‘Chaplin’s World’ honors cinema legend with first museum

As Charlie Chaplin finished out his long life on his bucolic Swiss manor, the former silent film star worried about drifting into oblivion, his connoisseurs say.
Little chance of that. The legacy of the Hollywood legend behind “The Dictator” and “Modern Times” lives on today in the minds of stars like Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr., in Broadway plays and in the general cultural consciousness. But he never had bricks-and-mortar museum honoring his life and achievements.
That changed yesterday with the public opening of “Chaplin’s World,” a multimillion-dollar project in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey. Its director-general says the museum is the first of its kind in the world to honor Chaplin, and has added value because it’s at a place he called home for years.
The “Manoir de Ban” is where Chaplin lived his last 25 years raising children, writing music and movie scripts, and contemplating his legacy far from the glare of the Hollywood spotlight. Visitors can see his trademark bowler hat and cane, a replica studio, black-and-white photographs from his career, and the bedroom where he died at age 88 in 1977.
About two dozen of his children and grandchildren were on hand for a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday, which was Chaplin’s birthday.
Organizers are hoping for more than 300,000 visits per year, Pigeon said, boosted by a nearby chocolate factory and a medieval castle. AP