Mabel normand

By David Raymond

“Miss Mabel Normand will pretend to be glad to see you when you call on her at four o’clock, Monday afternoon. She will not be acting that day in her new Goldwyn picture, so the art of simulation will be lavished all on you. Miss Normand will pretend perfectly that she is glad you have chosen to seek her out and invade the privacy of her apartment.

“Miss Normand will act precisely as if she never had been interviewed before, and will blush and simper and beg you to publish her latest photograph. In fact, Miss Normand will not be herself at all, for she knows that you will much prefer to write of her as an animated doll squeaking opinions someone else has thought for her, tucked in a doll’s house and wearing doll’s clothes, lacy and baby blue.

“In return for this perfect interview Miss Normand makes ten stipulations, as follows:

“1. That you do not say she owns gold furniture.

“2. Nor that she is whirled hither and thither in a tufted limousine.

“3. Nor that she has a dog.

“4. That you do not mention the hundreds of letters she receives.

“5. That you do not say she adores acting in pictures.

“6. That you omit descriptions of her clothes.

“7. That you refrain from saying she loves sports and all-outdoors.

“8. That you do not advertise her tremendous war work.

“9. That you do not credit her with interest in sociology and world politics.

“10. That you do not reveal her passion for the works of Edith Wharton, Mrs. Humphry Ward and Joseph Conrad.

“P.S.--In making these stipulations Miss Normand realizes she is snatching away the props of your profession, for who ever heard of an interview with out at least six of these mainstays? However, if you still wish to come Miss Normand will be at home for ten minutes. Moreover, Miss Normand DARES you to come. Please sign and return, special delivery, if Miss Normand is to reserve the time for you.”

The foregoing, typed on thick creamy paper, placed in the uncertain hands of The Photo-Play World’s experienced social expert, was not calculated to give him confidence in himself. But regard for Miss Normand’s originality was at least established. The agreement signed and dispatched he found himself at the appointed time in the home of Mischievous Mabel, the Naughty Normand. Never mind where the domicile is situated, or if the rugs are pink or blue. Or if the effect is that of Sybaritic luxury or ascetic plainness.

It was her home and it was good to be there. She was seated on a settee, reading The New York Evening Post.

“Hello!--but first excuse me for seeming to wait for you. I know it’s bad form for the subject of your interview not to be heralded by a ‘secretary’ and a couple of maids,” said the Normand, tossing aside the paper. I saw what had been absorbing her, a drawing by Fontaine Fox.

“I like that man’s funnies,” she volunteered, catching my glance. “You don’t think I READ the paper, do you?” and she trailed off into merry laughter. “But I do like the dictionary--it looks so well among my other books. They are dummies and the dictionary is the only real thing among them. The cook loves to get the correct spelling of the things she makes.”

Miss Normand looked at me out of eyes which need no description to photoplay enthusiasts. They are shadowed by lashes absurdly long and curling. The light shines through these lashes like sunbeams filigreed under a rose-smothered pergola. Her eyes were not a subject forbidden in her manifesto, so I am within my rights in phrasing their beauty after the mode of Elinor Glyn.

“What are your serious interests, Miss Normand, outside the dictionary and the newspaper funnies?”

“Men,” she answered, without a moment’s hesitation. :”I think they’re the most serious things in the world. Especially when they tell me how beautiful I am. Then the pathos of their position is so acute I am moved to pity--when I want so much to smile.

“They are also a serious problem when they explain the mistakes made by other men in doing what they themselves know they could do better--such as commanding armies, controlling food distribution and directing my screen production.” Whereupon Miss Normand glanced at the clock, a large alarm one, standing on her writing desk, and continued.

“One feels kindly toward such men--all men, in fact”--this last with a merciful, Portia-like smile -- “because they are so serious and because they are such an important element in life. One can’t escape them: they are everywhere. Why, only this morning a man called to manicure me. Now, that we have women munitions workers and women conductors and elevator operators, one feels that men will get their chance in professions from which they have been barred.”

