In early September 1952, Charlie Chaplin was feeling pretty good about America. A screening of his new film, Limelight, had drawn a standing ovation from a crowd of Hollywood bigwigs, and he was looking forward to a trip to London for the film’s world premiere. “I could never have found such success in England,” he mused to a friend. “This is really the land of opportunity.”
Very soon, however, it would become the land of retribution. Shortly after setting sail with his family for England, Chaplin got word that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had revoked his re-entry permit, meaning that in order to return, Chaplin (who had never become a U.S. citizen since emigrating from England in 1910) would have to prove that he was not a moral or political threat to the nation. He didn’t see America again for 20 years.
