There was once a man who knew how to make everyone laugh. He made adults laugh, made children laugh, even made himself laugh. And the clown had several golden rules of his life. Stick to these rules great actor, he himself did not deviate from them and called others to their implementation.
One of Chaplin's rules was a fad of this kind: Only a clown is truly happy.
How did it happen that Chaplin considered this expression so important that he even included it in the rules? What did the clown do in life and in the duty of his profession:
- made people laugh with various ridiculous situations in which anyone could find himself more than once
- knew how to show a way out of an absurd situation, but with a thin line of humor, so as not to offend the vulnerable souls of society
- in life he behaved like a lone, as he already knew how to professionally get out of ridiculous situations beautifully, with a share of irony and with a smile on his lips.
All these professional skills help the clown to truly appreciate what is happening around him. How does he perceive an awkward situation? a common person: He gets upset, cries, becomes gloomy for many hours, does not see his grief-stricken friends, invigorating him. Some even become depressed.
What does a clown do? having got into an absurd situation not on the stage, but in life, the clown gets out with a laugh, forgets about it instantly and then happily moves through life! This is the true skill of a clown - to be able to discard absurdity, not to let it overshadow your life with a gloomy cloud.
That's what Chaplin said in his rule: only a clown is truly happy.
What did the artist do? He looked at his comrade in misfortune for about five minutes with a sad clown's look, and then he took the bottle and broke it on a stone. When asked by the driver why he did this, the clown replied: how many times have I shown comics about drunkenness, and now you are asking me to become one? Offering to be the one I make fun of?
The clown was indignant beyond measure, and the driver never again thought of drinking grief from a bottle of liquor. The lesson of the clown was remembered by him for a long time.
Can we draw any conclusion from this story? Yes. Can. clowns so often show the wrong side of life, ridiculing shortcomings, that they themselves will never want to be such a center of attention in society. Also, clowns know: they make people laugh not only for the sake of money, but because people do not have enough joy, so the clown smiles in life even in difficult situation because he believes - a smile works wonders.
Here it has become quite appropriate to recall not only clowns, but also children's cartoon about a smile and the famous phrase "a smile will make everyone brighter!". Yes, it really will, and the clown knows it. Use a smile as a weapon against evil and it will recede, since a smile brings light into the souls of people, the light that has life-giving power for every living soul.
Chaplin's friends believed that his mother was a gypsy, and said that he himself knew a little English version of the Romani language, in particular, was fluent in the jargon of the gypsies. Chaplin's eldest son, Charles Jr., wrote in his memoirs: "... My father was always extraordinarily proud of this violent gypsy blood," his other son, Sidney, married a gypsy in his declining years.
Hannah and her two young sons lived briefly on East Street. Student registration records for Sidney's school show that the family changed address frequently, albeit within the same district. Moving continued throughout Charlie's childhood. When he was two or three years old, Hannah had new lover. This time, Leo Dryden, a popular variety show actor, became her chosen one. He composed patriotic songs praising the country and the Queen. One of his most famous ballads, The Miner's Dream of Home, is still performed today. Leo made good money. Probably because of this, Hannah and the children moved from the noisy and overcrowded East Street to the relatively quiet and prosperous West Square. The districts were separated by only half a mile, but the impression was that they had moved to another country.
A maid appeared in the family. Chaplin remembered Sunday walks along Kennington Road all his life. He was wearing a velvet suit. of blue color and blue matching gloves. He remembered the Westminster Bridge Road with fruit shops, pubs and music halls, he remembered how he sat on the second floor of the horse tram and raised his hands to touch the branches of vitex, a flowering tree-like shrub that lined the street. Those moments of pure joy stayed with him forever. He also remembered the smell of freshly watered roses sold by a florist on the corner of Westminster Bridge. In his films, flowers often served as a symbol of the fragility of life or doomed love.
