Mabel normand

Mabel Normand, Goldwyn star, likes to make things to eat. She created something mighty good this time. She takes some cream cheese--such as you might get at your grocers--and blends it with Carnation milk as directed in her recipe herewith. On a lettuce leaf sandwich as the “filling,” or with bar de luc currant jam or preserves of any kind--Well, you can take her word for it that’s it’s worth tasting. See how she looks after the first bite of her sandwich.

In “Back to the Woods,” shown at the Strand, Goldwyn is putting out as good pictures as one generally sees. Better, in fact. It is a love story in that it deals with the courtship of two persons, but it abounds in farcical situations which make it a comedy appealing more to the sense of humor than the heartstrings. The picture also marks a very distinct advance in the work of Mabel Normand, who is the star. Since the earlier days Miss Normand has been regarded as one of the best exponents of screen comedy and nothing more; the farcical, custard-pie-throwing, knockout comedy which will always appeal to something childish that remains in us. In “Back to the Woods,” however, Miss Normand’s work is marked by an archness and finesse, a lightness of touch, which stamp her as a comedienne of a much higher rank.

Stephanie Trent who is bored with the men she meets in the East, goes as a teacher -- under an assumed name -- to a primitive village owned by her father, a rich capitalist. Here she meets Jimmie Raymond, a young novelist, who lives in a cabin and dresses much as do the men around him. Neither knows the other’s real name. Raymond hires a yokel to annoy Stephanie so that he may have the opportunity of coming to her rescue and protecting her. He then hires the boy to lure her to his cabin where he treats her in a violent unbridled manner. But when she starts to jump through a window he tells her that he is a novelist and simply wants to see how a woman would behave under such circumstances. Stephanie then has several lumbermen blindfold and kidnap Raymond and take him to another shanty, where she tells him that she is a school teacher and simply wants to see how a novelist would behave under such circumstances. She tells him that he must marry her, but he escapes and in the pursuit is shot. And then Stepha­nie realizes that she cares for Raymond and nurses him back to health. Both return to the city and the first installment of the novel appears in a magazine. Stephanie’s father gets an injunction. On their way to the hearing, Stephanie and Raymond meet in the elevator of the building where it is to be held. Raymond throws the elevator man out, and there is an amusing scene where the two go shooting up and down until they both become dizzy and Stephanie capitulates in Raymond’s arms.

In Herbert Rawlinson Miss Normand has an admirable foil. He is precisely the kind of man the part calls for, strong and handsome and a good actor. Scenically the picture is quite excep­tional, with direction and photography of the same caliber.

The Strand runs to farce-comedy this week, with “Upstairs“ at the head of the bill. This is a piece of nonsense in which Mabel Normand, under the direction of Victor L. Schertzinger, does some of her best pantomimic work. She takes the part of a kitchen drudge who is lured upstairs to the dancing room of a gay hotel. She is in trouble most of the time and most of her troubles are laughable. There is not enough in this farce, however, to make all of its five or six reels entertaining.

Attention! all you folk who live in the vicinity of Sea Cliff. There is to be a treat down at the beach tomorrow. Mabel Normand, she of the svelte figure, dark eyes and engaging smile, is going to appear at the beach at Sea Cliff in a one-piece bathing suit. The occasion will be the filming of a scene from “A Perfect Thirty-six,” Mabel’s next Goldwyn picture. This is the one and only reason Miss Normand has consented to don a bathing suit and do an Annette Kellerman.

Mabel Normand is suffering with a terrible cold, and she is willing to tell any one of the thousands of girls who are envying the life of a motion picture star she will swap places. Her next Goldwyn picture calls for a bathing scene, so Mabel and her company packed up their belongings and went to Sea Cliff to take the scene. A terrible storm came up and the little hotel where this company had registered sprung a leak in the roof. Mabel said “Fatty and Mabel” adrift had nothing on this deluge, which like a thief in the night, came without warning.

