Charles Chaplin - City Lights Soundtrack: Evening/Meeting the Millionaire (1931)

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16th April 1889 in Walworth, London, and lived a Dickensian childhood, shared with his brother, Sydney, that included extreme poverty, workhouses and seeing his mother’s mental decline put her into an institution. Both his parents, though seperated when he was very young, were music hall artists, his father quite famously so. But it was his mother Charlie idolised and was inspired by during his visits backstage while she performed, to take up such a career for himself. He acheived his ambition when he joined a dancing troup, the Eight Lancashire Lads, and this eventually led onto parts in Sherlock Holmes and Casey’s Court Circus. Sydney, meanwhile, had joined the famous Fred Karno Company and quickly became a leading player and writer therein. He managed to get Charlie involved, and he too became a Karno star. For both boys, Karno was almost a college of comedy for them, and the period had a huge impact on Charlie especially. In 1910 Charlie toured the U.S with the