First published 2017
by Routledge
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2017 Richard Carr
The right of Richard Carr to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Carr, Richard, 1985 author.
Title: Charlie Chaplin : a political biography from Victorian Britain
to modern America.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon : New York, NY :
Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge historical biographies |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016048529 | ISBN 9781138923256 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138923263 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781315201672 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Chaplin, Charlie, 18891977. | Chaplin, Charlie,
18891977Political and social views. | Motion picture actors
and actressesUnited StatesBiography.
Classification: LCC PN2287.C5 C35 2017 | DDC 791.43092/
33092 [B]dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048529
ISBN: 978-1-138-92325-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-92326-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-20167-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Date | Personal/Filmic events | Political activities | Global context |
|
1889 | C[harlie] C[haplin] born in London, UK |
1894 | First appearance on stage by CC |
1896, 1898 | CC enters the workhouse for a combined total of thirty-two days |
1898 | CC joins the Eight Lancashire Lads | CC travels around the UK, seeing poverty throughout the land |
18991902 | CC finds Boer War patriotism distasteful | Protracted Boer War campaign eventually won by Britain |
1901 | CCs father dies, aged thirty-seven |
1903 | After several trips in/out of infirmaries, asylums and workhouses, Hannah Chaplin committed as a lunatic |
19036 | CC plays Billy in Sherlock Holmes for H.A. Saintsbury |
1906 | Election of interventionist Liberal government in the UK |
1908 | CC joins the Fred Karno Company (until 1913); meets/falls in love with Hetty Kelly |
1911, 1912, 1913 | In the US with Karno Company tours |
1913 | Signs with Keystone Film Company ($150 a week) |
1914 | Film career takes off Kid Auto Races at Venice features first appearance of Tramp character; signs contract to join Essanay ($1,250 per week) | Britain enters the First World War |
1915 | Tramp character matures in films such as The Bank; CC meets Mildred Harris for the first time | CC employs Rob Wagner, later to become something of a political mentor |
1916 | Signs with Mutual Film Corp. ($10,000 per week) | The Battle of the Somme |
1917 | CC signs Million Dollar a Year contract with First National | The Immigrant seems to criticise the notion of America as the land of the free; CC faces charges of shirking military service by right-wing British press | Russian revolution; the US enters the First World War |
1918 | Marries Mildred Harris; their son (Norman Spencer) dies after three days (1919) | CC takes active part in Liberty Bond drives for British and American governments; The Bond and Shoulder Arms released backing the war effort; CC first meets Upton Sinclair | Allied victory in the First World War |
1919 | United Artists launched by CC, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and others | CC hears Max Eastman speak on the subject of Hands Off Russia |
1920 | CC employs Lita Grey for the first time | CC extols the virtues of communism over a beer with Buster Keaton | Palmer Raids ( 191920) in the US suggest growing climate of anti-communism; Republicans win the White House (to hold until 1933) |
1921 | Releases The Kid, which contains numerous allusions to his own impoverished childhood | CC praises Henry Ford; returns to Europe to promote The Kid where he makes numerous political statements; reads C.H. Douglass work on Social Credit | Arbuckle case leads to accusations of Hollywood debauchery |
1922 | MPPDA formed to selfregulate the movie industry CC against; start of FBI surveillance against CC | Benito Mussolini becomes Italian Prime Minister |
1924 | To circumvent Californian law, CC marries Lita Grey in Mexico (two sons born, 1925/6); works on The Gold Rush (1925) |
1927 | CCs divorce from Lita Grey becomes headline news and, later, a political weapon; makes The Circus (1928) | IRS seeks c.$1.35 million of unpaid income tax from CC; his wealth then estimated at $16 million |
1929 | Winston Churchill visits CC on the set of City Lights (1931) | Wall Street Crash |
1930 | Ivor Montagu brings Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein to Hollywood to meet CC | Oswald Mosley resigns from British Labour government and begins his journey to fascism |
19312 | CCs world tour to promote City Lights; meets Gandhi, Mosley, MacDonald, German Reichstag deputies, Einstein and more | Extensive political chronology in Chapter 5; includes praise for Mussolinis Italy |
1933 | Plans for Modern Times (1936) begin to take shape; Alistair Cooke brought in to help with the script (removed from this role, 1934) | CC gives radio address in support of FDR | Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany; Roosevelt inaugurated as US President |
1934 | Social Credit movement attempt to gain CCs explicit public support; CC described as a nerve killing fidgeting Jew in Nazi propaganda | Upton Sinclair runs his End Poverty in California campaign, endorsed by CC |
1935 | Soviets claim that Modern Times will depict the struggle against capitalism; English leftist John Strachey drafts a script for an unused Napoleon fi lm |
1936 | Modern Times released; CC marries Paulette Goddard | Hitler invades the demilitarised Rhineland |
1938 | CC praises Mussolinis Italy and Hitlers Germany before, later in the year, beginning work on The Great Dictator (1940) | Munich Agreement between UK, France, Italy and Germany averts war temporarily; Martin Dies assumes control of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) |
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