The silent film pioneer and iconic “Little Tramp” had two sons, Charles Spencer Chaplin III (born May 5, 1925) and Sidney Earl Chaplin (born March 30, 1926) with his second wife, Rita Gray, and eight children with his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill. She was 18 when she married the 54-year-old O’Neill in 1943 (to Mr. O’Neill’s surprise, thanks to her playwright father, Eugene).
The two lived together until Chaplin’s death in 1977 at the age of 88, and welcomed Geraldine Lee (31 July 1944), Michael John (7 March 1946), Josephine Hanna (28 March 1949), Victoria Agnes (19 May 1951), Eugene Anthony (23 August 1953), and Jane. Cecil (May 1957), Annette Emily (December 1959), Christopher James (July 8, 1962).
Chaplin was 73 years old when Christopher was born.
Geraldine played paternal grandmother Hannah Chaplin (who had three sons with as many fathers) in the 1992 biopic Chaplin, starring Robert Downey Jr. “There was no rule that we couldn’t watch other movies, but the movies that were playing at home were Charlie Chaplin movies,” she recalled to the Baltimore Sun. “And one guy didn’t talk about other comedians like Laurel or Hardy. I think he did that because he was so insecure that he couldn’t stand that other people’s movies might be good.”
