Charliechaplinboy

Charlie Chaplin - The Most Popular Actor in History

To say Charlie Chaplin was popular is like the Pacific Ocean is wet.

It is difficult for us to even imagine the immense fame and celebrity he enjoyed in the 1920s and '30s. Today we know the names of literally thousands of celebrities, personalities, sports stars and news-makers (Why do they call them "stars?" Because there are so many!) But at the dawn of the 20th century, mass media was just being created. Movies were brand new. Baseball was just becoming the national pastime. Radio was just taking its first tentative steps and TV was 50 years away.

Into this world strolled a genius at his art form. Charlie just had an innate understanding of comedy and how to make movies.

Fatty Arbuckle and Mary Pickford were the first major movie stars but Charlie Chaplin soon eclipsed them and everyone else. He literally had no competition. Even today, Arbuckle, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd are well-regarded, but Chaplin is still considered the all-time master at silent movie comedy and silent movies in general.

Unfortunately, Charlie's leftist politics and less-than-puritan personal life (he had the unfortunate habit of marrying teenagers) finally started to eclipse even his movie fame during the cold-war era. Mixed with the fact that he could never regain his silent-movie fame in the talkies, he finally left America all-together in 1952. At the time he was being accused of being a Communist (untrue) and he had his visa revoked by the American government (he was a British citizen.)

He vowed never to return to the United States, saying "I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was president."

Well, since Jesus never became president (at least as far as we know) he decided to return during the reign of the "other guy." In 1972, during the presidency of Richard Nixon, Charlie made a triumphant return to accept a Lifetime Achievement Oscar at the Academy Awards.