Charlie Chaplin, left, and Jackie Coogan appear in a scene from Chaplin's 1921 silent film, "The Kid." As one of Hollywood's legendary figures, Chaplin made his reputation playing the role of "The Tramp" in such classic films as "Gold Rush" and "Modern Times." He was one of the founders of United Artists studios in 1919 which produced some of Hollywood's greatest motion pictures. (AP 100 Photos of the Century, 11/18/1999)

Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin cartoon in Literary Digest, 1921/10/08

1889 - born in London, theater family, orphaned

1913 - signed by Sennett for $150 per week

• made 35 films for Keystone - crude comedy

1915 - signed by Essanay for $1250 per week

• made 13 films, e.g., The Tramp - pathos

1916 - signed by Mutual for $10,000 per week

• made 12 films, The Vagabond - Edna Purviance

1917 - signed by First National for $125,000 per film

• made 8 films, A Dog's Life, 3 reeler of 2674 ft., that had realism, contrasting values, & Scamp

1918 - with Fairbanks in 3rd Liberty Loan, made Shoulder Arms - dream sequence

1919 - builds own studio & creates United Artists

1920 - The Kid, 5250 ft., makes $2,500,000

• essay by Stephen M. Weissman

1923 - directs A Woman of Paris, but not as a comedy

1925 - epic Gold Rush, 8498 ft. - Georgia's picture

1928 - The Circus, with shadow self, the ringmaster

1931 - non-talkie City Lights

• begins series of social comment films rather than comedy-first films

1936 - Modern Times - released Feb. 5

• the 8126 ft. final cut from 215,000 ft.
• shot from Oct. 11, 1933, to Aug. 30, 1935
• at cost of $1,500,000
• in the last open sky studio in Hollywood the last film of the "Tramp" character
• the last "silent" film

Resources:

1. Chaplin's The Rink from American Film Institute
2. Chaplin page and biographical chronology from Glen Pringle's Silent Films page
3. Unofficial Charlie Chaplin page from Juha Pasanen
4. Charlie Chaplin page with photos and filmography from The Silents Majority (see also the Keaton page at this site)
5. "Flashes of Charlie Chaplin" from Taylorology, vol. 46, Oct. 1996, edited by Bruce Long
6. "The House That Charlie Built" by Charles Champlin, about the 1917 studio now home to A&M Records
7. Charlie Chaplin articles from the Archives of the New York Times
8. "Buster Keaton or the work of comedy in the age of mechanical reproduction" article from Cineaste 21, July 1995, pp.14-17.
9. Hollywood: Comedy - A Serious Business, episode 8, Thames documentary written by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, 1979, rebroadcast on TCM 1997.