Charlie Chaplin

Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. KBE, April 16, 1889 – December 25, 1977, better known as Charlie Chaplin, was an English comedy actor, becoming the most famous actor in the untimely to mid Hollywood cinema era, and also a notable director.

Chaplin was one of the most imaginative and influential personalities in the silent film era: he acted in, directed, scripted, produced, and eventually even scored his own films. His working life in entertainment span over 70 years, from the British Victorian stage and music hall in England as a child actor, almost until his death at the age of 88. He led one of the most remarkable and colorful lives of the 20th century, from a Dickens-like London childhood to the pinnacle of world fame in the film industry and as a cultural icon.

His principal character was "The Tramp": a vagrant with the superior manners and dignity of a gentleman who wears a tight coat, oversized trousers and shoes, a bowler hat, a bamboo cane, and his autograph toothbrush moustache. Chaplin's high-profile public and private life encompassed highs and lows of both adulation and controversy.