Chaplin (film) film is structured around flashbacks as the elderly Charlie Chaplin (now living in Switzerland) recollects moments from his life during a conversation with fictional character George Hayden, the editor of his autobiography. Chaplin's recollections begin with his childhood of extreme poverty from which he escapes by immersing himself in the world of the London music halls. After his mother Hannah Chaplin has an attack of nerves on stage during a performance, the four year old Chaplin takes his mother's place on the stage. Hannah retires from performing and is eventually committed to an asylum after developing psychosis. In the years
Hannah Chaplin Hannah Chaplin Hannah Chaplin (6 August 1865 – 28 August 1928), birth name Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill, stage name Lily Harley, was an English actress, singer and dancer who performed in British music halls from the age of 16. Chaplin was the mother of Charlie Chaplin and his two half-brothers, the actor Sydney Chaplin and the film director Wheeler Dryden and grandmother of musician Spencer Dryden. As a result of mental illness, now thought to be caused by syphilis, she was unable to continue performing from the mid-1890s. In 1921, she was relocated by her son Charlie to California, where