Charlie Chaplin’s daughter Josephine has died at the age of 74

2023-07-21 20:34:14

Josephine Chaplin, actress and sixth of 11 children of film legend Charlie Chaplin, died on July 13 in Paris. She was 74 years old. She was born of Chaplin’s marriage to his last wife, Oona O’Neill. The family’s announcement only came today.

Josephine had starred with Laurence Harvey in Menahem Golan’s ‘Escape to the Sun’ (1972), about a group of people who attempt to leave the Soviet Union to escape anti-Semitism and political repression. She also appeared alongside Vittorio De Sica and Maurice Ronet in Richard Balducci’s ‘L’Odore delle Beast’ (1972). She then with Liv Ullmann and Kiefer Sutherland in ‘The boy from the bay’ (1984) by Daniel Petrie and with Klaus Kinski in ‘Erotico Profondo’, German-language version of Jack the Ripper (1976) directed by Jesús Franco.

In 1988, she played Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, in the miniseries in which Stacy Keach had the title role.

Josephine Hannah Chaplin was born in Santa Monica on March 28, 1949, the third of eight children of Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, British actress and daughter of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O’Neill.

In the very famous ‘Limelight’ (1952), written, directed and performed by her father, Josephine appears in the opening scene with the brothers Geraldine and Michael and also in ‘The Countess of Hong Kong’. In 1972, she was in the cast of ‘The Canterbury Tales’ by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

He was a long-time resident of Paris and many of the films he starred in are French. In 1978, she and her family were involved in a bizarre extortion scheme by two men who stole the body and coffin of her father, who had died in Switzerland on Christmas Day the previous year. The family refused to pay a ransom and her remains were recovered 11 weeks after being stolen.

Josephine was married to Greek businessman Nikki Sistovaris from 1969 until their divorce in 1977, then lived with French actor Maurice Ronet until his death in 1983. Her second husband was archaeologist Jean-Claude Gardin: they were together from 1989 until his death in 2013.

Josephine’s funeral will take place in Paris in an intimate ceremony reserved for family members only.