Word: chaplinitis
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...known "by people who have never heard of Jesus Christ," Screen Star Charlie Chaplin once said of himself. Yet when the Little Tramp of silent films was buried in Switzerland last week, following his death on Christmas Day at the age of 88, the final scene was a family affair. Wife Oona, 52, a small circle of friends and servants, and eight of Chaplin's nine children gathered in Corsier-sur-Vevey, the small village where he had lived for the last 25 years and where he was laid to rest in a plot overlooking Lake Geneva. Chaplin...
...last, Chaplin, who died at 88 on Christmas Day at his home in Vevey, Switzerland, produced simply himself. But that self was not so simple. It was first introduced to America as a vaudeville clown in 1910, and the country did not respond warmly. Charlie's comic flare failed to ignite enthusiasm until the epochal one-reeler in which he tried on Fatty Arbuckle's pants and Chester Conklin's jacket. In that moment The Tramp was born, and with him a long parabola of triumph and humiliation. The arc described a career bred of deprivation...
Charles Spencer Chaplin had risen from the darkest of London slums. His father was an alcoholic; his mother sewed blouses for 1½ pence each. Charlie's great character was a memory of that Dickensian experience, a waif in the tradition of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. Comedy derives from the Greek kōmos, a dance. And indeed, as The Tramp capered about with his unique sleight of foot, he created a choreography of the human condition. In classics like Modern Times, The Gold Rush, The Great Dictator, objects spoke out as never before: bread rolls became ballet...
...rise in show business, even to so stratospheric a level as The Tramp's, and there comes an evening of the Long Knives. For Chaplin, night came early and stayed late. He became embroiled in a series of affairs. He married and divorced two teen-agers and earned a reputation as Hollywood's outstanding satyr. His dalliances shocked the nation and nearly ruined his career. But Chaplin always managed to rescue himself with new apologies and fresh performances...
DIED. Sir Charles Chaplin, 88, comic genius; of old age; in Vevey, Switzerland (see CINEMA...