Mabel normand

The Girl on the Cover

By Norbert Lusk

“I love dark windy days and chocolate cake.” Miss Normand announced with perfect gravity, “and storms, when houses blow down.”

There was no hint of mischief or make-believe in the famous Normand eyes. They are even lovelier than the screen ever discloses, and the lashes curl upward more than the film can let one see.

“Chocolate cake.” She went on, “is the one thing I never get. People always keep it from me. That’s why I have decided it is my favorite food.”

“But I never eat it – or anything else – when I am acting. Food makes me too contented.” She yawned lazily over her coffee. “And I don’t want to be lazy any more. A year of rest is enough for any one. Now I want to come back – hard.”

The comedienne was reminded that she had no place to “come back” from – that she has stayed in the affections of the film fans every since the early days of Biograph, where under direction of Griffith and Sennett, she had rollicked her way into their hearts through her boisterous comedy.

That – it will be remembered – was her introduction into the world of film – a long step from studying art, which first brought her to New York from her home in Atlanta, Georgia.

Her innate sense of the comic combined with personal charm and genuine acting ability, first gave her recognition and her return to Goldwyn pictures has been eagerly awaited.

Because of that sense of the comic, Mabel Normand cannot be serious wholeheartedly. If she casts down her eyes, it is to shut out a demure parting glance. It she closes her lips tightly, the corners go up, and you know she is laughing silently. She is the true spirit of mischief. Early in the chart, her interviewer gave up all hope of putting a question to her – or, rather, of recording an answer.

For no reason at all, the comedienne began to tear a daisy apart, petal by petal. “I adore daisies,” she declared, with closed lids and head tilted to one side. “They are my favorite flowers when I visit a flower shop – alone. If I am accompanied – by a man – I just love orchids.” The diminutive actress looked significantly at the inexpensive flowers in her hand. “But, of course, orchids are really too ‘vampish’ for me. And then,” she said pointedly. “brings us to the subject of Retribution with a capital R.” Miss Normand’s audience of one got in readiness for a tragic interlude.

“I mean vampires, especially screen ‘vamps.’ They have taught me a great life lesson. Retribution always pounces on the purple lady toward the end of the picture. She gets exactly what she gives. That’s why I decided to be good.”

“Don’t you think motion pictures educate the masses? See how the vampire lady made me be good!” The brown eyes were raised in childish appeal – then sparkled roguishly.

“Tell me this, if you can. Why do plays called ‘The Drama of a Woman’s Soul’ always mean that the woman gets the worst of it in the end? Why is that?” Miss Normand waited for an answer to her quaint questions. “You didn’t know I went in for deep thinking, did you? Don’t be afraid. I never go deeper.”

“People don’t laugh enough. Especially men, when they get middle-aged, and very important, and wear fur coats and silk hats in the morning, and motor to work. They are afraid to laugh for fear people will think they’re not on the job. I’ve made a list of six such men, all captains of industry, and I’m beginning a great drive against dull care. I want to make them laugh. This is how I mean to try.

I am writing each a letter inclosing a photograph of Mabel, posed especially for the man receiving it. They are the funniest pictures of the funniest moments I ever had on the screen. These men must laugh – just once. But I won’t be present to see their faces slip. If they do laugh, think how well their day will be started, beginning with the moment they are caught in the act by the butler. The possibilities are enormous. The world may yet have a great deal to thank me for.”

Some suggestion was made as to the results of a single break in the demeanor of a grave man, and Miss Normand caught the cue.

“You and suppose each of these men has a daughter or a son. Imagine each father being asked for an automobile or a string of pearls. Don’t you know that the child is more apt to get it after papa has smiled than if the gloom had not broken? The young people will owe their gifts to Mabel; the salesman will owe his big order to the same cause, and so on down to the boy that opens the door of the shop. And all for one laugh.”

The chance of each grateful magnate sending his benefactress a token of his gratitude did not appeal to Miss Normand at all.

“Not on your life!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t done. People enjoy laughter, but they’re not grateful for it. They forget. They never forget sadness, or the actor that makes them weep.

