An Everyman who expressed the defiant spirit of freedom, Charlie Chaplin was first lauded and later reviled in the America that made him Hollywood's richest man. He was a figure of multiple paradoxes, and many studies have sought to unveil 'the man behind the mask'. But Simon Louvish's new book - following on from his five major biographies of comedy's classic stars, from W.C. Fields to Laurel & Hardy and Mae West - looks afresh at the 'mask behind the man'. Louvish charts the tale of the Tramp himself through his films - from the early Mack Sennett shorts through the major features ("The Gold Rush", "City Lights", "Modern Times", "The Great Dictator" et al). He weighs the relationship between the Tramp, his creator, and his world-wide fans, and in doing so retrieves Chaplin as the iconic London street-kid who carried the 'surreal' antics of early British Music Hall triumphantly onto the Hollywood screen.