“But Miss Normand,” I put in, anxious to touch upon a less gloomy topic, “what is causing you to smile these days? After your happy return to the screen in ‘Dodging a Million‘ you must find much to make you lighthearted.”

“Nothing more delicious than my collections of sayings uttered by friends among film stars.” With this she went over to her desk. Mabel Normand’s walk is something I have long delighted in. It is a gay, impudent kind of walk. She does not swing along, or mince, or skip. She saunters in the inimitable manner of the Mabel Normand. She brought back a kid-bound book.

“This is what amuses me most--the commonplaces voiced by people who should know better. Take this for example. ‘I think woman’s highest destiny is motherhood and the home,’ which was confided to me by a certain internationally famous woman. And, ‘every woman uses her sex in one way or another.’ I love that just as I love the girl who made the discovery, another experienced star. ‘What is there to write of poor little me?’ is one of the best in my collection. The speaker is a girl who is always glad to give the newspapers more copy than they ever can use.”

Miss Normand closed the book with a snap.

“No, I can’t tell you who the speakers were. That would make the remarks too funny to be good for you.”

Determined to get at the real Mabel Normand, the girl whose sober thoughts must be as interesting as her merry moods, I asked a question.

“Nothing in the world is more vital to me at this moment than--chocolate cake,” she declared. “I am expecting a four-storied one from the only shop I trust--or that will trust me. But there is a maddening doubt in connection with it.” I looked concerned.

“Will it or will it not, I ask myself,” she went on, “be iced on the sides as well as the top? The sugar shortage forces economy and I have been warned to expect the worst.”

At this moment the clock burst into shrill alarm. It wobbled over the mahogany surface of the desk.

“Your ten minutes—” Miss Normand announced, smiling cordially and rising to her full height of five feet, “are up. Please go. I must be alone when the chocolate cake arrives. With great sorrows or great joys I seek solitude. I am not like other girls, you understand.”

There was nothing to say then; there is nothing more to say now. Except that Mabel Normand’s manner was serious throughout the interview.

In The Venus Model, her latest Goldwyn picture, Mabel Normand appears in a production replete with movement, interest and unusual beauty. And in the person of the sprightly star all these elements of success are concentrated, although the production in itself is unique.

Settings of unusual richness and beauty have been devised by Hugo Ballin. They range all the way from a shop window simulating a sand strewn beach, where Mabel Normand poses in a chic bathing costume, to a restaurant where living birds are used in great numbers for decorative purposes. They are not caged, but are grouped on branches of trees set in niches in the walls. Love birds, parakeets and Java sparrows are used, with some magnificent parrots hanging in ornamental rings. The effect is original with Mr. Ballin, and is an outstanding feature of the production.

From anther standpoint the bathing suit factory is equally interesting, with its array of dummies clad in the garb of the beaches. The scenes which show the chute down which boxes are shot for shipment are highly diverting. When the star herself elects to shoot the chute and slides down head first at high speed audiences are assured the heartiest laugh of the season.

A child, a little girl named Nadia Gary, contributes almost as much as Miss Normand to The Venus Model with her beauty and sympathetic acting. She is the first model on whom Mabel Normand fits the bathing dress she has designed-the costume which brings the star success and love and exciting adventures.

Much of the excitement for the audience will be found in the episodes in the shop window and around it. A great crowd surrounds the place, drawn there by the promise of seeing the wonderful “Venus Model.” When Mabel Normand appears clad in the already famous swimming suit she creates a sensation. That sensation fortunately is not confined to the shadow people on the screen, but spreads to the audience in the theater.

Mrs. Woodrow Wilson asked that Mabel Normand be brought in her box at Crandall’s Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington that the first lady of the land might speak to the star of “Joan of Plattsburg.” It happened last Tuesday, when Goldwyn‘s patriotic comedy-drama was presented in aid of the Children’s Year Campaign Committee of the Council of National Defense, an organization devoted to the welfare of babies. Miss Normand was in Washington at the direct invitation of this organization, of which Mrs. Wilson is the chief patron.