“Which reaches the heart more surely, tears or laughter? I wonder if being a cook and making chocolate cakes isn’t better than either?”
* from Motography, February 2, 1918

Goldwyn stars have been fortunate enough to secure assignments to pleasant South Georgia locations during the recent cold snap -- all but Mabel Normand, who was busily completing the last scenes in “Dodging a Million,” with Director Tucker, in spite of the handicaps as to heat, light and other necessities under which Fort Lee, N.J., has been laboring since Christmas.

Mabel Normand is still braving prospects of cold weather. She has just begun work in the great glass studio on a new Goldwyn Picture, as yet unnamed. It will give her a decidedly novel part as either of the other two pictures she has made for Goldwyn, “Dodging a Million“ in which Miss Normand plays a dresser in a modiste’s shop suddenly transformed into an heiress, or “Joan of Plattsburg,” which, as soon as the Federal ban against certain camp scenes is lifted, will show Miss Normand drawn into the war preparations of America.
* from Moving Picture World, February 9, 1918

Word of the forthcoming release of Mabel Normand’s “Dodging a Million,” another George Loane Tucker subject, has brought such enthusiastic response from exhibitors, after private screenings at Goldwyn exchanges, that it is imperative for Goldwyn to follow it up with a second Mabel Normand production as soon as practicable.

Accordingly, a new story has been chosen which will present the comedienne in a role unlike any other essayed by her. It is a tale of a newspaper life combining comedy and thrills, and the role to be assumed by the Goldwyn star is that of a “copy girl,” a sort of journalistic ne’er-do-well, whose sudden brilliant “beat” has not yet been given a title.

This story is being directed by Clarence G. Badger, brought from the West Coast for this undertaking.

Tom Moore is Hunter Mason, a rich young religious enthusiast who conducts a bowery mission. His own secretary is a crook, and much of the excitement comes when Patsy (Mabel Normand), masquerading as a criminal, discovers and unmasks the secretary.

Charlotte Granville is given the part of Hunter Mason’s mother. Helen Dahl is another player recruited from the highest class of stage productions.

Louis R. Grisel, Williard Dashiell, Lincoln Plumer and Wallace McCutcheon are other well-known players in the cast.

* from Variety, March 8, 1918

Goldwyn made an error in judgment in selecting a melodramatic scenario for the use of Mabel Normand. It is “The Floor Below,” written by Elaine Sterne, directed by Clarence C. Badger, photographed by Oliver T. Marsh. The story itself, while lacking in originality, has a leading role anything but soubrettish, and Miss Normand invests it with her very charming “cutey-cutey” personality. Considerable time and expense was expended in the production, the cost, the photography, and so on, but it is asking too much to expect one to believe that daily newspaper would employ a fluffy-haired girl as copy boy, stand for her shooting craps in the city room, play a harmonica and perform numerous other ridiculous stunts during business hours. Having done all this and been fired for it, she is, at the suggestion of one of the reporters, detailed to assist in unraveling a series of robberies, runs into a young and wealthy mission worker, is believed by him to be a burglar, taken to his mother’s home to be reformed, where she again proceeds to cut up capers, the young man’s fiancee loves another and steals; little cutey is accused and believing it will hurt the man who had been kind to her, stands for the accusation. The visualization of mission life and the interiors of the man’s fashionable home are excellently depicted, the photography is superfine in the matter of clarity, numerous types have been carefully selected; there are well-drawn illustrated titles.(Jolo.).

According to that very interesting informer, the Goldwyn Press Sheet for “The Floor Below,” its star, Mabel Normand, never wears gloves, either on the screen or off. It isn’t an economy measure, nor a fad, but an intelligent habit. She doesn’t believe in them. And that isn’t the only confession the press sheet makes. She dotes on chocolate cake. This announcement will probably enable her to start a chocolate cake store, as the result of the generosity of enlightened “fans.”

