As early as 1917 – age 28, with a portfolio of very popular short films already to his name – he was in the astonishing position of being able not only to commandeer but build his own studio, just off Sunset Boulevard. The critic James Agee has explained how he was able to win this hallowed status: “Before Chaplin came to pictures people were content with a couple of gags per comedy; he got some kind of laugh every second.” The extraordinary creative freedom he enjoyed in thinking these up isn’t only without precedent in the medium, but without sequel. He controlled almost every aspect of his productions: writing, directing, producing and editing all of his own work from an early stage. If he could have taken the cameraman’s job, he would probably have done that, too. But the money-maker, and reason for his global success as a brand, was the Chaplin on the other side of the lens.

The figure of the Little Tramp – instantly emblematic, with his thickly bristled moustache and wobbling gait – made his screen debut in a 1914 short called “Kid Auto Races at Venice”. He became easily the most beloved screen character of the silent age, appearing in dozens more shorts and all of Chaplin’s feature films, up until Modern Times (1936). That film is often called the last silent picture – a very late accolade, given that The Jazz Singer premiered in 1927 – because it still relies on intertitles rather than dialogue to move the plot along. It ends, famously, with the Tramp walking into the horizon, an icon for an already-lapsed era of cinema taking his final bow.