Other names Wheeler Dryden Children Spencer Dryden Role Actor | Name Wheeler Dryden Occupation Actor, director | |
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Full Name George Dryden Wheeler, Jr. Born 31 August 1892 ( 1892-08-31 ) Brixton, London, England, UK Relatives Sydney Chaplin (half-brother)
Charlie Chaplin (half-brother) Died September 30, 1957, Los Angeles, California, United States Spouse Alice Chapple (m. 1938–1943) Movies Limelight, Mud and Sand, A Little Bit of Fluff Parents Hannah Chaplin, Leo Dryden Similar People Charlie Chaplin, Sydney Chaplin, Hannah Chaplin, Charles Chaplin - Sr, Spencer Dryden | ||
George Dryden Wheeler Jr. (31 August 1892 – 30 September 1957) was an English born American actor and film director. He was the son of Hannah Chaplin and music hall entertainer Leo Dryden, and half brother of actors Charlie and Sydney Chaplin. He was also the father of rock musician Spencer Dryden.
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Life and career
Dryden was born in London. He was the youngest of three boys born to Hannah Hill, though he would be separated and therefore estranged from his mother and two older brothers. While he was an infant, his father removed him from his mentally-troubled mother. He was touring India and the Far East as a Vaudeville comedian in 1915 when he first learned from his father that the newly famous Charlie Chaplin was his half brother.
At this point, he wrote several letters to Chaplin and his half-brother Sydney, but received no response from either of them. In 1917, he got in touch with Chaplin's lead actress, Edna Purviance, who is thought to have convinced Chaplin to recognise him as his relative. He then joined the Chaplin brothers and their mother in America in 1918, and became a U.S. citizen in 1936.
He later appeared in Stan Laurel's Mud and Sand and was the "other man" in the melodrama, False Women. In 1928, he directed Syd Chaplin in A Little Bit of Fluff, and later, worked at the Chaplin Studios as Charlie's assistant director on The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux. He also appears in the supporting roles of a doctor and a clown in Chaplin's last American film, Limelight. He played Plimsoll in the 1928 – 1929 Broadway theatre play, Wings Over Europe.
After Charlie Chaplin left America for Switzerland in 1952, Dryden managed the winding down of Chaplin's Hollywood business affairs until 1954, when the studio was sold. In his final years, he suffered from mental illness and reclusiveness, which was exacerbated by aggressive FBI inquiries into his brother's politics.
Dryden died in Los Angeles in 1957.
Family
Dryden was married from 1938–1943 to Radio City Music Hall prima ballerina Alice Chapple (1911–2005). Their son was Spencer Dryden. Dryden took his son to Los Angeles jazz clubs during the 1950s, which inspired musical ambitions as a jazz and rock drummer. Spencer would play with Jefferson Airplane, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and other bands, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.