Mabel Normand is at present on a train bound from Tampa, Florida to New York, and will arrive some time today. With her are Joe Smiley, Robert Elliot and George Loane Tucker. The compa­ny has been in the South taking a number of harmless scenes to incorporate into “Joan of Plattsburg“ in place of those taken at Plattsburg last Summer and objected to by the Government. About two more weeks will be consumed at the studio in Fort Lee and then Tucker‘s connection with the Goldwyn Corporation will come to an end.

Instead of employing individual maids at the Goldwyn studio, Mae Marsh, Madge Kennedy and Mabel Normand now use one jointly. The difference in salary they contribute to various ware relief organizations, the amount being deposited weekly and distributed according to agreement.

“Dodging a Million“ with Mabel Normand

The Classic’s Extra Girl Answers the Phone, Sells Cigars and Stays Up All Night

By Ethel Rosemon

“Can you act?”

“Yes, indeed,” I had responded, for you can all bear witness that I have been acting all over the pages of the Classic for the past ten months. I had visions of a chance to emote or mayhap vamp over foot after foot of celluloid. Was at last that elusive young animal, Opportunity pecking at my shoelaces?

“Report at our Fort Lee studio at nine-thirty tomorrow morning as telephone-girl at the Ritz-Carleton in Mabel Normand’s picture, Dodging a Million.”

But what opportunity would a telephone-girl have to emote, and if she vamped when she called “1492 Columbus” the screen would not reproduce her dulcet tones? However, even telephone girls have been known to grab fate at the switch, so I accepted, with one eye on Mr. Klauber and the other on the check he was handing me.

Being engaged as a “hello girl,” I naturally found myself behind the cigar counter. This happens once in a lifetime and then only on the screen. When Goldwyn‘s busy little carpenters gave birth to a replica of the famous hotel at the studio, they found the switchboard was one of the things that the movie fans would take for granted without hearing it buzz in the picture, so they naturally dispensed with it and set the operator to work behind the cigar-counter, much to the chagrin of said operator.

My dressing-room companions were a little girl who was taking her first dive into pictures, a gorgeous brown-eyed creature with the face of a vamp and the heart of an angel, and Minnie Metho of concert fame, who was playing one of the grande dame roles, but who, in spite of that fact, was not above being on reminiscing terms with the “extra ladies” of the dressing-room. We all gave her a prolonged vote of thanks for the stories of the days when she and Mary Garden were fellow students, first in Chicago and then in Paris. It was thrilling to hear the little reverential touch she gave the “Mary,” especially since the dear lady who made perfume famous was within earshot of the dressing-room. It was also well that she and Mary had been fellow students, for with what other stories could we have whiled away those hours so advantageously? Rome was not built in a day. The Goldwyn Ritz was, but it was night before it was finished. After we had made merry over the dinner table, not to mention the frankfurters and sauerkraut, Dan O’Brien’s voice calling, “Mr. Tucker’s people on the set!” resounded through the corridors, and we made a wild scramble for the stage, as eager for work as a while before we had been for dinner.

When we had been “placed,” and my cigar-counter had taken the semblance of personal property, the heroine of the day, or rather the evening, made her entrance. I have read somewhere of a youth whose daily custom it was to hang upon the words of his inamorata. When I finish this story I am going to write said youth that Mabel Normands’s eyelashes would be a far safer modus suspendi than inamorata’s words, which today are and tomorrow are as if they were not. Somewhere in far-off Egypt there may be a mummy with longer eyelashes that curl in a more alluring way than Mabel’s, but then Egypt and said mummy have survived all these years without having the imprint of my petite foot upon the former or the gaze of my clear brown eyes on the latter. And speaking of eyelashes, Egypt, mummies, petite feet, etc., reminds me that every one at the studio, from extra girl to director, hails Mabel as a mighty good fellow. A player who had just been promoted from extra to bits, confided to me his opinion of his “chief support” on the trip from the ferry to the studio.

