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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 42 -- June 1996 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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"Mabel Normand's Own Life Story!"
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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The following 1924 series was undoubtedly written to improve Mabel Normand's
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popularity, which had been severely damaged by the Taylor case and the Dines
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incident. So she makes no mention of her personal relationship with Sennett
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or her screen work with Arbuckle. Despite a few minor errors, this is
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probably the most substantial account of Mabel's life published prior to her
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death in 1930, and it provides additional insight into her friendship with
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William Desmond Taylor.
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February 17, 1924
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Mabel Normand
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as told to Chandler Sprague
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LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
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Mabel Normand's Own Life Story! -- Chapter 1
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Filmland's Greatest Comedienne Writes of Her Striking Career
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Writing the story of one's life is a perfectly awful thing.
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I don't like that way of phrasing it, anyhow. It sounds like I was
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Methuselah's daughter or some one who had been around this little old world
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so long that I was about to give the universe the benefit of my vast span of
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years.
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And I've just begun to live.
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So let's call it "a few chapters from my life," and if it will be of
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interest, I shall be glad. Doubtless there are lessons and morals to be
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drawn from the lives of all of us. If there is one in mine, I hope it will
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be of service, not only to you but to me. But I guess we all find it a whole
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lot easier to point a moral from the errors of some one else, than to profit
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by our own mistakes.
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The Examiner has asked me, before I begin my own story to answer two
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questions. And they are:
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1--Would I advise a young girl to seek a career in motion pictures?
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2--And to one who is seeking a career, what is the best road to success?
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There it is again, the advice from grandma! Like most professional
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persons who have passed 18 years (actual), I am a perfect clam about my age.
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If you have any idea that I am going to step right out here, in print, with a
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chatty discussion about the year I was born, you may as well turn the page.
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I prefer to leave such uninteresting details to my girl friends.
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But I'm going to try to answer the questions. And to the first one, my
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answer is "Yes." I respectfully decline to make the stereotyped reply that
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this question often elicits from actors and actresses. "No, no, my deah, you
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mustn't think of such a thing. The hardships we professional people have to
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undergo, the tremendous amount of talent necessary for success, you've no
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ideah." And all this with unutterable lifting of the eyebrows and an air of
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boredom and disillusionment with all things theatrical.
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I think it's a wonderful life. It's hard work, of course, just as it
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requires hard work to succeed in any other career we may choose. And perhaps
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it's overcrowded, as they say. But there's always room at the top, according
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to a good old axiom of the stage.
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And if you have confidence in yourself, if you think you have talent for
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motion picture work, then I certainly would not be one to discourage you.
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You must be prepared for many disappointments and for progress that seems
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tremendously slow. Perhaps you won't succeed at all. In fact, you probably
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won't. But you'll have tried. And that's something. I'd rather have a try
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at what I feel I can do and what I want to do, even if I fail, than to drudge
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along at something that doesn't interest me, simply because I'm doubtful if I
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have the courage to stand adversity.
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If you think you have talent for the work, go to it, my child (grandma
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speaking again). You'll find a lot of people to give you a helping hand over
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the rough spots. Some of the very finest men and women I've ever met are
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motion picture actors and actresses. I'd like to stack up their lives, with
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the good deeds I happen to know they have done, against the lives of some
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others who are inclined, perhaps, to gaze down upon them from a self-erected
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eminence.
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And to the second question, "What is the road to success?" there is only
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one answer--work. Work and study, until you have learned the technique of
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the screen. Contrary to popular opinion, it can't be acquired in a day. And
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it can't be acquired by running for the dressing room the minute your "bit"
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is finished. Those whom I have seen climb from mediocrity to stardom have
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made it a practice to watch their fellow workers, to pick up a mannerism here
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and a little trick there, to think about them at home and to figure out what
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made them impressive. That's the way to learn. And to learn is to be
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successful.
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There is no other way in my opinion. You have heard a great deal of
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talk doubtless, about favoritism and luck being big factors in screen
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success. Miss Soandso, they tell you, is a star because she happened to be
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in a picture that was an unexpected hit or because the producer favors her
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more than other actresses. Don't you believe it. It's the public that makes
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the stars, in motion pictures. And if the dear old public doesn't like them,
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they don't become stars, permanently. There may be an element of luck, or of
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favoritism, in getting a chance to show what one can do. But you must be
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ready for your chance. You must be prepared, by hard work, to accept the
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opportunity and ride it to success. Luck or favoritism may be able to make a
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star, but they can't keep her one. It's the public that does that.
