Charlie Chaplin

The Profile

British comic actor, filmmaker, and composer. Icon of silent cinema through his character The Tramp, Chaplin wrote, directed, starred in, and often composed the music for classics such as City Lights, Modern Times, The Gold Rush, The Kid, and The Great Dictator. He co-founded United Artists and received an Honorary Academy Award in 1972.

Composed and supervised scores for his films; City Lights premiered January 30, 1931, at the Los Angeles Theatre; renowned for meticulous perfectionism in production; faced political backlash and accusations of communism in the U.S.; The Great Dictator (1940) was his first fully talking feature and includes the famous final speech; Limelight’s score won the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score in 1973.

DeBaser’s reviews hail Chaplin’s City Lights as a pinnacle, praise Modern Times as politically razor-sharp yet ageless, and celebrate The Gold Rush and The Kid for fusing pathos with humor. The Great Dictator’s satire and famous speech loom large, while Monsieur Verdoux’s dark wit and Limelight’s wisdom round out a portrait of a director-actor-composer who scored his own legends.