The little thief: How Charlie Chaplin survived his hungry childhood

A recently unearthed interview with an old friend recalls how the actor was looked after by a kindly ‘foster mother’ who made sure he did the right thing.

The     1     poverty endured by Charlie Chaplin while growing up in the slums (贫民窟) of Victorian London    2    him to stealing and being scolded by the woman who took care of him, according to an interview with one of his childhood friends that has remained unheard in the British Film Institute for almost 40 years.

Effie Wisdom, whose aunt gave him a home from home when he needed it most, lamented that Chaplin “had a terrible life” as a child, “always hungry”, dressed in “ragged”, filthy clothes - no doubt later inspiring the comic genius who created the Tramp, society’s eternal victim and one of cinema’s most     3     characters.

In 1983, aged 92, Wisdom gave an interview in which she recalled first meeting Chaplin when he was five and she was seven, with her aunt becoming his “foster mother”, as he used to tell her.

She recalled: “My aunt used to feed him because there was no social    4     in those days, no free milk, no children’s     5    , nothing. You never starved and yet you were on the breadline.”

“He used to go up Lambeth Walk and pinch . He’d come home with four eggs one day in his pocket. He came home with a pair of boots one day he’d nicked.”

Her aunt scolded him: “Do you want me to get the police? If you go on doing this, you’ll be locked up. You realize that, don’t you?”

The interview was     6    by Kevin Brownlow, one of Britain’s leading experts in silent films after researching Unknown Chaplin, the acclaimed three-part 1983 documentary series that he made with David Gill. It has been stored in the British Film Institute’s archive (档案) ever since.

Chaplin’s parents were music-hall performers and his mother was abandoned by her husband. His mother was then    7    to an asylum (精神病院).

After Chaplin’s death in 1977, Wisdom had written to his widow (遗孀), with memories of his mother’s desperate concern for her sons, Charlie and Sydney “I told Lady Chaplin I knew Charlie when he was a little boy. I used to play with him out in the street. When his mother had a nervous    8    , she said to my aunt, ‘If I had to go away, you wouldn’t let my lovely sons go into an orphanage?’ My aunt said, ‘No, I’ll look after them, don’t you worry’. My aunt looked after them, fed them and clothed them.”

Chaplin never forgot that. Wisdom paid     9    to his generosity towards her after finding success in America: “He used to send my aunt so much money because she used to look after him.”He also wrote to her.

Chaplin, with his derby hat (圆顶窄边礼帽)，toothbrush moustache and impossibly large boots, was the protagonist in such    10    as City Lights, The Great Dictator and Limelight.

Wisdom, who left school at 13 and worked in a London pub into her 80s, recalled his natural comedic talent, “He was always falling about being funny. He’d get an old table out in the yard, and he’d get all the kids in there, and get up there, put an old pair of trousers on, an old coat and a stick when he was 12. The kids loved that, he used to fall off the table, then he’d get up.” But she joked: “I never thought he’d get to where he got.”

She remembered him writing to her aunt from America, telling her that he would visit on his return to England: “He said, I’m not like when I left England with nothing. I’m going on to be a rich man.”

She added that Chaplin stayed at the Ritz (一家豪华酒店) and turned up at his aunt’s home in-a chauffeur (私人司机)-driven Rolls-Royce: “He invited my aunt and my uncle and me to the Ritz. My aunt says to me, ‘Of course I’d never been in a place like that’.”

From the Gardian

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, an affluent (富裕的) suburb just west of Chicago, to Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, a physician, and Grace Hall Hemingway, a musician. His parents were     1     in Oak Park, a conservative community about which resident Frank Lloyd Wright said, “So many churches for so many good people to go to. ”When Clarence and Grace Hemingway married in 1896, they lived wit Grace’s father, Ernest Miller Hall, after whom they named their first son, the second of their six children. Grace followed the Victorian     2     of not differentiating children’s clothing by gender. With only a year     3     the two, Emest and Marcelline resembled one-another strongly.

Hemingway s mother was a well-known local musician, and taught her     4     son to play the cello (大提琴). Later he said music lessons     5     to his writing style, as evidenced in For Whom the Bell Tolls. As an adult Hemingway professed to hate his mother, although they shared similar enthusiastic energies. Each summer the family traveled to Windemere on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan. Ernest joined his father and learned to hunt, fish and camp in the woods and lakes of Northern Michigan, early experiences    6     a life-long     7     for outdoor adventure and living in remote or     8     areas.

He attended Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park between 1913 and 1917. He was a(n)     9     athlete, and competed in boxing, track and field, water polo, and football. He performed in the school orchestra (管弦乐队) for two years with his sister Marcelline, and received good grades in English classes. Like Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis, Hemingway was a journalist before becoming a novelist. After leaving high school, he went to work for The Kansas City Star as a cub reporter. Although he stayed there for only six months, he relied on the Star’s style guide as a     10     for his writing. such as “Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative. ”

Unlike the earlier Realists who painted in a     1     style, Impressionist painters focused more on their     2     feelings of things and instant impressions. When Impressionism     3     in France in the late 19th century, artists became more interested in everyday subject matter. They were also fascinated by modern objects. As one of the most     4     Impressionist painters, Claude Monet was impressed by the visual effects of the steam engine     5    , and he later produced twelve paintings of a train station in Paris. In 1883, Monet and his large family moved to Giverny, where he     6     a house and some land for his gardens. During his days at Giverny, Monet     7     painting his own gardens, with the water lilies, the pond, and the arched bridge. From this we can see that there were two clear     8     apparent in his work throughout his career: colours and reflections in water.

The Hugo Awards, the world’s top sci-fi awards,     1     on Saturday night at the 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention. Chinese writer Hai Ya’s The Space-Time Painter     2     the Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Hai created the story     3     by a painting masterpiece Qianli Jiangshan Tu (A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains) by Wang Ximeng from the Song Dynasty (960-1279), who painted the work at the age of 18.     4     on the life of Wang, Hai created a painter named Zhao Ximeng, a prodigy that painted for the emperor more than 1,000 years ago. After much misery and suffering, Zhao     5     his physical body and entered a space where a modern policeman that     6     a case concerning an ancient painting     7     his memory. The story, through the twists and turns in Zhao’s life,     8     the political struggles behind this marvelous painting and the struggles and fights of individuals against the torrents of time. Working in the financial industry and a sci-fi fan, Hai, now 33, started writing sci-fi stories in 2016 and     9     his first work in 2019. Pitying on Wang who was so talented but had such a short life, Hai     10     his life through sci-fi, he said in previous interviews.

Whether as a player or as a coach, Lang Ping brought glory and medals to China and is loved by fans    1    . While preparing for the 2015 World Cup, her team was    2     because of the loss of two important players.     3     with challenges, she didn’t    4     and finally led her players to being world    5    . Another living legend I admire is Michael Jordan, known as “Air Jordan”. Although his skills were    6    , it was his mental    7     that made him unique, making him a good example for us to follow.

Yuan Longping, a(n)     1     scientist renowned for his agricultural achievements, dedicated his life to improving the lives of rural farmers. Through a process of     2     and error, one of Yuan Longping’s greatest contributions is the development of hybrid rice. This groundbreaking approach     3     different rice varieties to create high-yielding crops that can grow in different soil conditions. Farmers eagerly     4     this new method, as it provides them with the tools to     5     production and meet the     6     growing consumption demands due to overpopulation.

The impact of Yuan Longping’s work has been     7    , feeding the hungry at home and abroad for     8     to come. His pioneering efforts have made his innovations readily     9     throughout the world, offering farmers the tools and knowledge to improve their livelihoods and contributing to world food     10    .