Charlie Chaplin was a silent movie star from the early 20th century.
The First Doctor briefly met Chaplin while on the run from the Daleks in Hollywood in 1921. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
After Donna Noble was converted into the "Doctor-Donna", she suggested that she and the Tenth Doctor visit him. Moments later, however, she experienced the start of a potentially fatal mental breakdown that forced the Doctor to erase her memories of travelling in the TARDIS. (TV: Journey's End)
The Doctor considered this Donna's "last request". He honoured her request by travelling alone to the silent film era of Hollywood to meet Chaplin. Instead, though, he encountered Archie Maplin, one of Chaplin's competitors, in 1926. (COMIC: Silver Scream)
The physical resemblance between Chaplin and Adolf Hitler was once remarked upon by Fey Truscott-Sade who once told Nazi Colonel Kessler that she thought that it was "mad" that "millions of people [were] following a disgusting little man with a Charlie Chaplin moustache." (COMIC: Me and My Shadow)
Behind the scenes[]
Original DW09 1 artwork featuring Charlie Chaplin
- Chaplin's Little Tramp was reportedly one of the influences in determining the style of Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor.
- Years before playing Jamie McCrimmon, Frazer Hines appeared in Chaplin's film A King in New York, the last film in which Chaplin played a starring role.
- Chaplin appears, albeit briefly, in the episode "The Feast of Steven" of the TV story The Daleks' Master Plan. He was portrayed by uncredited actor MJ Matthews. Along with Bing Crosby, Chaplin's appearance in this serial is among the first of a living figure played by someone else. Due to the lack of tele-snaps and off-air photographs of this performance, it remains lost.
- The comic story Silver Scream was originally to have featured Chaplin. Writer Tony Lee told Doctor Who Magazine that while IDW were allowed to use Chaplin, they did not have the rights to use the likeness of Chaplin's character the Tramp, which they only realised the day before printing. The writer and artists hurriedly changed his name to Archie Maplin and added a handlebar moustache and changed the Tramp's bowler hat to a top hat as they had no time to do anything else. (DWM 528)