Baggy pants, a tight coat, and huge shoes covered his small, agile body. He wore a toothbrush mustache on his upper lip. A derby hat perched jauntily atop his head, and he twirled a bamboo cane. This was Charlie Chaplin, playing the "Little Tramp", the comic yet tragic hero of dozens of silent films. He was, as Chaplin described him, "a tramp, a gentleman. a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure," but "not above picking up cigarette butts or robbing a baby of its candy."
Born in England, where he bacame a successful music-hall performer, Chaplin began his film career in Hollywood in 1913. He introduced the Little Tramp in his second short movie. By 1917, Chaplin had become so popular around the world that he was offered the then huge sum of $1 million to make eight films. He went on to cofound his own studio, making feature films that won wide acclaim. In fact, Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, and acted in his feature films. He even wrote the music for some of them.
One memorable scene in The Gold Rush, made in 1925, is a good example of Chaplin's genius. The Little Tramp is starving, and no food is available. So he cooks his shoes and eats them as as if they are a delicious dinner, twirling the shoelaces with his fork like spaghetti. The scene is hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.
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