An MI5 file that casts doubts on Charlie Chaplin's Lambeth boy credentials has been released to the National Archives today.
British intelligence services probed Chaplin's background during the 1950s when the US authorities suspected the actor of communist sympathies. The file reveals MI5's conclusion that he was "no more than a 'progressive', or radical" but also that there is no proof that he was born in London. No record of his birth was found at Somerset House, even under the presumed alias, 'Israel Thornstein'.
Tragically for Walworth, as the Guardian reports, their local boy done good might even be — by birthplace — a Brummie.