JOSEPHINE CHAPLIN

(28 March 1949 - 13 July 2023)

Josephine Chaplin has died at the age of 74. The actress was the third daughter of Charlie Chaplin and of his fourth wife Oona O’Neill (who produced eight of Chaplin’s eleven children). Josephine was born in Santa Monica, California. Her first appearance on screen was at the age of three – in her father’s last American film, Limelight (1952). It was his most autobiographical feature, about a music hall comedian and a young ballerina (Claire Bloom). His five oldest children were also in the film along with other family members. Josephine also appeared in The Countess of Hong Kong in 1967, Chaplin’s last movie which, despite starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, was a commercial flop.

Josephine worked with other directors from 1972, beginning with L’odeur des fauves, Richard Balducci’s film about a reporter who photographs the daughter of a segregationist senator kissing a black man. It starred Maurice Ronet and Vittorio De Sica. In the same year she appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Canterbury Tales as May, in the ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ segment, and in Menahem Golan’s Escape to the Sun, with Laurence Harvey and John Ireland, about students’ attempts to flee the Soviet Union. In 1974 she played Constance in The Four Charlots Musketeers, and was then cast in Georges Franju’s crime thriller Shadowman, aka Nuits Rouges, with Gayle Hunnicutt and Jacques Champreux. She also appeared opposite Klaus Kinski in Jesus Franco’s Jack the Ripper.

With Maurice Ronet again she worked on A l’ombre d’un été and later became his romantic partner. Some of her other films included The Bay Boy (1984), Daniel Petrie’s murder story about a teenager in Cape Breton, with Liv Ullmann and Kiefer Sutherland. For Claude Chabrol in 1985 she did Cop au vin, a serial killer mystery with Jean Poiret, Stéphane Audran and Michel Bouquet. She made films until 1994 when she worked with Jesus Franco again on Downtown Heat with Mike Connors.

Josephine Chaplin was first married to the Greek furrier Nicholas Sistovaris from 1969 and they had a son, Charly. From 1977 Maurice Ronet was her partner until he died in 1983, and they, too, had a son, Julien. She also married the archaeologist Jean-Claude Gardin from 1989 until he died in 2013, and had a son, Arthur. After her father’s death, Josephine became manager of the Chaplin office in Paris where she spent most of her life.

MICHAEL DARVELL