Mabel normand
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Swett Complaint In Extortion Case Delayed Whether or not a complaint shall be issued against Dr. Raymond A. Swett of 228 North Wilton Place on a charge of extortion has not been decided by Assistant City Prosecutor Fred Morton. Swett was arrested last night in Miss Mabel Normand’s suite in the Baltic Apartments, 1127 Orange Street, by Detective Frank Edmondson after, it is claimed he had attempted to make the popular screen star give him more than $600 to suppress startling information he claimed to have against her. From his city jail today Swett issued a defy against Miss Normand. “I have the evidence against her and she knows it,” he said. “I was employed by a party in New York to trail her and learn what she was doing. The evidence I gathered was of a startling and sensational nature. “It was at other parties’ suggestion that I accept money from Miss Normand and I heartily believe she will not press the charge.” But Miss Normand says she will press the charge. When interviewed in her studio, while she paused between scenes in a new film drama, she said: “It was purely a scheme to force me to contribute money under threat of exposure of acts of which I was not guilty. “I do not believe any one in New York ever employed Mr. Swett to follow me. “I know but three people in the whole city of New York and none of them well enough to justify their employing a private detective to spy upon my actions. “I have done nothing of which I am ashamed and certainly insist that Mr. Swett be prosecuted on the charge of extortion.” Miss Normand will visit the city prosecutor’s office and there hold a conference with Mr. Morton some time today. After conferring with Miss Normand, Mr. Morton will decide whether he will issue a complaint against Swett. * from Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1916 Blackmailer’s Given Freedom Mabel Normand, motion-picture star, refuses to prosecute Dr. Raymond A. Swett, confessed blackmailer and ex-convict, who was arrested Thursday night in her apartment while attempting to extort $610 from her. Because Swett has a wife and child dependent on him, Miss Normand informed the police, she did not wish to be responsible for sending him to the penitentiary. He was released from the city Jail last night. Early in the afternoon, through his attorney, Swett sent the following letter to Miss Normand: “Realizing the position into which I have thrust myself by my own actions and statements, and the predicaments I now face, I take this means of communicating to you the real facts of the case as it stands. “For some weeks past I have been facing a financial crisis that seemed more than I could bear, and which I knew was more than I could meet. Obligation after obligation loomed up in front of me like a mountain in size. All of my schemes to make money seemed to fail just when they looked most promising. “Then the thought came to me that possibly I might be able to make money out of some one who was well known to the public, and your name suggested itself. I was not hired to shadow or follow you, but took it upon myself to do so. In all the times I was near you there was really nothing that could be criticized, yet for the sake of what I was after I made statements that were really false in every detail. You checkmated my moves and beat me to it on the finish. “I have a wife, child and father dependent on me. They will be the ones to suffer if you see fit to go on with the prosecution. I have come to you clean with my story of wrongdoing, and now ask that you show clemency for their sakes if not my own. Will you kindly consider and give your answer to the bearer?” The letter was signed with Chief Snively as a witness. In reply Miss Normand wrote to Chief Snively: “I am in receipt of a communication, from Dr. Raymond A. Swett. After reading his letter very carefully it is naturally very gratifying to have him acknowledge his attempt to blackmail me. “While I feel that I am doing an injustice to the public at large by not prosecuting Dr. Swett to the full extent of the law, I am constrained to hear his plea for clemency on account of his wife, child and father, whom I find to be wholly dependent on him for a livelihood. “I feel perfectly willing to drop the case as it stands and have Dr. Swett released to his wife and child.” Immediately after receipt of the letter Swett was released. He bears a prison record. After serving a term in the Wisconsin State Penitentiary he was sought by the authorities of Fort Worth, Texas where it was alleged he looted a contribution box in the Catholic Church while being befriended by a father. June 14, 1907, he was arrested here on a charge of felony embezzlement in connection with the transaction with a tailoring company. He was sentenced August 10, 1907, to serve three years in San Quentin. Two years ago yesterday he was in an automobile accident and he was arrested for reckless driving. He was charged with having imperiled the lives of three occupants of the other car. He was married six years ago to a Los Angeles girl to whom he had been engaged before his last incarceration. She waited through his term to wed him.
Julian Johnson ...Very few people outside the profession realize what Mabel Normand has meant to the Keystone organization; not that her comic excellencies are not apparent in any given part, but who, among the merely entertained, asks why and wherefore? The theory that the playgoer asks only to laugh, or to emote, is, rightly or wrongly, the cornerstone of the show business. It is neither exaggeration nor personal tribute to say that Mabel Normand knows more about screen comedy, and has made better screen comedy, than any woman actively photographed. This statement is merely a cool appraisal. Who pulled “My Valet“ through the breakers of failure? Mabel Normand. Who put the legerdemain of appeal into “Stolen Magic“ and the charm of the romantically ridiculous into “Fatty and Mabel Adrift“? Mabel Normand. And who -- if you’ll pardon a backward jump of more than a year -- gave lovely relief to Chaplin and Dressler in “Tillie’s Punctured Romance”? Normand, surnamed Mabel. Her few Fort Lee pictures have made us wish for more frequent appearances.