“Why when I have scenes with her she tells me to make the most of them and never mind her,” he said. “She had often turned away from the camera so that I could face it. Perhaps you haven’t worked much with stars,” he added, importantly. “There’s only one other I know that would give away an opportunity to dominate a scene, and that one’s up in the sky.”

And as I watched the lady of the curly lashes, with her cheerfulness and her it’s-good-to-be-aliveness, I knew that my street-car confidant had spoken wisely of the Mabel who has brought laughter to millions during her screen career.

“How’s the baby?” was the first question she asked of one of the stage crew who was putting the finishing touches to the set.

“No better, no worse,” he answered, with a look of gratitude.

“Are you sure you have a good doctor? Now, if you haven’t, I’ll send mine down to see the baby. He’s splendid. Tomorrow --”

“Mabel, we’re waiting,” Mr. Tucker interrupted, and she was off to work.

But why report at second hand when I had personal evidence of the star’s thoughtfulness that very afternoon? I had stolen upstairs to the studio to watch some scenes she was doing. It was slightly chilly. Picture companies seem to be able to produce anything from Heaven to Holland, but they couldn’t bring forth an extra supply of coal that day, no matter how many times Mr. Tucker called “Camera!” and how hard Ollie Marsh, the camera-man, turned the crank. Frozen or melted, though, I am always forced to obey Friend Editor’s command “to hang around the star as much as possible.” I am considered long-suffering (by some), but once or twice I gave vent to a little shiver, not so much with the cold that was slowly congealing my spinal column-the same one that had been pierced by Mr. Klauber the previous day-as with the thought of Miss Normand’s attempt to play polar bear in a sheer evening-gown. She caught the shiver, I can’t say whether on the first or second round, and when the scene was ended, picked up one of her sweaters that was reposing off-stage and wrapped it about my shoulders. I had already taken Mr. Marsh, the general still camera-man, into my confidence and had entrusted my faithful graflex to his tender care. He snapped the wrapper and the wrapped…

“Do your eyes hurt?” Miss Normand called after me when she saw me blinking my way down the corridor. “Come around to my room and let me give you something to help them,” and she presented me with a bottle of eye-lotion just as girl to girl, not as star to extra.

“Next car three-twenty,” some one maliciously announced when we had all gathered in the Goldwyn reception hall.

“Three-twenty? Oh, what will Jack say?” a married extra groaned.

“Well, why doesn’t’ Jack send the limousine, Gwendolyn?” one of the former hotel clerks laughed. “With your combined salaries you ought to have a night and day car.”

“Do you know there are moments when I don’t love you?” Gwendolyn replied, haughtily.

“I smell coffee. Let’s raid the lunch-room,” a hungry Ritz-Carlton bellboy suggested.

“Anyway, we can sit there even if we can’t eat,” was a grand dame’s inspiring contribution to the general conversation.

Sure enough the coffee was no camouflage, but as I don’t indulge, it made no impression upon my tired digestive system.

“Ye gods, Columbus, where hast thou been?” someone shouted, as one of the guest appeared in the kitchen doorway clutching a huge slice of rye bread.

With a dramatic gesture he indicated the source of supplies, and there was a general exodus in that much to be desired direction.

“What are you doing in this kitchen?” The voice came through the doorway, as did also the form of the night watchman of the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. The extras, like so many scampering mice, disappeared without further parley.

“Almost time for the car,” emptied us from the lunch room into the road outside the studio.

Suitcases were turned on end and weary members of the celluloid clan sat in rows with faces turned towards the road down which the car came-eventually. Cuddled up in corners of the three-forty-five we found brave adventurers who had hoped to play a joke on the river by walking through snowdrifts to the ferry to catch an earlier boat. At five-thirty the streets of gay Brooklyn greeted my tired gaze. My poodle opened the door with:

“Glad to see you back, but why so early, old dear?”

Mabel Normand, the Goldwyn star, delivered a patriotic address in the parlor of the Hotel Mason, at Jacksonville, Florida, the other night. About thirty-five officers from Camp Johnston with hundreds of hotel guests listened to Miss Normand score the Germans. The star had the army officers as her guests at dinner, but the cheering that followed her after-dinner remarks brought the hotel guests flocking to hear the balance of her speech.

