Hannah Chaplin had given her son an interest in the eccentricities of individuals by entertaining him with pantomimes of persons they saw. Later, he said of the comedic art: "There is no study in the art of acting that requires such an accurate and sympathetic knowledge of human nature as comedy work." The pain and poverty of Chaplin's childhood made him sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. In his films he realistically portrays the miseries of poverty and the suffering man behind his most famous character, the Tramp.
At age five, Chaplin had stood in for his laryngitis-stricken mother and delivered a song that was well-received by the audience. Eight-year-old Chaplin found employment on the stage as a clog-dancer, a career culminating in his successful roles in the troupe of Fred Karno (Sydney was already a company member), whose clowns perfected pantomime slapstick. Chaplin, who once forced fellow Karno Company member and friend Stan Jefferson (Stan Laurel) out of a leading role to make-room for himself, credited his work with Karno with providing him the basis for his comedy. On Chaplin's second American tour with the Karno troupe in 1912, after viewing him in Mumming Birds, Mack Sennett offered him a job as a film clown in his Keystone comedies.
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