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Charlie Chaplin was born Charles Spencer Chaplin in London, England in 1889. His parents were music hall entertainers, but they separated when Charlie was only three, and his mother had mental problems and was in and out of asylums, and his father died when he was 12.

Charlie had an older half-brother Syd, and they pretty much raised themselves, working in music halls from when they were very young. In 1910, Charlie joined a traveling troupe that went to the U.S., and returned in 1912.

In 1913, he was seen by Mack Sennett, who hired him for his Keystone Comedies. His first movie was Making a Living in 1914, and it was not a success, but in his second movie, Kid Auto Races at Venice, he invented his famous character, The Tramp. This was a huge success, and Chaplin started directing and writing many of his movies, most with his Tramp persona.

He became Keystone's greatest star. In 1916, the Mutual Company paid Chaplin $670 to create 12 two-reel comedies, and some of these were among his very best movies, like Easy Street, and One A.M. These movies made him so popular that his older movies were constantly being shown throughout the late 1910s.

In 1918, he signed an 8 movie million dollar contract with First National. He had complete control over these movies. In 1919, he co-founded United Artists with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, but he couldn't make movies for UA until he had satisfied his First National contract, which he did with The Kid, A Dog's Life, and others.

At United Artists, he was finally absolutely in control of his movies, and he started taking longer and longer to make each one, because he had no one to answer to. In 1925, he made The Gold Rush for United Artists, considered by most to be his masterpiece.

When sound came to movies, Chaplin resisted, and he made City Lights in 1931 as a silent movie with a musical soundtrack, and his Modern Times in 1936 had mostly only sound effects and next-to-no dialog.

In 1940, Chaplin made The Great Dictator (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), a black comic attack on Nazism, with Chaplin playing a crazed Hitler-like character. It was quite daring for its day, and is a wonderful movie. His next movie was not until 1947 and it was the ultrablack comedy, Monsieur Verdoux, and while it was not successful on its first release many people (including myself) think it is a wonderful movie.

Chaplin made three more movies, and passed away in 1977 at the age of 88. He had many wives, underage girlfriends, and children, and was involved in many scandals. But he was surely the most influential person in the history of the movies, and was a master actor, director and writer, and we will never see his like again!

Important Added Info: Note that, in 1932, RKO re-released several classic Charlie Chaplin comedy shorts (including The Cure, The Immigrant, and Easy Street), with "music and sound", and created entirely new lobby card sets for those shorts, including artwork title cards and likely stock one-sheets. They also created this stock glass slide that theaters used when they showed any of these, and we have never auctioned it before!

Note that this is from an incredible collection of 76 glass slides that were recently discovered! Almost all of them are from 1931 to 1933 (with a very few from before and after). We are auctioning them in 76 separate auctions, and then there will be no more from this amazing find (except for a few duplicated ones, which we will auction at a later time). Not only are many wonderful titles included, but many of the slides are in remarkable condition, and quite a few of them do not have any showtimes or days of the week handwritten in the bottom area, and many likely look like they did when they were first sent to the theater! There have been several "finds" of glass slides over the many years we have been auctioning, but this is surely one of the greatest ever and it is a wonderful opportunity to purchase some or many of these extreme rarities!

Note that glass slides were designed to be put in a special projector that would project the image onto a movie screen (they use exactly the same concept as 35mm slides). We have taken a digital photo of each that shows the general condition of the overall slide and holder, and we have also made a digital scan that shows the glass image well, but does not show the holder (except as a dark outline).

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775