Sir Charlie Chaplin: Iconic British Comic Actor And Director ... Sir Charlie Chaplin was born into a poor London family of music hall entertainers on April 16th 1889. Even as a child he found success as a performer, making his stage debut in 1894....
The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
There is only one vice, which may be found in life with as strong features, and as high a colouring as needs be employed by any satyrist or comic poet; and that is AVARICE.
—David Hume (1711–1776)
What the Journal posits is not the tragic question, the Madman’s question: “Who am I?”, but the comic question, the Bewildered Man’s question: “Am I?” A comic—a comedian, that’s what the Journal keeper is.
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)