As a child, Charlie Chaplin was awed and inspired by the sight of glamorous vaudeville stars passing his home, and from then on he never lost his ambition to become an actor. Chaplin's film career as the Little Tramp adored by the whole world is the stuff of legend, but this frank autobiography shows another side. He tells of his childhood of grinding poverty in the south London slums and early debut on the music hall stage, his lucky break in America, the struggle to maintain artistic control over his work, the string of failed marriages, and his eventual exile from Hollywood after persecution for his left-wing politics and personal scandals. My Autobiography is an evocative and compelling account of one of the twentieth century's most remarkable lives.