Charlie Chaplin Pickford, and D. W. Griffith to form a new distribution company – United Artists, established in January 1919. The arrangement was revolutionary in the film industry, as it enabled the four partners – all creative artists – to personally fund their pictures and have complete control. Chaplin was eager to start with the new company and offered to buy out his contract with First National. They refused and insisted that he complete the final six films owed. Before the creation of United Artists, Chaplin married for the first time. The 16-year-old actress Mildred Harris had revealed that she was pregnant
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