These pictures are not at all like the harsh reality. early childhood held in South London. However, they are not fictional, and these memories testify to the first bursts of Chaplin's imagination. It is quite clear that we are talking about short period- two or three years - when the family was not in poverty. This is probably an important circumstance, since Chaplin's character on screen, the Tramp, gives the impression of a man who lived much better in the past.
During this happy period, Hannah Chaplin gave birth to a child from Leo, again a boy. Wheeler Dryden was born at the end of August 1892, and in the spring of the following year, the relationship between Hannah and Leo came to an end. Dryden left her and took his son with him. Dryden considered Hannah a bad mother. It was then that all her troubles began. A few weeks earlier, Hannah's mother, Mary Ann Hill, had been committed to a psychiatric hospital. Doctors diagnosed her with "incoherence of thought."
Hanna, who had two sons in her care, had to take care of herself - the family could not provide her with any support. It is not known what she lived on. It is quite possible that she found herself a new lover ... Or several ...
Subsequently, Chaplin in the book "My Biography" mentioned that in 1894 his mother received an engagement as a singer at the Canteen Theater in Aldershot. The audience there consisted mainly of soldiers, rude and noisy. During one of the performances, Hanna's voice broke and she was booed, forcing her to leave the stage. Then the director of Canteen brought little Charles onto the stage. The boy sang some popular song. The audience started tossing coins and Charlie paused to pick them up. This made the audience laugh. After collecting the money, the boy sang again, imitating those whom he had heard before. At some point, he even imitated his mother's broken voice. Hanna, who once again appeared in front of the audience to take her son away, was greeted with applause. Chaplin wrote that her mother's voice never recovered, although she managed to get an engagement at the Hatcham Liberal Club once more. She was introduced as Miss Lily Chaplin, a singer and dancer.
This curious story may well be true, although there is no mention of a performance at the Canteen among the many music hall performance ads published in The Era newspaper. Chaplin also told another version of this story: his father pulled him onto the stage, and the reason for his mother’s failure was not short-term laryngitis, but the fact that she began to look into the bottle. Do not judge Chaplin too harshly, claiming that he lied about his childhood - Charlie was just making up different stories from the past, depending on his mood and the circumstances in which he told these stories. By official version, Chaplin was the protector and even the savior of the mother - this role in relation to young women was taken on by the Tramp in his films.
Hannah Chaplin, apparently, continued to visit entrepreneurs, and for some time she managed to get a job as a dancer in the ballet Katie Lanner at the Empire Theater in Leicester Square - one of the busiest and most popular places in the English capital. Another artist from Empire recalled how little Charlie stopped behind the side scenery and quietly sang her part half a line ahead ... "The more I frowned at him, the wider he smiled," she said. This woman also said that even then Charlie had an excellent ear for music and he memorized almost everything she sang. Director elementary school on Victory Place in Walworth, which Chaplin briefly visited, recalled the boy like this: “He had big eyes, mop of black curly hair and beautiful hands… He was very sweet and shy.”
Be that as it may, Hannah Chaplin's artistic career is over. She worked as a seamstress, repaired old clothes but it was hard and low-paid work. Hannah turned to the Lord for support and comfort. In 1895 she became a parishioner of Christ's Church, Westminster Bridge Road, writing as "An actress who lives apart from her husband." Sewing clothes for members of the community was an additional income, but the physical stress undermined her health.
On June 29, 1895, Hannah was admitted to the Lambeth Hospital, where she stayed for a month. Charlie's mother suffered from severe stress, which, apparently, manifested itself in the form of migraines. Her eldest son, Sidney, was sent to a local workhouse, but after some time was transferred to a school for the poor in West Northwood. Charlie was taken in by a relative of his paternal grandmother, John George Hodges, who lived in the same area.
