International Peace Prize (1954). Re-edited and scored earlier films (1957-77). Academy Honorary Award (1972). UK knighthood (1975). |
| Born | 1889, probably in Walworth, south London (15 years younger than Churchill) |
| Father | Charles Chaplin (1863-1901), music hall entertainer; died aged 37 from alcoholism |
| Mother | Hannah Hill (1865-1928), music hall entertainer under the name Lily Harley; committed to a mental asylum when son Charlie was 14 |
| Siblings | 1. Half-brother Sydney Hill (1885-1965) by Hannah Hill and perhaps Sydney Hawkes; later took the name Chaplin; sailor, actor; Charlie’s business manager in later career 2. Charles ‘Charlie’ (1885-1965) 3. Half-brother Wheeler Dryden (1892-1957) by Hannah Hill and music hall entertainer Leo Dryden; born George Dryden Wheeler; father of Spencer Dryden, drummer for Jefferson Airplane |
| Education | Left school at age 13 |
| Spouses | 1. Mildred Harris (1901-44); m. 1918 at age 16, div. 1920; actress 2. Lita Grey (1908-95); m. 1924 at age 16, div. 1927; actress 3. Paulette Goddard (1910-90); m. 1936 at age 26, div. 1942; actress 4. Oona O’Neill (1925-91); m. 1943 at age 18 (Chaplin was 54) until Chaplin’s death; actress; daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill |
| Relationships | Various including Joan Barry, 1941-42, actress |
| Children | By 1st marriage: 1. Norman (1919); died 3 days after birth By 2nd marriage: 2. Charles (1925-68), actor 3. Sydney (1926-2009), actor By 3rd marriage: – By 4th marriage: eight children over the period of 18 years: 4. Geraldine (1944-) 5. Michael (1946-) 6. Josephine (1949-) 7. Victoria (1951-) 8. Eugene (1953-) 9. Jane (1957-) 10. Annette (1959-) 11. Christopher (1962-). All performers except Eugene (recording engineer). By Joan Barry: Carol Ann (disputed) (1944-?) |
| Died | On 25 December 1977 from a stroke at home: Manoir de Ban, Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland; aged 88 (13 years after Churchill) |
| Buried | Corsier-sur-Vevey, Riviera-Pays-d’Enhaut District, Vaud, Switzerland |
| Chartwell | Visitors’ book: 2 recorded visits (February and September 1931) |
| Other Club | – |
| Nickname | The Little Tramp |
| Height | 5’4” (1.63 m) |
4. See also
Movie personalities
- Korda, Alexander (director)
- Leigh, Vivien (actress)
Other characters
- Chanel, Coco
- Gandhi, Mohandas
- Keyne, John Maynard
- Lloyd George, David
- Tojo, Hideki
5. Further reading
Chaplin
- Carr, Richard, Charlie Chaplin: A Political Biography from Victorian Britain to Modern America (Taylor & Francis, 2017)
- Chaplin, Charles, My Autobiography (Penguin UK, 2003)
- IMDb, ‘Charles Chaplin’, IMDb website, 2020
- Robinson, David, Chaplin: His Life and Art (Penguin, 2014)
- Weissman, Stephen, Chaplin: A Life (Arcade, 2011)
Chaplin and Churchill
- Tolppanen, Bradley, ‘Churchill and Chaplin: The British Bulldog and the Little Tramp’, The International Churchill Society, 2018
Miscellaneous
- Scovell, Jane, Oona: Living in the Shadows (Grand Central Publishing, 2009)
- Stein, Lisa K., Syd Chaplin: A Biography (McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2014)
- Tolppanen, Bradley, Churchill in North America, 1929: A Three Month Tour of Canada and the United States (McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2014)
6. References
1. Richard Carr, Charlie Chaplin: A Political Biography from Victorian Britain to Modern America (Taylor & Francis, 2017), p. 92.
2. Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin: Interviews, ed. by Kevin J. Hayes (University Press of Mississippi, 2005), p. 121. Interview with Ella Winter.
3. Carr, p. 91.
4. Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography (Simon & Schuster, 1964), p. 339.
5. Chaplin, p. 340.
6. Winston S. Churchill and Clementine Churchill, Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, ed. by Mary Soames (Black Swan, 1999), p. 347.
7. Chaplin, p. 340.
8. Robert J.G. Boothby, Boothby: Recollections of a Rebel (Hutchinson, 1978), p. 51.
9. Boothby, p. 51.
10, Chaplin, p. [000].
11. Sarah Churchill, A Thread in the Tapestry (Dodd, Mead, 1967), p. 35.
12. Chaplin, p. [000].
13. Sarah Churchill, p. 35.
14. Chaplin, p. 340.
15. Ibid.
16. Chaplin, p. 484.
17. Chaplin, p. 339.
18. Sigmund Freud, Letters of Sigmund Freud, ed. by Ernst L. Freud (Dover, 1992), p. 260.
19. Diana Hawkins and Richard Attenborough, Entirely Up to You, Darling (Random House, 2014), p. [000].
20. Geoffrey Macnab, ‘Charlie Chaplin’s Family See the Funny Side of Film about His Corpse Being Stolen’, Independent, 2014.
21. Ibid.