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:
“If you understand why a monkey in a family is always mocked and harassed, you understand why monks are rejected by all—both old and young.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“The family is constantly changing, as each member changes. Some changes we recognize as developments, and the pleasure they bring usually makes us more adaptable. Some changes threaten, or disappoint other members, who may try to resist the change, or punish someone for changing.”
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“We do not raise our children alone.... Our children are also raised by every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact. Yet parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their children, and they expect to do their parenting alone.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)