Wheeler Dryden

Wheeler Dryden
Autographed photograph of Wheeler Dryden
Born	George Dryden Wheeler Jr. (1892-08-31)31 August 1892 Brixton, London, England, UK
Died	30 September 1957(1957-09-30) (aged 65) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other names	Wheeler Dryden
Occupation	Actor, director
Spouse(s)	Alice Chapple (1938, div. 1943)
Children	Spencer Dryden
Parent(s)	Leo Dryden Hannah Hill
Relatives	Sydney Chaplin (half-brother) Charlie Chaplin (half-brother)

George Dryden Wheeler Jr. (31 August 1892 – 30 September 1957) was an English born American actor and film director. He was the son of Hannah Chaplin and music hall entertainer Leo Dryden, and half brother of actors Charlie and Sydney Chaplin. He was also the father of rock musician Spencer Dryden.

Dryden was born in London. He was the youngest of three boys born to Hannah Hill, though he would be separated and therefore estranged from his mother and two older brothers. While he was an infant, his father removed him from his mentally-troubled mother. He was touring India and the Far East as a Vaudeville comedian in 1915 when he first learned from his father that the newly famous Charlie Chaplin was his half brother.

At this point, he wrote several letters to Chaplin and his half-brother Sydney, but received no response from either of them. In 1917, he got in touch with Chaplin's lead actress, Edna Purviance, who is thought to have convinced Chaplin to recognise him as his relative. He then joined the Chaplin brothers and their mother in America in 1918, and became a U.S. citizen in 1936.

He later appeared in Stan Laurel's Mud and Sand and was the "other man" in the melodrama, False Women. In 1928, he directed Syd Chaplin in A Little Bit of Fluff, and later, worked at the Chaplin Studios as Charlie's assistant director on The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux. He also appears in the supporting roles of a doctor and a clown in Chaplin's last American film, Limelight. He played Plimsoll in the 1928 – 1929 Broadway theatre play, Wings Over Europe.