In the early 20th century, there was room in the world for two Chaplins. Their names appeared together in print on the pages of fan magazines, and side by side in ink on the document that founded United Artists.
Even among silent-film specialists, his work is not well known. Mention his name to any of Charlie’s older children, however, and their faces light up with pleasure. ‘Uncle Sydney was our favourite!’ Geraldine Chaplin told me. Michael, Charlie’s eldest son, can still conjure the distinctive smell of his cigars. Geraldine can remember the traces of a London accent in his voice.
‘He loved to drive his great big Cadillac along the narrow Swiss roads,’ Geraldine, told me. 'He’d drive very, very slowly — it took him about an hour to get from Lausanne — and other cars would be honking around him'. Best of all, they remember the good-natured anarchy which he brought to Vevey, their childhood home in Switzerland. ‘As a kid,’ Michael said, 'it was a relief to see him.
He was always clowning about — in contrast to my father, who, to me, was always a more severe man, always on my back about working hard at school and getting a good education'. Sydney Chaplin was born in 1885, the first son of a seamstress named Hannah Hill. ‘It seems strange to me,’ reflected Hannah’s sister, Kate Mowbray, in 1916, ‘that anyone can write about Charlie Chaplin without mentioning his brother Sydney.
Syd, of quiet manner, clever brain and steady nerve, has been father and mother to Charlie. Charlie has always looked up to Syd, and Sydney would suffer anything to spare Charlie.’
Sydney had become a leading member of Fred Karno’s gang of acrobatic comedians, touring the States on a weekly salary of $36. In 1908, he persuaded Karno to admit his brother to the company on a trial basis. Karno sent Charlie to do the next American tour, in the autumn of 1910. Before long, Charlie had accepted a contract with Mack Sennett’s Keystone Pictures in Edendale, California. Not forgetting that one good turn deserves another, he persuaded Sennett that Sydney would make a useful addition. By November 1914, the Little Tramp had been joined by Sydney’s most famous character, Gussle — a buffoon with a cane, tiny fedora hat and big moustache. Throughout his life, Sydney put his own performing career on hold to manage Charlie’s affairs. He negotiated his brother’s first million-dollar contract in 1917; represented him in the foundation of United Artists in 1919; and quashed reports in 1931 about Charlie’s affair with a woman named May Reeves by pretending that he had enjoyed an affair with her himself. ‘They had a very close relationship,’ Michael told me. ‘My father didn’t have that many friends.
But he never said anything derogatory about Sydney. They really loved each other.’