Josephine Chaplin appeared as a child in ‘Limelight’ with her legendary father, followed by ‘The Canterbury Tales,’ ‘Escape to the Sun, and ‘Hemingway.’
A cause of death was not immediately released.
She was born in Santa Monica, California, on 28 March 1949, the third of eight children of Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, the British actress and daughter of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O’Neill.
She first appeared on screen aged three, in Limelight, the 1952 film written, directed by and starring her father. She also appeared in his A Countess from Hong Kong, in 1967. In 1972, she played May in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s X-rated The Canterbury Tales.
Chaplin starred in Menahem Golan’s Escape to the Sun (1972), about a group of people attempting to leave the Soviet Union to escape antisemitism and political repression. She also appeared films like L’odeur des fauves (1972), Daniel Petrie’s The Bay Boy (1984), and with Klaus Kinski in a German-language version of Jack the Ripper (1976).
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Josephine Chaplin was a longtime resident of Paris, Chaplin did most of her acting in French features, among them Nuits rouges (1974) and À l’ombre d’un été (1976).
Josephine managed the Chaplin office in Paris on behalf of her siblings for years. Her father died in December 1977 at age 88. Variety reported at the time that Oona and seven of their children were at his bedside when he died.
Josephine was married to Greek businessman Nikki Sistovaris from 1969 until their 1977 divorce, then lived with French actor Maurice Ronet until his 1983 death. Her second husband was archaeologist Jean-Claude Gardin; they were together from 1989 until his 2013 death.
She is survived by siblings Geraldine, Michael, Victoria, Jane, Annette, Eugene and Christopher, and sons Charly, Julien and Arthur.
