The most successful comedian of all time went by the name of Charlie Chaplin. It was said by many that Charlie Chaplin was the creator of comedy, while others considered him a genius. Charlie Chaplin could make people laugh even with no sound. And even though his films were black and white he put a lot of color into everyone’s life. Charlie Chaplin was a man with many talents and despite his rough childhood he strived to become the legend he is today
The creator of comedy was born in London in April of 1889. His parents, Charles Chaplin and Hanna Hill were music hall entertainers but separated shortly after Charlie was born, leaving Hanna to provide for her children. Unfortunately his father died of alcoholism in 1901 and his mother became ill, constantly going in and out of mental institutions. Chaplin lived his childhood in and out of run-down furnished rooms, state poorhouses, and an orphanage. His childhood was marked by poverty, cruelty, hunger, and loneliness- subjects which became major themes in his silent comedies.
Charlie Chaplin was taught to sing before he could talk and danced just as soon as he could walk. At a very young age Chaplin was told that he would become the most famous person in the world. A sign of this was when he was five years old and sang for his mother on stage after she became ill and taken for crazy. The audience apparently loved him and hurled their money onto the stage. By the age of ten, Charles was a skilled singer, acrobat, juggler, pantomime, and comic improvisor. From the ages of twelve to fourteen, Charlie’s places of employment included a barbershop, stationary store, doctor’s office, glass factory and printing plant. Many average boys his age didn’t even have a job. Charlie’s big escape from poverty was through theatre, whereby the age of sixteen he was playing the featured role in the production of Sherlock Holmes. At the age of twenty, Charlie came to the United States and begun his career as a top comedian. Although most of us recognize him as only a comedian, Charlie was much more. He was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmaking process- founding his own studio, United Artists and producing, casting directing, writing, scoring, and editing the movies he stared in.
Charlie Chaplin revolutionized the entertainment industry by transforming it into a form of art by introducing characterization, mime, and comedy through silence. Thanks to Chaplin, comedy began to be centered on the performer as opposed to the events, which befell him. People couldn’t wait to get home from the stress and hardship of reality to sit and watch his shows