In the early spring of 1896, the boys began to live with their mother again, but their address is unknown. They moved from one cheap rented room to another and in three months they changed six different attics and basements. Chaplin kept mostly sad memories about this period of life. Sidney had outgrown his coat, and Hannah made him a new one from her velvet jacket. He also had to wear his mother's old shoes, which had been cut high heels. The boys were stealing food from street hawkers. The family lived on charitable donations from parishioners - "parcels for the poor." They visited free canteens at the church. As a child, Chaplin never tried butter and cream, and as an adult and a very well-off person, he ate them greedily, sometimes he simply could not stop. John Doubleday, designer of the 1981 Chaplin statue in Leicester Square opposite the Odeon, said that Charlie had an underdeveloped rib cage malnourished child. By the way, a similar monument by the same sculptor, depicting Chaplin in the image of the Tramp, which made him famous, is installed on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Certainly, there were happy moments. Once little Charlie earned a few pence by dancing at the doors of pubs to the sounds of an accordion coming from there. One day, Sidney, who was selling newspapers, found a purse with gold coins on the bus. However, it is possible that he did not find it at all ... With this money, the whole family went to Southend, where Chaplin first saw the sea. They used to bathe only in the Kennington baths when they could afford it. The mother took the boys to performances with magic lantern at Baxter Hall, where entry cost a penny. Hannah, when she was healthy and in good mood, entertained children by copying the facial expressions and movements of people passing along the street. Maybe it's from her. younger son inherited this talent.
The image of Charlie Chaplin, a little tramp, is familiar even to those who are not movie buffs. It is generally accepted that he owes his acting tragedy early death father and childhood spent in an orphanage. However, research by psychiatrist Steven Weissman sheds light on the true nature of Chaplin's on-screen sadness.
Chaplin himself always claimed that his mother was loving woman and a very glamorous person. But in fact, Hannah, a supporting actress in the music hall, performing under the pseudonym Lily Harley, worked part-time as a prostitute in her youth, which left an imprint on her entire later life. The fate of Hannah was so "unprintable" that Chaplin's biographers for a long time avoided this topic. Having fallen ill with syphilis - not the most terrible disease by the standards of our time - Hannah began to gradually lose her mind. Her steady descent into the abyss of madness became Chaplin's nightmare. He became terribly afraid of any infection.
One of his mistresses, actress Louise Brooks, said that Chaplin never had sex with her without first "decorating" his dignity with iodine. Chaplin's own biography was first published in 1964. Much attention is paid to his difficult childhood, but his mother's illness is bashfully ignored. Even the Chaplin children did not know the whole truth about their grandmother. In the end, when eldest daughter Chaplin, Geraldine, found out about the upcoming publication, which did not expose Hannah in the most favorable light, she even tried to prevent the book from being published. Fortunately, she realized that the published information would help explain Chaplin's genius, and gave the go-ahead for publication.
What is her real story? The daughter of a shoemaker, she ran away from home at 16, dreaming of becoming famous actress. She didn’t get a star, but she met Charlie Chaplin Sr.: they both took part in the same comic opera. He attracted Hanna with his resemblance to Napoleon - at least, she herself explained it that way.
Despite all the "Napoleonism" of her chosen one, Hanna fled from him three years later to South Africa with her lover, Cockney representative Sidney Hawkes. He posed as an aristocrat with vast estates in the British colonies, but in reality turned out to be just a pimp. Taking the girl with him to the Witwatersrand gold mine in South Africa, Hawks made good money on it, selling it to everyone. By 1884, Hanna was tired of everything. Despite the fact that she was pregnant by a pimp, she still ventured the exhausting journey back to England, to the good old Charlie. In 1885, she gave birth to a son with Hawkes, whom she named after his father, Sidney.
In 1886, he and Charlie nevertheless got married, and three years later the future world famous comedian. Little Charlie inherited his mother's daydreaming, and therefore tried to romanticize her relationship with his father. Wishful thinking, he presented his parents as loving and caring. He simply idolized his mother. He always recalled with emotion how she dressed him in velvet suits and acted out before him pictures from the life of courtesans of the 17th century. Alas, contrary to the image that formed in the boy’s head, in fact, Hannah was not exemplary wife nor an exemplary mother.
