O’Neill stayed with Chaplin until his death in 1977. Their daughter Geraldine said in a documentary about the silent star’s life: ‘My mother was so young when she met him, she was 17 and he was 52. They fell in love and then as soon as she turned 18 they married. ‘Everyone thought she was just a bimbo and she would be gone soon. But they were mad about each other.’
