Chaplin: His Life and Art

Chaplin: His Life and Art by David Robinson

Robinson was able to access to Chaplin's personal archives in order to create the most extensive biography of Charlie Chaplin.  While focusing intently on Chaplin's genius in front of and behind the camera, it also covers his childhood, marriages, and persecution and exile during the McCarthy Era.

While this is a very well written book, the parts I enjoyed the were the briefest ones about the people in his life... sketches about his alcoholic, absent father, his frustrated, mentally disturbed mother, his child brides, and his rough relationships with fellow artists.  While I felt sympathy for him, he never learned social skills.  He's rudest to those who help him the most, and fires people when he believes they are overstepping or taking over.  The only reason his last marriage was so happy was that Oona expected nothing, and asked for nothing.  If he was happy, she was happy.  And it helped that she was barely out of her teens and he was 36 years older.