Wheeler Dryden

Wheeler Dryden, born George Dryden Wheeler Jr. on 31 August 1892 in London, was an English-born American actor and film director whose Broadway career spanned from 1925 to 1938. He was the son of Hannah Hill Chaplin and music hall entertainer Leo Dryden, and the younger half-brother of actors Charlie Chaplin and Sydney Chaplin. He died in Los Angeles on 30 September 1957.

Dryden's early life was marked by family separation. While he was still an infant, his father removed him from his mother, who was committed to a mental asylum for a period, leaving him estranged from her and his two older half-brothers. He followed his father's path into entertainment and by 1915 was touring India and the Far East as a vaudeville comedian. It was during this tour that his father first informed him of his familial connection to the by-then-famous Charlie Chaplin. Dryden subsequently wrote to both Charlie and Sydney Chaplin but received no reply from either. Contact was eventually established in 1917 through Chaplin's lead actress Edna Purviance, who is believed to have persuaded Chaplin to acknowledge Dryden as his half-brother.

In 1918, Dryden emigrated to the United States, joining his mother and half-brothers. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1936, nearly two decades after his arrival. He built a career in both film and theatre, appearing in Stan Laurel's Mud and Sand and in the melodrama False Women. In 1928 he directed Syd Chaplin in A Little Bit of Fluff, and that same year he appeared on Broadway in the play Wings Over Europe, playing the role of Plimsoll during its 1928–1929 run. His subsequent Broadway credits included the musical Blossom Time, the play A Touch of Brimstone, the musical Frederika, the play Come of Age, and the musical Three Waltzes, among other productions.

Dryden also worked closely with his half-brother Charlie Chaplin at the Chaplin Studios, serving as assistant director on both The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux. He appeared on screen in supporting roles as a doctor and a clown in Limelight in 1952, Chaplin's final American film. When Chaplin departed the United States for Switzerland later that year, Dryden took responsibility for managing the closure of Chaplin's Hollywood business affairs, a process that concluded with the sale of the studio in 1954.

In 1938, Dryden married Alice Chapple, a prima ballerina with the Radio City Music Hall dancers. The couple had one son, Spencer Dryden, before divorcing in 1943. During the 1950s, Dryden brought his son to jazz clubs in Los Angeles, an experience that shaped Spencer's musical interests. Spencer Dryden went on to perform with Jefferson Airplane, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and other prominent American bands, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

In his final years, Dryden suffered from mental illness and increasing reclusiveness. His difficulties were compounded by FBI inquiries into Charlie Chaplin's political associations during the period of heightened anti-Communist activity in the United States. He died in Los Angeles in 1957 at the age of 65.