The Tramp was born in London, into a sequined world of song and dance – both his parents were music-hall performers. They led a penniless, bohemian existence, but little Charles had a happy childhood. Life was one long party, even if meals were scarce and their trousers were full of holes. They did not worry about tomorrow, basking instead in the present moment. Charles loved seeing his parents waiting in the wings, then following them back to the dressing room and admiring the costumes, the wigs and the spangled garments. Above all, he loved to hear the voices carrying over the hall, to see bodies on stage contorting with expression as projectors lit up their grimacing faces. At a young age, he too wanted to tread the boards – and so, just days after his fifth birthday, the stage manager gave little Charlie fifteen minutes to make his stage debut. He sang Jack Jones in a quiet, faltering voice, his hands pinned behind his back and his eyes glued to the floor. He’d been so nervous. Suddenly, he was ashamed of his ragged clothes, his greyish complexion and his dirty hands. He could barely make out the audience, but he heard their breathing, and he knew them so well he could see them in his mind’s eye. He finally finished his song, took his bow and walked to the front of the stage. The lights went up. They smiled warmly at him, applauded sympathetically and even tossed a few coins onto the stage.
Charlie Chaplin was still too young to join the youth tap dancing troupe; for that he would have to wait a few more years. His mother’s health was declining, and the family’s finances along with it. The young man was sent to a home for destitute children. There he learned to read and write, and quickly dove into reading novels. He was curious and loved to learn, and his thirst for stories never seemed to be slaked. The sickly little boy with brown curls was a dreamer, and his wide eyes stared vacantly out the classroom window. In the dormitory he liked to huddle beneath his covers and imagine a better world; one without violence or injustice or sickness. His mother had been confined to a psychiatric hospital. His father died of alcoholism at the age of 37. His path would be difficult, and he would never forget where he came from.
During Chaplin’s second vaudeville tour in the USA in 1913, Keystone studios offered him $150 per week. The sum was a fortune for young Chaplin, who was only 24. He was no longer gathering English pennies, but pocketing American dollar bills. Charlie Chaplin made his first film appearance the following year, playing an unemployed swindler in Making a Living. Sporting a handlebar moustache, a top hat and a monocle, he delivered a few successful gags, notably when he fought with the movie’s hero, a reporter who interviews a man trapped under a crashed car rather than trying to help him. Overall, though, Chaplin was unhappy with his performance. “I was stiff,” he would later say. “I took all the surprise out of the scenes by anticipating the next motion.”
One day, on the set of his second film, Chaplin dressed up in baggy pants, a tight coat, big shoes, a small bowler hat and a bamboo cane. He added a small fake moustache, and began strutting around comically while the rest of the cast were playing pinochle. Having witnessed the scene, the head of Keystone allegedly “giggled until his body began to shake.” “Chaplin,” he exclaimed, “you do exactly what you’re doing now in your next picture. Remember to do it in that get-up.” Nicknamed the Little Tramp, this new character was an instant smash with audiences, spawning a host of imitators. In 1914 alone, Chaplin appeared in dozens of short films as the Little Tramp, most of which he directed himself, and the Tramp’s image would remain etched in the memories of all who knew him.
And so, the Little Tramp was born.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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