Family
Charlie Chaplin and Oona had eight children together:
- Actress Geraldine (born. July 31, 1944, longtime partner to Spanish film director Carlos Saura)
- Michael (born. March 7, 1946)
- Josephine (born. March 28, 1949, mother of Julien Ronet (b. 1980) by Maurice Ronet)
- Victoria (born. May 19, 1951, married to Jean-Baptiste Thieree, parents of Aurelie and James (b. May 2, 1974, in Lausanne))
- Eugene (born. August 23, 1953)
- Jane (born. May 23, 1957, unmarried)
- Annette (born. December 3, 1959, unmarried)
- Christopher (born. July 6, 1962, unmarried)
She was also the second stepmother (after Paulette Goddard) to Charles Chaplin, Jr. (1925–1968) (he was born 10 days before Oona) and Sydney Chaplin (1926–2009). Their mother was Lita Grey (1908–1995).
Geraldine thought very highly of her mother, and when she was cast in Doctor Zhivago (1965), she decided to base her performance as the title character's wife on her mother, whom she described as "a woman who was willing to give her life to an artist."
In 2006, Chaplin's granddaughter, model and actress Kiera Chaplin (daughter of Eugene Chaplin), visited Tao House, where her maternal great-grandfather had lived. She has announced that she would like to play her grandmother in a film. The same year, daughter Jane Chaplin announced that she had written a memoir entitled "Seventeen Minutes with my Father," which she said would not be easy on her mother.
In March 1975, three years after briefly returning to the United States to receive a special Academy Award, Charlie Chaplin was knighted. His health declined rapidly afterwards, and he died on Christmas Day 1977 at the age of eighty-eight.
Following Chaplin's death, Oona moved to New York where she attempted to build a life on her own. She retreated to the manor in Switzerland where she became a recluse. She died of pancreatic cancer on September 27, 1991, in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.
Read more about this topic: Oona O'Neill
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“Realizing that his time was nearly spent, he gave full oral instructions about his burial and the manner in which he wished to be remembered.... A few minutes later, feeling very tired, he left the room, remarking, ‘I have no disposition to leave this precious circle. I love to be here surrounded by my family and friends.’ Then he gave them his blessing and said, ‘I am ready to go and I wish you goodnight.’”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If it had not been for storytelling, the black family would not have survived. It was the responsibility of the Uncle Remus types to transfer philosophies, attitudes, values, and advice, by way of storytelling using creatures in the woods as symbols.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)