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Mabel Normand (November 10, 1892 - February 23, 1930) was a US film actress, who was a popular comedienne in silent films.

Contents 1 Early life and career 1.1 Scandals 1.2 Later career and death 2 Humorous quote 3 Cultural references 4 Further reading 5 External links

Born Mabel Ethelreid Normand in Staten Island, New York, she grew up in extreme poverty. Her father was sporadically employed as a carpenter at Sailors' Snug Harbor home for elderly seamen. Before she entered films 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. She appeared regularly with Roscoe Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin and wrote and directed some of Chaplin's early films. She is frequently credited with being the first person to throw a cream pie on film and remains universally acclaimed as silent cinema's most prominent comedienne. She directed films and made full-length features before either Arbuckle or Chaplin.

In 1914 she starred with Chaplin and Marie Dressler in Tillie's Punctured Romance. Normand developed into a major film star. As her relationship with Sennett came to an end she signed a contract in 1918 with Samuel Goldwyn and opened her own film studio in Culver City. During this time she reportedly became addicted to both alcohol and narcotics, which damaged her health and career. Nonetheless, 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.

Director William Desmond Taylor shared these interests and also tried to help in her battle against addiction. The two formed a close relationship. However he was murdered in 1922 only fifteen minutes after Normand had left his home. As the last person to see him alive, Normand was closely scrutinised by police and the media. The murder was never solved.

Reports of her drug use became public and Normand's reputation suffered. Her many past appearances in films with Roscoe Arbuckle, who was also involved in a widely reported scandal, did further damage. In 1923 she was involved in yet another scandal when her chauffeur Joe Kelly (an ex-convict whose real name was Horace Greer) shot and wounded Courtland Dines, one of Normand's many lovers, with her own pistol.

For a few years she made no films but was signed by Hal Roach Studios in 1926 after director/producer F. Richard Jones, who had directed her at Keystone, offered her a second chance. At Roach, she made the film Raggedy Rose plus four others. Despite publicity support from the Hollywood community (including her friend Mary Pickford), moviegoers did not respond and after more than 250 films her career was essentially over.

She married actor Lew Cody in 1926 but they apparently continued to live separately in nearby houses in Beverly Hills and her health was in decline. After an extended stay in a sanitarium she died from tuberculosis in Monrovia, California at age 38. She was interred 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.

Say anything you like, but don't say I love to work. That sounds like Mary Pickford, the prissy bitch.[1]

(Normand and Pickford were close friends)

• The name of a leading character in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond, 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), depicted the romance between Normand and Mack Sennett. Normand was played by Bernadette Peters and Robert Preston played Mack Sennett.

Jeanine Basinger (1999), chapter on Normand in Silent Stars, (ISBN 0-8195-6451-6).

Betty Harper Fussell (1982), Mabel: Hollywood's First I-Don't-Care Girl, (ISBN 0-87910-158-X).

William Thomas Sherman (2006), "Mabel Normand: A Source Book to Her Life and Films," (see http://www.angelfire.com/mn/hp/index.html )

• Mabel Normand at the Internet Movie Database
• Madcap Mabel: Mabel Normand Website
• Normand and the William Desmond Taylor murder
• Looking-for-Mabel
• Mabel Normand Home Page