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I hope I have answered the questions. I've done the best I know how.
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And, after all, answers to questions like those are matters of personal
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opinion. So, with those few words, I will plunge into my own story, the
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telling of which will be much easier than trying to hand forth a lot of
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"highbrow" advice.
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Up to the time I left school there was nothing eventful or particularly
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interesting in my life. My mother lived on Staten Island and I attended
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school, the last few years, at North Westport, Mass., near Martha's Vineyard.
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Once a month I went home, in charge of a stewardess on the Fall River Line,
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but I stayed at school, during the summer, studying hard and trying to skip a
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class and get ahead faster. I was tremendously ambitious in those days. We
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had very little money and even my occasional trips home were a great expense.
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I wanted to finish as soon as I could, so I could learn more about the
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things that particularly interested me. I was crazy about music and drawing.
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I wanted to be a big musician. And I've never really lost that desire. Even
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up to last year I used to practice six or seven hours a day at the piano,
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when I could possibly get the time to do so.
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But I didn't get ahead as fast as either my mother or myself hoped I
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would. Lack of money for proper instruction handicapped me, and when a
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friend of ours, who was also a friend of Hamilton King, the artist, suggested
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that I could earn money posing for him, mother finally agreed. I stopped
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school at Martha's Vineyard, came home to Staten Island and went to work for
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Mr. King, continuing my studies in drawing and music at night. This was when
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I was 14 years old.
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I became a member of the Art Students' League, where it is possible to
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get competent instruction at night at a nominal cost, and I spent all day
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posing, at first for Mr. King and then for other artists and illustrators.
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Most of the work I did was to pose for heads for magazine covers. And I
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didn't like it. I hated to stand still. I hated to be simply a means by
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which someone else was creating something. I wanted to do it myself, but I
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couldn't I had only the longing, without the ability.
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I received $1.50 in the morning and the same amount in the afternoon for
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posing. Thirty cents of that went for carfare and ferry fare and I had to
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spend a little money for lunch. Sometimes, however, I didn't get any lunch.
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I used my lunch hour instead to pose for a commercial photographer. Wearing
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a hat or a dress that he wanted to photograph, we models would stand around
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in front of the camera during the noon hour and he would sell the pictures to
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trade journals.
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It was there that I met Alice Joyce and Anna Q. Nilsson, who were taking
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the same means of earning a little extra money. Neither of them, at that
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time, had been in motion pictures. And so I kept on with the artists and
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they said I was a good model, easy to draw and adaptable to the costumes in
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which they portrayed their magazine-cover heroines. Among the artists and
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illustrators for whom I posed during the next few months, in addition to Mr.
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King, were James Montgomery Flagg, Charles Dana Gibson, C. Coles Phillips,
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Henry Hutt, Orson Lowell, J. C. and F. X. Lydendecker, Alonzo Kimball,
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Haskell Coffin and Penrhyn Stanlaws.
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Gradually I acquired a vogue among artists as being a type that lent
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itself readily to diversified costuming. I found myself more in demand and
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finally was engaged, permanently, by two of the most prominent, Gibson and
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Flagg. I posed for Mr. Gibson every morning at his studio in Carnegie Hall
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and for Mr. Flagg in the afternoon at his Sixty-seventh street studio. The
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arrangement was more satisfactory because I knew exactly what I had to do
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every day, but it didn't increase my wages. I was still getting $3.00 per
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day, $1.50 from each artist.
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I thought it was a lot, however. And it helped. I was able to pay more
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for my music lessons and thus get better teachers. And I was happy in the
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opportunities that were afforded me to watch these masters as they worked.
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When I became tired they permitted me, sometimes, to stand behind them and
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watch their brush as they retouched and filled in face and figure. It was
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something I couldn't have bought and I realized its value.
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There were periods of unhappiness, however. As I look back at them now
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I believe they came from the ambitions that always were tormenting me. Mr.
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Gibson had a number of evening gowns that he used as costumes for his models.
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They had been given to him by society women of his acquaintance for that
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purpose and every time I put on one of them it took the place, for me, of
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Aladdin's lamp. They were very smart, these gowns, made in Paris, most of
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them, and I used to imagine myself the original owner, trailing these
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wonderful creations through gorgeous reception rooms and across the floors of
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littering ballrooms.
