J. Edgar Hoover barred Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the United States

Charlie Chaplin, the world renowned producer of the silent film era, went to London to promote his new film Limelight. Little did he know, England would be his new home for the next 20 years and then he’d go on to live in Vevey, Switzerland until his death.

On this day, September 19th, in 1952, The United States Attorney General bans Charlie Chaplin from reentering the U.S. He was accused of being “anti-American” and procommunist during the Red Scare era.

Chaplin’s birth certificate was never located and it was determined that he was not a U.S. born citizen and perhaps was an alias to Hitler who he mimicked in his film The Great Dictator. The U.S. sent spy agencies to investigate Chaplin, and discovered that he had donated money to communist organizations on multiple occasions. With the results from the report, the U.S. did not want to take any chances with the communist sympathizer and sentenced Chaplin to exile.