 Louella Parsons

One could imagine nothing better for a chronic case of blues the to have the daily companionship of Mabel Normand. She spar­kles one minute like bubbling, effervescent champagne, subdues her sparkles the next with a sage remark that might come from a philosopher, paid to create proverbs. Decidedly, there is nothing monotonous about this queen of comedy lady, who would bring a laugh into the darkest, dullest day and find something worth while on a desert island away from civilization.

An invitation to dine with Miss Normand brought me to her apartment -- as usual fifteen minutes late. I found her about to starve to death and being in the same condition myself, the first thought that came to our minds was -- food.

“Food?”

We went together in search of an eat shop and needless to say we found a good dinner at one of the hotels where Mabel Normand is known and recognized as a real celebrity of the screen.

No royal potentate was ever received with more obsequious attention than this Goldwyn moving picture had thrust upon her.

Must like comedy, and Mabel -- thought I, taking in his admiring glances at the little figure dressed so smartly in a black satin suit, with a big black velvet hat and a fluffy white blouse.

And about Mabel, the tomboy of films. A writer on a moving picture magazine a few months brought back a laugh to picture land by saying Mabel was one of the best read moving picture stars he had ever met. He told how he had gone to her apartment and finding all these books on Russian sociology, profound philosophy and discussions of historical and religious subjects, had naively asked Miss Normand if she rented her apartment furnished.

“Why no, these, are all my own books,” she answered, pointing to the well fitted bookcase.

An animated discussion embracing the text and subject matter of these volumes disclosed the fact that Mabel Normand was not only well read, but that she had the astonishing knack of remembering what she read.

All of this sounded well, but I admit I was like the rest of the world -- skeptical. It did not seem possible that this girl whom the world expects to do a female Charlie Chaplin for their entertainment could have any serious moments.

I hadn’t been with her half an hour before I discovered she had depths to her nature and a serious side which few people who know only her tricks on the screen could believe.

There is at times a look of sadness to her eyes which again are so full of mischief one can scarcely believe she is grown up and out of her teens. Mabel Normand is one of the women who will always be a little girl. Her genuineness, her sympathy and her impulsive affection are given with the unaffected trust of a child, rather than of a woman who has found life to contain many sharp edges.

The last time I saw Miss Normand was in Chicago, when she was coming from the Coast with Fatty Arbuckle. At that time she weighed a scant 98 pounds and looked sick and miserable. The girl whom I met Wednesday night had little in common with the Mabel of that day in Chicago.

This Mabel breathes an air of content and happiness. She likes her work, enjoys the Goldwyn pictures and believes in “Peck’s Bad Girl“ she has at last found the sort of vehicle in which she is best suited to shine.

“My idea of good screen acting,” she said, “is to give myself as I am to the screen. I want to let people know the real Mabel Normand. Take a writer who can express himself in the easy natural manner of his own conversation. He comes nearer the public than the man who borrows all the big words from the dictionary and makes a grandstand play of his knowledge. The same is true of a motion picture actor. The secret of screen success is to let your public see you as you really are, not to camouflage your identity under a mask of disguise and grandeur.”

Not bad philosophy when you dissect it.

Mabel Normand has a romance, one that she dreams about and cherishes as a precious memory. She carries it with her and never forgets it for a second. While we were talking she unconsciously fondled -- a little gold vanity bag set with sapphires.

“There must be a secret hidden in you there,” I said.

“There is,” she promptly replied. “The picture of a man whom I love and who went away.”

“Let me see him,” I begged.

“All right,” she said handing me a tiny snapshot of a hand­some youth in Uncle Sam’s uniform looking out of a pair of frank eyes.

“Who is he?”

“He is Claude,” she said, “and he is fighting in France -- and O but I miss him.”

“Claude who?” said I, the old reporter instinct refusing to be downed.

“Oh,” said this irrepressible one. “Didn’t I tell you Claude Normand, my brother?”

After that we went home. Not to Mabel’s own chintz decorated apartment, but to my apartment. She insisted upon driving me home and seeing me inside my home domicile, and after she did this we sat down and finished our conversation right there.

