No wonder Charlie Chaplin made a career out of being silent – he was a feckin’ Brummie!
A letter Chaplin kept hidden in a locked draw for decades could finally solve the mystery of where the shit silent film pioneer was born.
The document was sent by Jack Hill, who lived in Tamworth, and was only discovered in 1991 after the star’s daughter inherited the desk it was concealed in. In the letter, Hill told Chaplin he had been born in a caravan, in a gypsy community in Smethwick, West Midlands, which was ruled by a gypsy queen.
Researcher Edward Ellis suggested Chaplin may have decided to lock the letter away, not wanting the world to know of his gypsy blood. “I think that there has always been a stigma towards gypsies,” he said. “He may not have wanted people to know that he had a gypsy background.”
This also explains Chaplin’s habit of dumping plastic bags filled with his own faeces over his neighbour’s fence.
