Biography
Prominent in Spanish and French cinema, Geraldine Chaplin is Charlie Chaplin's eldest daughter.
Granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888-1965) and the singer Charles Chaplin Sr. (1864-1901). Oona O'Neill (1926-1991), Eugene O'Neill's daughter, was married to Charlie Chaplin from 1943 until his death in 1977.
Her international reputation grew after David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965).
Appearing as a child actress, notably in her father's Limelight (1952), she trained in ballet before resuming a career in cinema.
Her dark long hair, fragile androgynous beauty and fluency in French and Spanish have been used to interesting and sometimes incongrous effect by a range of auteurs, especially Carlos Saura, with whom she enjoyed a personal and professional relationship between 1967 and 1979 (their films include Ana y los lobos/Ana and the Wolves (1972); Cría cuervos/Raise Ravens (1975); and Elisa, vida mía/Elisa, My Love (1977), as well as Jacques Rivette (Noroît, 1976; L'Amour par terre, 1984) and Alain Resnais (La Vie est un roman, 1983; I Want to Go Home, 1989).
Chaplin has also worked in television and American cinema (with directors such as Robert Altman and Alan Randolph). She appeared as her own grandmother, Hannah, in Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (1992).
