page_title: The Tramp
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: The Tramp / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A photographic portrait of Charlie Chaplin as a young man, Hollywood, taken around 1916.
context_page_description: The Tramp, also known as The Little Tramp, was British actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. The Tramp is also the title of a silent film starring Chaplin, which Chaplin wrote and directed in 1915.
  The Tramp, as portrayed by Chaplin, is a childlike, bumbling but generally good-hearted character who is most famously portrayed as a vagrant who endeavors to behave with the manners and dignity of a gentleman despite his actual social status. However, while he is ready to take what paying work is available, he also uses his cunning to get what he needs to survive and escape the authority figures who will not tolerate his antics. Chaplin's films did not always portray the Tramp as a vagrant, however. The character was rarely referred to by any names on-screen, although he was sometimes identified as "Charlie" and rarely, as in the original silent version of The Gold Rush, "The little funny tramp".
context_section_description: The character of the Tramp was originally created by accident while Chaplin was working at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, when dressing up for the short film Mabel's Strange Predicament starring Mabel Normand and Chaplin. In a 1933 interview, Chaplin explained how he came up with the look of the Tramp:
  A hotel set was built for (fellow Keystone comic) Mabel Normand's picture Mabel's Strange Predicament and I was hurriedly told to put on a funny make-up. This time I went to the wardrobe and got a pair of baggy pants, a tight coat, a small derby hat and a large pair of shoes. I wanted the clothes to be a mass of contradictions, knowing pictorially the figure would be vividly outlined on the screen. To add a comic touch, I wore a small mustache which would not hide my expression. My appearance got an enthusiastic response from everyone, including Mr. Sennett. The clothes seemed to imbue me with the spirit of the character. He actually became a man with a soul—a point of view. I defined to Mr. Sennett the type of person he was. He wears an air of romantic hunger, forever seeking romance, but his feet won't let him.
  That was actually the first film featuring the Tramp but a different film, shot later but with the same character, happened to be released two days earlier.  The Tramp debuted to the public in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice (released on 7 February 1914; Mabel's Strange Predicament, shot earlier, was released on 9 February 1914). Chaplin, with his Little Tramp character, quickly became the most popular star in Keystone director Mack Sennett's company of players. Chaplin continued to play the Tramp through dozens of short films and, later, feature-length productions. (In only a handful of other productions did he play characters other than the Tramp).
  The Tramp was closely identified with the silent era, and was considered an international character. When the sound era began in the late 1920s, Chaplin refused to make a talkie featuring the character, partly due to how the character was supposed to be American, and Chaplin himself had a strong and obvious English accent. The 1931 production City Lights featured no dialogue. Chaplin officially retired the character in the film Modern Times (released 5 February 1936), which appropriately ended with the Tramp walking down an endless highway toward the horizon. The film was only a partial talkie and is often called the last silent film. The Tramp remains silent until near the end of the film when, for the first time, his voice is finally heard, albeit only as part of a French/Italian-derived gibberish song. This allowed the Tramp to finally be given a voice but not tarnish his association with the silent era.
  In The Great Dictator, Chaplin's first film after Modern Times, Chaplin plays the dual role of a Hitler-esque dictator, and a Jewish barber. Although Chaplin emphatically stated that the barber was not the Tramp, he retains the Tramp's moustache, hat, and general appearance. Despite a few silent scenes, including one where the barber is wearing the Tramp's coat and bowler hat and carrying his cane, the barber speaks throughout the film (using Chaplin's own English accent), including the passionate plea for peace that has been widely interpreted as Chaplin speaking as himself.
  In 1959, having been editing The Chaplin Revue, Chaplin commented to a reporter (regarding the Tramp character) "I was wrong to kill him. There was room for the Little Man in the atomic age."
  A vaudeville performer named Lew Bloom created a similar tramp character which inspired Chaplin. According to Bloom, he was "the first stage tramp in the business". In an interview with the Daily Herald in 1957 Chaplin recalled being inspired by the tramp characters Weary Willie and Tired Tim from Illustrated Chips.
caption: Chaplin in 1916
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