Charlie Chaplin was a superstar of silent comedies and one of the great icons of 20th-century film. Chaplin had a rotten childhood and an early start on stage, performing even as a child in vaudeville. He went to Hollywood in 1914 and began acting in silent comedies for Mack Sennett. By 1915 he controlled most aspects of his films, in which he usually appeared as a character called simply ‘The Little Tramp’: a lovably shabby dreamer with a brushy moustache, bowler hat and cane. Famously outspoken and sympathetic to communism, Chaplin left the United States in 1952 because of increased political pressure. He settled in Switzerland, where he and his wife Oona raised eight children, including actress Geraldine Chaplin. In 1972 he returned to the United States to accept a special Oscar, and in 1975 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.