2026 PROSE Award Category Winner for Biography and Autobiography

- Association of American Publishers

2026 Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award

- New York Law School

“This is a story that will captivate the general reader and scholar alike and the author is the perfect person to tell it. Chaplin is an inherently fascinating historical character. He was deeply flawed, and rightly morally condemned for many of his actions, including those mentioned in this forensic and readable analysis. But this did not make him guilty of all of the charges laid before him, and thus there is a fascinating story to tease out. This page-turner of a brilliant book does just that.”

- Richard Carr, Anglia Ruskin University, author of Charlie Chaplin: A Political Biography From Victorian Britain to Modern America

“Although most aspects of Chaplin’s life have received plenty of attention, these trials have not been the subject of sustained treatment—which is curious, given this was a sensational courtroom drama which had long-term consequences for Chaplin himself. The book not only responds to an obvious gap in the writing about a well-known star, it is particularly timely in the wake of the #Metoo movement and the trial of Harvey Weinstein. The author shows an expert knowledge of Chaplin and his world, and her legal background enables an unusual precision in handling the legal dimension of the trials.”

- Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield

“When Charlie Met Joan is the definitive account of the scandal that brought down one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history—and a perfect case study of how powerful but sexually immature old men can be destroyed by their weakness for beautiful but unstable young women. Diane Kiesel tells this lively story of lechers, gold-diggers and the prurient public, with a historian’s rigor and a judge’s clarity.”

- Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age

Kiesel's account makes for entertaining and respectfully salacious reading–there is a lot of fooling around in the book–with astute assessments of the political, legal and culture milieus of the era.

- William P. Barrett, New to Las Vegas

Kiesel's fine-grained character portraits present Chaplin as a charming rake who hammed up his court testimony with fake tears, and Barry as a troubled wannabe starlet taken advantage of by a powerful man. A meticulous retelling of a choice bit of Tinseltown melodrama, this will change how readers see Chaplin.

- Publishers Weekly

[M]ultiple wrongs don't make a right, and today's #MeToo movement would find much to sympathize with in Barry's situation, as the author points out. Did any of it justify Chaplin being dragged repeatedly into court, smeared, and eventually deported? No. But it more than justifies When Charlie Met Joan, a terrific tale of Old Hollywood and a legal system gone awry.

- Ken Ackerman, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Kiesel's book invites a reassessment of the individuals and legal processes in play and provides an opportunity to reflect on how changes in gender politics, science, and the law impact our perceptions."

- Jeremy Conrad, Washington Lawyer

Not many biographers are able to do such a service for the lives of their subjects, and in this case, provide the justice to Joan Barry's story that Chaplin, the courts, and her own family were not able to supply.

- Carl Rollyson, The New York Sun

Readers will feel as though they are in the courtroom. Kiesel makes the testimony come alive.

- Laura A. Ward, New York Law Journal