Chaplin

Chaplin is a 1992 Richard Attenborough film that stars Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin. The movie also features Dan Akroyd as Mack Sennett, Kevin Kline as Douglas Fairbanks, and Milla Jovovich as Mildred Harris. The only main character that is fictional is played by Anthony Hopkins as George Hayden. Chaplin is available on DVD. Director: Richard Attenborough Producers: Richard Attenborough, Mario Kassar

Did You Know? An interesting note is that Geraldine Chaplin plays Charlie's mother, Hannah Chaplin, her own grandmother. In real life, Geraldine is actually Charlie's daughter from his marriage to Oona O'Neill, daughter of Eugene O'Neill.

Norbert has the role of a German diplomat in this movie. When Norbert's character meets Chaplin at a party, he is rebuffed. Chaplin refuses to shake his hand because it is revealed that he is Jewish, and Norbert's character is a member of the Nazi party and an acquaintance of Hitler. While Nazi propaganda during the 1930's claimed that Chaplin was Jewish, Chaplin himself never actually acknowledged it, claiming that doing so would play directly into the hands of the anti-semites. Charlie Chaplin was knighted in 1975 at the age of eighty-five. He died two years later in Switzerland in December 1977.

More information about the movie can be found here at the Internet Movie Database. Interesting reading and facts about Charlie Chaplin's life can be found on his official website and in this comprehensive article on Wikipedia.

Robert Downey Jr. as a young Charlie Chaplin.

Geraldine Chaplin as Hannah Chaplin

Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin later in life. Sir Anthony Hopkins as biographer George Hayden (the only fictional main character in the film. Dan Ackroyd as Mack Sennett Diane Lane as Paulette Goddard