1985 "First McGraw-Hill edition, 1985" stated; McGraw-Hill Book Company publishers, New York; larger hardbound in buff and red boards with great gilt stamp image of Chaplin on spine; black and white photos; very good condition with unmarked pages; dust jacket very good.
 
Description -
Charlie Chaplin ( 1889-1977) revolutionized the language of cinema and became one of the most loved performers of all time. But he was also a man plagued by loneliness and driven by the search for artistic perfection. His life was an extraordinarily dramatic one, and David Robinson explores the often tragic story of Chaplin's alcoholic father; his mentally disturbed mother; his marriages to very young women; the 'white slavery' case against him; and his persecution by anti-Communist forces during the McCarthy era, which ultimately forced Chaplin to leave America.
 
Kirkus Review -
A strong Chaplin biography, chockablock with the nuts and bolts of filmmaking as derived from Chaplin's own working papers and studio re. ports, by a noted British film critic-historian (Chaplin--The Mirror of Opinion and Buster Keaton). Robinson was also granted access by Lady Oona to her husband's closely guarded private papers, records and letters. Robinson is consistently reserved about his responses to finished works, especially those of Chaplin's later life (Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight, A King in New York and A Countess from Hong Kong), which have their moments but surely show the master's hand wavering with diminished energies. In fact, after the half-success of The Great Dictator it cannot be said that Chaplin survived the talkies (his are too talky by half). His talkies are dealt with at fair depth, but it is the earlier silents about Charlie (and Chaplin's superb non-Tramp, full-length A Woman of Paris) that percolate most on the page. Robinson is bettered as a silent film-comedy esthete by Walter Kerr's richly mulled The Silent Clowns (1975), still the most stimulating criticism in Chaplin literature...