Master actor, director, producer, composer, and writer, Charles Spencer Chaplin was born into a theatrical family in East Lane, Walworth, London. His parents were music hall entertainers. Hannah Chaplin sang, danced, and was a mimic; Charles Chaplin, Sr., was a popular comedian, baritone, and sometime composer. He was Hannah's second husband and young Chaplin was brought up with Sydney, the son of her first union. When Chaplin was two, his parents separated, and his mother's career faltered; she eventually became insane. Although Charles, Jr., danced in the street for money and Sydney sold papers, the Chaplins were forced into the poorhouse in 1896. Chaplin and his brother endured the agony of separation from their mother, the indignities of poverty, and, later, neglect and abuse from their alcoholic father and his mistress. Chaplin's experiences influenced his art and his view of human nature; he understood and depicted the common man...