This book is my personal journey through the eyes of a man that we all grew up with.

There has been much written and there are many books on Charlie Chaplin’s films and public life.
I entered this very personal journey through my close friend Geraldine Chaplin, who opened Pandora’s box to me. I started editing thousands of pictures and found a man we thought that we all knew. Alex Wiederin, the creative director of this book and myself tried to put Chaplin’s rich life in some chronological order and separate his private life in periods parallel to his films. This is our visual journey, which is full of this very special man’s private moments, who has marked a major part of the last century. His long life from the early years in Los Angeles, is first studios and the very beginning of moving pictures. Parallels to his early family pictures in Hollywood, his first trip to the Far East with Paulette Goddard, to the many triumphant arrivals for his premiers, until finally his life in Europe. We were amazed by his sense of curiosity and sense of hu-mor. His style followed him through his personal life, his movies, his surrounding and everything he touched. So many have tried to imitate him but he has always been ahead of our time.
There has never been just modern times.
Thank you for opening you very private world to us. Michel Comte