Fascinating Old Photos of a Young Charlie Chaplin Without His Iconic Mustache and Hat

Charlie Chaplin is widely regarded as the greatest comedian of the screen and one of the most important figures in motion-picture history.

His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until the year before his death in 1977, and included both acclaim and controversy.

Chaplin's childhood in London was spent in poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financially – he was twice sent to work before the age of nine.

When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, visiting music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian.

At age 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was sought out by the film industry and began appearing for Keystone Studios in 1914.

He soon developed a Trump persona and attracted a large fan base. He directed his own films and continued to hone his craft while also taking on Essen, Mutual and First National Corporation. By 1918, he was one of the most famous men in the world.

In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists, which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length film was The Kid (1921), followed by A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928).

He initially refused to move into sound films in the 1930s, instead producing City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) without dialogue. His first sound film was The Great Dictator (1940), which satirized Adolf Hitler.

The 1940s were marked by controversy for Chaplin and a rapid decline in his popularity. He was accused of communist sympathies, and was slandered by some members of the press and the public for his involvement in a paternity suit and for marrying very young women.

An FBI investigation was opened, and Chaplin was deported to the U.S. Was forced to leave and settle in Switzerland. He abandoned Tramp in his later films, including Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957) and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967).

Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. He was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a portrait.

His films juxtapose spectacle with the compassion that is typical of Trump's struggles against adversity. Many contain social and political themes as well as autobiographical elements.

In 1972 he received an Honorary Academy Award for "the incomparable influence he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century" as part of a renewed appreciation for his work.

In 1998, film critic Andrew Sarris called Chaplin "arguably the most important artist ever produced by cinema, certainly its most extraordinary artist and perhaps still its most universal icon".

He has been described by the British Film Institute as "a towering figure in world culture", and was included in Time magazine's list of the "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century", saying "[he] brought laughter to millions". for the people" and because he "more or less invented global recognition and helped turn an industry into an art".

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin as the 10th greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.

Trump's image has become part of cultural history; According to Simon Louvish, the character is recognizable to people who have never seen a Chaplin film, and in places where his films have never been shown.

Critic Leonard Maltin wrote of the Tramp's "unique" and "indelible" nature, and argued that no other comedian matched his "worldwide impact".

Praising the character, Richard Schickel suggests that Chaplin's films with the Tramp contain "the most eloquent, richly comic expressions of the human spirit" in film history.

Memorabilia associated with the character still fetches large sums at auction: in 2006 a bowler hat and a bamboo stick that were part of Trump's costume bought for $140,000 at a Los Angeles auction.

As a filmmaker, Chaplin is considered a pioneer and one of the most influential figures of the early twentieth century. He is often credited as one of the first artists of the medium.

Film historian Mark Cousins wrote that Chaplin "changed not only the imagery of cinema, but also its sociology and grammar", and claimed that Chaplin was as important to the development of comedy as a genre as D.J. W. Griffith had to make a play.

He was the first to popularize the feature-length comedy and slow down the pace of the action, adding compassion and subtlety to it.

Although his work is mostly classified as slapstick, Chaplin's play A Woman of Paris (1923) was a major influence on Ernst Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle (1924) and thus played a role in the development of "sophisticated comedy". played the part.

According to David Robinson, Chaplin's innovations were "rapidly assimilated to become part of the general practice of the film craft".