2. Charlie Chaplin
Hitchcock might have perfected several genres and been the most famous director in the world for a time, but Chaplin practically invented an entire genre and was for a time not only the most well known entertainer of any kind in the world, but also one of the richest men on the planet. Chaplin was trained from an early age to be a showman as a childhood of poverty led him to begin performing as a musician, actor, and comedian. In 1914 he was hired by Keystone Studios where he appeared in a number of shorts and by the following year he was already one of the most recognizable performers in the U.S, in large part because of his iconic Little Tramp persona. By 1921 he was at the peak of his popularity and wrote, directed, and starred in his first feature film The Kid, which kicked off a remarkable run of films that were supreme triumphs in both critical and artistic acclaim, and box office numbers. During this run he made some of the all-time great silent films including The Gold Rush, The Circus, City Lights, and Modern Times. By 1940 Chaplin's fortune began to take a turn for the worse. He abandoned his Tramp persona and began a sequence of more serious minded films which started out successfully with The Great Dictator in 1940 but soon helped to take him out of the public's good graces. Of course it didn't help that at the same time his films became less humorous he became the center of two controversies, one involving a high-profile paternity suit and the other was a full fledged investigation by the FBI concerning his possible communist affiliations. Eventually, Chaplin was exiled from the U.S and spent the remainder of his career working in Europe to much more mixed acclaim although several of his later films, such as Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight, are considered minor classics by many. Luckily, Chaplin lived long enough for the public to eventually forgive him and recognize him as one of the founding fathers of cinema and one of the all-time great actors and directors. Chaplin's films combined humor and drama in way that few films have ever bettered and although he did not accomplish much in terms of cinematic innovation, he practically defined comedy for the first half-century of filmmaking and to this day he remains one of the most recognizable figures in film history.