Victoria Chaplin

{{short description|British-American circus performer|bot=PearBOT 5}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Victoria Chaplin

| image = Victoria Chaplin I clowns.jpg

| imagesize =

| caption = Victoria Chaplin in The Clowns (1970)

| birth_name = Victoria Agnes Chaplin

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1951|5|19}}

| birth_place = Santa Monica, California, U.S.

| nationality = British-American

| alma_mater =

| occupation = Circus performer

| spouse = {{marriage|Jean-Baptiste Thierrée|1969}}

| children = {{hlist|Aurélia|James}}

| parents = {{ubl|Oona O'Neill|Charlie Chaplin}}

| family = Chaplin family

| years_active = 1966–present

| website =

}}

Victoria Agnes Chaplin-Thierrée (born May 19, 1951) is a British-American circus performer. She is a daughter of film actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin from his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill, and a granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill.

Chaplin was born at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ovzYAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA183|title = Chaplin: His Life and Art|isbn = 9780141979182|last1 = Robinson|first1 = David|date = 27 February 2014}} but grew up in Switzerland. As a teenager, she appeared as an extra in her father's last film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1966). Her father also wanted her to star in the main role of a winged girl found from the Amazonian rainforest in his next planned film, The Freak, in 1969.Robinson, p. 619 However, the project was never filmed because of his declining health and because Victoria eloped with the French actor Jean-Baptiste Thierrée.[http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/01/07/080107ta_talk_ross Interview with James Thiérrée, The New Yorker, 7 January 2008]. Retrieved 10 March 2009.Epstein, p. 203

Chaplin and Thierrée had first come into contact after he read about Chaplin's aspiration of becoming a circus clown in a magazine article of her father, and asked her to form a new type of circus with him. Soon after their elopement, they briefly appeared as two clowns in Federico Fellini's The Clowns (1970), and the next year performed for the first time with the contemporary circus Le Cirque Bonjour, which they had founded together, at Festival d'Avignon.[http://2006-2007.theatredurondpoint.fr/pdf/dp_30370.pdf Le Cirque Invisible, Theatre du Rond Point ]. Retrieved 20 June 2012. In 1974, they founded a new, smaller circus Le Cirque Imaginaire, which centered only on their, and occasionally their children's, performances, and from 1990 onward have performed under the name Le Cirque Invisible.

Chaplin and Thierrée have two children, Aurélia Thierrée (born 24 September 1971),[https://web.archive.org/web/20090121051603/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/326997 Aurélia Thierree, BFI Film & TV database]. Retrieved 10 March 2009. and James Thierrée (born 2 May 1974), who are performing artists. In addition to performing in Le Cirque Invisible, Chaplin also helped in creating her children's shows, and in 2006, was awarded the Molière Award, the French national theatre prize, for designing the costumes for her son's show, The Junebug Symphony.[http://www.lesmolieres.com/2006 Lauréats 2006, Les Molières], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103221257/http://www.lesmolieres.com/2006 |date=2013-11-03 }}. Retrieved 20 June 2012.