Chaplinalia

From the collections of the BFI and the Bill Douglas Centre we explore the extraordinary range of objects reflecting the obsession with Chaplin’s ‘little tramp’ including the famous hat and cane.

'The greatest icon in the history of the cinema' Charlie Chaplin is still recognisable the world over. His life was one of dramatic contrasts; from the Victorian slums of South London he rose to become a popular music hall comedian, travelling from London to America where he was propelled to megastardom through a combination of personal genius and historical synchronicity. A few months after he made his first film at the Keystone studios in Hollywood in 1914 he was topping the bill; by the time he made his first trip home to London in 1921 he had made 72 films and was quite literally the most famous man in the world. He was the first of the great movie stars and inspired a craze for everything Charlie which came to be known as Chaplinitis. From the collections of the BFI and the Bill Douglas Centre we explore the extraordinary range of objects reflecting the obsession with Chaplin’s ‘little tramp’ including the famous hat and cane.