Soon Hannah left her husband again - this time to the actor Leo Dryden. From him she gave birth to a third child. Now she had three boys from different fathers - her only wealth. So when Dryden left her, though taking his son with him, Hannah had to look for a job. Leaving dreams of lights big scene, she began to earn extra money in the worst theaters - she had to feed the two children left with her for something, there was no time for ambition. Hanna's career broke down in one day - right in the middle of an inspired song passage, her voice broke to a whisper. The audience brutally greeted the oversight of the actress with laughter. For five-year-old Charlie, the anti-triumph of his adored mother was a real blow. True, the kid quickly got his bearings - he went on stage and finished the passage begun by his mother.
Since childhood, living behind the scenes, he learned all her parts. Further - worse: because of the constant migraines, Hanna began to hallucinate. The case took such a serious turn that the mother could no longer take care of the children, and she was assigned to a charity home. Until the age of seven, Charlie lived in an orphanage, which he came to hate. When Hanna recovered a little, she was able to return the children, but now her character has changed a lot. 
In search of salvation from her illness, Hanna became a religious fanatic. Instead of theatrical stage, she now performed at home, playing scenes from the Bible. Charlie, of course, could not understand the reason for such changes.
But the fact was that Hannah was in full swing from the inside with a "shameful disease", which was the real reason her migraines. The actress brought this "wealth" from South African mines. A progressive illness brought Hannah to an insane asylum, where she was placed in a padded room. The sons, of course, were sent to their father. Little Charlie amused himself as best he could, imitating the eternally drunk dad and his mistress Louise, but his sensitive heart was constantly torn from pity for his mother. His older brother Sidney left home to study, and Charlie spent his days alone.
After some time, Hannah was "released" and she was reunited with her family again. Now she made a living as a seamstress. I had to borrow the car for the first time - there was no money to buy my own. True, Chaplin Sr. began to take his father's duties more seriously, so the family lived, albeit modestly, but not from hand to mouth. The idyll did not last long: at 37, the father of the family died of cirrhosis of the liver. They buried him in a common grave, where the city authorities took all sorts of rabble. The death of her husband undermined the already fragile mental health of Hannah, and she was again taken to the hospital. Charlie, who was already 14 years old, was horrified when he saw what was happening to his beloved mother.
Delusions, hallucinations, unsteady gait - characteristics advanced syphilis. This time, it was on him that all worries about her fell. From total poverty Charlie was saved only by the appearance in his life stepbrother Sidney, who at the age of 19 became a steward. Having dressed up his brother, Sidney began to attach him to theatrical agencies. Soon the guys began to earn enough to send money to their mother for treatment. However, a year later, having "been fed up" with hospital life, she took up vagrancy. She was again attached to the hospital, but now she had already sank so much that even the devoted Charlie was not particularly eager to visit her. He splashed out all his impotent anger at the circumstances in the game. At the same time, he studied acting skills to achieve his goal - to become famous. He was often booed by the public, like his mother once, until one day he met the impresario Fred Karno.
Nobody questioned his acting abilities, but his male solvency was in question. For a long time he did not know how to deal with women, and his companions were exclusively ladies of well-known behavior from Piccadilly. Therefore, when in 1908, having met the 15-year-old dancer Hetty Kelly, he immediately offered her to marry him, the girl rushed away in horror from the "crazy" 19-year-old actor. For the rest of his life, Chaplin dreamed that one day they would be reunited. Soon one of Fred Karno's productions brought Chaplin enough money to buy a ticket to America. He is 21, he is only 160 cm tall and barely 50 kg in weight, but this did not prevent him from feeling like a conqueror. When his ship approached the Manhattan pier, Chaplin took off his hat and shouted: "America, I have come to conquer you! Soon this name will be on everyone's lips - Charles Spencer Chaplin!" Much later, when Chaplin's bluster became a reality and he managed to traveled all over America twice, he boasted that he managed to get at least two thousand women into bed.
