10 Things You May Not Know About Charlie Chaplin
Posted On: Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 | Posted By: Alex Carlson
1) According to legend Chaplin’s infamous tramp costume was assembled when he took various costume pieces from other stars in the Keystone male dressing room. He borrowed Fatty Arbuckle’s enormous trousers, Charles Avery’s size extra small jacket, Ford Sterling’s size fourteen shoes, and a small derby hat belonging to Arbuckle’s father in law. This has never been confirmed, but it is commonly believed to be true.
2) He was so meticulous about getting scenes just right, that he would shoot them over and over, sometimes a hundred times, until he felt it was right. An example is during the famous scene in The Gold Rush where he eats his shoelaces. The shoelaces were actually made out of licorice and he shot the scene so many times that he had to go to the hospital because he suffered from sugar shock.
3) He won only one Academy Award and it was for original music for the film Limelight in 1972. The film was originally released in 1952, but did not actually screen in Los Angeles until 20 years later, thus making it eligible for Oscar consideration. He received two other honorary Academy Awards in 1929 and 1972.
4) Despite being one of the most popular film stars of his time, he was bad at predicting the advances in technology and entertainment. He thought that sound in movies was just a fad and continued making films without dialogue throughout the 1930s. He also showed disdain towards the Academy Awards when they were first created.
5) He shared a boarding house with Stan Laurel of comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, when they both first came to America. They weren’t allowed to cook at the boarding house so Chaplin would play the violin loudly while Laurel would cook on a frying pan.
6) When he married his first wife, Mildred Harris, he was 29, she was 17. When he married his second wife, Lita Grey, he was 35, she was 16. When he married his third wife, Paulette Goddard, he was 47, she was 26. When he married his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, he was 54, she was 17.
7) Joyce Milton asserts in her book Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin that Chaplin’s relationship with his second wife, Lita Grey, was the inspiration Vladimir Nabakov’s controversial book Lolita. This allegation is not confirmed to be true.
8) His corpse was stolen from the Corsier-Seur-Vevey Cemetery in Vaud, Switzerland on May 1, 1978. The thieves attempted to hold it for ransom, but they failed and were caught. Chaplin’s body was returned to the cemetery about 3 months after it was stolen and buried under a thick layer of concrete.
9) The track “This is My Song,” which Chaplin wrote for his film A Countess from Hong Kong, reached number one on the UK Charts. That version was sung by Petula Clark.
10) He produced a film that was never seen called “The Sea Gull,” which would have been released in 1933. Instead, he destroyed the original negative in front of a crowd. It’s unclear exactly why the film never got released, but many speculate it was because of he did not like the performance of leading lady, and longtime Chaplin collaborator, Edna Purviance.
