Charlie Chaplin and the Business of Living
Adam Gopnik reviews Joyce Milton’s “Tramp,” a biography of Charlie Chaplin, and reflects on the comedian’s grounding in British music-hall tradition, his leftist politics, and the childlike purity of his art.
On Chaplin's mother Hannah: "'Mother was a soubrette on the variety stage, a mignonne in her late twenties, with fair complexion, violet-blue eyes and long light-brown hair that she could sit upon,' Chaplin recalled as an old man, and there is the voice of a little boy in love." Then: "when Charlie was twelve, he found her in the garret, stark mad, and had to lead her by the hand to the infirmary for the insane."