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I wondered what it would be like to have a wardrobe that would permit
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giving away clothes like those I was wearing and I used to visualize the
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parties at which they had been worn, giving myself all the airs and graces
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that I felt I would have put on and smiling condescendingly at multitudes of
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suitors in evening clothes with ribbons across their shirt fronts. Very
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distinguished were all the men of my dream parties, with iron gray hair and
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manners that included bowing from the waist and much courtly kissing of the
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hand.
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Those days and those dreams left an ineffaceable impression on me. Of
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late years, since fortune has been more kind, I have been able, occasionally,
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to give away a dress or a hat. And every time I do it, I get a thrill. The
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image of me as I was at 14 pops up before my eyes and I realize that no Paris
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gown, no wonderful hat can ever mean as much to me as did those cast-off
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things in which I used to flaunt myself before the mirror at Mr. Gibson's
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studio. Some day someone is going to portray, on paper or on the stage or
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screen, the nebulous dreams and longings that come to an adolescent girl,
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poised with diffident foot on the threshold of a broader life. If it is ever
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done truly it will be a wonderful masterpiece. But it will require, in the
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doing, a very great artist.
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All this happened before I ever thought of motion pictures. I used to
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go to see them, with mother, and I was an ardent "fan," even then. I had my
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favorites on the screen and D. W. Griffith was my favorite director. In the
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next installment of this story I want to tell about my first venture in
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pictures as an extra girl, with the Kalem Company, and of how I first met Mr.
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Griffith, whose pupil I became and for whose ability and artistry I shall
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always hold a very great reverence.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 24, 1924
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Mabel Normand
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as told to Chandler Sprague
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LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
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Mabel Normand's Own Life Story -- Chapter 2
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"Thrice I Turned my Back on Film Career," Says Star
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You never know your luck!
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This isn't a very original statement. Something seems to tell me it has
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been said before, but it illustrates, almost exactly, how I tried to turn my
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back on what was waiting for me. Three times I tried my foolish best to walk
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away from motion pictures, and all three times chance intervened and set my
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feet back on the path illuminated by the Klieg lights. It happened like
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this:
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Last week I wrote of the days when I was posing at the studios of Mr.
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Gibson and Mr. Flagg, and augmenting my slender wages by parading during the
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noon hour before a fashion camera. It was there that I met Alice Joyce, and
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it was to her that I owed my first chance in motion pictures.
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I met her on the street one day, and mentioned that she had not been at
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the commercial photographer's for some time.
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"No, I'm in moving pictures now," she said. "I'm leading lady for the
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Kalem Company. We're working tonight. Why don't you come up and see how
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motion pictures are made? It's very interesting."
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I was on my way to Mr. Flagg's studio, but I went with Alice to a drug
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store and phoned my mother, telling her of Alice's invitation. Mother always
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has adored Alice Joyce, and she told me to go ahead. So after I finished
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posing I went to the address Alice had given me, and the first surprise I got
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was to find that the studio was in an office building. I've forgotten
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exactly where the Kalem Company was located then, but I think it was either
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Thirty-third or Forty-second street, and I remember it was in a great, big
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office building.
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They were taking a scene when I went in. I asked for Miss Joyce, but
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she was acting before the camera. George Melford, who is now with Lasky, was
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directing, and I was intensely interested in all I saw as I stood there
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waiting for Alice to finish. I didn't stay very long because I wanted to get
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to the Staten Island ferry before it got too late, but while I was talking to
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Alice the assistant director was issuing a call for "extras" to work the next
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day on location. Seeing me talking to Miss Joyce he came over and asked me
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if I would like to work. It happened that I was to have a few days' vacation
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from posing, and I told him I would like to try it. I was directed to be
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there at 8 o'clock the next morning to start for Fort Lee, New Jersey.
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I worked three days in that picture, and I never shall forget it. It was a
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Puritan picture, and was taken in the dead of winter. They gave us little
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thin gray dresses to wear and I almost froze to death. The Puritans must
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have had a terrible time. I gathered that their entire existence was spent
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in running away from Indians. We ran downhill, and then they would turn us
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around and have us run uphill. And all the time with a gang of large,
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whooping Indians in close pursuit.
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"Run," yelled the director, and we ran. "Stop," and we stopped.