Telegram from Harry Aitken to Sennett) 28 Sept. 1916 Macklyn Sennett, Esq. Knickerbocker Hotel, NYC Dear Mr. Sennett, In order to induce you to enter into an agreement with the Keystone Film Co.and Triangle Film Corp., becoming even date here with, I agree that upon the expiration of the term of the agreement whereby 65% of the capital stock of the Triangle Film Corp is deposited with Title Guarantee and Trust Company, I will transfer to you 23,000 shares of said stock, provided that at that time you are supervising the production of Keystone pictures for Triangle. H. E. Aitken Excerpt from Triangle contract between Kessel and Sennett, September 29, 1916) Sennett to receive 25% of what is known as the Mabel Normand Picture Company, other 75% to belong to Keystone Film Co. Picture135 is to be exploited by Keystone Company and yourself, and from the first sums received in excess of exploitation costs the Keystone Company shall be paid back the actual production cost of the picture. Thereafter, all sums received in excess of exploitation costs and costs of positive prints shall be divided between yourself and Keystone. New York Motion Picture Corp. owns 57% of capital stock of Keystone.
Mabel Normand recently gave a very original sort of party on her yacht. The invitations to the “burial party” requested her guests be dressed in Chinese mourning costumes. Two Jap servants officiated as undertakers and appeared on deck, carrying a casket, in which the remains was a real slapstick. The casket was committed to the deep, to appropriate funeral music, thus signifying Miss Normand’s final good-by to slapstick comedy. * from Photoplay, October, 1916 Whoops, my dear! And then some more whoops. Nothing has been said about it by Keystone’s mimeograph department because it’s such a childish thing that the victim probably had the item “killed” before it got out. But even if it does come under the general classification of juvenile indoor sports, it is very, very annoying. What’s it all about? Oh, nothing more exciting than Mabel Normand having an attack of whooping cough. But she’s almost well now. * from Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1916 Career In Pictures by Mabel Normand Ever since my work for the motion picture screen has received a sufficient amount of favorable attention at the hands of critics and fans to place me in the limelight of publicity as a star my mail has been literally choked with letters from girls from all parts of the world. The writers, for the most part, range in ages from 16 to 20 years and nearly all of them ask for advice as to a motion-picture career. At first I used to reply to these appeals each night after a days work. It was not long, however, until the letters became so numerous that it was practically impossible for me to answer each one personally. Nearly all of these letters are from girls who are so obviously sincere and serious in their endeavors to decide whether they shall “go into the movies,” which is the modernized version of “going on the stage,” that I want to have them properly answered. My secretary now replies to most of the letters, for she knows just what my opinions are and just how I would personally answer almost any question, but whenever a new subject arises, or whenever a request for information is a bit out of the ordinary, the letter is brought to my attention and answered by me personally. There are many drawbacks and at the same time there are many compensations attached to my profession. In one picture we used a lake in Los Angeles at a time when it was just being drained. We knew of this event a few weeks ahead and a comedy was prepared by Mack Sennett in which the lake was the locality and emptying the principal situation. In the picture I went on a boat ride. While my escort was rowing his rival was at the mechanism that operates the outlet, opening the flood gates. The water lowered and finally we were left marooned in mud. A rope was thrown and we were dragged through the slimy mud to the bank. It was awful. We were covered from head to foot and before we could drive back to the studio the mud had commenced to dry and harden. That night I sat at dinner with a friend from Denver, whom I had not seen in several years. An elaborate bath and the attentions of a maid had removed all traces of my strenuous afternoon. My friend remarked in the course of our conversation: “I suppose the hardships of motion picture actresses are very much overestimated.” I agreed with her. I was too tired from my rescue from the lake to argue or explain. I told her that it was an exceedingly monotonous life. Poor dear. -- I hope she will never have any personal experience to disillusion her. I have had to dive and swim in rough ocean scenes. I have fought with bears, fallen out of a rapidly moving automobile, jumped off a second story roof into a flower bed and risked life, limb and peace of mind in innumerable ways -- and all to make people laugh. Some work days I have gone home and cried with ache in body and heart and at the very moment of my misery thousands of theater-goers were rocking in their seats with laughter at some few scenes in which I had worked a few weeks before. But the heart-breaking scenes are not everyday occurrences. In many of the pictures the parts we play we love just as much as the audiences that see the finished product exhibited. There is the sweet and the bitter, much the same as in any other profession or business in which a girl makes her living. * from New York Dramatic Mirror , October 7, 1916 Mabel Normand: “I am against Censorship, whether it be Municipal, State or Federal. The film industry is directed by men of sufficient mental and moral caliber to insure the proper conduct of their profession. Censorship is a hindrance of the most important institution of the age -- The Film Drama.” * from Arizona Gazette, November 8, 1916 Mabel Normand To Visit State Fair Miss Mabel Normand, one of the most celebrated queens of the motion picture screen will come to the Arizona State Fair with her own Company of players to stage a photoplay according to a telegram received last evening by Secretary T. D. Shaughnessy. The telegram from H. L. Kerr,136 manager of the Mabel Normand Film company, stated that Miss Normand would visit the fair to make a picture in event a “Peace Day” would be set aside for her in view of the fact that Miss Normand is an advocate of the peace propaganda. Secretary Shaughnessy readily agreed to this arrangement.
