Charlie Chaplin was one of the world’s first truly international movie stars and his persona as “the Tramp” is now utterly iconic. However his journey to this character took some surprising turns in the early days of his career. In this talk we explore Chaplin the actor, as he carefully developed, over dozens of short films, a universal comic image that would be embraced by the whole planet. We’ll see how in crafting these early silent masterpieces depicting a wide variety of everyday situations, the Tramp was merely one hilarious guise amongst many.