Charles Forte was born as Carmine Forte in Mortale (now renamed Monforte), Casalattico, in the province of Frosinone, Italy on the 26th of November 1908, eldest son of Rocco Giovanni Forte and Maria Luigia, daughter of Michelangelo Antonio Forte. His parents were distantly related. He emigrated from Italy to Scotland at the age of four with his family, where he attended Alloa Academy, Alloa and then St. Joseph's College, Dumfries as a boarder, followed by two years of studies in Rome, Italy.
After Rome, Forte re-joined his family, who had moved to Weston-Super-Mare, where his father ran a café with two cousins. Charles' main training at the age of 21 came in Brighton, where he managed the Venetian. He set up his first "milk bar" in 1935, the Strand Milk Bar Ltd. Soon he began expanding into catering and hotel businesses. At the outbreak of World War II, Charles was interned in the Isle of Man due to his Italian nationality, but he was released after only three months.
After the war, his company became Forte Holdings Ltd and bought the Café Royal in 1954. In the 1950's, he also opened the first catering facility at Heathrow Airport and the first full motorway service station in the UK for cars at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, on the M1 motorway in 1959. He purchased the Hungaria Restaurant in Lower Regent Street, London in 1955.
Trust Houses Group Ltd and Forte Holdings were merged in 1970 to become Trust House Forte or THF. Through mergers and expansion, the Forte Group expanded into a multibillion-pound business. His empire included the Little Chef and Happy Eater roadside restaurants, Crest, Forte Grand, Travelodge and Posthouse hotels, as well as the wine merchant Grierson-Blumenthal and a non-controlling majority stake in the Savoy Hotel. Forte was CEO of the group from 1971 and chairman from 1982 (when his son Rocco took over as CEO). Happy Eater and the five Welcome Break major road service outlets were bought from Hanson Trust PLC on the 1st of August 1986. In the 1990s, the company increased its nominal capital and agreed to the public listed companies compliance regime to become Forte Group plc. Forte passed full control to his son Rocco in 1993, but soon the plc was faced with a hostile takeover bid from Granada. Ultimately, Granada succeeded with a £3.9 billion tender offer in January 1996, which left the family with about £350 million in cash.
On the 28th of February 2007, Forte died in his sleep at his home in London, aged 98. He is buried in West Hampstead Cemetery.
Forte was knighted by The Queen Mother in 1970 and created a life peer on 2 February 1982 as Baron Forte, of Ripley in the County of Surrey. He was also a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.