Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 -- 25 December 1977), known as Charlie Chaplin, was an English comic actor and film director of the silent film era.
He became one of the best-known film stars in the world before the end of the First World War.
Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s.
His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914.