Chaplin by himself was never an icon, never sacrosanct unless the lucky star he had devised was in his heaven as well. One can feel the implicity threat of the last statement, blasting through the shield that a powerful icon once afforded. And in 1953, while on a trip to Europe to join the premiere celebrations of his latest film Limelight , Chaplin was officially barred from reentry to the United States. It is as if a single figure stood out, waiting for the tumult and the shouting to die so that he could make himself known again with his antics, his thoughts, and his humanism. Waiting for years.
Icons are like that.