18. Charlie Chaplin died on Christmas Day 1977
While many people around the world were enjoying his films as a family, poor Charlie Chaplin himself croaked his last on Christmas Day 1977. Aged 88, Chaplin had been suffering very poor health for some time, and was confined to a wheelchair, so those closest to him knew it was coming. According to a Variety report on his funeral, Christmas was a big occasion in the fun-loving Chaplin’s household, and so his passing on so auspicious a day was doubly-tragic. Nonetheless, Chaplin died peacefully in his sleep, at home in Switzerland with his loved ones.
But Chaplin’s was a life to be celebrated rather than mourned. A pioneering comic actor best-remembered for his role as The Little Tramp (above) in various films, Chaplin was also a talented and influential director in his own right. And he was also one of the only people brave enough to mock Adolf Hitler, who once described Chaplin as one of his favorite performers, in the 1930s. Chaplin funded The Great Dictator (1941), a parody of Hitler, out of his own pocket, and doubly-insulted the tyrant by playing both a Jewish barber and the instantly-recognizable Adenoid Hynkel. Good on him!