The audience, one of the most distinguished ever assembled to see a motion picture and meet the star of it included, besides Mrs. Wilson, Vice-President Marshall, Secretary of War Baker and Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Josephine Daniels, wife of the Secretary of the Navy, and various other ladies of the Cabinet as well as Army and Navy officials and leaders on war work.

Among other things Mrs. Wilson said to Miss Normand, accord­ing to a Goldwyn official: “I have always loved you in motion pictures. You have whiled away many a dull hour for me, and now love the real Mabel Normand even more.” Miss Normand was asked questions about her work, and for ten minutes she and the President’s wife chatted before the performance began.

Captain Barris Bulkley opened the matinee with a stirring recital of “The Star Spangled Banner” and then the lights went down and the first scene of “Joan of Plattsburg“ faded in on the screen. Midway in the picture, Mrs. Blanche Shipert, a singer well known in Washington, sang “Joan of Arc” and moved the audi­ence to heart applause, repeated as picture gained in cumulative strength. When finally the end came and Captain Bulkley appeared to introduce the big audience knew what was coming and applauded some more, and when the star of “Joan” emerged from behind the curtain it was a full minute before she could make herself heard.

Addressing herself to the center box, in which Mrs. Wilson sat, Miss Normand told the audience how happy she was to be in Washington for the first time and how deeply she appreciated the honor paid her by the Children’s Year Campaign Association in asking her to make a personal appearance.

Previous to this Mrs. Wilson had made known to Manager Robb that she would like to say au revoir to the star, and in the lobby of the Knickerbocker, surrounded by the crowd, most of them Mrs. Wilson’s personal friends, the wife of the President expressed her enjoyment of Mabel Normand’s work to the star her­self.

“It is a charming, most interesting play and I enjoyed it because ‘Joan of Plattsburg‘ is different,” she said. “You are delightful in the part and I hope to see you many times.”

Miss Normand could only murmur her thanks.

But this was not the end of her Washington triumph. After a long drive Miss Normand began her series of personal appearances at six of the Crandall theatres. At each house she was greeted by crowds willing to forego seeing the remainder of the performance that they might follow Miss Normand to the street and press around the motor to beg for photographs. One gallant youth snatched off his cap and kissed Miss Normand’s hand in true Southern style.

It was an interesting experience for Mabel Normand, unaccustomed as she is to making appearances in person, and proof of her appeal to Mrs. Wilson and her friends as well as to the children who had spent their pennies to see her, will remain in Miss Normand’s heart always.

“It means,” she said to a Goldwyn executive who accompanied her, “that I must do my best work in every production. Now I realize how much is expected of me, and I do so want to live up to my reputation.”

After seeing this naval film, it is difficult, perhaps, to be tolerant with the Strand’s feature photoplay, “The Venus Model,” with Mabel Normand in the leading role. The thing is so emphatically a product of the restricted field from which, through the war, the moving pictures have been unable to escape. The story is about a phenomenon in the form of a working girl who designs a wonderful bathing suit, thereby saves her employer from failure, falls in love with the son of said employer, rescues him from the clutches of an unscrupulous female to whom he had indis­creetly written letters, and finally marries him and happiness forever.

Mabel Normand is starred in this Goldwyn, at the Strand. It is the usual story of virtue triumphant, vice punished and every­thing straightened out, but the old theme is delightfully handled and the feature is entertaining.

Miss Normand is a screen artist of ability, who never tries for effects and is always amusing. As Kitty O’Brien, a girl who works in a bathing suit factory, always cutting up pranks and annoying the crabbed old foreman, she is a delight. But she is even better when promoted as a reward for designing “The Venus Model,” and in consequence is made general manager of the facto­ry.

The firm is in straightened circumstances and through ill­ness caused by worry, the proprietor is ordered away and Kitty O’Brien is left in full charge. Under her management the business prospers to such an extent that when the owner returns, instead of being in debt, there is a big balance on the right side of the ledger and he is able to pay off all his creditors.