After all it was a good idea. It gave the elevator man a thrill to see Mabel Normand, Goldwyn star, and gave him something to talk about for the remainder of the week.
* from Variety, September 27, 1918

PECK’S BAD GIRL

A capital picture and one showing Mabel Normand off to greatest advantage is “Peck’s Bad Girl“ a Goldwyn feature seen at a private showing. It is not only funny, in a healthy, old-fashioned way, but it is also quite melodramatic in spots and then, by way of variety, a pretty little love element is inject­ed.

Minnie Peck is a very bad girl indeed. She interferes with the hose of the village fire department to the discomfiture of the fire laddies, and she puts a sign on the bank which results in a run on that stable institution. Saved from reform school by the friendly intercession of a kind-hearted woman, she secures a position as a model with Miss Hortense Martinot, a modiste from New York. She makes a comedy model, indeed, alternately affront­ing Hortense’s customers and falling over her train. She also engages in a flirtation with Dick, a city stranger, who has come to the village to sell fake jewelry. Going to the shop one night on a forgotten errand she discovers two “slick” looking men tunneling from cellar to cellar on their way to the vaults of the bank. Hortense enters at this juncture in a most suspicious manner, and it dawns upon Minnie that she is intent upon making a get-away herself, and is in league with the robbers. So Minnie makes her employer a prisoner in the closet, and with the timely aid of Dick captures the men. Dick turns out to have been on the trail of the gang, while Minnie finds herself a heroine. And then Dick puts a ring with a real stone on her finger.

Miss Normand is one of the best comediennes on the screen, and there are few artists who can get a laugh with quicker readi­ness. In “Peck’s Bad Girl“ she has a vehicle uncommonly well-suited to her peculiar talents. Earle Foxe as Dick renders good support, and Corinne Barker as the wily Hortense could not have been better cast. All the village characters are admirably played, and the direction is perfect. The village built in the Goldwyn yard at Fort Lee, is a triumph.

They say a rolling stone gathers no moss, but the story of this latest picture of the Normand has rolled thru so many movies it must be hoary with age. Yet it has several clever twists and a corking fine leading-man in its favor. The leading-man being Herbert Rawlinson, and when you see him stride through the woods you will wonder that Mabel let him get away from her even for one moment. You see, Mabel found him in the woods, where she was masquerading as a school marm. Also he was masquerading as a hunter, while in reality he was an author seeking new material for his new novel. Mabel gave it to him a-plenty. The subtitles were altogether too long and numerous.

Mabel Normand -- Born in Boston, Mass. Dark brown eyes, fluffy black hair, weighs 112 lbs. Artist’s model for C. Coles Phillips, Henry Hutt, Penrhyn Stanlaws. Began screen career with Vitagraph in Betty series with Flora Finch and John Bunny. Has played for Biograph, Keystone, Mabel Normand Feature Film Co., and Goldwyn. Most popular work with Fatty Arbuckle in “Fatty and Mabel,” “Mabel’s Busy Day,” “Fatty and Mabel Adrift,” “He Did and He Didn’t,” “The Bright Lights.” Goldwyn pictures of note: “The Floor Below,” “Joan of Plattsburg,” “Dodging a Million,” “The Venus Model.”

* from New York Morning Telegraph, October 10, 1918

Mabel Normand Sells a Kiss

Mabel Normand had to forget her fear of Spanish influenza on Tuesday and kiss a man she never saw before in her life.¹⁴⁸ She didn’t know whether he had been exposed to the now fashionable influenza, had just recovered from it, or whether he was sound, safe and fancy free. Being patriotic, Miss Normand forgot to ask any of these questions before she bestowed the kiss. She was selling Liberty Loan bonds in the Morning Telegraph booth, when a man in the crowd at Madison Square Garden called: “Give us a kiss for a bond, Mabel?”

“How large a bond,” asked the wise Miss Mabel.

The laugh which greeted this question had the desired re­sult, and the unknown man promptly replied a $1000 bond. The bond was delivered and so was the kiss.

