Why did Charlie Chaplin build his sets before writhing the scripts....?

Question

As mention in other movie questions I have asked recently (the past week or two, I would say), I have mentioned that I am a part of the film club at school.
Well, tonight we saw Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" (phenomanol (sp?) move by the way) and in our discussion, some one mentioned that Charlie was known to build the movie sets before he wrote the movie scripts. Does anyone know why this is? Was it because he was a movie genious (sp?)? Was it to get the creative juice flowing in his mind? Or was it a concept so he could come up with the script knowing what each scene was going to look like?
Also, it was rumored maybe even true that when Charlie was in his 50's or 60's, he married a 16 year old girl. Does anyone know the truth behind this?

I meant to write in the paranthesis "phenomanol MOVIE" not move. Sorry for the typo!

Answer 1

Chaplin began his career in the English Music Hall Variety Shows, where comedy scenes were improvised on set ideas or locations, with stock characters.
When he came to work for Keystone Studios, the same sort of improvisational play was normal in creating film comedy--the actors would go out to a location that was photogenic, and then think up funny routines to act out before the cameras--it was here that Charlie's experience and talent began to shine--his grasp of character was precise, his movements were natural and graceful, and he had an instinctive knowledge of what was funny.
As Chaplin gained more and more control in the making of his films, he kept the improvisational style of creating story within the framework of a series of scenes or ideas--so, the sets came first, and the playing came within those sets.
Although the process was great for creating fresh reactions and bits of comedy, at the same time it could be very costly in terms of time and energy---Trying to find the right way to film a scene, with all the elements correct, could take literally hundreds of individual "takes', over days and days...The results were terrific, but the effort it took could be draining. By the time that Chaplin was filming City Lights, the process became occasionally tortuous, for Chaplin and his co-stars---for the one scene in which the flower-girl mistakes Charlie for a rich man on their first meeting, it took months and months for Chaplin to decide how it was to be done and an exhausting number of tries, as well as several days of recovery time from a near-nervous exhaustion, to finally get the right sequence of events (a matter of three or four seconds on film) in the camera.
From that time on, Chaplin's features, being made almost fully in sound, were much more carefully scripted; the exceptions, as always, being the special comedy moments that could only occur by improvisation and the chance that comes with trial and error.

Answer 2

Charlie Sheen

Answer 3

charlie was an improvisational writer.

he would film and film and film until he got what he wanted, one reason his film were so expensive, City Lights in particular.

he had a general idea of what he wanted to say, but none of the specifics.

He married Oona O'Neill (daughter of playright Eugene O'Neill) when she was 18 (june 16, 1943). They were married for 34 years