#1889-1977

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Charlie Chaplin died at the age of 88 on Christmas Day 1977 - the next day December 26th some of the headlines around the world.

His son Michael Chaplin said of his death:

“The last years of his life he very much withdrew into himself, it was very hard for my mother, she had a very hard time looking after a man who had been so vital and such a strong presence suddenly really vanishing away but he seemed to be very much at peace with himself. He kind of slowly, slowly drifted away and his death was just at the end of a very slow drifting away.”

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The Mystery of Charlie Chaplin’s Birth.

Though Charlie Chaplin always acknowledged his birthday as April 16, 1889, there was no birth certificate ever located (not unusual at that time). Charlie Chaplin in a 1915 interview claimed he had been born in Fontainebleau, France, perhaps to hide the shame he felt at that time of his poor Victorian London roots, it took many many years for that to be put to rest and now accepted he was born in South London, England.

Another thing to add to the confusion, a birth announcement in Magnet a Music Hall trade magazine dated May 11th of 1889, indicating he had been born on April 15th 1889. (see above)

Then in March 20th 2012, U.K.’s Daily Mail published an article.

“Was Charlie Chaplin born in a Gypsy caravan in the West Midlands”

The letter, written to Chaplin in the Seventies, claims he was born on the ‘Black Patch’ near Birmingham rather than in London as he had publicly claimed. Daily Mail.UK (x)

Regardless of these mysteries, He left a significant & lasting impact on the world that still resonates to this day.

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Charlie Chaplin through the decades of his life, from a young boy of 10 to an elderly man of 83.

 April 16th 1889 - December 25th 1977.

"His like has not passed this way before, and we shall not see his like again!"

Alexander Woollcott

Alexander Woollcott (January 1887 – January 1943) was American critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine. Counted among Charlie Chaplin’s friends – when he reissued “The Gold Rush” in 1942, at the beginning it reads:

“Dedicated to Alexander Woollcott, In appreciation of his praise of this picture”.