Powell: Holy cow! History – Will the Real Charlie Chaplin Please Stand Up? – Daily Independent

J. Mark Powell

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By J. Mark Powell

It’s an indelible icon of early 20th-century America: a bombshell and toothbrush moustache, baggy pants with worn-out shoes, a cheap cane and a funny gait, all topped off with a wickedly shy smile.

For more than a century we have recognized them as trademarks of Charlie Chaplin’s beloved character The Little Tramp. At least once (and maybe more) Chaplin failed to represent himself. His image is so iconic today that it’s hard to remember that there was ever a time when the absurd figure’s hilarious antics were brand new.

In 1910, a new medium appeared. Although Hollywood preferred the slightly scientific-sounding title “film industry,” ordinary people created the name we still use today. Movies.

They had progressed far beyond the initial short grainy, flickering scenes showing bits of everyday life. (Remember that the first five-second film shot by Thomas Edison in January 1894 showed a person sneezing). By the early 1910s, they had become true stories. And the young English comedian turned Californian Charlie Chaplin was in the right place at the right time to make the most of it.

His lovable Tramp (or “little man” as Chaplin called him) first appeared in Mabel’s Strange Predicament in 1914. Mabel Normand was a popular star in her day, but the Little Tramp stole the show…and moviegoers’ hearts too.

It became an instant hit. In fact, the following year he starred in the feature comedy The Tramp. It was box office gold and the rest, as they say, is history.

Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp was an overnight sensation worldwide. There has never been anything so big, so global in human history. The Little Tramp was an everyman with universal appeal. Since these were silent films, the title cards could be easily switched from English to other languages. In remarkably short time, the audience was laughing at the tramp’s riffs from Bakersfield to Berlin to Bombay.

The whole world loved Charlie Chaplin and his humor helped people heal from the madness that was the First World War.

By 1920, the Charlie Chaplin craze was in full swing. Local movie houses are cashing in on the craze by holding Charlie Chaplin lookalike contests. In a decade known for its fads, it quickly swept the country.

Dozens of men entered the races, all dressed as the Little Tramp and with mustaches glued on. There are fat bums and skinny bums, tall bums and short bums, old bums and young bums. The audience often chose the winners with their applause. Some winners took home generous prizes.

But Charlie Chaplin himself—the real Charlie Chaplin—lost at least one such contest.

Chaplin had a mischievous streak and loved to make good-natured jokes. It’s easy to see why this one liked it.

In his book, My Father, Charlie Chaplin, Charles Chaplin Jr. wrote: “They held countless Charlie Chaplin contests. Dad told me about one of them that happened before I was born. It was at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood and there were 30 or 40 people on stage doing their best to imitate Dad. Dad was one of them. He had gone up incognito to see how he would do. He finished third. Dad always thought it was one of the funniest pranks you could imagine – whether on him or the judges or both, I don’t know.

Another version appears in the book Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin. It says: “…many (vaudeville houses) promoted Chaplin’s fashion by sponsoring amateur Charlie look-alike contests.” Among the early winners was Bob Hope, who took first prize in a Chaplin contest in Cleveland. Charlie himself was not so lucky. When he entered a competition organized by a theater in San Francisco, he didn’t even make it to the finals. “I’m tempted to give lessons in Chaplin’s walk,” he told a reporter, “out of pity as well as a desire to see things done right.”

Knowing Chaplin’s sense of fun and love of light-hearted mischief, he may have entered a few pageants on a whim while appearing in various cities as he toured the country. Although the details are open to debate, it appears that Charlie Chaplin actually lost his own lookalike contest at least once.

You can’t help but smile at the irony. The man who made millions by making the world laugh failed to convince the audience that he was himself. It would melt even the Little Tramp’s heart.

Editor’s note: J. Mark Powell is a novelist, former television journalist and die-hard history buff. Have a historical mystery that needs to be solved? Forgotten moment worth remembering? Send it to him at [email protected]. Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcome [email protected].