The Tramp

The Tramp (Charlot in several languages), also known as the Little Tramp, was English actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. The Tramp is also the title of a silent film starring Chaplin, which Chaplin wrote and directed in 1915. The Tramp, as portrayed by Chaplin is a childlike and bumbling but generally good-hearted character who is most famously portrayed as a mischievous vagrant. He endeavours to behave with the manners and dignity of a gentleman despite his actual social status. However, while the Tramp is ready to take what paying work is available, he also uses his cunning self to get what he needs to survive and escape the authority figures who will not tolerate his antics. Chaplin's films did not always portray the Tramp as a vagrant, however. The character ("the little fellow", as Chaplin called him) was rarely referred to by any names on-screen, although he was sometimes identified as "Charlie" and rarely, as in the original silent version of The Gold Rush, "the little funny tramp".