Miss Normand was in Florida to retake a number of scenes for “Joan of Plattsburg,” and finding one of her Plattsburg soldier-officers at Camp Johnston, she insisted on having a party
* from New York Morning Telegraph, April 28, 1918

The appearances of screen stars in the interests of the Liberty Loan drive are becoming more frequent as the need for patriotic response grows greater, but rarely has an idol of the cinema faced an audience under more exciting circumstances than marked the visit of Mabel Normand to the Harlem Grand Theatre last Sunday night.

The house was filled. Manager Arthur Hirsch estimated the attendance to be 4,000. John Case, representing the Forty-third District of the Liberty Loan Committee, announced that Mabel Normand, star in Goldwyn pictures, had consented to appear.

Then Mr. Case delivered his appeal and Miss Normand was the first to answer, subscribing for a $5,000 bond. Her reward for this was cheers, after which a few subscriptions for smaller amounts came in. Eight-year-old Clarice Boehm sang a patriotic song and a few more hundred dollars came from the audience. But it was not until Miss Normand seized upon a better method of coaxing money from the audience that expectations were realized: “Ladies and gentlemen,” she cried, “if it means anything at all to you, I will give any one who subscribes for a bond of any amount -- for a kiss!”

Mr. Hirsch and his assistants found difficulty in averting a panic, the noise of these eager to see and those eager to be kissed adding to the pandemonium. Finally some semblance of order was restored and the resourceful Miss Normand was held to her bargain. Never mind how many osculations were the price she paid, nor how many cheers, cries and whistles punctuated each kiss. The result is more important. Twelve thousand five hundred dollars was the total, all the more notable when it is remembered that the amount, except for the star’s initial $5,000, represented the savings of people of modest means.¹⁴⁶
* from New York Morning Telegraph, May 5, 1918

Mabel Normand Devotes Spare Time To War Work

In common with others at the Goldwyn studios, Mabel Normand follows the fortunes of war, both as the Allies fight on the battlefront of France, and as we prepare our men for service abroad. With her brother, Claude Normand, now at Spartanburg and with many friends in the service it is not to be wondered that the star is a patriot and a worker for the cause.

She is tireless in her response to the numerous requests she gets from men in uniform for everything from a photograph to a chocolate cake. Every one seems to know that she dotes on that delicacy. Some of her correspondents suggest that chocolate layers should be her war sacrifice -- to them. But Miss Normand takes it rather seriously and is happy to grant every request.

Her donations of cigarettes have become so constant that now she merely sends the written request to a tobacconist, who for­wards the parcels and relieves her of other details. It is the same with books and pictures of herself.

Recently she listened to the persuasions of a Liberty Loan Committee and consented to appear at a New York theatre, although Miss Normand feels that she is not able to do herself justice as a speaker in public. To bridge this difficulty she promptly offered to kiss any one subscribing for a bond of any amount. Twelve thousand five hundred dollars was raised, chiefly in $50 and $100 units.

Following this she was asked by the United States Food Administration to devote her peculiar talents to spreading the propaganda of conservation. With alacrity she made arrangements with Samuel Goldfish, president of Goldwyn, to do a short film showing the comic horror of the housewife who discovers her cook wasting wheat flour in the preparation of pancakes instead of substituting rice, according to her instructions.

After several delays the much heralded Goldwyn production of “Joan of Plattsburg“ with Mabel Normand starred was given a private press showing. It is in six reels, story by Porter Emerson Brown, directed by George Loane Tucker and William Humphrey, photographed by Oliver T. Marsh. Joan is one of the inmates of an orphan asylum near the training camp at Plattsburg. One of the officers lends her a copy of “Joan of Arc,” and the wistful, earnest little orphan, a girl whose whole desire is to serve, imagines herself a reincarnated Jeanne D’Arc, an idea which lends itself admirably to double exposure and other tricks of photography. While seated in the cellar reading “Joan of Arc,” the orphan hears voices plotting against the government, which she imagines are from another world, but which are in reality spies plotting against our government, and is thus the means of frustrating the sale of government secrets, and incidentally winning the captain as a husband.