The fate of the little comedian turned abruptly one day in 1912. His performance was highly appreciated by producer Mac Sennett, head of the famous Keystone Studios in California, and easily lured Chaplin away, promising him a double salary against what he had received before. 
On a rainy day in February, the scrawny newcomer began to scour the dressing rooms for his movie wardrobe. He settled on silent film heavyweight Fatty Arbuckle's oversized pantaloons, a bowler hat, six sizes oversized boots, and his director's business card tailcoat. Looking at himself in the mirror, he realized: this is the image that will bring him world fame. The little tramp, Chaplin's hero, was familiar to him like no other: he simply brought his own image to the grotesque. And to keep the tragic key he was helped by thoughts of his mother.
By 1921, she began to suffer from memory lapses. Charlie moved her to Hollywood, where he bought her a house. He constantly visited her and, as best he could, took care of Hanna, while working on his new film "Gold Rush". The care of his son did not help the poor woman: in 1928 she died at the age of 65 years. It was the shock caused by her death that critics explained Chaplin's phenomenal game in "Fires big city"perhaps the most famous movie actor.Happy family life, as he always dreamed, Chaplin healed only in 1943, when he was already 54 years old - eighteen-year-old Una, the daughter of the famous playwright Eugene O "Neill, gave birth to Charlie eight children. Such is the history of the formation of Chaplin's genius - a story that he carefully concealed from outsiders , protecting the bright image of the mother, invented by him as a child.
He was always only interested in very young girls. In his book The Story of My Life, Chaplin explained this: over the years, he wrote, a woman firmly chooses a direction from which she cannot be led off; she is either a windy coquette, or a virtuous lady. And in a young girl, both of these amazing incarnations are combined! Well, how can you resist?
But with my last wife he forgot that he had once been fickle, unfaithful, not missing a single skirt. In her he loved both maturity and strong character, and gray hair.
He wrote: “When Una with amazing dignity walks ahead of me along the narrow sidewalk, I look at her graceful slim figure, on smoothly combed dark hair, in which silver threads are already gleaming, and I feel so much love and tenderness that tears come to my eyes.
When Una walks ahead of me on the narrow sidewalk with amazing dignity, I look at her graceful slender figure, at her smoothly combed dark hair, in which silver threads already gleam, and I feel so much love and tenderness that tears come to my eyes.
It was a rebirth. But in general, this love saved them both.
Glamor girl
Una O'Neill, daughter of American playwright, laureate nobel prize in the literature of Eugene O'Neill, at the age of 15 she was one of the most famous girls New York. Very beautiful, interesting, witty, caustic and a little awkward, she spent almost every night in the most fashionable club in the city "Stork". Young Salinger was madly in love with Una. Una flirted with him, and calmly left him when the writer was at the front. “If the moon is round and yellow, like a slice of lemon, then all life is a cocktail.”
If the moon is round and yellow, like a slice of lemon, then all life is a cocktail.
There was a second World War. The Nazis marched across Europe. Una went to screen tests, danced and had fun at parties. Visitors to Stork each year chose "Glamour Girl", the most best girl club. Una made it to the final and her photo was published in the New York Post. The secular successes of the daughter of a serious, even gloomy playwright made a lot of noise. At a press conference, the owner of the club slipped Una a glass of milk so that the photographs of the young beauty would look more decent.
Eugene O'Neill was furious: "God, deliver me from my children!". The playwright called his daughter "a spoiled girl, lazy and empty-headed, who has not proven anything except that she can be more stupid than her peers." He wrote her a letter in which he predicted that she would "sink into the darkness of her stupid and mediocre life."
Una is a spoiled girl, lazy and empty-headed, with nothing to prove except that she can be dumber than her peers.
