Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (London, April 16, 1889 - Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, December 25, 1977) was an actor, director, writer, producer and Oscar-winning British composer in Hollywood. With nearly 90 films of silent film and sound, has become the most representative of the silent cinema, which has given her fame and consideration of one of the great geniuses in the history of cinema. His film abounds in classic images as well known as his own character. Her daughter, Geraldine Chaplin, is also devoted to acting.The character around which built much of his film career, which gave him fame and universal was the Tramp (The Tramp, in English; Charlot in Spanish, Italian and French): a man with sophisticated ways and dignity of a gentleman, wearing a close jacket, trousers and shoes in larger sizes, a bowler hat, a cane and a distinctive mustache. His unmistakable wobbly walk, a marked emotional sentimental and melancholic disenchantment against the wickedness and injustice of modern society, made him an emblem of human alienation in particular the emerging social classes.

Charles and his brother Sydney, two years older, had inherited the artistic talent of the family and started work on it from children. Charlie's own account of his first public appearance was at age 5 years, replacing her mother in a London theater. There she started working as a child actor in theater and received good reviews. Meanwhile, his brother had become one of the stars of the Fred Karno comedy group, and convinced him to hire his brother to make a sketch and then sent him on a tour of United States at the beginning of the decade of 1910. It was in these years when Chaplin in an event seen a man with a device capable of capturing moving images. Chaplin, curious, wanders repeatedly against the mysterious device. This arises from the first link between Chaplin and film.

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in East Street in the district of Walworth (London) on April 16, 1889, according to information given by himself because no official documentation of his birth, so this is the first mystery in life Chaplin. His parents were music hall artists. It is commonly assumed that was Jewish, which seems to be untrue, which menciaonaria in an interview in 1940 during the premiere of The Great Dictator for:-I am not Jewish, but would be happy to be. He was strongly identified with the Jews, who defended, but there is no documented source to say with certainty whether his father was of Jewish origin. On the other hand, knows that his mother, Hannah Smith, the name of Lily Harley, was a woman of gypsy Romanichel [1], and probably also his father was. Chaplin's son has in his biography that his father was extremely proud of his Romany blood.Charlie's family was mired in terrible poverty urban London in the late nineteenth century. His mother (actress of theater) saw his career cut short because they suffered from schizophrenia, and his father was an alcoholic singer devoted to jazz and blues. Charlie grew up in the Kennington district, surrounded by many players of music-hall.Charlie was in the care of his mother when the marriage broke up shortly after his birth. His father died when Charlie was 12 years and this (along with his brother Sydney) went long periods of time in orphanages. Charlie was left handed, like his daughter Geraldine Chaplin and her grandchildren Tania Chaplin, Chaplin and Dolores Chaplin Suso.