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From many years scholars and Roma activists are interested in the “rumors” for Charlie Chaplin Gipsy origin and whether testimonies could be found. It appeared that this question is much older and before Roma activits it had been raised by … FBI!

In its article “MI5 spied on Charlie Chaplin after FBI asked for help to banish him from US”

Guardian publishes documents from MI5 file on Charlie Chaplin. This file was done in 1952 after FBI requested MI5 to research where and when Chaplin was born and whether he had taken pro-communist activities. The FBI, which described the star of Modern Times and The Great Dictator as one of "Hollywood's parlour Bolsheviks", asked MI5 for information to help get him banned from the US.

The file that was released this week showed that  MI5 found no record of Chaplin’s birth in Somerset House, then the home of the register of British births. "It would seem that Chaplin was either not born in this country or that his name at birth was other than those mentioned," an MI5 report concluded. It told the US that there was "no trace in our records of Charlie Chaplin".

Guardian explains that It had always been assumed that Chaplin was born in Walworth, south London, on 16 April 1889. Recently, however, a letter was discovered in family papers from Jack Hill, who told Chaplin in the 1970s that he had come into the world "in a caravan [that] belonged to the Gypsy Queen, who was my auntie. You were born on the Black Patch in Smethwick near Birmingham."”

More information about MI5 file could be found at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/17/mi5-spied-on-charlie-chaplin