By: Paula Torres 10A

 

Last April 16, Charlie Chaplin would have turned 121 years old, if he were still alive. Unfortunately, at one point in our lives, we all have to face this fate: Death. He died on December 25, 1977, in Switzerland. We all have heard about this comic actor, director, filmmaker, composer, screenwriter, producer, and editor, among other things at least once in our lives, but how much do we really know about him?

 

His complete name is Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin. He became a worldwide icon and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. During his childhood, he suffered a lot; he lived under really poor conditions, his father was not present in his life, and her mother struggled financially. He started working before he was 9, and when he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Despite all of this, he was able to discover all of his passions and talents.

 

Since he was a teenager, he began performing for very small crowds. Everyone was impressed by his way of acting, so each time, the crowd got bigger. When he was 19, he was signed into a prestigious company which took him to America. He became part of the film industry in the blink of an eye, and each time, his name sounded in more parts of America and England, and by 1918, he was one of the best-known figures in the world.

 

During his life, and even after it, he has brought many smiles to the face of thousands of people, as he believed “a day without laughter is a wasted day” (Charles Chaplin). Smiles were an essential part of his life. He believed they have a great power, and he even dared to state “You´ll find that life is still worthwhile if you just smile. “

 

All of his works were without dialogue, and he refused to move to sound films. Chaplin is one of the few people that wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films.  In the 1940s, Chaplin was a controversial person, as he started to include many social and political themes in his plays and films. He was one of the few people of that time that were not afraid to show their opinion to the world. But many may be asking, how was he able to make criticisms without talking?

 

Charles Chaplin taught us many things and he still does. Even if his childhood seemed like a black hole, he was able to get out of it and achieve his goals. As he once said, “the best thing in life is to go ahead with all your plans and your dreams, to embrace life and to live every day with passions, to lose and still keep the faith and to win while being grateful. All of this because the world belongs to those who dare to go after what they want. And because life is really too short to be insignificant” (Charlie Chaplin).  He was also able to become one of the first persons to talk about political themes, even if it was really dangerous at that time. Charles was also the living proof of the common saying: “sometimes one look can tell you more than a thousand words”.