I knew he had an older brother, i've seen him in several of his movies. As far as his accent goes, that can be contrived. (He made two talking movies of which I am aware. "Limelight" and "The Great Dictator." (I own a copy of each.) I would point out that Hugh Laurie does an awesome job playing the role of an obnoxious American Jerk, and Anna Torv does an excellent job as an American FBI agent. I would say we would need something better than his accent as proof. So are you saying the story is incorrect?
When he was quite young, he and his brother were members of the famous Karno Group, which included Stan Laurel. When they toured America, Chaplin, Laurel and Sydney Chaplin chose to remain in America.
I recall reading in Groucho Marx's book "Groucho and Me", that He (Julius Henry Marx) ran across Charlie Chaplain on the Vaudeville circuit, and was quite impressed with him.
Charlie was way too cheap to pay the dues necessary to be a member of the Communist party.
Back in those days, Communism was not known to be the terror that we have since learned that it is. In those naive halcyon times, people actually saw it as an evolutionary improvement on the state of mankind, much as they saw the creation of the American Republic as a welcome break from the stagnant ideas of the past. (Monarchy.)
I can't blame a person for being a communist sympathizer in the 1920s and 1930s, but by the time the 50s rolled around, those people should have understood it to be the essence of pure evil.
While i'm a fan of Charlie Chaplain, I am not that knowledgeable about his history, though I had read of speculation as to whether or not he was Jewish. It doesn't matter to me worth a hill of beans if he is, (or not) he was a great comedian, and the world is a better place for his having been in it.
Chaplin also made “Monsieur Verdoux” in the 1950s. He did speak with a distinct English accent that sounds very grounded to me. Modern actors like Hugh Laurie are much better trained in doing American accents. Nothing like the old time actors who didn’t travel as much and had very little need to acquire the ability to do foreign accent. Ms. Streep would have been a complete failure, LOL!
So, indeed, he was an Englishman but for some reason the Jewish thing was always rumored. I, too, could care less, but I simply do not think he was a Jew.
His politics came out of his horrible childhood of poverty and insanity (his mother was institutionalized partly because of malnutrition).
I believe it was Groucho Marx’s son, Arthur, who wrote all the books about Grouch. They are a lot of fun.