Charlie Chaplin (1951)

Record Details:

Title:
Charlie Chaplin
Date:
1951
Publisher:
New York : Henry Schuman, Inc.
Volume:
Charlie Chaplin
Leaf #:
00030
Language:
English
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library
Sponsor:
{"Media History Digital Library","Richard Koszarski","Jeff Joseph"}
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
March 21, 2024
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I I childhood and stage career Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on April 16, 1889, m London, England, just about the time that Thomas A. Edison in far-off America had finally succeeded in developing motion pictures. Date and birthplaces are certain but otherwise there is considerable mystery surrounding the event. The name Charles Chaplin does not appear in the records of Somerset House, where all English births are recorded, suggesting that Chaplin might not be his real name. His father, bearing the same name, came of an Anglicized French Jewish family. His mother Hannah (last name unknown) was said to be of Spanish and Irish origin. Both parents were vaudevillians. His mother had run away from home at sixteen. Under the stage name of Lily Harley she sang and danced in various troupes, including Gilbert and Sullivan companies. Chaplin senior, billed as a "topical vocalist," was famous in the music halls of the eighties for his baritone voice. He had appeared on the Continent and once in New York, singing descriptive ballads. One of Charles' half-brothers, Sidney, four years his senior, was the son of a former marriage of Hannah's to Sidney Hawkes, a Jewish bookmaker. After her divorce from Hawkes, Sidney entered her new household and also took the Chaplin name. The two other half-brothers