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At first it was all very interesting, and I was filled with shivering
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enthusiasm. But after a while all the enthusiasm froze up and I concluded
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that motion pictures would be a wonderful career for an Eskimo lady, but
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wasn't quite suited for me. I stuck it out for three days, but finally had
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to admit defeat at the hands of the thermometer. I was supposed to go back
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to work, anyhow, at that time with Mr. Gibson and Mr. Flagg, so I dropped the
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motion pictures and I didn't care if I never saw an Indian again. Every time
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I passed a cigar store I shivered.
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And there it might have ended; my "cuh-ree-hr," as the press agents call
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it. I might have come to naught, alackaday, but for chance or Fate, or
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whatever it is that intervenes and shapes our destinies. While I was
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scuffling around in the snow and trying to keep one jump ahead of Mr. Pontiac
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and all his relatives I had met Frank Lanning, a very famous actor of Indian
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characters. We had stood around between pursuits and talked of motion
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pictures and posing, and how different they were, to which I agreed with
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chattering teeth. And the next time I met Mr. Lanning it was at what might
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be called a psychological moment.
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I had gone back to posing. I hadn't seen Alice Joyce for four months,
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and I had no idea of ever again attempting to work in motion pictures. But
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one morning Mr. Gibson told me he would be busy for some time in litigation
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that had arisen over a contract. He said he would pay me during the time I
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was loafing, but suggested that I try to get work with some other artist
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while I was waiting for him to be free to draw again.
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It was just after this conversation and while I was debating what artist
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to ask for work that I met Frank Lanning on the street. He said he had
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noticed several things Mr. Gibson had drawn and had recognized me as the
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model. There was one head in particular that he seemed to admire and he told
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me that when he saw it on a magazine cover he had made up his mind to hunt me
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up some time and advise me to make another try at motion pictures.
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"I am working for D. W. Griffith," he said, "and I'm on my way there
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now. Why don't you come along and let me introduce you to the casting
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director?"
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If Mr. Gibson had not suspended work that day, I probably would have
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told Mr. Lanning that it was very nice of him to suggest it, but that I
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thought I'd better stick to posing. You see, I still had ambition to become
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an artist some day. But I went. He took me to the old Biograph studio, on
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Fourteenth street--the studio that made screen history. When we entered they
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were taking a scene and Mr. Lanning found he had only a few minutes to make
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up. So he hurried away, leaving me standing there.
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The first thing I noticed was how green every one looked. In
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complexion, I mean. They must have had different lights at the Kalem company
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because I hadn't noticed it when I watched Alice, that night. I didn't think
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of the lights. I guess I thought it was part make-up and part natural
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complexion. And the next thing that caught my eye was a gorgeous creature
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who was working before the camera. It was Florence Lawrence. She had on a
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wonderful gown and her golden hair was almost sweeping the floor. With the
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peculiar tint cast on her face by the lights she was very beautiful.
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I didn't know anything about wigs, then, and I thought it was her own hair.
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I stood there watching her, and I shrank back in a corner, with an awed,
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"Gosh."
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She looked like all seven of the Sutherland sisters, and I said to
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myself, as I watched her: "You don't belong here, Mabel. You haven't hair
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like that. Your eyes are only about half as big as hers are and your lips
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aren't as full and red as hers. You won't have a chance of making good
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alongside anyone like that. You'd better stick to posing."
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So I began to edge toward the door. I watched Miss Lawrence and Henry
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Walthall for a few minutes longer. I saw a man directing then whom I
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presumed to be Mr. Griffith. I noticed that Mr. Lanning was busy. And I
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"ducked." For the second time I was running away from fame and fortune, as
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the story books call it.
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But I didn't get far. I was half-way down the stairs when a voice
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hailed me from the top. "Just a minute, please," it said. And the owner of
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the voice descended. It was Wilfred Lucas, famous Broadway star, who was Mr.
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Griffith's right hand man. I had heard of him, but I had never seen him
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before.
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"Would you mind waiting a moment," he said. "Mr. Griffith noticed you
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standing there and he would like to speak to you. Can you come back for a
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minute?"
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So I climbed the stairs again, Mr. Lucas leading the way. And I have
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thought of those stairs often as epitomizing my life. I was going to D. W.
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Griffith. I was climbing. And I've tried, ever since, to keep on climbing.
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But the unkind knocks that Fate has dealt me have so depressed me mentally,
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at times, that I feel again as if I were, in spirit, descending those stairs,
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going away from Griffith, going away from everything that I prize in life,
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and waiting for the helping hand, the friendly encouragement that would buoy
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me up, turn me around and start me climbing again.
