I often notice Synchronicity in my daily life since I realized everything is synchronicity and there is no coincidence in life.
In the most recent occurrence,
After seeing a video which showed an actress playing the music " The Entertainer " by Scott Joplin on a piano, this music started spinning in my head for a few days and I was often humming it.
And then my husband thought I like it so he collected and put together a CD album which included that music along with some other similar music.
Also he was purchasing some movie DVD's recently and one of them was Charlie Chaplin's short movie collections.
And in that collection of Chaplin's stories, the music " Entertainer " by Scott Joplin was used as one of the background music !
Both of us never knew about it, so it was interesting.
Anyways, today I would like to talk about Charlie Chaplin !
"A day without laughter is a day wasted." — Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin is well-known as a multi talented actor of comedy silent films and a director.
Many people don't know that he was also a composer, and he composed the music for alot of his later movies.
I also didn't know about it until recently.
He composed the music for the song " Smile ", which is a classic hit.
I had never seen his movies or performances until recently, I don't know why.
Maybe it's because I was not sure it can be so funny without words and voice and only with pantomime and expression.
and I always chose to watch normal comedy films which have words and voice.
But since my husband purchased Chaplin's movies, we have been enjoying watching Chaplin's films every weekend and both of us have been laughing like crazy, hard to breathe from laughing so hard, with all his comical expressions and movements.
No theory, it's just sooooo funny !!!
Especially, his later years films are even more funny because his sense of humor had more variety of ideas and became polished.
My favorites so far are
* Modern Times
* Gold Rush
* Shoulder Arms
* His New Job
For his early years films, the stories were like funny cartoon style action, slapstick , comedy.
I also noticed that Chaplin was physically very flexible and he had athletic skills and dancing skills , which allowed him to fall down many times and get back up , as if it's nothing or no problem, because his movements look very effortless like a cat.
Normally, if one fell down on the floor or on a stairway, it's easy to get injury and get hurt, and hard to get up.
I'm also impressed with his roller skating skill.
There is a scene which shows him roller skating on a second floor where there is a big open space looking down to the first floor with no safety rail or barrier.
Looks very dangerous and easy to fall down to the first floor if one has no roller skating skill.
But Chaplin looked really comfortable, skating right over to the edge many times, effortlessly skating in that place.
I think he had special physical skills to move flexibly , but I can not find any information about how he trained and got those skills.
He was also a great dancer and had the skill of physical timing of movements, to make people laugh, besides his hilarious facial expressions.
He was a big impact and a very interesting person.
I felt like I'm watching a cartoon, seeing his movements, how he moved.
Some of his films remind me of the famous cartoon " Popeye and Bruto ".
But the cartoon "Popeye" was created later , so I feel the cartoon writer might have got the idea from watching Chaplin.
I also never knew that, unlike his movie character, his actual real face was so handsome !
His natural hair color was actually blonde.
But with all his makeup, and tramp outfit, changing his hair color to dark, with hat and big shoes, and the way he moved, he became a completely different character for the movies.
Some of the picture films are not clear because it's very old, but many of them are good enough to be able to watch clearly.
It's amazing, these are films of early 1900s, and we can watch the real film of that generation.
It was interesting to know that Charlie Chaplin was also a friend of the world-famous physicist Albert Einstein.
Einstein had been traveling in the United States, and was introduced to Chaplin during a tour of Universal Studios.
Chaplin invited Albert Einstein and his wife to dinner, and later to be his special guests at the premiere of his movie " City Lights " .
They are different type of geniuses and I feel they must have had some common things even though they look to be completely different type of person.
In his private life,
Chaplin was born and grew up in London, England.
His childhood was one of hardship and poverty.
Both of his parent were entertainers in a music hall.
His parents were separated when Chaplin was one year old, although they never divorced.
He and his brother Sydney were taken by his mother Hannah and were living in the London district of Kennington, England.
His mother had no stable job and was doing occasional nursing and dressmaking, besides working as an entertainer in a music hall.
When Chaplin was 5 years old, his mother lost her voice while acting on a stage, and the director was backstage and saw her son Charlie was making his mother's friends laugh using his sense of humor, and so the director made a quick decision to have Charlie to be on the stage for his mother's replacement.
This was Charlies's first stage experience and he received a big applause from the audience.
However since then his mother was not able to be on stage anymore and he and his family started having financial problems.
When Chaplin became 7 years old, his mother started having mental problems for about two months and during the time Charlie and his brother Sydney were sent to their father, who was an alcoholic, and life there was bad enough to provoke a visit from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
He had worked for many places as a barber , a pressman ( or a printer ) a glass artisan, a newspaper seller, a seller in a market, etc..to survive.
Chaplin's father died two years later, at 38 years old, from cirrhosis of the liver.
While still young, Charlie Chaplin felt that his best opportunity for a career, was as an entertainer.
He joined a theatre troupe called "The Eight Lancashire Lads" and rapidly won popular favor as an outstanding tap dancer.
When I read about his childhood story, I really understand why his every quote sounds very deep.
He experienced real poverty and hard life, which one could feel it's like the bottom of life.