In the absence of the owner, a young man applies for a position, is made office boy, and turns out to be the boss’ son, who after leaving college, decides to make his start from the bottom of the ladder. This young man, Rodrique La Rocque, is a clever actor. He at once becomes smitten with Kitty, who, in turn, likes “the fresh office boy” to whom she is paying $6 per.

Alfred Hickman is the villain, so completely routed by Kitty’s impudence, that he is more to be pitied than despised, as all villains should be. She also foils the machinations of the “vamp”(Una Trevelyn) in her own peculiar way.

“The Venus Model“ is a pleasing story, well done and should make a first class program feature.
* from New York Morning Telegraph, June 30, 1918

A Feminine George Washington

Mabel Normand is a stickler for truth-telling. She will not equivocate even when asked a question she has a right to refuse to answer. On her recent trip to Washington, where she met Mrs. Woodrow Wilson at a performance of “Joan of Plattsburg,” a child asked the Goldwyn star her age. “Honey, I’m as old as there are scenes in ‘The Venus Model,’ divided by twenty and multiplied by two. Here’s a nickel for a pencil and write me the answer.”

 From interview with Mary Pickford in Chicago:

“I saw Mabel Normand in New York -- I love Mabel.”
* from New York Morning Telegraph, July 21, 1918

Her Gingham Gifts

On her recent trip to the blue ridge mountains of West Virginia, where she went to take scenes for “Back to the Woods,” her forthcoming Goldwyn picture, Mabel Normand encountered a phase of life new to her. She learned to know many women of the mountains, most of whom had service flags in the windows of their cabins like the one Mabel cherishes for her brother. Despite their poverty, she was surprised to find the mountain women too proud to accept money from her. So she sent a box of plain Gingham dresses on her return to New York.

The photoplay at the Strand this week is “Back to the Woods,” with Mabel Normand in the leading role and Herbert Rawlinson supporting her. It’s an average photoplay, which means that it has some well-done scenes, is fiction that never ap­proaches fact, and is tediously long.

Mabel Normand was fined $2 in traffic court last week for driving her car on the wrong side of the street.

“I love dark, windy days and chocolate cake,” Mabel 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. We had called to interview the popular little lady for PICTURES, but ten minutes had passed and so far we had not been able to put to her a single question. She did most of the talking.

“Chocolate cake,” she went on, “is the one thing I never get. People always keep it from me. That’s why I’ve decided it is my favourite 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--really back!”

We expect you know that Mabel is now a Goldwyn comedienne; the Stoll Film Company will in due course release her first Goldwyn picture, “Dodging a Million,” in which our Mabel makes a welcome return to the screen. We reminded her that she had no place to “come back” from--that she has stayed in the affections of picturegoers ever since the early days of Biograph.

Because of her innate 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. If 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 chat we 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 favourite 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 that,” she said pointedly, “brings us to the subject of Retribution with a capital R.

“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--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 question. “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.

“It is my task to make even these unfortunates laugh, but I don’t expect a lot of thanks. People enjoy laughter, but they’re not grateful for it. They forget. They never forget sadness, or the actor who 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?”...

Mabel Normand is superstitious. She always carries a tiny ivory elephant as a talisman.

Though she never wears them on the screen, she owns wonderful jewels. Her favourite is a chain of diamonds suspending the smallest platinum watch in the world.

Raymond Hitchcock and Mrs. Hitchcock (Flora Zabelle) are her closest friends. They advise her whenever she considers a contract.

She is very fond of beautiful clothes and means always to wear pretty things on the screen in future as in “Dodging a Million.”

In spite of her merry smile and laughing eyes, Mabel is very temperamental. Trifles trouble her and she weeps with any friend who tells a hard luck story.

Her ambition is to go to Paris after the war for two years. She declares she wants to study languages and music “and things.” Then she wishes to appear on the stage, though never has she spoken in public.

