Just telling stories about her legendary pedigree would doom Geraldine Leigh Chaplin to eternal fame. She was the first-born child of the great Charlie Chaplin's marriage to the daughter of the equally famous, Nobel Prize-winning, Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish playwright Eugene O'Neill. Her maternal grandmother was the novelist Agnes Boulton, author of sensational novels, and her paternal grandmother Hannah Chaplin was a famous musical actress, singer, and dancer who took to the stage at the age of 16. Geraldine portrayed her in the 1992 biopic about her father, made by Richard Attenborough. She was born in California but lived in Europe from the age of eight after the U.S. barred Charlie Chaplin from entering the country on charges of Communist propaganda. She first stood in front of the camera at the age of seven in his 1952 film “Limelight”. Her real film debut was at 20 in director David Lean's Oscar-winning “Doctor Zhivago” (1965), and at 23 she began her Broadway theatre career in Lillian Hellman's “The Little Foxes”.
She starred in her father's last film, “The Countess from Hong Kong” (1967), and in seven films from her first husband Carlos Saura's early career, from “Peppermint Frappé” (1967) to “Raising Ravens” (1979) to “Mama Turns 100” (1979).
The list of directors Geraldine Chaplin starred under is a meticulous selection of the best in world cinema from the 1960s to today. She shines in Robert Altman's masterpieces “Nashville” (1975, for which she received her second Golden Globe nomination), “Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson” (1975) and “A Wedding” (1978), “The Age of Innocence” (1993) by Martin Scorsese. It is significant, however, that her filmography, which to date includes over 150 roles, includes many more European than American productions. Among the most famous directors she has worked with are Richard Lester (“The Three Musketeers”, 1973), Alan Rudolph (“Welcome to L.A.”, 1976), Jacques Rivette (“Noroît”, 1976), James Avory (“Roseland”, 1977), Miguel Littin (“Spanish: La Viuda de Montiel”, 1979), Alain Resnais (“Life is a Novel”, 1983), Claude Lelouch's “Boléro” (1984), Tony Palmer's “The Children” (1990), “Jane Eyre” (1995) by Franco Zeffirelli, “Home for the Holidays” (1995) by Jody Foster, Pedro Almodóvar's “Talk to Her” (2002), “Melissa P.” (2005) by Luca Guadagnino, “The Orphanage” (2007) by J. А. Bayona; “Memories of My Melancholy Whores” (2011) by Henning Carlsen.
For her contribution to Spanish cinema, she was awarded the Gold Medal of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences in 2006.
Recently, the desert has been her favorite place to shoot, both in Jessica Woodworth's “Luca” (2023), based on Dino Buzzati's classic novel “The Tartar Steppe”, and also in “Seneca - On the Creation of Earthquakes” (2023) alongside John Malkovich.
Geraldine Chaplin's connection with Bulgaria is by no means limited to her admiration for 2011 Moscow Film Festival winning “Sneakers”, where she was the President of the Jury. Nor with her roles in two Bulgarian co-productions with Art Fest, directed by Jessica Woodworth. She starred in the leading role of the film directed by Peter Uvaliev (under the name Pierre Rouve), “Strangers at Home” (1967, based on the novel by Georges Simenon).
* * *
The SOFIA Municipality AWARD for outstanding contribution to the world of cinema was presented to Geraldine Chaplin during her visit at 27-th Sofia International Film Festival - March 25, 2023, National Palace of Culture.