Charlie Chaplins actor-son Sydney Chaplin dies

LOS ANGELES – Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's son and himself a Tony-winning actor who starred on Broadway opposite Judy Holliday in "Bells Are Ringing" and Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl," has died at 82.

Chaplin died Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, longtime family friend Jerry Bodie told The Associated Press on Thursday. He said Chaplin had recently suffered a stroke.

"He was one of those guys who just sort of trooped through history," Bodie said of Chaplin, recalling his friend as a gregarious man who struck up friendships with everyone from Albert Einstein to Frank Sinatra.

Chaplin appeared in two of his father's later films, "Limelight" 1952 and "The Countess from Hong Kong" 1967. But he never achieved the success in Hollywood that he enjoyed in New York's musical theater.

He won his Tony for "Bells Are Ringing," the 1956 Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical about a telephone answering service operator Holliday who falls in love with a customer Chaplin. New York Herald Tribune critic Walter Kerr wrote that the actor "doubles the evening's warmth by the simple expedient of believing in its love story."

His best-remembered show, though, was the 1964 smash "Funny Girl" as Nicky Arnstein, the gambler who woos Streisand in her star-making role as Fanny Brice. The New York Times called him "a tall, elegant figure as Nick, gallant in courting and doing his best when he must be noble."

The show brought him another Tony nomination, but he departed in June 1965, citing unspecified differences with producer Ray Stark. When it came time to make the movie, Omar Sharif, a major heartthrob following his roles in "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago," was cast opposite Streisand.

Chaplin — also bypassed in the film version of "Bells Are Ringing" for Dean Martin — said he wasn't disappointed.

"I never had the burning desire for recognition and respect that had driven my father," he explained.

He starred in another Comden-Green musical, 1961's "Subways Are for Sleeping."

Although his career never measured up to that of his father, he had little use for those who thought a famous name was a handicap.

"I think anyone who feels his life has been scarred because of the fame of his father is a bore," he told the AP in 1967.

He was the second son born to Charlie Chaplin's second wife, Lita Grey. The other son, Charles Chaplin Jr., died in 1968.

Sydney was named for his father's older half-brother, who helped young Charlie launch his theater career in England. After Charlie became a superstar in the movies, he returned the favor by bringing Syd Chaplin into the business.

Lita Grey was 16 when she married the 35-year-old Chaplin in 1924. Sydney was born two years later and his parents divorced a year after that in a court battle that brought sensational headlines.

He spent much of his boyhood in boarding schools — "I had been thrown out of three schools by the time I was 16," he recalled — with occasional weekends at his father's house. He recalled playing tennis with Greta Garbo and turning the music pages for the violin-playing Einstein.

"I thought everyone's father was like mine," he commented in 2003. "I may have been a little sheltered."

Associated Press writer John Rogers contributed to this story.







Crufts dog show in Birmingham, England, March 5. REUTERS/Darren Staples