- Charlie became one of the most famous actors as well as a notable filmmaker, composer and musician in the early to mid Classical Hollywood era of American cinema.
- Charlie acted in, directed, scripted, produced and eventually scored his own films as one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era.
- Charlie himself was heavily influenced by a predecessor, the French silent movie comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films.
- Charlie's working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the Music Hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer almost until his death at the age of 88.
- Charlie's high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy.
- With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, Charlie co-founded United Artists in 1919.
- In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Charlie the 10th greatest male actor of all time.
- In 2008, Martin Sieff in a review of the book Charlie: A Life, writes: "Charlie 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 WWI. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of 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".
- Charlie's parents were both entertainers in the music hall tradition.
- Charlie's maternal grandmother was half-Gypsy, a fact of which he was extremely proud, but was also described as "the skeleton in our family cupboard".
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