Here it is necessary to explain: Una's parents divorced when she was two years old. Children famous parents grew, not needed at all by anyone. They received an excellent education, but did not receive a crumb of love. From the first days of their lives, rich, interesting, famous people who were completely indifferent to them were next to them. From the age of 15, Una lived with a friend.
Such a childhood will not be in vain for the offspring of the great playwright, and later both Una's brothers will have huge problems: one with drugs, the other with alcohol. And both will die voluntarily: one will open the veins, the second will jump out of the window.
And Una simply did not have time to get on this path. In 1943, at the age of 17, she went to a screen test for Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was immediately captivated by her amazing beauty. And Una first saw him as a father - a father, which, to be honest, she never had.
36 year difference
Chaplin was 36 years older than Una. “I had women who I am fit to be fathers, but to be grandfathers ...”, he was surprised to himself. Una's father, having learned about his daughter's engagement, disinherited her and stopped all relations - they never saw each other again, but Una named her eldest son Eugene.
I had women whom I fit as fathers, but to become grandfathers!
The playwright believed that marriage was another crazy trick of his daughter. But it was "happily ever after, until death do us part." Una and Chaplin lived 35 wonderful years and gave birth to eight children. They had three sons, Eugene, Christopher and Michael, and daughters Josephine, Geraldine, Victoria, Joana, Anna-Emil. Last child was born when Chaplin was 72 years old.
Una threw acting career(although Chaplin claimed that in the person of her wife the world had lost an excellent comic actress). "Glamour Girl" will forever be in the past.
Enemy of the state
But serene life did not come immediately. The 50s were very difficult for Chaplin and Una. During the years of McCarthyism, Charlie was accused of anti-state activities in favor of the Communists. The yellow newspapers published libelous accusations against Chaplin, the FBI collected dirt on him. The bullying was hard to bear.
When Chaplin and his family traveled to England in 1952 for the world premiere of his film Limelights, he was banned from re-entering the United States. In those terrible days, Una was brave and true friend to her husband. She was not banned from entering the United States, so she went home, quickly collected all of Chaplin's assets and brought them to Switzerland, where the family decided to settle. After that, Una, the daughter of the great American playwright and one of the first American beauties, renounced her American citizenship.
Long happy life
In Switzerland, Charlie Chaplin with Una and children will settle in a fabulous beautiful home on the shore of the crystal lake. There they will live, not grieve, raise children. The era of silent cinema will end, and Chaplin will not be able to do anything outstanding in the sound film. Una will no longer break anyone's heart, will not become anyone's muse, no one will care about her brittle laughter and the look of a frightened doe. Huge world, which once lay at their feet, will shrink to a close family world.
But… but how happy they will be!
Photo: Getty images, Legion-media
They said that he had more novels than roles. legendary actor He was married 4 times and left 11 children. But he was happy only with his last wife, with whom he lived for 34 years.
He was always only interested in very young girls. In his book The Story of My Life, Chaplin explained this: over the years, he wrote, a woman firmly chooses a direction from which she cannot be led off; she is either a windy coquette, or a virtuous lady. And in a young girl, both of these amazing incarnations are combined! Well, how can you resist?
But with his last wife, he forgot that he had once been fickle, unfaithful, not missing a single skirt. In her, he loved both maturity, and a strong character, and gray hair.
He wrote: “When Una, with amazing dignity, walks ahead of me along the narrow sidewalk, I look at her graceful slender figure, at her smoothly combed dark hair, in which silver threads are already gleaming, and I feel so much love and tenderness that I see before my eyes tears".
When Una walks ahead of me on the narrow sidewalk with amazing dignity, I look at her graceful slender figure, at her smoothly combed dark hair, in which silver threads already gleam, and I feel so much love and tenderness that tears come to my eyes.
