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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, 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 Marlon Brando was born Marlon Brando, Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska in 1924. His parents were both alcoholics, and his mother was a sometime actress, and Marlon showed acting talent at a young age. His father had graduated from a military academy, and sent Marlon there, and he acted there, but he was suspended in his senior year, and he could have gone back, but he left. His two sisters had moved to New York, one to act, and one to study art, and he followed them there. He studied with Stella Adler, one of the proponents of the Stanislavski System, which wanted actors to literally become the characters they portrayed by thinking exactly as that character would (different from "method" acting, where one uses personal memories to help duplicate the characters thoughts and actions). In 1944, he made his Broadway debut as Nels in I Remember Mama, and he received excellent reviews. He was courted by Hollywood, but refused to sign a contract with any studio. He next appeared in Truckline Cafe on Broadway, and though the play flopped, Brando got great reviews. He next appeared in A Flag is Born about the birth of Israel. The play had just three actors, Brando, Paul Muni and Celia Adler, and they worked for the Actor's Equity rate, because all proceeds went to help Israel. Brando later wrote of being transfixed by Muni's acting ability in this play! Brando next played the lead in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway (the part had been first offered to John Garfield, but he demanded a percentage, and after Burt Lancaster also turned it down, Brando was hired). Brando went to Hollywood and starred in The Men, followed by a remarkable string of movies: A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata!, Julius Caesar, The Wild One, and On the Waterfront, his greatest role (although the movie was made primarily by those, with the exception of Brando, who had named names or co-operated with the HUAAC hearings, so it was hated by leftists as being a defense of stool pigeons). In the late 1950s, Brando's roles became increasingly odd, and while his performances equalled his earlier ones, the movies did not. He was hired to star in Stanley Kubrick's One-Eyed Jacks in 1961, but fought with Kubrick, who quit, and Brando took over the directing, which resulted in a weird movie that lost a lot of money. After he had a similar experience on Mutiny on the Bounty the following year, Brando's film choices became increasingly stranger. In 1972, Brando's star had sunk so low that he had to audition for the role of Don Corleone in The Godfather, but he was superb, and the movie grossed the most of any movie to that time. After the odd Last Tango in Paris the same year, Brando proceeded to do parts solely for the money, such as playing Jor-El in Superman. Brando continued making movies until 2001, and passed away in 2004. He had a tumultuous personal life, filled with many causes and much drama, and even the death of family members. The great film critic Pauline Kael thought his career was much like that of John Barrymore, in that, after a brilliant stage career and early film career, he squandered much of the rest of his career due to personal excesses. Still, it is hard not to see Brando as likely the finest film actor of the second half of the 20th Century, and his acting style had a huge influence on a high percentage of the actors that followed him.

Important Added Info: Note that we don't know exactly when this still is from, but it would seem likely to be from when Chaplin appeared at the Academy Awards late in his life. If anyone knows more about this still, please e-mail us and we will post it here.

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