Mabel Normand
| Mabel Normand | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Mabel Ethelreid Normand November 9, 1892 New Brighton, Staten Island, New York, United States |
| Died | February 23, 1930 (aged 37) Monrovia, California, United States |
| Cause of death | Pulmonary tuberculosis |
| Resting place | Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Mabel Normand-Cody, Mabel Fortescue |
| Occupation | Actress, director, screenwriter, producer |
| Years active | 1910–1927 |
| Spouse(s) | Lew Cody (m. 1926) |
Mabel Ethelreid Normand (November 9, 1892 – February 23, 1930) was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, director, and producer. She was a popular star and collaborator of Mack Sennett in his Keystone Studios films and, at the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s, had her own movie studio and production company. Onscreen, she appeared in 12 successful films with Charles Chaplin and 17 with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, sometimes writing and directing (or co-writing/directing) movies featuring Chaplin as her leading man. Throughout the 1920s, her name was linked with widely publicized scandals, including the 1922 murder of William Desmond Taylor and the 1924 shooting of Courtland S. Dines, who was shot by Normand's chauffeur using her pistol. She was not a suspect in either crime. Her film career declined, possibly due to both scandals and a recurrence of tuberculosis in 1923, which led to a decline in her health, retirement from films, and her death in 1930 at age 37.
Born in New Brighton, Staten Island, New York, she grew up in a working-class family. Normand's mother, Mary "Minne" Drury, of Providence, Rhode Island, was of Irish heritage, while her father was French Canadian. Her father Claude Normand was employed as a cabinet maker and stage 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, as well as for Butterick's clothing pattern manufacturers in lower Manhattan. For a short time, she worked for Vitagraph Studios in New York City for $25 per week, but Vitagraph founder Albert E. Smith admitted she was one of several actresses about whom he made a mistake in estimating their "potential for future stardom." Her quietly effervescent lead performance, while directed by D. W. Griffith in the dramatic 1911 short film Her Awakening, drew attention and she met director Mack Sennett while at Griffith's Biograph Company. She embarked on a topsy-turvy relationship with him; he later brought her across to California when he founded Keystone Studios in 1912. Her earlier Keystone films portrayed her as a bathing beauty but Normand quickly demonstrated a flair for comedy and became a major star of Sennett's short films. Normand appeared with Charles Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in many short films as well as Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, and Boris Karloff.
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