Grave robbers dug up and held Charlie Chaplin’s body for ransom

IT could have been the plot of a particularly dark comedy, but there was nothing funny when two men stole the body of great silent era film star Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin's burial on December 27, 1977 in Geneva. Grave robbers dug up his body in 1977 and held it for ransom.

IT might have been the plot of a particularly ghoulish black comedy, but there was nothing funny about the two men who robbed Charlie Chaplin’s grave in March 1978.

On this day 40 years ago two men went to a quiet graveyard in Geneva, Switzerland, to dig up the world famous comic actor. They were not demented or obsessed fans who wanted to possess their hero; their interest was purely venal. They demanded a ransom for the return of Chaplin’s remains.

Their ghoulish scheme was thwarted, but it became an ignominious footnote to the career of one of the silent era’s greatest stars.

Chaplin was born in England on April 16, 1889, the son of music hall performers. After a difficult childhood that saw him sent to schools for paupers and his mother committed to a mental institution, Chaplin followed his parents into show business. He made his stage debut at the age of five in amateur shows, before graduating to a dancer in the chorus of professional shows before forming his own comedy act.

Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp in 1915.

Charlie Chaplin in 1915 holds a Charlie Chaplin "Little Tramp" doll.

Charlie Chaplin in 1936 film Modern Times.

While touring the US in 1913 he was offered a film role and made his screen debut in 1914. Within a few years he was one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors, most famous for his nameless everyman character, in a bowler hat and baggy trousers, known only as the Little Tramp. Although his popularity began to fade in the ’40s, he continued to make films and remained a well-respected star.

But in 1953 the US accused him of being a communist and, after attending a film premiere in London, was denied him permission to return. Instead, he moved to Switzerland.

He turned to making films in Europe. His final film was released in 1967, after which he spent most of his final years in retirement in Switzerland. He returned briefly to the US to accept an honorary Oscar in 1972, and went to England to be knighted by the Queen in 1975. After several years of deteriorating health, Chaplin died in his sleep from a stroke on Christmas Day, 1977. Two days later, on a dismal wet day, he was laid to rest in a simple, private ceremony at Corsier-sur-Vevey cemetery in Geneva, albeit one also attended by dozens of photographers and reporters along with Chaplin’s widow Oona and other members of his family.

Captain Russell Tapp (wearing the first Qantas uniform) stands between Charlie Chaplin (left) and his wife Paulette Goddard (second from right) after they flew on a Qantas de Havilland DH86 from Singapore to Batavia (Jakarta) in 1935.

But Chaplin’s eternal slumber was disturbed when two unemployed immigrant auto mechanics — Roman Wardas, a 24-year-old Pole, and 38-year-old Bulgarian Gantscho Ganev — hatched a plot to dig up the body and hold it for ransom. Inspired by a similar crime they read about in an Italian newspaper, the pair were hoping to pay off a few debts and maybe even open a small business. Kidnapping a live celebrity was a difficult proposition, but taking the dead film star from an unguarded burial plot would be comparatively easy.

On a cold windy night, on March 1, 1978, they began the grim task of exhuming the body. The heavy oak coffin would have been difficult for the two of them to handle but clearly they were determined. Loading the coffin on a truck they drove to a nearby maize field where they buried the coffin and prepared to make their demands. The field was only a short distance from Chaplin’s home.

On March 2 the police were alerted to the missing body and phoned Oona. Soon after, the grave robbers also called Oona and demanded 600,000 Swiss Francs (the about $800,000). She refused to pay, saying that “Charlie would have thought it rather ridiculous”.

Frustrated, the corpsenappers later threatened Chaplin’s children, but Oona refused to buckle to their demands.

Officials look for clues around Charlie Chaplin's grave in March 1978 after his body and coffin were stolen.

A man points to where Charlie Chaplin's coffin was buried by grave robbers in a corn field in 1978.

The mud-covered coffin after it was found in the field.

The grave of English film actor and director Charlie Chaplin after he was buried a second time.

But police, also baffled by the case, unable to find the perpetrators or the body, staged fake ransom drops but the grave robbers never showed. Police then tapped Oona’s phone and staked out hundreds of phone booths in the local area.

In May, Wardas and Ganev were nabbed by police at a payphone while they made yet another ransom demand. They led officers to the field where the body was buried. At first the criminals were unable to locate the grave, because the field had recently been tilled. But after hours of digging, the coffin was recovered.

The mastermind, Wardas, was convicted of “disturbing the peace of the dead” and sentenced to four years hard labour, while Ganev, the muscleman, was given an 18-month suspended sentence.

Oona attended a second burial for her husband, but this time his coffin was enclosed in a sarcophagus of concrete to deter any other would-be grave robbers.

Originally published as Grave robbers dug up and held Charlie Chaplin’s body for ransom