museums

Swiss Museum Honoring Charlie Chaplin Hopes to Keep the Auteur’s Legacy Alive

Charlie Chaplin was terrified of being forgotten. A new museum opening this weekend in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey wants to make sure that never happens. The exhibit, called Chaplin’s World, is being housed in the Manoir de Ban, where the auteur spent the last 25 years of his life away from the limelight of Hollywood, and where he died at the age of 88 in 1977. (He was not welcome in Hollywood, to put it kindly, thanks in large part to his mild sympathy for Communism and less-than-affable demeanor, and emigrated forever to Switzerland in 1952.) Grévin, a subsidiary of Compagnie des Alpes, is operating the exhibit, which began to gestate as early as 2000, and finally opens this weekend. Speaking with the AP, Jean-Pierre Pigeon, the Swiss-Canadian director of Chaplin’s World, said, “A place where people can laugh and get emotion: That’s what he would have wanted.”

Here’s Charlie Chaplin being a fireman:

Swiss Museum Honoring Charlie Chaplin Opens