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When we reached the studio Mr. Griffith was still busy, so we stood
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there and I told Mr. Lucas why I had become discouraged and started away.
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I pointed out Miss Lawrence's hair and eyes and told him I was afraid I
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didn't have the right complexion. "My hair doesn't come down to my feet,"
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I said, and he chuckled. But he didn't undeceive me. He left me to find out
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all those things for myself. I knew I had pulled a faux pas of some kind,
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however, and I was extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Lucas had the carriage of
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the successful actor. It awed me and while he was very kind he couldn't put
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me at my ease. Many time since then we have laughed at our first meeting.
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Whenever we see each other nowadays I call him "The Great Lucas," and he
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grins reminiscently.
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For twenty-five minutes we stood there until Mr. Griffith finished and
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went to his desk in a corner of the studio. Then Mr. Lucas led me over.
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I shall never forget Mr. Griffith. Already he was one of the most important
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men in motion pictures, but he was as kind and simple in his talk with me as
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a man could possibly be. His voice charmed me, particularly. It had a
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timbre and a gentleness that encouraged me.
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He asked me my name and if I had had any experience in motion picture
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work.
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"No, sir," I answered.
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"Then how did you happen to come here today?" he said.
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So I told him that I had been posing for Mr. Gibson and Mr. Flagg, that
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I had met Alice Joyce and had fled from great gobs of Indians during three
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days with the Kalem company. That was where I had met Mr. Lanning, I told
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him, and that was how I happened to come to the Biograph studio.
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He asked me if I would like to work with his company. I had noticed as
|
|
I watched them all before the camera, how like a happy family they seemed.
|
|
Every one was friendly with every one else, they all seemed to admire and
|
|
respect Mr. Griffith, and I thought it would be nice to be with them. And,
|
|
besides, Mr. Griffith could make any one ambitious. He was so kind-hearted
|
|
that I believe if he were talking with someone who was absolutely impossible
|
|
as an actress, he would make her feel that if she worked real hard, she would
|
|
make good.
|
|
So I told him I would like to try it. I don't believe they took "tests
|
|
in those days. Or maybe they didn't want to waste any film on an "extra."
|
|
Anyhow they didn't turn the camera on me but just told me to go downstairs
|
|
and get dressed and made-up. This was early in the afternoon and I phoned
|
|
Mr. Flagg that I couldn't come to pose for him that day and I started right
|
|
in to work under Mr. Griffith.
|
|
And the first thing I discovered was that my dress would consist of
|
|
doublet and tights. It was a costume picture and I was to be one of six
|
|
pages, in a court scene. Mrs. Ada Ebling, the wardrobe woman, helped me into
|
|
the costume. It was the first time I had ever worn tights and I was scared
|
|
stiff and embarrassed almost to the point of tears. I guess she took pity on
|
|
me because she gave me a long cloak, before she sent me upstairs. She told
|
|
me to keep the cloak around me until it came time for me to go before the
|
|
camera.
|
|
But I'm afraid this installment is getting to long. I guess this is a
|
|
good place to stop. Next week I'll tell you how I got through my first real
|
|
picture and how for the third time I abandoned the work, went back to posing
|
|
and tried to run away from what life was holding out to me.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
March 2, 1924
|
|
Mabel Normand
|
|
as told to Chandler Sprague
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
|
|
|
|
Mabel Normand's Own Life Story -- Chapter 3
|
|
|
|
Film Star Tells How She Started as Tragedienne!
|
|
|
|
"Please stand out there and stop hiding."
|
|
This was the first individual direction I received in motion pictures.
|
|
It was hurled at me by an assistant director for D. W. Griffith and it was
|
|
the final touch necessary to complete one of the most thorough cases of
|
|
camera fright in my experience.
|
|
As I told you last week, I had been engaged by Mr. Griffith as an extra
|
|
in a costume picture. I was supposed to be a page and the costume consisted
|
|
of doublet and tights. Wrapped in a cloak that had been lent me by the kind-
|
|
hearted wardrobe woman, I had waited for some time the call for the pages to
|
|
take their places. Then I dropped the cloak and stepped out to spend a very
|
|
miserable hour.
|
|
There were six of us pages. We were to make a frame for the entrance of
|
|
the leading actors, and then follow them out. I was supposed to stand near a
|
|
post. But I stood behind it. Anything to get behind something. I thought
|
|
everyone was looking at me. As a matter of fact, no one was paying the
|
|
slightest attention to me, but I felt certain I was the focus of all eyes.