It was demonstrated that two stars can work better than one on Tuesday evening when Harold Lockwood and Mabel Normand boosted the sale close to the $20,000 mark. This indefatigable team accomplished wonders. The women bought from Mr. Lockwood and the men flocked to the side of Miss Normand.

John C. Flinn was seen in the crowd and was invited to come in our booth. Did he leave without buying a bond? He did not -- not after Mabel Normand saw him. Neither did John Flinn, who has been one of the most patriotic workers for the Fourth Liberty Loan in the industry, try to escape the wiles of Miss Mabel. He willingly, nay, gladly, parted with his money and paid cash for one of the precious liberty-saving papers.

Mabel Normand has been fighting the “flu” all week. The devoted Mary Boyd, Miss Normand’s maid, the minute Miss Normand’s cold was discovered, put her to bed and has watched over her faithfully ever since. It is thought the heroine of the Goldwyn funmaking comedies has nothing worse than a bad cold in her head -- which, after all, is from an unpleasant stand-point, bad enough.

by Frederick James Smith

This is the thrilling story of an interviewer’s giddy life. “You talk to all the stars and get paid for it,” people say, plaintively, to an interviewer. “How do you get away with it?” For their benefit, we faithfully relate our thrilling day with Mabel Normand.

We had particularly looked forward to our chat with Mabel Normand because that star had -- perhaps we’re violating a confi­dence in telling this -- promised to “bat” our guide “over the bean” upon his next invasion of her immediate vicinity. Thus we gathered at the outset that Miss Normand was a young lady of tempestuous moods and moments.

With fond expectations of an exciting interview prelude, we reached Goldwyn studios “somewhere in Fort Lee” at the unearthly hour of 9:30 o’clock. That was the weird hour set for the opening interview of hostilities.

No, gentle reader, Mabel Normand had NOT yet arrived.

We were told to go the limit in amusing ourselves till the star arrived.

We watched the ukulele orchestra play while fifty extras ball-room danced in a scene for the forthcoming “Back to the Woods.” The actual filming would not take place until Miss Normand arrived.

At 10 o’clock the ukuleles were still strumming idly...[Here Smith describes his looking in on Geraldine Farrar being film.]…

Fearing that we might be one of these Irritating Influences. We wandered back to the Normand stage. 11:30 -- still no Miss Normand. The ukuleles still played, the extras still danced, the electricians still tinkered with the lights

“Perhaps I can give you a few things of interest about Miss Normand,” said our guide. “For one thing she never keeps an appointment. If she has an appointment for four, it usually occurs to her to begin dressing for it at 4:30.”

“Is it possible?” we murmured. Then a commotion stirred the studio. Miss Normand in decollete’, partially hidden by a dress­ing robe, dashed across the floor.

“Lo!” she exclaimed to us en passant.

“Lo! Rushed!...Late!...Back in a minute!”

Which you will admit is vivid stuff for an interview.

After a rehearsal in the ball-room set, she dashed back to us.

“You don’t look a bit like an interviewer,” she began. This is the usual way stars have of making you feel perfectly at home. “Just back from West Virginia. Amazing up there in the mountains. Service flags out in front of every one of those quaint cabins. We hired some of the women to work in our picture. They looked so poor that I sent to the nearest town and bought them some dresses...Do you know they’re fearfully proud? Yes indeed. I had an awful time soothing their ruffled feelings and getting them to accept the clothes. I gave them some books, too. You know the stuff -- Laura Jean Libbey and that sort of book.”

“Out of your own library,” spoofed our guide. “I’ll bet you depleted it terribly.”

“Go on!” pouted Mabel. “You talked as if you had flat feet. I don’t read Laura Jean Libbey and you know it!”

“No?” responded the guide, skeptically.

“No!” snapped Mabel. Then she told us of her new maid, a woman acquired from some millionaire’s home. This staid maid hadn’t yet adjusted herself to the mazes of studio life -- or the chameleon personality of Miss Normand.

“She told me that she had worked for several millionaires,” Mabel explained, “but I told her I wouldn’t hold that against her.”

