- Palash Das
Though the title seems to be shocking or surprising but it’s true. Death didn’t spare him at all, even after his death there was a controversy about Charles charlie chaplain’s mysterious disappearance from his grave. This unconventional incident took place in 1978, just after few months of his death at the age of 88 in Switzerland.
After losing his father in a very young age he went through a real bad time. He made his career in the world of entertainment after years of struggle and became the most successful and wealthy film star in early Hollywood. Though he had started his career as a supporting actor but soon became popular and took the lime light for his great comic timing at the same time practiced his hands in direction as well. In 1918 he signed a contract with First National for $ 1 million for eight films.
His first true sound film was Great Dictator in 1940 where he criticized fascism fearlessly. He was married for four times, though lived in us for 40 years he never became a us citizen officially. In 1952 he left United States and could never re-enter there. He spends rest of his life in Switzerland with his fourth wife Oona and eight children. In 1972 he got special academy award and received Knighthood in 1975.Chaplin died in 1977.
On march 2 in 1978 just after three months of Chaplin’s death his wife Oona got a call from local police and she was told that charlie Chaplin’s dead body is missing from his grave. In the beginning she took it lightly and thought if charlie were alive he would have laughed a lot after hearing such news, but this was the just the beginning of the most thrilling and dramatic body snatching in the history. Soon Oona received call from those body robbers who demanded a ransom of $600,000 to return the dead body. Even those criminals threatened Oona that they will kill her children if their demands are fulfilled soon.
The next part of this body snatching incident was no less than a crime thriller. Soon the police investigation started and they were looking for the body in every possible place they could manage. Later police taped Oona’s phone calls and almost 200 phone booths of that area were monitored by the detectives. After few weeks of investigation, the culprits were caught. They were Roman Wardas and Gantscho Ganev,two mechanics and political refugees from eastern Europe. Both were punished for grave robbery and attempted extortion. The mastermind Wardas was imprisoned for four years and his assistant Ganev got an 18-month suspended sentence. During interrogation Wardas had said that he was inspired by a similar incident he had red in a news-paper.
After being discovered from a corn field one mile away from his home, charlie Chaplin’s body was reburied in a concrete grave so that it could not be stolen again.
Comments are closed.