Mabel Normand

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Becomming one of the Pioneers that set the stage for the 1920s, is Mabel Normand. She made a statment as being a screenwriter, producer, and director. She also made quite a name for herself as being one of the first females to do all these things. Much like most of the stars we see today, she had a great rise and an even greater fall, but she will always be remembered as one of the best in her time and is remebered as " The female Chaplin".

This is Mabel Normand earlier in her life, before going into acting

Early Life

Mabel Ethelreid Normand of canadian french background, was born in New Brighton Staten Island, New York on November 9, 1892 as the youngest of five children in a house her father built for their family. Her father, besides being a carpenter,was a musician and played in different clubs whenever he could. But despite the jobs he had, they still were living as poor people. At the age of fourteen, she dropped out of school started modeling and taking pictures for James Montgomery Flagg and Charles Dana Gibson to earn some extra money. After modeling for a while, she left and begin life vitagraph, which she didn't really like that much, so she turned to biograph and started working with John Bunny, america's first comedy film star. She later met Mack Sennet, who is basically responsible for making her the important person she would soon become.

This is Mabel Normand as Mickey in the 1918 hit "Mickey"

Life at Keystone Studios

While still living her life as a biograph she met and fell in love with a man named Mack Sennett, who was trying to get out of the biograph so he can one day have his own studio. When he finally got the money to finance his own studio, he did exactly what he wanted to do and left the biograph life and his love, Mabel, followed him. it was because of him. The first movie she was in, A Dash Through the Clouds, was produced by him. This one movie made her shine like the star she was and the star she would soon be. The main reason for the success of Keystone Studios was because of Mabel Normand, movie after movie was a hit for her. Keystone studios would become a huge success with people that would soon become huge commedians themselves, such as Charlie Chaplin, Ford Sterling, and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Fatty became Mabel's "right hand" co-starring in almost all of her movies with him. Later in Mack's carrer, he set up the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company to let her create some more movies on her own, and she did that to the fullest showing the audience all the different sides of her. She would soon leave Keystone Studios and start to work for the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation with Samuel Goldwyn. By doing this, her carrer started to go down hill from there.

Mabel Normand and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

Scandals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After going into the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, her life as she knew it was starting to fade away. Making only eighteen feature films, which is nothing compared to how many movies she made Mack adn the entire Keystone family. While being with Goldwyn, she was introduced to a whole different side of the acting buisness, parties!!!!!!!! With those parties, she soon became less engaged with her movies and wanted to be at more parties, soon later she began testing drugs, mainly cocaine, and alcohol. As you know, when you start taking drugs and drinking alcohol, your not the same person you once were because something about you just changes, which is exactly what happened to Normand, her movies just got worse and worse and worse. She then returned to Keystone to try and save her carrer, but it was too late because by that time a murder had happend and she was the prime suspect in the case. The only reason why Mabel is the biggest suspect this scandel is because 40 minutes before William Desmond Taylor, a very big director, was murdered, it was said that Mabel was at his house doing who knows what!!!!!!!!!!!!((This mystery of Mr. Taylor's murder has never been solved and to this day is still remains a mystery)) After that one incident, she pretty much lost all of her fans, but she still tried to make as many movies as she could. Since that time her name was linked to several other different murders and to make matters even worse, her "right hand" Fatty Arbuckle was arrested for rape and murder of a young felmale by the name of Virginia Rappe.

As Life Starts To Fade

About a year and a half after the Taylor murder, Mack deciced to show her next movie, Moly O', which was surprisingly a hit. After that sher got her old "swagger" back and started making those hit movies like she used to do. She was on a role but that role ended too soon untill another scandel popped up. It is new years day and Mabel is visiting actress and friend Edna Purviance and her boyfriend, millionaire Courtland S. Dines, at their apartment. Mabel's chauffeur and Mr. Dines get into a huge argument. One thing led to another and the chauffeur goes to the car, comes back with a pistol, and shoots Mr. Dines. Although he was only wounded, this was the last straw for her carrer. After this they banned any of her movies and anything featuring her, but even still she would try anything to clear her name, putting a promotion tour out for what would soon be her last movie called "The Extra Girl." Soon later Edna Purviance and Mr. Dines got a divorce and for some odd reason Ms. Normand's name was said to be part of the divorce. Now how does that look having multiple murder scandles, a friend who was arrested for rape and murder, being a cause of a huge divorce, wounding a millionaire, and on top of all that she is still an adict!!!!!!!! Her name was just completly horrible in the hollywood eyes. After all of this, she finally left the hollywood scene. She was hospitalized several times due to pneumonia and on December 1928 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. At age 35 she died on Feb. 23,1930 in the Pottenger Sanitarium in Monrovia, CA. She will always be known for making people laughing and showing them how to have a good time and no matter how many things she was caught for, no matter how many murders she "committed" and no matter how bad her addiciton really was, there is not one person during that time that can say that they didn't like Mabel Normand because she was truely loved by all her fans.