Mabel Normand
She was extremely popular during the 1910s, becoming one of the most popular stars of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios. She took part in many screen firsts, being one of the first female screenwriters, producers, and directors. Onscreen she co-starred with Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle, occasionally writing and directing for Chaplin.
Her movies with Arbuckle proved extremely profitable.
In 1918, she became the first comedian of either gender to get star billing with her film Mickey, which was the only film produced under her own production company. After signing with Goldwyn Pictures in 1917, her personal life began to fall apart, and her drug and alcohol use allegedly deepened. Through the 1920s she was better known for being associated with several scandals including the murder of William Desmond Taylor. Although never a suspect, these scandals affected her career and she was only mildly successful afterwards. She became unexpectedly ill in 1928 and was forced to retire, dying only a few years later.
Early life and career
Born Mabel Ethelreid Normand in New Brighton, Staten Island, New York, she grew up in extreme poverty.
Her father, Claude Normand, was sporadically employed as a carpenter at Sailors' Snug Harbor home for elderly seamen. Before she entered films at age 16 in 1909, Normand worked as an artist's model, which included posing for postcards illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the Gibson Girl image.
She met director Mack Sennett and embarked on a tumultuous affair with him. Her first films portrayed her as a bathing beauty, but Normand quickly demonstrated a flair for comedy and became a star of Sennett's short films.
Normand appeared with Charles Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in many short films.
In 1914 she starred with Chaplin and Marie Dressler in Tillie's Punctured Romance. In 1918, as her relationship with Sennett came to an end, Normand signed a $3,500 a week contract with Samuel Goldwyn and opened a film studio in Culver City.
Her breakup with Sennett seems to have caused Normand to re-evaluate her life and she embarked on a program of self-education, developing keen and lasting interests in reading and books.
Scandals
Pictures & Picturegoer, July 1917, Mabel Normand on the cover of an English movie magazine
Director William Desmond Taylor shared her interest in books and the two formed a close friendship. He was murdered in 1922 only minutes after Normand had left his home.
She was closely scrutinized by police but never considered a serious suspect. Newspapers speculated wildly about Normand given reports of her drug use along with her many past appearances in films with Roscoe Arbuckle, who had also recently become enmeshed in scandal.
In 1924 her chauffeur Joe Kelly shot and wounded Courtland S. At Roach she made the film Raggedy Rose plus four others which were released with publicity support from the Hollywood community (including her friend Mary Pickford).
In 1926 she married actor Lew Cody with whom she had appeared in Mickey in 1918.
They lived separately in nearby houses in Beverly Hills before Cody moved in with her. After an extended stay in a sanitarium she died from tuberculosis in Monrovia, California at the age of 37.
She was interred as Mabel Normand-Cody at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles.
Mabel Normand has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Motion Pictures, at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.
Cultural references
A nod to Normand's celebrity in early Hollywood came through the name of a leading character in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, "Norma Desmond", which has been cited as a combination of the names Mabel Normand and William Desmond Taylor.
The 1974 Broadway musical Mack & Mabel (Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman) fictionalized the romance between Normand and Mack Sennett. Normand was played by Bernadette Peters and Robert Preston played Mack Sennett.
Stevie Nicks wrote a song called "Mabel Normand".
It was never officially and exists in demo form.
Normand is played by actress Morganne Picard in the motion picture Return to Babylon (2008), and by Marisa Tomei in the 1992 film Chaplin.
Selected filmography
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