Charlie Chaplin was the first international cinema star and one of the greatest comic geniuses the world has known. Drawing on research and interviews with those who knew Chaplin, Jeffrey Vance presents an illustrated account which captures Chaplin's fascinating life as well as his creative process. Vance describes in detail the atmosphere on Chaplin's film sets and his relationships with the cast and crew, his first attempts at comedy sequences that later became famous, and the main themes and ideas that persist through the major Chaplin films. Chaplin's rags-to-riches life story is also represented in these pages, every stage of which is documented in photographs: his poverty-stricken childhood in late Victorian London, his unparalleled success in Hollywood, his numerous romances and four marriages, his political persecution during the anti-communist witch-hunts, and his happy years of quiet exile in Switzerland.
