Geraldine Chaplin

Geraldine Chaplin
Chaplin in Brazil, August 2014
Born	Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (1944-07-31) 31 July 1944 Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1952–present
Spouse(s)	Patricio Castilla (m. 2006)
Partner(s)	Carlos Saura (1967–1979)
Children	2, including Oona Castilla Chaplin
Parent(s)	Charlie Chaplin Oona O'Neill

Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born 31 July 1944) is an American-born British actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O'Neill.

She came to prominence for her Golden Globe–nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965). She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville (1975). She also appeared in his other pictures, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) and A Wedding (1978). She received a BAFTA nomination for her role in Welcome to L.A. (1976). She then appeared in Roseland (1977) and Remember My Name (1978). She played her grandmother Hannah Chaplin in the biopic, Chaplin (1992) for which she received her third Golden Globe nomination. She also appeared in The Age of Innocence (1993), Jane Eyre (1996), Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor (1997) and The Wolfman (2010).

Chaplin has also appeared in several Spanish and French films. She starred in Claude Lelouch's Les Uns et les Autres (1981), the Alain Resnais comedy Life Is a Bed of Roses (1983) and the Jacques Rivette experimental film Love on the Ground (1984). She has, arguably, enjoyed her greatest critical success collaborating with Carlos Saura: she starred in several notable films by the director, such as Ana and the Wolves (1973), Cría cuervos (1976), Elisa, vida mía (1977), and Mamá cumple cien años (1979). She collaborated with Pedro Almodóvar in Talk to Her (2002). She was awarded a Goya Award for her role in En la ciudad sin límites (2002) and was nominated again for The Orphanage (2007). Her contribution to Spanish cinema culminated in her being awarded the Gold medal by the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences in 2006.

Personal life

Geraldine Chaplin was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth child of actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin. She was the first of his eight children with his fourth and last wife, Oona O'Neill. Her paternal grandparents were English singers Charles Chaplin, Sr. and Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill, and her maternal grandparents were Nobel- and Pulitzer-Prize-winning American playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton.

When Geraldine was eight years old her father took the family on vacation to Britain and Europe, but two days after the family set sail the U.S. Attorney General signed an order refusing him permission to re-enter the country. Her father moved the family to Switzerland. She attended boarding school and became fluent in French and Spanish. At 17 she refused to go to college, preferring to pursue dance instead. She studied ballet for two years in England and then danced professionally for a year in Paris. Though a good dancer, she felt she had not trained from an early enough age to excel at it. She gave up ballet. Said Chaplin "I didn't leave ballet, ballet left me." It was a great disappointment to her. She found work as a fashion model instead, and then was discovered by David Lean. However it was many years before she could bring herself to go to see the ballet.

She dated a number of men in her younger years, but has had two serious, long term relationships. The first was with Carlos Saura, the Spanish film director whom she began seeing in 1967. He directed her in several films during their twelve-year relationship. In 1976 she gave birth to their son, Shane Suara Chaplin. The second is with Chilean cinematographer Patricio Castillo whom she married in 2006. They have a daughter, Oona, born in 1986.

In 1978 the Chaplin family were the victims of a failed extortion plot by kidnappers who had stolen the body of Charlie Chaplin. Geraldine negotiated with the kidnappers, who threatened to shoot her infant son in the knees.^[1] In addition to her home in Miami, she also lives alternately between Madrid and Switzerland.^[2]

Career

When Chaplin was eight years old, she appeared uncredited in her father's film Limelight. She attended the Royal Ballet School^[3] but, when her dream of becoming a ballet dancer ended, she followed her father into the acting profession. David Lean chose her to play Tonya,^[4] the main character's wife, in his film Doctor Zhivago, (1965) for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. In an interview to publicise the film, she explained, "Because of my name, the right doors opened."^[5]

With Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago, (1965)

In 1967, she made her Broadway debut in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes.^[6] Her performance was praised by Clive Barnes in a review published in The New York Times. Barnes noted that Chaplin "acts with spirit and force," all the while "acting with a magnificently raw-voiced sincerity" in what was a performance of "surprising power."^[7]

In the same year, she also began what would become a significant collaboration when she starred in Spanish film director Carlos Saura's psychological thriller Peppermint Frappé (1967). She later starred in (and occasionally co-wrote scripts for) later Saura films such as Ana and the Wolves (1973), Cría cuervos (1976), Elisa, vida mía (1977) and Mamá cumple cien años (1979). Cría cuervos is regarded as their finest collaboration, winning the Special Jury Prize Award at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. Vincent Canby praised Chaplin's "superb" performance.^[8]

She starred alongside Charlton Heston in the American historical film The Hawaiians (1970) and in The Three Musketeers (1974), as well as the sequel a year later, The Four Musketeers. Chaplin was cast as the obnoxious BBC reporter Opal in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She later starred in the Altman films Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) and A Wedding (1978).

In an interview with The New York Times in 1977, Chaplin cited that her career was going more successfully in Europe than in the United States. She complained that "I only seem to work with Altman here ... I don't have any offers in this country, none. Not even an interesting script to read. The only person who ever asks me is Altman - and James Ivory."

She starred in several films produced by Altman and directed by Alan Rudolph, with a BAFTA-nominated role in Welcome to L.A. (1976), in which she played a housewife addicted to cab rides. She received critical acclaim for her role in Remember My Name (1978), in which she played Anthony Perkins' murderous estranged wife. She also starred in Rudolph's 1920s set film The Moderns (1988). She has also starred in several French-language roles, including Jacques Rivette's Love on the Ground (1984) and the Alain Resnais films Life Is a Bed of Roses (1983) and I Want to Go Home (1989). In the biographical film about her father, Chaplin (1992), she played her grandmother Hannah Chaplin. For this part, she was nominated for another Golden Globe award. Following this film, she was directed by Martin Scorsese in The Age of Innocence (1993) and appeared in Franco Zeffirelli's version of Jane Eyre (1996)

Chaplin received a Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Spanish-Argentine thriller In the City Without Limits (2001).^[9] Other notable Spanish films she appeared in include Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her (2002) and José Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage (2007), for which she received a Goya Award nomination. She also recently starred in the Catalan drama, The Mosquito Net (2010), for which she was awarded the Crystal Globe. In 2006 Chaplin was awarded the Gold medal by the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España for her contribution to cinema.^[10]

In Americano, she appeared with Salma Hayek, and featured with Jane Fonda in All Together (both 2011). She reunited with Juan Antonio Bayona for the film The Impossible (2012). For her role in the Dominican Republic film Sand Dollars (2014), she received the Best Actress Award at the Havana Film Festival.

Filmography

Chaplin at a screening of The Orphanage in Madrid in 2007.

References

External links

• Geraldine Chaplin at the Internet Movie Database
• Geraldine Chaplin at the Internet Broadway Database
  
• Geraldine Chaplin at AllMovie