Mabel normand

“When are you leaving?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow on the Queen Mary, coming home. I’d been over there a long time. (sic)”

“Gee, I thought I was going to have a chance to see you.”

“No.” But I WILL give him this credit, it was fabulous for him to do: he had a magnum of champagne and he had a beautiful bouquet of roses for my stateroom, and he called me just before they cut the phone off, on the boat. That’s the nicest thing he did, where I’m concerned.

It was very easy for ME to work with him, because he was very moody, you know. Do you know that his hair was black, and they say this is a very strange thing: when he got into a ‘blue,’ the doldrums, so help me God, -- he was a young man, right along here you know (at the temples), it turned gray. And the moment that he felt happy again, it went away.

And you know that Syd Chaplin was his half brother and Syd had been trying to get him to go in the ocean, you know, and go swimming, -- water never touched him very often, unless he drank it. But all these things I’ve told you about him, but as far as being clever we KNOW how clever he was, we don’t have to talk about that, --

Stephen: It’s like I say, you’ve probably seen all these pictures (stills he brought in a folder) I didn’t want to BORE you with the pictures --

Minta: No-o. You never bore me. Honey, you NEVER bore me with these kind of things! (chuckle)

Stephen: Adela Rogers St. Johns said that Mabel had no parents in her book, Adela wrote a book called The Honeycomb and in the book she wrote, Mabel had no family and all this business, and Mabel was addicted to dope, but this picture, the reason I had it put on the cover (of Aug-Sept 1974 Films in Review) is to show that Mabel DID have her family and she did LOVE her family, and she DID have a mother, and --

Don: It’s BEAUTIFUL.

Minta: Yes. (He showed us a framed portrait, sepia, about 19” high.)

Stephen: I had more, but I just brought the most important ones.

Minta: You see, Adela Rogers St. Johns, I’m surprised that she --

Stephen: Well, she worked for the Hearst newspapers. That’s our answer right there.

Minta: That IS her answer. That is absolutely her answer. (He showed a framed color picture, either original oil, or an oil tinted photo, in pastels, with some light blue, perhaps the dress -- We’d “oh’d” in unison) Well THIS is, this is the GORGEOUS picture of her.

Don: That’s the one that’s on the music I have. Or a pose like that, anyway.

Stephen: They call that the ‘mystery’ photograph, because that’s the one that Mabel had painted for Mack Sennett and gave it to him for his engagement present or wedding present, but Mabel took it back from him.

Minta: Isn’t that BEAUTIFUL!

Don: Oh, it IS!

Minta: Oh, she was so beautiful! So beautiful. And do you know, she was so cute, she would kind of cuddle up a little to you, you know what I mean, in her little ways of expression, and she was a great tease, a little imp, a minx, I guess that is the better word.

Well, Adela Rogers St. Johns is supposed to have always liked Mabel so much. Well, believe me, my dear Stephen, everybody in the world that knows Minta Durfee Arbuckle has heard just all the beautiful things that there is to be said about Mabel.

Stephen: Miss Benson has said the same. When she speaks of her, she speaks only in the highest; there aren’t many people who speak of Mabel the way YOU speak of her, that’s for sure; that’s the shame of it all.

Minta: The moment that they start, if her name comes right up, I start running off at the mouth, dear, and I’d just never shut up ‘til I’ve had all my say, and they just stand and look at me, and I say, “I KNOW, what I’m talking about, I KNOW.” And this is true. And every word in my (book.)

Stephen: I have them in albums; it’s easier that way.

Minta: I wish somebody would fix MY albums of pictures, all those pictures, imagine! -- She and Roscoe would SWIM and DIVE and (for) hours upon end, they just loved to play in the water. Did you ever see that “Fatty and Mabel Adrift?”

Stephen: No. No. I haven’t seen, THAT one; I HAVE seen a closeup, but not the whole thing.

Minta: Well, you HAVE to see it. Because this one -- I’m going to try to BUY it.

Don: I’ve seen that several times, and THAT IS a classic.

Minta: And isn’t that sweet where he leans over in shadow to kiss her, even after all the water, and the house floating out to sea and everything. It’s wonderful.

I never saw TWO PEOPLE who were so well adapted, to work together. Never in the history of my life. -- That’s sweet; that looks like mother Davenport there.

I cried copious tears over her, dear, in my lifetime. When people say unkind things about her, I have to fight to (maintain control of myself.)

One day I was working on a set out at Fox, and someone said to me, they said something about Mabel Normand, and this man looked up, and said, “You better look out!” And so this person came over and said to me, “You better look out.” And I said, “What are you talking about?” “Mabel Normand.” So I said, “Sit right down, now, and I’ll give you a whole run-down on the whole subject, and when I get thru with it, for the rest of your lives, you tell people what I’ve told you.” I could go on tour and do it. I nearly DIED at the show (“Mack and Mabel”).