Charlie Chaplin Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on April 16, 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 separated when he was very young, were music hall artists, his father quite famously so. But it was his mother Charlie idolized and was inspired by during his visits backstage while she performed, to take up such a career for himself. He achieved his ambition when he joined a dancing troop, the Eight Lancashire Lads, and this eventually led onto parts in Sherlock Holmes and Casey's Cour