A very pretty idea, artistically worked out by the produc­ers, but lacking in the most necessary essential, i.e. spiritual­ity of the star. Miss Normand acquits herself capably in all the comedy visualizations, but when it becomes necessary for her to transform herself from materialism to spirituality, she “isn’t there.” In other words, Miss Normand is always a physical being, and you can’t forget that for a moment, and you cannot imagine her spiritually transformed. It is a fine thought, the production is a pretentious one and an effective musical setting has been added. “Joan of Plattsburg“ will please and entertain patrons, not sensationally so, but very nearly.
* from Motography, May 11, 1918

The appearance of screen stars in the interest of the Liberty Loan are becoming more frequent as the need for patriotic response grows greater, but rarely has an idol of the cinema faced an audience under more exciting circumstances than marked the visit of Mabel Normand, Goldwyn star, to the big Harlem Grand Theater, in East One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street, New York, last Sunday night.

The house was packed to the doors. Manager Arthur Hirsch estimating the attendance to be fully 4,000. John Case, representing the Forty-third district of the Liberty Loan Committee, announced that Miss Normand had consented to appear, although hoarseness would prevent her from repeating the speech she had been making in other theatres.

Miss Normand had only to step onto the flag-draped platform to hear - and feel - a great wave of applause booming toward her.

Then Mr. Case delivered a stirring appeal and Miss Normand was the first to answer, subscribing for a $5,000 bond. Her reward was a volley of cheers, after which a few subscriptions for much smaller amounts came in. Eight-year-old Clarice Boehm sang a patriotic song and a few more hundred dollars came from the audience. But it was not until Miss Normand, with a quick inspiration, seized upon a better method of coaxing money from the audience that expectations were realized.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she cried, “if it means anything at all to you, I will give anyone who subscribes for a bond of any amount -- a kiss!”

There was an immediate uproar. Men, women and children swept down the aisles and people arose all over the house. Manager Hirsch and his assistants found difficulty in averting a panic.

Finally, some semblance of order was restored and the resourceful Miss Normand was held to her bargain. Never mind how many osculations were the price she paid, nor how many cheers, cries and whistles punctuated each kiss. The result is more important; $12,500 was the total, all the more notable when it is remembered that the amount, except for the star’s initial $5,000, represented the savings of people of modest means. Then came another thrill.

Hardly had Miss Normand kissed her last man than the audience made a dash for the exits, eager to see her enter her motor. Several policemen, aided by Manager Hirsch and his workers, preceded the star and fairly hewed out a narrow lane for her to pass through. But the jam surrounding her machine, with faces pressed against the windows, gave the chauffeur his problem. Of course, Miss Normand got away at last, but the memory of her Liberty Loan reception at Harlem Grand will not get away from her for a long time.
* from Motography, June, 1918

In furtherance of its advertising campaign for Mabel Normand’s newest Goldwyn picture, “Joan of Plattsburg,” Goldwyn has arranged for the publication in more than 200 American and Canadian newspapers of a full-page fiction version of Porter Emerson Browne’s story, illustrated with stills from the production.

Mr. Browne himself has prepared the article and Goldwyn has had it prepared for newspaper use in 7 and 8-column-page matrices, which are being sent to all newspapers requesting them.

Goldwyn has directed its branch managers and salesman to make every effort to tie up the publication of the story with the showing of the picture. Theatre owners also will work through newspapers with which they advertise.

Everybody enjoyed Mabel Normand’s return to the screen in “Dodging a Million,” but many of the critics made a word note about her inclining toward plumpness, or as one of them puts it, Miss Normand’s expressed “avoirdupois insinuations.” Miss Normand promptly wrote a note to each one, thanking him for calling to her attention to a fact she had not realized before. Now Miss Normand is becoming slimmer every day. Who says the critics aren’t appreciated.