One of the interesting features of the state fair tomorrow, Thursday and Friday will be the appearance of the Normand Feature Film company, who will stage a scene for a $125,000 picture now in preparation by the company, and will also photograph a race track scene for the same picture. H. L. Kerr, a former resident of Phoenix, but at present manager of this company at Los Angeles, has been here for several days making arrangements for these pictures, and has received the hearty co-operation of the fair managers. It was originally planned to take the race track scene, which is in reality supposed to represent an event in New York, in either Florida or New Orleans, but Kerr, realizing the magnitude of the grand stand at the Phoenix race track and the superiority of the atmospheric conditions in Arizona for photography, induced the eastern managers to have it photographer here during the fair. It will afford an opportunity for all visitors to have themselves incorporated in a picture which will be shown all over the United States. The company arrived in Phoenix this morning and will be busy for the next day or two in constructing two large towers for the cameras and in making other preparations for this big event. Friday has been set apart at the fair as Mabel Normand Peace day, when duplications of scenes at the San Diego exposition will be made, and Miss Normand, with two veterans of the civil war, will bury the implements of war, expressing her idea of “Peace on earth, good will to men.” Miss Normand is an enthusiastic peace worker and her idea is that there is something else in life than to draw a big salary. She is having 2, 500, 000 “Mabel Normand Garden Buttons” manufactured for children with a view of interesting them in planting and growing flowers, vegetables and tress, rather than to have their ideas directed towards war. With her on this trip here are director, F. Richard Jones, Minta Durfee, Wheeler Oakman, L. J. Cody and a cast of eighteen people, and the expenses of the trip will be over $5000. * from Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1916 Mabel on Advertising Mabel Normand was the guest of honor at the luncheon party given by the Los Angeles Ad Club last Tuesday of this week. She extolled the virtues of advertising, especially of that brand for which the Ad Club stands, and was riotously applauded. * from Arizona Republican, November 15, 1916 Mabel Normand, beloved movie comedienne, who has been offered everything from a portable house to a palace, had to get down on her knees, before she could get one tiny room and bath in Phoenix. The small girl with the wonderful eyes that behave fairly well, had a long, lonely day, but it was a brand new experience and she loved it. More than that, she accomplished what hundreds of others could not do yesterday -- -- she secured apartments at the Adams after every available space had been leased. How she did it, only Miss Normand knows, and if she gave way her secret, others could not profit by it for lack of the essential quality -- the marvelous Normand personality. Last evening just before dinner the great star was resting in her room. She made as pretty a picture as she ever posed for in her rose velvet negligee with cut silver velvet motifs and flowing sleeves of silver lace. With her was her great friend, Minta Durfee, who will appear in the comedy drama that is to be screened at the state fair Friday. Miss Durfee, who incidentally is the wife of Roscoe Arbuckle, has always been a great admirer of Miss Normand, and doesn’t mind a bit that she plays opposite her fat and funny husband. Both young women are tremendously pleased with Phoenix, even though they were homeless for a period of several hours. “I didn’t sit around and mope,” said Mabel Normand. “I shopped. I bought dozens of the most fascinating Indian things, beads and serapes, and I don’t know what all, for Alice Joyce, who will simply rave when she sees them. Of course, it was annoying not to have a roof over my head, but it worked out nicely,” she added with a sly smile. “I did not have to quarrel with the hotel management, either, for you know I do not believe in petty wars.” The most beautiful of film queens is a warm advocate of peace. It was her suggestion that led T. D. Shaughnessy to set aside Friday as Peace Day at the state fair. Miss Normand will have charge of the ceremonies which will be dramatic in the extreme. Implements of war will be buried and other expressions of her idea of “peace on earth, good will to men” will be made manifest. Miss Normand is keenly interested in the fair and will not wait until Peace Day to make her first appearance on the grand stand. She intends to be among the thousands of spectators this afternoon. * from Arizona Republican, November 16, 1916 Screen Favorites With Normand Co. The film drama, important scenes of which the Mabel Normand Film Company is making this week in Phoenix, is expected to rank among the few really great film plays. It has been many months in the making, and during that period many thousands of feet have been made to be discarded afterward, because (they were) not quite up to the exacting standard set by the star. Among the members of the company who are in Phoenix, are several who have won distinction, both as directors and actors. These include F. Richard Jones, the chief director, whose mastery of his