All the while she was making slapstick, Mabel Normand was reading Strindberg, Ibsen, and Shaw

By Randolph Barlett

“Do you rent this apartment furnished?”

This was the only important thing I asked Mabel Normand. And this is why I asked it:

When I called, Miss Normand was quite obviously a very busy young person. A parcel had just arrived and she hurriedly tore off the wrappings and brought to light a collection of men’s pocket articles bound in pigskin, including a memorandum book, a photograph case, and such odds and ends. She explained that they were for Father Kelly, the chaplain of a contingent of the American Army, just sailing for France. Miss Normand had received word from her brother, at Spartenburg, that Father Kelly had been very kind to him when he was in the hospital, and would be in New York a day or two before sailing. So Miss Normand was preparing to show her appreciation. This was something that could not wait, so while she went on with her work of doing things up for Father Kelly, I nosed around the living room.

A big book case in one corner invited inspection. The array of authors was as unusual as it was fascinating. There were Gautier, Strindberg, Turgeneff, Stevenson, Walter Pater, Kipling, Oscar Wilde, Shaw, Ibsen, John Evelyn, J. M. Barrie, Francois Coppee, Bret Harte. Of the superficial best sellers there was not a single sample. Nor was there to be found in the room a copy of any of the cheap, current fiction magazines. On the piano was a heap of music in which was to be found Rubenstein but not Irving Berlin, Chaminade but not Jerome Kern, Rimsky-Korsakoff but not Von Tilzer, Kohler etudes but no ragtime.

So when she told me that everything in the apartment belonged to her, I knew that we were going to have more important things to talk about than whether she considered the moving picture still in its infancy, and what her favorite was, and whether she could cry real tears when the director asked her, and so on. In a recent article in Photoplay it was observed that the sole secret of enduring success in moving pictures is intelligence. Miss Normand’s collection of books has, probably, done little toward making her successful, but they are an index to the possession of that intelligence without which there can be no success. Of course the mere ownership of books may mean nothing except that the owner is an easy prey to salesmen, but when, as with Miss Normand, there is contained between the handsome covers, it means a great deal.

Let there be no mistake about this, however -- Mabel Normand is no high brow. To a person whose mind is not virile and active, association with the masters of literature is fraught with peril. But Miss Normand has that active mind. She does not take her reading like a sponge, but like an electric motor. While she was bumping and splashing her pretty self all over the landscape of Southern California and its well known coast line, in the Fatty and Mabel series of comedies, her mind was developing toward something more important. She was not satisfied to go on forever decorating the slapstick classic. The opportunity came, and Miss Normand was ready to be starred in big features. Still she is not satisfied. From farce she has ascended to comedy, but she knows there are higher rungs of the ladder still unclimbed, and when the next opportunity comes again she will be ready.

That has been her history -- being ready. Not so many years ago, as the calendar counts time, she was living in Staten Island, just down the bay from New York. She wanted to earn her own living, and it was not long before she found a place as a model for artists. Charles Dana Gibson, James Montgomery Flagg, and other noted illustrators, were among her employers. It was not a highly paid profession, and there were times when she walked all the way from Thirty-first Street to Sixty-seventh to save car fare. For the life of the artist’s model is widely misrepresented. There isn’t much romance in it.

Among Miss Normand’s intimate friends of those days were Alice Joyce and Florence LaBadie, also artists’ models.

The fact became known to them that it was possible to earn five dollars a day working in moving picture studios. As the income of the model averaged three dollars a day when she was so fortunate as to have engagements both morning and afternoon, this sounded like good news. So one day Miss Normand ventured into the Biograph studio on Fourteenth Street, the very cradle of the modern moving picture.

“I’ll never forget it,” she says of this adventure. “I had been told to be sure to see Mr. Griffith, and somehow or other I found my way up to the floor where they were working. The lights and the confusion bewildered me. The blotchy appearance of everybody’s face, caused by the rays from the light batteries, frightened me. I sneaked off into a corner and tried not to be noticed.

