MovieChat Forums > Limelight (1952) Discussion > Who Voiced the Songs?

Who Voiced the Songs?

posted 18 years ago by thurberdrawing
3 replies | jump to latest

Did Chaplin do the voice when Calvero sang? I ask for two reasons:
1) Although I've always known he wrote music (such as the melody for "Smile", which Nat King Cole made famous) I've never had the impression he sang.
2) The singing voice of Calvero sounds to me very much like the voice of a vaudeville (or music hall) singer who appeared on many 78s in the 1920s. I don't remember his name, but Calvero's nasality and accent match the voice I have heard on many records from that era.
While I can well believe Chaplin could write the sorts of songs his character sings in LIMELIGHT, I find it strange that Chaplin would wait more than thirty years after the advent of sound to demonstrate a superlative singing voice.
Does anybody know if another singer dubbed Chaplin's singing in LIMELIGHT?

[–] SnorrSm1989 18 years ago

Chaplin sung the songs himself. Limelight is not the only example -- he also sung his self-written Swing, Little Girl to the re-release of his silent film The Circus (1928) in 1969 (another singer, whose name I can't recall, was originally asked to perform the song, but everybody around, as well as Chaplin himself, realized that he did it best himself). However, the most famous of Chaplin's self-voiced songs is, of course, The Tramp's Nonsense Song in Modern Times (1936), which introduced the general public to Chaplin's voice, having appeared only silently on the screen until then.

[–] thurberdrawing 18 years ago

Thank you very much. My estimation of Charlie Chaplin only increases.
I'll rent MODERN TIMES soon. Tonight I've rented CITY LIGHTS.
I found an interesting essay by Anthony Burgess called (I think) "Chaplin On Stage." It's in a collection of Burgess's later essays and, in it, Burgess discusses Chaplin's pre-cinematic career. His parents and aunts and uncles had seen him on stage and regaled him with stories.

[–] PoppyTransfusion 11 years ago

Chaplin had a beautiful speaking voice and a lovely singing voice too.

Why do you refuse to remember me?