|
|
Instead of feeling like one page, I felt like a whole book, with every leaf
|
|
fluttering.
|
|
And it was because I persisted in trying to slip behind this post and in
|
|
standing on one foot like a bashful pelican that the exasperated assistant
|
|
director felt constrained to utter harsh words.
|
|
But I got used to it after a while and when we were told that we were to
|
|
work that night and receive a "double check" I was glad. It meant $10
|
|
instead of the usual five-dollar bill. I didn't think about my mother
|
|
worrying.
|
|
But when I got home to Staten Island at 2 o'clock in the morning I
|
|
thought about it, with emphasis. I got a scolding that made me realize how I
|
|
had worried her. And it put an end to motion picture work, for me, for a
|
|
considerable time. Without bothering to telephone the Biograph studio that I
|
|
was not coming back, I just quit, and went back to posing for Mr. Flagg,
|
|
Mr. Gibson and several other artists.
|
|
I never expected to face a movie camera again. But Fate must have
|
|
decided otherwise. It was three months later that I met, in the Forty-second
|
|
street subway station, Henry Walthall, Mack Sennett and Del Henderson. They
|
|
had been working for Mr. Griffith the day I had page-fright, and I had been
|
|
introduced to them.
|
|
All three of them, when they encountered me in the subway station, put
|
|
their hands on their hips and just stood still and looked at me.
|
|
Finally Mr. Sennett said:
|
|
"Where in the world do you live, young lady? We telephoned all over
|
|
Brooklyn and Staten Island trying to locate you. Didn't you know that those
|
|
pages were supposed to be in three or four scenes, that they came close to
|
|
the camera and that because you didn't come back we had to re-take all that
|
|
day's work that showed you in the page's costume?"
|
|
"I hope Mr. Griffith wasn't annoyed," I said.
|
|
"I fear he was annoyed, just a trifle annoyed," said Mr. Sennett,
|
|
grinning at the others. "But why didn't you come back?"
|
|
And so I told them about how late I got home and how mother didn't like
|
|
the hours and concluded I had better stick to posing. We stood there quite a
|
|
while talking. And they bought me a malted milk shake, with an egg in it.
|
|
I remember that because I had been contemplating such a purchase myself, but
|
|
I couldn't afford the egg. Anyhow, the upshot of the conversation was that
|
|
they enthused me all over again with motion picture work. They said they
|
|
would explain it to Mr. Griffith and told me to ask my mother if I couldn't
|
|
come back to the studio.
|
|
I did and she consented finally. I went back to see Mr. Griffith and he
|
|
didn't even mention the late unpleasantness, but gave me a job working as an
|
|
extra girl at $25 per week. Mother had made up her mind, I guess, that I was
|
|
slated for motion picture work. This was the third time I had tried to turn
|
|
away from it and each time I had been brought back through an accident. So
|
|
she gave in and accepted the inevitable.
|
|
And thus began my happiest days in pictures. Those old Biograph days!
|
|
Will they ever be equaled, I wonder, for their effect on the industry and for
|
|
the atmosphere that surrounded that little group? I doubt it.
|
|
Every once in a while, nowadays, I meet a member of the old company.
|
|
And we talk about something that happened then. And we sigh.
|
|
"The old days," we say, in unison. "What wonderful times we had. What
|
|
a lot we learned and how happy we were while we were learning. If those days
|
|
could only come back!"
|
|
To one who was not a member of that company, it is difficult to portray
|
|
just what made it great and just what gave those days their thrill. In a
|
|
sense, we were pioneers and for that reason perhaps many of the unpleasant
|
|
things one meets in studios nowadays were lacking. We were all friends and
|
|
equals. There was no "up-stage" demeanor. No one ever thought of himself as
|
|
out-ranking someone else in the company. We didn't realize we were making
|
|
movie history and that we were destined to be the stars of today. Yet almost
|
|
every member of that Biograph Company, the "White Company" of the industry,
|
|
has a name with which to conjure today.
|
|
And the reason, I believe, lies in the invaluable training we received
|
|
at the hands of Mr. Griffith. With the exception of Mary Pickford, we were
|
|
shifted around, from lead to extra, and back again to lead, so that we became
|
|
capable of meeting any situation, playing any part. Mary was the star. At
|
|
that time she was called the "Biograph Blonde." Perhaps you remember that
|
|
title. And she was wonderful to all of us. I have never seen in any studio
|
|
a person so universally beloved as was Mary.