When we are children, we have no power to live by ourselves and it's out of control.
Fortunate thing was, his brother was with him during such a tough situation.
And also it seems that performance talent was in his DNA , received from both his parents.
In many of his films, I can see that while there are many funny scenes and humor through his expression and performances , one can see that at the same time, he's also describing people' s feeling of many kinds of emotion such as anger, melancholy, and tears, through his films.
So unlike many of normal comedy films, there was something deeper meaning, and that made him stand out and impact, to catch audience's hearts.
Beginning of his career
When he was about twelve, he got his first chance to act in a legitimate stage show, and appeared as "Billy" the page boy, in support of William Gillette in "Sherlock Holmes".
At the close of this engagement, Charlie started a career as a comedian in vaudeville.
In 1910 , he was asked to go on tour to the United States as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company.
Chaplin scored an immediate hit with American audiences, particularly with his characterization in a sketch entitled "A Night in an English Music Hall".
When the Fred Karno troupe returned to the United States in 1912 for a repeat tour, Chaplin was noticed by an American director from Hollywood , who offered him a motion picture contract.
In November 1913, Chaplin's entrance into the cinema world took place when he joined Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company.
His initial salary was $150 a week, but his overnight success on the screen spurred other producers to start negotiations for his services.
In 1915, he signed a contract with the Mutual Film Corporation for $10,000 a week ! , and what cost $10,000 in 1915 , would now cost, in 2015, about $223,620
So, in today's money, it means he was making about $11,628,280 per year !!
Within a relatively short period of time, he became an international superstar, and then, a comedy legend.
It's said that Chaplin was a very perfectionist.
I think this is why his movies and performances are perfect and have been grabbing many people's attention.
I also noticed that many of the legendary famous people were perfectionist as well.
My image of perfectionists are difficult to work with but from an audience view, I love to watch their creations and performances because it's high quality and makes my heart move.
While Chaplin was successful for his career, he also experienced difficulty in his private life.
He got married four times , although he and his third wife were not officially married.
From reading his biography,my impression is he got married four times but the only wife he really loved was his fourth wife Oona O'Neill.
He was a playboy and didn't sound he was so picky to choose partners when he was young.
Especially for his second wife, Rita Grey, Chaplin got into a situation where he married her even though he didn't love her.
and because of a lack of love from Chaplin, Rita Grey's love to him turned to hate and it made big problem and scandal for Chaplin's life, which made his hair turn gray.
and as a result , Chaplin had to pay to Rita Grey $625,000 ( in that generation's money, an even more huge amount ) for divorce which was the highest paid amount ever in the divorce court history in the USA at that time .
But Rita had to pay to lawyers most of the money she received from Chaplin.
Much later, when he wrote his life biography book "My Autobiography" , he was not wrote almost nothing about Rita Gray .
It shows he really wanted delete the times spent with Rita Gray.
Rita Gray then wrote a book " My life with Chaplin " using a ghostwriter, telling her private life with Chaplin.
and also much later , she wrote another book "Wife of the Life of the Party with Jeffrey Vance ( Author ) but was published after Rita passed away, in 1998.
I wonder why she wrote her autobiography book, not only once, but twice ?
It seems to me, she was hurt and could not remove the attachment to Chaplin.
Later Chaplin had another stressful problem with another lady called Joan Barry and had a nightmare court case .
(From wiki pedia )
"Charlie Chaplin had a brief affair with Barry, whom he was considering for a starring role in Shadows and Substance, a proposed film in 1942, but the relationship ended when she began harassing him and displaying signs of severe mental illness.
After having a child, Carol Ann, on October 2, 1943, she filed a paternity suit against Chaplin in 1943.
Although blood tests seemed to indicate that Chaplin was not the father of Barry's child, Barry's attorney, Joseph Scott, convinced the court that the tests were inadmissible as evidence, and Chaplin was ordered to support the child.
The perceived injustice of the ruling later led to a 1965 change in California of civil procedure to allow blood tests as evidence. "
Chaplin was exhausted for all these crazy court cases and had no power to fight to prove the truth anymore.
But in that stressful situation, his fourth wife Oona O'Neill was always with him to support him and he was able to relieve his depressive feeling while he was with her.
From reading his biography, it seems like at the end, he was happy living peacefully with his fourth wife Oona O'Neill, with many children in Switzerland, and his life was successful.
I think if the ending is happy, then life is successful.
We will watch all his movies and stories.
His movies are just too fun !
Can't wait !
Charlie Chaplin's famous quotes
" Life is a play that does not allow testing,
So, Sing, Cry, Dance, Laugh and Live intensely, Before the curtain closes and the piece Ends with no Applause " - Charlie Chaplin
" What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning." - Charlie Chaplin
" We think too much and feel too little."- Charlie Chaplin
" The most wasted day in life is the day in which one has not laughed...." - Charlie Chaplin
" My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh.
But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain."- Charlie Chaplin
"The mirror is my best friend because when I cry it never laughs." - Charles Chaplin
" There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books." - Charles Chaplin
"I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose." - Charles Chaplin
"A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure." - Charles Chaplin
