Charlie Chaplin and Helen Keller in 1918 on the set of ‘Sunnyside.’The Helen Keller that America loved was on display at New York’s Palace Theatre in 1920. Keller, whose sight and hearing were destroyed by an infection when she was an infant, had become a media sensation celebrated by presidents and tycoons. Now she was being advertised as “The Most Talked of Woman in the World! Blind, deaf, and formerly dumb, in ‘The Sweetest Love Story Ever Told.’ ”The vaudeville act began with Anne Sullivan, the teacher who met Keller when the latter was 7 years old, telling the audience how she had taught the unhappy, unmanageable child to understand words by spelling them out on her hand. Keller went on to learn Braille in both English and German, graduate from Harvard, write several books, and establish a friendship with Mark Twain.

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