My Autobiography (1964)

Charlie Chaplin... A travers son personnage légendaire de Charlot, il a tout donné au public les émotions les plus pures, rires et pleurs mélangés, les plus folles, les plus déconcertantes ! Ici c'est lui-même qu'il livre dans une autobiographie riche de surprises et de découvertes sur cet homme dont on croyait tout connaître ! Son enfance à la Dickens dans les faubourgs londoniens, ses débuts parisiens, sa lumineuse carrière mêlée à l'âge d'or d'Hollywood, ses découvertes géniales de mise en scène, ses fabuleuses rencontres : Einstein, Wells, Cocteau, Churchill... Une vie virevoltante, une confession tendre et vraie où Charlot nous ravit plus que jamais, car ici il joue son plus beau rôle : celui d'un homme fort et fragile qui se dévoile avec la pudeur des grands.

GREAT CONDITION! ( )

I have read a lot of books, but none of them grabbed me like this one. Eventhough Mr Chaplin used quite a lot of 'big words' in his autobiography (he taught himself to be more eloquent) it's still a very easy read. His style is simple and honest. His emotions show through everything he wrote.

And that's this book's greatest strength.
After reading it I feel I almost know the man and that is quite a feat. Often I found myself laughing out loud (very embarrassing in a busy train) and sometimes I had a lump in my throat or tears in my eyes.

I now see him as a very emotional man, a bit soft, but persistant, honest and open (which got him into trouble sometimes) who never forgot his origins. Overall the book is quite positive.

Others have complained about the lack of technicalities in this autobiography. Charlie should have explained how he made his films. Nonsense! This book is exactly what it should be: an autobiography, not a manual. This is about the man and that's exactly what I wanted to know.

It's a fantastic read and I would recommend it to anyone. ( )

What a fantastic book! All you 20-something wannabes (Kerry, Chantelle, I mean you) take note – this is how an autobiography SHOULD be written: at the end of a long, fulfilling and fascinating life, not after a normal childhood and ten minutes on a reality TV show.

This is a sweeping and beautifully written story covering the entire span of Chaplin’s life as it stood at the time of writing, from his poverty-stricken London childhood and his early theatrical career, through the evolution of Hollywood and the development of his most famous and well-loved character, the ‘Little Tramp’, to his dazzling rise to fame and fortune, his brushes with the harsh face of American politics, and his final escape to Switzerland with his wife Oona and their large family, where he remained until his death in 1977.

Not only is this a wonderful journey through the world of theatre and the development of the film industry, it is also overflowing with interesting people, places and anecdotes. His was a golden era of sparkling society in which the aristocracy and the intellectual elite mixed on equal terms and travelled frequently. Thus Chaplin can legitimately name-drop a veritable wealth of friends, acquaintances and casual meetings, from Albert Einstein to Winston Churchill, Lord and Lady Mountbatten to John Steinbeck, Rachmaninov to Picasso. On top of all that there is a meandering thread of personal philosophy, politics and considered opinion, all of which come together to form a rounded picture of someone whose genius could otherwise have become buried under his comedy.

I picked up the book on the strength of the film ‘Chaplin’ (starring Robert Downey Jr.), which I fell to watching on television one day and watched to the end, finding myself captivated by the life of this unique, intelligent little man and his consuming interest in entertaining the masses with his films, of which he was writer, director, composer, actor and everything in between. I have never seen a Chaplin film in its entirety, but after reading his autobiography I have a list of movies to see and enough knowledge to fully appreciate them. I didn’t want the book to end, long though it may be, and as I closed its pages I was reminded of Truman Capote’s famous remark about finishing a book being like you’ve taken a child out in the yard and shot it. That feeling of looking at your bookshelf, wondering what on earth could top that? Oh, and in case you were wondering – Capote gets a name-drop too… ( )

A well-written and intriguing window into this complicated man, this auto-biography tells much of Charlie Chaplin's background as well as some of his introspective character. What I found most interesting was what he didn't discuss, either out of respect for those still living or because it involved something he did not wish to dwell. Interesting mentions was his second wife, Lita Grey, the Hearst yachting incident, and the almost complete omission of the making of The Circus. All in all, it was a most interesting read. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Chaplin. ( )