Charlie Chaplin's Swiss mansion is to become a museum, one of his sons said today.
The Corsier-sur-Vevey property by Lake Geneva was chosen over sites in Los Angeles and London as the site of the first museum dedicated to the screen legend, said Michael Chaplin. The museum, which has been a decade in the planning and will be finished within two years, will feature objects from the actor's life and displays chronicling his rise from London's music halls to Hollywood stardom. "He was very happy here because he had a family life," Michael Chaplin said of the Swiss home where his father lived for more than 20 years until his death in 1977.
The vaulted wine cellars of the house will be used to evoke the Victorian-era London of Chaplin's youth, while Hollywood will be recreated in the form of film sets in two annex buildings. Exhibits will include a giant recreation of the machine from Modern Times that Chaplin used to portray the desperation of factory workers, as well as footage from his movies and holographic narrators.