October 16, 2012

The Tramp In Pictures

               


During his long career, Chaplin rarely posed for professional photographers in his Tramp costume. Most were taken on sets with studio stills photographers. The Hartsook and Witzel sessions from c. 1914-1915 are unique because they were both done in a photographer's studio and were not connected to a certain film. To my knowledge, Chaplin never posed in costume at a photographer's studio again.




There are two other non-film related sessions that were done at the Chaplin Studios in 1918 & c. 1926. These photos were probably taken by a studio stills photographer:

 


Charles Zoller took a series of autochrome photos during the filming of A Dog's Life in 1918:



Another series of posed photographs were taken during the filming of A Dog's Life for an article for  Motion Picture magazine:


Chaplin occasionally engaged professional photographers to take publicity portraits for some of his films. James Abbe was used for The Pilgrim (although he is not in his traditional Tramp costume) & Max Munn Autrey for Modern Times.




Around 1920, Chaplin studio cameraman Jack Wilson, who had ambitions of being a portrait photographer, took a series of photos of Charlie. One of the images, which had never been used for any purpose & was sent to Wilson's family in Scotland, was later found by Chaplin biographer David Robinson and used on the cover of his book Chaplin: His Life & Art in 1985:



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