Glamor girl
Oona O'Neill, the daughter of the American playwright, Nobel Prize winner in literature Eugene O'Neill, was one of the most famous girls in New York at the age of 15. Very beautiful, interesting, witty, caustic and a little awkward, she spent almost every night in the most fashionable club in the city "Stork". Young Salinger was madly in love with Una. Una flirted with him, and calmly left him when the writer was at the front. "If the moon is round and yellow, like a slice of lemon, then all life is a cocktail."
If the moon is round and yellow, like a slice of lemon, then all life is a cocktail.
There was a second world war. The Nazis marched across Europe. Una went to screen tests, danced and had fun at parties. Every year the visitors of Stork choose "Glamour Girl", the best girl of the club. Una made it to the final and her photo was published in the New York Post. The secular successes of the daughter of a serious, even gloomy playwright made a lot of noise. At a press conference, the owner of the club slipped Una a glass of milk so that the photographs of the young beauty would look more decent.
Eugene O'Neill was furious: "God, deliver me from my children!". The playwright called his daughter "a spoiled girl, lazy and empty-headed, who has not proven anything except that she can be more stupid than her peers." He wrote her a letter in which he predicted that she would "sink into the darkness of her stupid and mediocre life."
Una is a spoiled girl, lazy and empty-headed, who has proven nothing but that she can be dumber than her peers.
Here it is necessary to explain: Una's parents divorced when she was two years old. The children of famous parents grew up, not needed by anyone at all. They received an excellent education, but did not receive a crumb of love. From the first days of their lives, rich, interesting, famous people who were completely indifferent to them were next to them. From the age of 15, Una lived with a friend.
Such a childhood will not be in vain for the offspring of the great playwright, and later both Una's brothers will have huge problems: one with drugs, the other with alcohol. And both will die voluntarily: one will open the veins, the second will jump out of the window.
And Una simply did not have time to get on this path. In 1943, at the age of 17, she went to a screen test for Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was immediately captivated by her amazing beauty. And Una first saw in him a father - a father, which, to be honest, she never had.
The difference in 36 years Chaplin was 36 years older than Una. “I had women whom I fit as fathers, but to be grandfathers ...”, - he was surprised at himself. Una's father, having learned about his daughter's engagement, disinherited her and stopped all relations - they never saw each other again, but Una's eldest son was named Eugene.
I had women whom I fit as fathers, but to become grandfathers!
The playwright believed that marriage was another crazy trick of his daughter. But it was "happily ever after, until death do us part." Una and Chaplin lived 35 wonderful years and gave birth to eight children. They had three sons, Eugene, Christopher and Michael, and daughters Josephine, Geraldine, Victoria, Joana, Anna-Emil. The last child was born when Chaplin was 72 years old.
Una gave up her acting career (although Chaplin claimed that in her wife the world had lost an excellent comic actress). "Glamour Girl" will forever be in the past.
Enemy of the state
But a serene life did not come immediately. The 50s were very difficult for Chaplin and Una. During the McCarthy years, Charlie was accused of anti-state activities in favor of the Communists. The yellow newspapers published libelous accusations against Chaplin, the FBI collected dirt on him. The bullying was hard to bear.
When Chaplin and his family traveled to England in 1952 for the world premiere of his film Limelights, he was banned from re-entering the United States. In these terrible days, Una was a brave and faithful friend to her husband. She was not banned from entering the United States, so she went home, quickly collected all of Chaplin's assets and brought them to Switzerland, where the family decided to settle. After that, Una, the daughter of the great American playwright and one of the first American beauties, renounced her American citizenship.
Long happy life
In Switzerland, Charlie Chaplin with Una and children will live in a fabulously beautiful house on the shores of a crystal lake. There they will live, not grieve, raise children. The era of silent cinema will end, and Chaplin will not be able to do anything outstanding in the sound film. Una will no longer break anyone's heart, will not become anyone's muse, no one will care about her brittle laughter and the look of a frightened doe. The vast world that once lay at their feet will shrink to a close family world.
But… but how happy they will be!
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