Mabel normand

Minta: It was carved by a man who came from Europe. Roscoe paid $900 to have made. By a special man that came to this country. He came to one of our big jewelers, and the jeweler got in touch with everybody and said, “if you have something unusual that you would like to have done,” well, at that time, I had a beautiful five carrot stone and I had a bracelet, a diamond bracelet, and so this is what Roscoe got, and I never knew that the picture left the house. Then after I came back after being gone all these years, I wore was red, and Alice Faye said to me, “My God! That’s so beautiful!” I was working with her, see I was gone so many years that -- there’s a LOT of SCANDAL that I’m glad I don’t know anything about. Because it’s bad enough to know what we DO know. And anyone in show business, if everybody on this street would run out, and I would run out, and fall down they’d write me up, they wouldn’t write the lady up next door, and down here in the next block. SO you HAVE to LEARN. Don: You have to think a little bit before you do something, how it’s going to LOOK.

Stephen: Right. Because they’re watching everything.

Don: Yes. Where they wouldn’t pay any attention to somebody else. -- Ohhh! I don’t have to say it, YOU know THAT, those pictures are MAGNIFICENT!

Stephen: That’s my grandfather, but she had him with a camera; he’s in the center.

Don: Just posing, as a cameraman? Or he really was?

Stephen: Yes. Mabel got him a job out here.

Don: Oh, good...

Minta: (Came back with an oval picture, torn, of Roscoe, about 6” high, in a cap, waist up). Here is exactly how Roscoe looked the first day I ever saw him on the Red Streetcar (meant Big Red Car) going down to Long Beach. He had a brown cap, brown suit, and a bow tie.

He wanted to carry my suitcase and I said, “Please, do not TOUCH my suitcase. Because I don’t like blondes, or fat men.” And in five months, I was married to him. He was just a boy, you know. (long pause) Well, you have a lovely collection there.

Stephen: Thank you.

Minta: You never did tell me, I thought you worked in a banking concern.

Stephen: I DO work in a bank, part time. Because I have to have SOME money coming in. But I work in the office for a savings bank on Staten Island. It’s more convenient there, it’s closer to my home, and the hours commuting and all that, it’s much easier to work nearby. So sometimes I’m at the window, at other times I’m at the desk, with people selling traveler’s checks and things like that. Sometimes I’m a bank teller, all around, depends on what they want to do on those days when I come in, if somebody is out sick or a lot of customers, whatever.

It’s taken me a long time - you see, I have to do all this, as you know when you’re writing a book, I’m doing Mabel’s biography, and it takes a long time also. A lot of work, typing, re- typing.

Minta: Well, if there’s ever anything I can tell you about, in writing her biography, put it in. And you can say that I have told you, so it won’t be hearsay. It won’t be something conjured up in your mind.

Stephen: Thank you very much. Always a direct quote, never any other way.

Don: This house, isn’t that SOMETHING! On Staten Island, the turret and everything.

Stephen: She had it built for her.

Don: Oh, she had it built!

Stephen: It was a French house. A French chateau. They were French, the family was French. (long pause, we moved to the dining room, so Minta could sit at the table and look at the stills). You know, we have more things at home, (lost words), oil paintings, and possessions which were hers, and (lost words) and of course the pictures.

Don: I’m crazy about ANYTHING about movies. Not current, but back. (long pause)

Stephen: She used to quote a lot of French; this is her French teacher.

Don: There’s Samuel Goldwyn there. (long pause) (THIS is where Minta walked to the dining room, saw the tape recorder and said, “Oh-ho-ho, if her thinks I’m going to do some taping today, he’s foolish.”) That miniature portrait is ABSOLUTELY MARVELOUS.

Minta: Absolutely Exquisite. Well, I think that picture of her, that large one you have there, is also in the book of Mack Sennett‘s. I think THAT is one of the most beautiful pictures I ever saw of anybody. ANYBODY.

Stephen: Yes, I DO love that myself, it’s remarkable.

Minta: Do you have a studio in the EAST?

Stephen: Oh, no! I just work from my home in New York, yes. It’s a nice section.

Minta: I went over there one time with her. On a little ferry. Just think how many years ago that is!

Stephen: I know.

Don: (reading note) She slipped gears on a Stutz Bearcat.

Stephen: Mack Sennett gave it to her. I recall seeing you in a -- I have a collection of her films which I brought, 8mm, you’re in this film, dancing, let’s see now, how does it go? It’s Charlie Chaplin, Mabel and you, and he is a waiter and he poses himself off as a Prime Minister of Greenland, and Mabel was a wealthy girl and all this business and she invites him to her home and you’re in the restaurant dancing with someone. And there’s an orchestra playing. I can see you -- it’s just unbelievable and THAT’S how many years ago? To think -- and all your films are still seen today. You should publicize yourself more. I think you should get out and make known that you’re around and you should give a vocal opinion of things that are going on, I think you’re WRONG in staying quiet. I think you should come out and let people know what you have to say.