The builders
Eugène Chaplin
The fifth child of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill, Eugène Chaplin was born on 23 August 1953 and grew up at the Manoir de Ban in Corsier-sur-Vevey. After training in the theatre in Geneva, in the mid-1970s he turned to sound engineering and joined Mountain Studios in Montreux as an assistant engineer, in the years when the lakeside studio was recording the biggest names in rock and pop. A singular path, linking silent cinema to the desk from which so many Riviera records emerged.
Eugène Chaplin, from the Manoir de Ban to Mountain Studios
A son of Charlie Chaplin
The fifth child of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill, Eugène Chaplin was born on 23 August 1953 and grew up at the Manoir de Ban, in Corsier-sur-Vevey. After training in theatre in Geneva, he turned in the mid-1970s to sound recording.
At the controls of Mountain Studios
He joined Mountain Studios in Montreux as an assistant engineer, just as the Rolling Stones came to finish “Black and Blue”. When the sound engineer John Timperley left the Riviera, David Richards took over the controls, assisted by Eugène. There he saw Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Charles Aznavour, Michel Polnareff and Françoise Hardy pass through.
Friend of the stars
From those years came lasting friendships: with the band Smokie, with Rick Wakeman of Yes, and above all with David Bowie, with whom he even went on holiday. Eugène left the studio around 1980, a year after Queen took it over.
The circus, the stage and the Vevey comedy festival
Eugène Chaplin’s life is not limited to the studio. Trained in stage management, he worked at the Grand Théâtre de Genève before developing a passion for the circus: he worked for several years for Circus Nock, the Swiss national circus, and regularly sits on the juries of international circus competitions.
On the Riviera, he is a figure of the Vevey comedy film festival, which he has chaired. He has also carried his father’s memory in ways beyond cinema: directing the documentary “Charlie Chaplin: A Family Tribute” and creating “Smile”, a stage show that tells the life of Charlie Chaplin through his music.
Charlie’s legacy
Today his father’s memory lives again at the Manoir de Ban, now Chaplin’s World, close to Vevey. Eugène’s path thus links silent cinema to the mixing desk from which so many of the Riviera’s records emerged.