Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best-known for his work during the silent film era. He became one of the most famous film stars in the world before the end of World War I. 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. From the April 1914 one-reeler Twenty Minutes of Love onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was even composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919.
Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the Music Hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's identification with the left ultimately forced him to resettle in Europe during the McCarthy era in the early 1950s.
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th greatest male screen legend of all time. In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A Life, wrote: "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. ... It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most". George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry".
小查爾斯·史賓賽·「查理」·卓別林爵士，KBE（英語：Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin Jr.，1889年4月16日－1977年12月25日），英國喜劇演員及反戰人士，後來也成為一名非常出色的導演，尤其在好萊塢電影的早期和中期他非常成功和活躍。他奠定了現代喜劇電影的基礎，與巴斯特·基頓、哈羅德·勞埃德並稱為「世界三大喜劇演員」，卓別林戴著圓頂硬禮帽和禮服的模樣幾乎成了喜劇電影的重要代表，往後不少藝人都以他的方式表演。
卓別林最出色的角色是一個外貌流浪漢，內心則一幅紳士氣度、穿著一件窄小的禮服、特大的褲子和鞋、戴著一頂圓頂硬禮帽、手持一根竹拐杖、留著一撇小鬍子的形象。在無聲電影時期卓別林是最有才能和影響最大的人物之一。他自己編寫、導演、表演和發行他自己的電影。從在英國的大劇院作為孩童演員登台演出到他88歲高齡逝世他在娛樂業從事了70多年的生涯。從狄更斯式的倫敦童年一直達到了電影工業的世界頂端，他本人成為了一個文化偶像。
