They also Called him Charlot

If you can´t recognize him then you have been living under a stone for like forever, This is Charles Chaplin (1889-1977) impersonating  The Tramp, a character he created which he used in most of his movies. 

Chaplin, born in London at the end of the 19th century, had a hard life from the beginning. His father was never there for him and his mother had mental problems. Chaplin struggled to become the man he eventually became. His greatest stroke of genius was precisely the creation of The Tramp, a poor man who always had to fight the odds, had a heart of pure gold but in the end was always left empty handed. His best productions belong to the time when movies were silent and  black and white so the action and the gestures were extremely important to convey the attention of the audiences. Chaplin relied heavily on Slapstick (comedy based on physical sequences). When films made the jump to include sounds Chaplin resisted the new trend and insisted in making movies the old fashioned way. It was him who insisted in being part of every single aspect of the development of the film in order to make sure everything was perfect. And perhaps that was what made the difference.

The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925) or The Great Dictator (1940) are all excellent displays of Chaplin's genius since each one is a jewel in its own right. In spite of his great contributions to the movie industry he was often judged for his personal life, behavior that in our days would be considered harmless was not tolerable in the moralistic society of that time. As a result Chaplin was not allowed to enter The United States for years and only returned in 1972 to receive an Honorary Oscar award in recognition to his long and outstanding career.

But Chaplin made a contribution that goes beyond his movie productions; he marked a time that was convoluted and tumultuos and lent mankind a spark of humor, a much needed light-hearted amount of optimism that endured beyond the tragedies that mankind had to go through then. Today, the audiences of this time see his work and as a result are left spellbound by the beauty and candor of movies that will remain timeless and forever fresh just because each one of us needs humor and a good laugh once in a while.

By the way, Charlot was not his name in English but in several other languages including Spanish.