“Pictures are still in their infancy or something like that,” began Miss Normand. She started talking of brother Claude Normand member of 106th Machine Gun Battalion, now in France. When the presence of the screen star leaked out, Claude was the most popular lad on board his transport.

Between scenes I picked up on other scraps of information. Mabel once lived for 30 days on ice-cream. I don’t know why -- or what flavor -- but she did. I didn’t have time to ask her. She thinks Charlie Chaplin the screen’s greatest actor. She keeps scores of dime savings banks and is overjoyed when she fills them. Indeed, she chuckled at the mere thought of cramming one of them.

She likes flowers that are purple. She ‘fessed that she signs her letters “Me,” and when she likes a person she calls that lucky one “Old Peach.” (We expect a “Me” letter after this interview appears, but we doubt that any “Old Peach” graces its lines.)

She has a terrific weakness for black lace stockings. She would rather do drama then comedy-drama, that is, with a smile now and then. She always carries a tiny ivory elephant for good luck.

Which completes our stock of information gained while Miss Normand dashed from studio floor to her mirror, close to which powder and eye-pencils rested on a chair.

It was 1:30. We had talked fully eight minutes in all the four and a half hours to the star. One’s impressions aren’t so very vivid after a piece-meal chat like this. Some one told us once that Miss Normand reminded them of a dancing mouse, whirling madly all the time but without purpose. She admitted to us that while she seemed gay most of the time, she really wasn’t. “I get terribly blue and sad,” she sighed. She does lead an exciting career.

“Life is such a rush,” she said. We left her, while she dashed hurriedly thru a lunch brought her in a limousine. Looking back now, our clearest mental picture is of a young lady with wonderfully long lashes.

“Good-by,” concluded Mabel. “Gimme my grape-fruit and a gas mask!”

Mabel Normand is promised at Carnegie Hall this afternoon for a speech. She is to address 5,000 young women on United War Work and what in her opinion constitutes the best way to go about getting results for the various war necessities. The fact that is Normand has gone about quietly doing war work ever since she sent her brother to the front to fight makes everyone believe she will have something to say.

The principal attraction at the Victory Worker’s rally at the Manhattan Opera House Saturday afternoon was Mabel Normand, who was present by special permission of Samuel Goldfish, presi­dent of the Goldwyn Corporation. Miss Normand’s function at the rally was principally decorative and sympathetic. The speech she made was distinguished for its brevity. She followed John D. Rockefeller, Jr. on the program and told the workers what she heard about the splendid work and of the especially personal interest she took in it on account of her brother, who is in the trenches. What she said was as follows:

“There is nothing more out of my line than making a speech. I don’t think I could ever have got up the courage to stand up here in this terrifying place and talk right out in meeting if this cause didn’t mean so terribly much to me that I simply have to say what is next to my heart in this matter. You see, it has been brought home to me in the most intimate and personal way. I have a brother ‘over there.’ A brother who is more to me than anybody else in the world. Strangely enough -- for I am told it doesn’t always happen in the best regulated families -- we are very fond of each other. He is the best brother I ever saw.

“Now every letter that I get from him is full of stories of the wonderful work being done ‘over there.’ by the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army and the allied organizations. -- I don’t like to call them charities because the service they are doing is so much higher than what we usually mean by charity. My brother tells me, he doesn’t know what on earth they would do if it weren’t for all these organizations that are working heart and soul to bring a little comfort and happiness to the boys.

“I am not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I am in this drive with everything I’ve got of energy and money. Everyone of you here has a brother, a father, or a friend some­where in France. It is for us he has gone to the front. It is for us that he is going through what can only be described as nothing less then hell. And the least we can do is to go to the front for them in this drive. To work like beavers to get this $170,000,000 not only subscribed but over subscribed.

“This is our chance, the chance for all of us to show how much we love and thank the lads who are ever there for us, fight­ing for us, for your freedom and mine, to show how much we appreciate their love and sacrifice.

“And remember, first, last, and all the time, that every dollar raised is going to make somebody near and dear to us happy, to eat a little off his loneliness, his discomforts and hardships.”
* from New York Morning Telegraph, November 3, 1918