Geraldine Chaplin

Vocation

Notable

Family

American actress and first of eight children of British comedian-legend Charlie Chaplin and his wife, Oona O’Neill, the granddaughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill. Her first major role was in 1965 when she was cast as the wife of the title character in "Doctor Zhivago." The same year, she met director Carlos Saura and had a son with him. One of her many roles was to play her own grandmother in the movie, "Chaplin," 1992, a biography of her father. A descendant of legends, Geraldine had her first walk-on movie role at age seven, a one-line part in her father’s film, "Limelight," 1952. On 9/17/1952, the Chaplins went on a six-month world cruise, after which they were denied reentry into America, primarily due to Charlie Chaplin’s "leftist" sympathies. The family moved to Switzerland, where Geraldine attended a village school for seven years, beginning at age ten, and then a convent boarding school where she ranked third in her class academically. She grew up in a household where visits by Picasso, Stravinsky and other luminaries were routine. She aspired to ballet, which she studied for four years as a teenager and then for two years at the Royal Ballet School in London. She performed professionally only once, in the chorus of a production of "Cinderella" in Paris in December 1963. The reviews were out of proportion to her role because of her father, who was furious. In Paris, she met an agent, Claude Briac, who helped her land a part in the film "Par un Beau Matin D’ete," which, by her own description, was one of the worst films ever made. During her official film debut in "Doctor Zhivago," in 1965, she met Carlos Saura. Their first professional collaboration was "Peppermint Frappe," 1967. She then appeared in a revival of "The Little Foxes" which ran in New York from 12/19/1967 to 1/20/1968, where she drew a nomination for "most promising new Broadway actress" in Variety’s poll of New York drama critics. Geraldine settled in Spain in the late ‘70s with Carlos Saura and their son, Shane Saura Chaplin O’Neill. In recent years, she appeared as her own father’s mother in the biography of his life, "Chaplin," 1992. Link to Wikipedia biography