art has been proved by his direction of some of the best Keystone comedies. Mr. Jones assumed direction of the photodrama, after several predecessors had been found unsatisfactory. G. O. Nichols, assistant director and an important member of the cast, is one of the veterans of the screen. He started with the Edison and was one of the Biograph Company in the early days of Griffith, and was the producer of Ibsen’s Ghosts. Madame LaVarnie made a reputation in character parts in the old Biograph Company and on the stage before she took to the screen. Wheeler Oakman, as the leading man in the Ne’er Do Wells, [one] of the most successful of modern screen productions, is known to all screen fans. Minta Durfee was achieving eminence in the drama when she became Mrs. Roscoe Arbuckle. A character who will be made famous by this drama, although now unknown to fame, is Minnie Prevost,137 an Indian woman who does a remarkable part in a remarkable way. L. J. Cody completes the list of well known players, who are here engaged in this screen production.
by Mabel Normand Dear boys and girls, parents and educators of Arizona: I am very proud and happy because I have been asked to tell you about our PEACE ARMY PLAN and what you can do to help it along. There are many acres in Arizona which, not long ago, were barren and desolate. There are many acres in Europe which little more than two years ago were productive and beautiful While Arizonans have been making productive and beautiful the barrens lands of Arizona, Europeans have been making barren and desolate the productive lands in Europe. During this dreadful war, millions of boys and girls have lost their fathers and their homes. I do not believe that this war would have come if the grown people of Europe had been taught when they were boys and girls that God has put us here to conquer the earth, and not to conquer men; to create and not destroy beautiful and useful things; to love each other and not to hate each other; to save human life, and not to slay human life. Full of this belief, several thousands of us met at the San Diego Exposition recently, where we buried the arms of war and planted the olive symbol of peace. Each boys and girl present promised to make the earth produce at least one plant and to care for and to love that plant as their symbol of peace and happiness. And because David Starr Jordan, George Wharton James and many wise and good men and women think well of it, I am sending a message to parents and educators all over the world, asking them to help the boys and girls to celebrate Christmas by having each one of them start a flower plant in a pot on Christmas day, so that they will have it ever near them as a symbol of love and creation. Having done this, we ask you boys and girls to begin the new year of 1917 by gathering together in schools or in other public places, there to bury the symbols of hate and war, as we did in San Diego. Parent educators, boys and girls of Arizona, this is my call to you. May I not hope that each of you will plant your flower of love on Christmas day and bury the arms of war with the new year’s advent? And may I hope that you will write and place somewhere near your flower of love this message sent to you, so that you can see it each day, by David Starr Jordan: “The Chinese have a proverb: ‘Where armies quarter, thorns and thistles grow.’ War and war-making mean desolation and hate. As roses are fairer than tin soldiers and bayonets, so are the thoughts of flower-planting children sweeter and nobler than hatred, fear and suspicion, which are always part of the war.” * from Arizona Republican, November 17, 1916 Army of Garden Soldiers Miss Normand’s Peace Plan By Mabel Normand I have been asked to tell the readers of the Republican about our Peace plan and what it may do to discourage future wars. The thought back of the movement is that to prevent men from slaying each other you must begin by teaching the little children what should be the main purpose of life and that this is to draw out of the earth the riches that have been stored in her bosom for the use and happiness of man. If each child is encouraged to grow a plant and if this plant is made to serve as a symbol to the child of our main work in life and that when we destroy anything that is good, or useful, or beautiful that we are breaking the true law of life a first step is made toward universal peace. Is it possible to promote a permanent peace among nations while the individuals who make up the nations strive and hate and seek to destroy each other? It may be possible, but it is certainly would be made much easier if as children they are taught that the true way to make the world a better place to live in is to work with and for each other to get out of earth all there is in it. Although the suggestion of this movement came from me, it is being taken up by men and women who know better than I do how to develop it. Educators inform me that the American School Peace Society to which most of the eminent educators of the country belong will take it up and make it a part of their work and with this powerful influence aided by the mothers of the country, I hope soon to see an army of Garden Soldiers in America greater in numbers than the armies that are fighting the battles of hate and destruction in Europe.
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