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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. 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! AND Mary Pickford was a Canadian actress from the 1900s to the 1930s. She was one of the top silent actresses, who specialized in playing young girl roles as an adult, and she was called "America's Sweetheart", and when she married Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., the country rejoiced (and the country mourned when they divorced!). Some of her movies include: Little Annie Rooney, Sparrows, My Best Girl, Coquette (in her Best Actress Academy Award winning role), and Tess of the Storm Country AND Alexander Korda was an Austro-Hungarian director and producer from the 1910s to the 1940s. Along with his brothers Vincent and Zoltan, Korda produced some of the great movies of the 1930s and 1940s, including The Thief of Bagdad, Jungle Book, The Third Man, That Hamilton Woman, The Private Life of Henry VIII, and Marius AND Samuel Goldwyn (born "Szmuel Gelbfisz"; it was Americanized to Samuel Goldfish) was a producer and studio executive from the 1910s to 1953. He was a founder of Paramount, Goldwyn Pictures (which eventually became MGM) and Samuel Goldwyn Studios. He is famous for his many quotable statements such as "Include me out"! He was producer of many of the top movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Early in his career, he was a major executive at Paramount, helping Adolph Zukor gain control of the company. In 1916, they had a falling out, and he started a new company with the Selwyn brothers, successful Broadway producers, and they named it "Goldwyn", as a combination of "Goldfish" and "Selwyn", and he was able to gain control of the studio away from the Selwyns, who complained that he "stole everything, including their name"!

Important Added Info: Note that we don't know what occasion brought these four great celebrities together! We do know that Korda directed many movies for United Artists between 1936 and 1942 (and a few before 1936), and that during that time, he joined the board of UA and tried to take it over. We are currently auctioning a similar still with these four, plus Douglas Fairbanks and two others, and that one is dated 1936, which is when "Modern Times" came out, so this one might be from the same time. If anyone knows more about this still, please e-mail us and we will post it here. Also note that this still measures 8" x 10 1/4" [20 x 26 cm].

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