“While I was standing there the most beautiful creature I had ever seen came upon the scene. She was a gorgeous blonde -- I have no idea who it was -- and her golden hair hung clear to the floor like one of the Seven Sutherland Sisters. I knew nothing about makeup and wigs, and I supposed this was all her natural appearance. If that was what they wanted in the movies I knew there was no chance for me. I wanted to get away before anyone saw me and laughed at me.

“As I was going out of the door a man stopped me and asked me if I was looking for anyone. It was Dell Henderson. I stammered that I wanted to see Mr. Griffith, though the fact is, that was the last thing I did want. He told me to wait a few minutes. I tried to get away again and Edwin August stopped me. I evaded him and then Frank Powell came along. Somehow or other, in spite of all my efforts, Mr. Griffith saw me and immediately ordered someone to take me down to the wardrobe room and put me in a page’s costume. I suppose it’s about the only time any person trying to get into the movies actually made an effort not to see Mr. Griffith.

“Well, they had a terrific time finding a pair of tights small enough for me. They had to twist them into knots to make them fit. And I was horribly embarrassed. Yes -- I know it doesn’t sound like the ordinary idea of an artist’s model, but I never had posed with so little clothes. They told me to stand still in a certain part of the scene, and I felt my knees wobbling. My legs felt like sticks of well-cooked spaghetti. At last they started work, and it never seemed to end. I don’t remember the name of the picture -- all I recall is that the wonderful creature I had seen was a blind sculptress.

“It came six o’clock and I could hear that dear Staten Island ferry calling me, but they wouldn’t let me go. I never had been late to dinner, and I knew my mother would be worrying. But they kept us there until nearly ten o’clock. I think they gave me ten dollars for the session, but that was no lure. I never went back. They had told us to come back the next day, but I had no idea that the picture was unfinished, and I didn’t want any more.”

It was quite a while after this that Miss Normand summoned up courage to try again. The second time she became a member of that company from which came Bobby Harron, Henry Walthall, Mae Marsh, the Gish sisters, Florence Lawrence, Arthur Johnson, and all that long list of screen stars who had their start with D. W. Griffith.

When she was making farce comedies with Roscoe Arbuckle, Miss Normand became known among the players as the most fearless girl in pictures, when there were dangerous stunts to be performed. Nobody ever “doubled” for her. With all her slenderness and petite grace, she had the ill power to go through with anything she attempted. She couldn’t bear to be called a quitter. A typical incident occurred just when she recovered from a long illness that kept her away from work all summer, two years ago.

Just before she was laid up, she had been working on the comedy “Fatty and Mabel Adrift,” and it had to remain unfinished until her recovery. At last she felt able to go back to the studio, and started out in her car. As she neared Edendale her nerve began to ooze away.

“I can’t do it -- I can’t,” she groaned, and ordered the chauffeur to turn back.

Before she had driven back many blocks, she began to call herself a coward.

“You’ve got to do it,” she kept repeating to herself. “You’ve got to do it.”

So the chauffeur was ordered to turn again toward the studio. Three times she ordered him to drive back home, and as many times her Irish blood rose at the thought of submitting to her fear, until at last she fairly whipped herself to her dressing room -- and finished the picture.

Miss Normand’s latest presentations, those that draw her away from the slapstick stuff are “Joan of Plattsburg,” in which she plays a modern and American Jeanne d’Arc, and “The Venus Model,” in which she essays the title role recalling the good old days when she was so well known as the diving girl. Her first picture in her new affiliation gave her the luscious part of “Arabella Flynn,” an errand girl, in “Dodging a Million.” In the “Floor Below,” a newspaper story, she was a copy girl, acting as no copy girl ever acted now or then. But no matter what she does -- romping through a picture and lifting it out of the commonplace, or reading Strindberg, Shaw, or Ibsen after a hard day’s work at the studio, Mabel Normand stands all by herself.
* from Photoplay, August , 1918

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