Charlie Chaplin (1921), "The Gold Rush" (1925), "City Lights" (1931), "Modern Times" (1936), and "The Great Dictator" (1940). Directed features: Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, "the Tramp", and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both
Charlie Chaplin Marriage Circle" (1924) and thus played a part in the development of "sophisticated comedy". According to David Robinson, Chaplin's innovations were "rapidly assimilated to become part of the common practice of film craft." Filmmakers who cited Chaplin as an influence include Federico Fellini (who called Chaplin "a sort of Adam, from whom we are all descended"), Jacques Tati ("Without him I would never have made a film"), René Clair ("He inspired practically every filmmaker"), Michael Powell, Billy Wilder, Vittorio De Sica, and Richard Attenborough. Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky praised Chaplin as "the only person to have gone down into cinematic