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He later wrote: "[she] imbued me with the feeling that I had some sort of talent". The manager sensed potential in Chaplin, who was promptly given his first role as a newsboy in Harry Arthur Saintsbury 's Jim, a Romance of Cockayne. Chaplin's comic performance, however, was singled out for praise in many of the reviews. By the time the act finished touring in Julythe year-old had become an accomplished comedic performer.

Karno was initially wary, and considered Chaplin a "pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster" who "looked much too shy to do any good in the theatre". It was a big success, and Chaplin received considerable press attention. A representative who had seen his performances thought he could replace Fred Macea star of their Keystone Studios who intended to leave.

Chaplin strongly disliked the picture, but one review picked him out as "a comedian of the first water". He described the process in his autobiography: I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large I added a small moustache, which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression.

I had no idea of the character. Chaplin's mother, who would later suffer severe mental issues and have to be committed to an asylum, was able to support her family for a few years. But in a performance that would introduce her youngest boy to the spotlight, Hannah inexplicably lost her voice in the middle of a show, prompting the production manager to push the five-year-old Chaplin, whom he'd heard sing, onto the stage to replace her.

Chaplin lit up the audience, wowing them with his natural presence and comedic angle at one point he imitated his mother's cracking voice. But the episode meant the end for Hannah. Her singing voice never returned, and she eventually ran out of money. For a time, Chaplin and Sydney had to make a new, temporary home for themselves in London's tough workhouses.

Early Career Armed with his mother's love of the stage, Chaplin was determined to make it in show business himself, and inusing his mother's contacts, he landed with a clog-dancing troupe named the Eight Lancashire Lads.

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It was a short stint, and not a terribly profitable one, forcing the go-getter Chaplin to make ends meet any way he could. Chaplin made his acting debut as a pageboy in a production of Sherlock Holmes. From there, he toured with a vaudeville outfit named Casey's Court Circus and in teamed up with the Fred Karno pantomime troupe, where Chaplin became one of its stars as the Drunk in the comedic sketch A Night in an English Music Hall.

Film Career InChaplin made his film debut in a somewhat forgettable one-reeler called Make a Living. To differentiate himself from the clad of other actors in Sennett films, Chaplin decided to play a single identifiable character, and "The Little Tramp" was born, with audiences getting their first taste of him in Kid Auto Races at Venice Over the next year, Chaplin appeared in 35 movies, a lineup that included Tillie's Punctured Romance, film's first full-length comedy.

It is with Essanay that Chaplin, who by this time had hired his brother Sydney to be his business manager, rose to stardom. Chaplin later recalled: I can trace the first prompting of a desire to add another dimension to my films besides that of comedy. I was playing in a picture called The New Janitor, in a scene in which the manager of the office fires me.

In pleading with him to take pity on me and let me retain my job, I started to pantomime appealingly that I had a large family of little children. Although I was enacting mock sentiment, Dorothy Davenport, an old actress, was on the sidelines watching the scene, and during rehearsal I looked up and to my surprise found her in tears. The film is filled with wonderful comedy touches, such as Charlie balancing a tray of bread loaves on his head and making doughnuts by flinging dough around his wrists like bracelets.

In both characterization and structure, Dough and Dynamite is much finer than other comedy films of the time. Chaplin, however, did not think much of the film. Keystone player Peggy Pearce was apparently his first known love in Los Angeles. Freedom was too much an adventure. No woman could measure up to that vague image I had in my mind.

The producer was unwilling to meet his demands. Sennett was willing to lose one key comedian after another, always hoping to replace them with someone good who would not disturb the economic equilibrium of the production line. Chaplin refined Keystone slapstick and film comedy in general by slowing down the frantic pace of the films, giving them a rudimentary structure, and establishing a strong character, which he accomplished by drawing on his knowledge of stagecraft and pantomime.

At Keystone he developed film technique and comic pacing for motion pictures that he would employ in some form or fashion for the rest of his career.

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Ultimately, when Sennett gave Chaplin control over his own films, the men worked well together. More than just a great character, the Tramp embodies the heroic age of cinema. To many, he was film. However, despite the advances in film comedy he made at Keystone, his Tramp character was far from fully formed.

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It would take several years for Chaplin to develop the emotional range that would mark his mature art. Yet this art began at Keystone. Chaplin shrank his tramp in gradually diminishing sizes and made him pathetic—and loveable. Without knowing his name, audiences embraced him as the most popular character in film comedy. Notes 1. Set in the late s, the lone prospector, as he's called, makes his way through Alaska while he encounters danger, starvation, and of course, love per Smithsonian Magazine.

Additionally, he was said to have been inspired by the Donner Party after reading a book about the incident. Advertisement Both of these moments in history led Chaplin to write a film that demonstrated the horrors that one sometimes endures on the road to success per Sierra College.

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Nevertheless, he did it by using comedy and adding a happy ending. Filming "The Gold Rush," however, was grueling and expensive. Chaplin's love interest became pregnant and had to be replaced by another actress.