Geraldine Chaplin Biography

Fast Facts

• Moved to Switzerland with her family when she was 8, and was educated at a Swiss boarding school
• Made her film debut, as a dancer, in her father's 1952 film Limelight
• Trained in classical ballet at the Royal Ballet School in London but didn't feel she was good enough to pursue it professionally
• Director David Lean chose her to play Tonya in his 1965 film Doctor Zhivago after seeing her picture in a magazine
• Made her Broadway debut in The Little Foxes in 1967
• Played her grandmother (Charlie's mother, Hannah) in the 1992 movie Chaplin, which starred Robert Downey Jr
• Has worked with such acclaimed directors as Pedro Almodovar, Franco Zeffirelli, Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese
• Is fluent in French and Spanish