Sir Charlie

With thesame gusto, humor, and dazzling description that light up his fiction, SidFleischman produced a quartet of books profiling figures whose talents set theworld abuzz—including this one of Charlie Chaplin. There hewas, that little tramp twitching a postage stamp of a mustache, politelylifting his bowler hat, and leaning on a bamboo cane with the confidence of agentleman. A slapstick comedian, he blazed forth as the brightest movie star inthe Hollywood heavens. Everyone knew Charlie Chaplin. Abandonedby his alcoholic father, neglected by a mother fighting insanity, CharlieChaplin had escaped the London slums of his tragic childhood and gone on to takeHollywood like a conquistador with a Cockney accent. With his gift forpantomime in films that had not yet acquired vocal cords, he was soon rubbingelbows with royalty and dining on gold plates in his own Beverly Hills mansion.He was the most famous man on earth—and he was regarded as the funniest. YetChaplin rose from the slums to the heights only to be driven from the countrythat had brought him worldwide fame. Never were tragedy and comedy soinextricably mixed as in his too-outlandish-for-fiction life, told with SidFleischman’s trademark wit and verve.