Charlie Chaplin: Lambeth Workhouse to Hollywood

...The Cinema Museum, Kennington...

"Charlie Chaplin was the very first icon of the silver screen and is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood. But what of the man behind the moustache? The director holding the camera as well as acting in front of it? The cockney boy beneath the stage make-up?

Born in London in 1889, his early life was defined by poverty and hardship and in the absence of his father, and with his mother being regularly confined to asylums, he and his brother Sydney spent most of their childhood in and out of orphanages and workhouses, one of which now houses the Cinema Museum. Charlie survived by making himself invulnerable. “Even in the orphanage, I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world. I had to feel the exuberance that comes from utter confidence in myself. Without it you go down to defeat.” This exuberance later became part of his screen persona. The Little Tramp always picks himself up and walks jauntily into the distance.

In our play Tonight at the Museum – Charlie Chaplin! it is 1959. Charles Chaplin is 70 years old, talking across the years to the young Charlie Chaplin – the little tramp who was never allowed to speak in the silent movies. Now he has a voice."