Daughters and Mothers

Charlie Chaplin didn't talk much to his daughter Geraldine about her grandmother Hannah Hill Chaplin, a failed music-hall performer who was taken to the madhouse as "a pauper lunatic" by Charlie when he was 14. But now, in one of the more piquant casting coups in recent memory, Geraldine plays her own mad grandmother in Chaplin, Sir Richard Attenborough's film biography of her legendary father. "For once in my life I have to admit I got a part because of my name—I can't say I mind," Chaplin laughingly concedes. Yet she found transforming herself into Hannah something of a stretch. "She was blonde, had blue eyes, and she was a Cockney. When the film begins, she's 28. I'm dark, I'm told I sound American, and I'm certainly not 28!"

"What was marvelous about her," says Attenborough of Geraldine, "was that she was devoid of any self-consciousness. She's totally credible. It's a magical performance, a beautifully judged, beautifully attuned performance. Devastating.'' Chaplin felt her family history was "very safe" in the hands of Attenborough, "an extraordinarily meticulous, loving filmmaker." And she was "shocked" by the way Robert Downey Jr. managed to "capture the essence of my father—it was not just an imitation. I didn't believe anyone could do it. It was spooky."