|
|
But she was the only star. All the rest of us girls, and most of the
|
|
men, climbed the heights one week and played a leading part, only to be cast
|
|
for a very tenuous bit of atmosphere, the next week. It was wonderful
|
|
training. It prevented us from getting "swelled heads." And Griffith, in
|
|
his wisdom, played upon it, in the kindliest way. The projection room was on
|
|
the top floor and when a picture was being run in which one of us had played
|
|
a leading role, Griffith would come to the head of the stairs and shout,
|
|
"Come up and look at a great artist." And up we would troop.
|
|
Perhaps it was I that was the artist. Perhaps it was Blanche Sweet or
|
|
Priscilla Dean or Florence LaBadie or Jeanie MacPherson. But we'd all go up
|
|
anyway, and watch the picture. And Mr. Griffith would comment on it, showing
|
|
where it was good and where the technique of the "great artist" was a bit
|
|
faulty. And if we were inclined to get a bit chesty, someone would say,
|
|
"Watch the old cranium and don't let it enlarge, my dear. Remember I was a
|
|
great artist two weeks ago."
|
|
It was that training that has enabled that little company to hold its
|
|
own, ever since, with the stars that have risen and set in the movie
|
|
firmament. Great artists of the spoken stage have come in, new personalities
|
|
have been discovered, but no one ever has been able to down the old Biograph
|
|
company. They wouldn't stay down. They knew too much about the technique of
|
|
motion picture acting. They knew what to do with their hands and feet, how
|
|
to stand and sit and walk. They were, and they are, actors, trained in a
|
|
school that began with the A, B, Cs, and extended into the higher reaches of
|
|
technique, with frequent trips back to the primer class.
|
|
Consider for a moment the people that worked with Mr. Griffith during
|
|
the two years I was his pupil. I believe I can remember most of them. Some
|
|
of them are no longer living but the majority, if not retired, are still
|
|
among the vivid personalities of the screen.
|
|
Among the women were Mary Pickford; Dorothy and Lillian Gish; Jeanie
|
|
MacPherson, who is a famous scenarist; the late Florence LaBadie, a beautiful
|
|
and talented actress who would have gone far but for the unfortunate accident
|
|
that cut short her career; Blanche Sweet; Lottie Pickford; Bess Meredyth,
|
|
another famous scenarist; Florence Lawrence; Claire MacDowell, Linda Griffith
|
|
and Grace Henderson.
|
|
Among the men is an even greater percentage of famous names, such as:
|
|
Bobbie Harron, Wilfred Lucas, Edwin August, Henry Walthall, Mack Sennett,
|
|
Edward and Jack Dillon, Del Henderson, Pathe Lehrman, the late Joseph
|
|
Grabell, James Kirkwood, Owen Moore, Frank Evans, Alfred Paget, Charles West,
|
|
Frank Powell, Harry Hyde, Jack Pickford, Harry Carey, Christy Cabanne,
|
|
Charles Mayo and George Nichols. John Waldron, who is now studio manager for
|
|
Mack Sennett, was studio business manager for Griffith and the payroll, in
|
|
"them stirring days" was somewhat different from now. Imagine what it would
|
|
cost to maintain a company, nowadays, composed of the people I have just
|
|
mentioned!
|
|
My first parts were all in tragedies. Mr. Griffith never could see me
|
|
as a comedienne. I was always playing dying mothers or something.
|
|
I certainly did get sick of dying and my fondest wish was that I might play a
|
|
role in which I went on to the end of the picture without becoming a
|
|
casualty. During most of my first two years I never had a chance at comedy.
|
|
But it was great training and I learned, from the heavier parts, many things
|
|
that have been of inestimable value in comedy roles.
|
|
And so we continued, one day up and the next down again to extra, with
|
|
no one but Mary Pickford sure of having a good part. It taught us never to
|
|
lose our heads, to be kind to those less fortunate than ourselves. And our
|
|
association with Mr. Griffith showed us what loyalty meant. When the big
|
|
money began to be apparent in pictures and the influx of stage stars began,
|
|
Griffith stuck with us. We were his pupils, his children, his "gang," and he
|
|
always believed in us and in our destinies.
|
|
I remember one picture in which I played shortly after I joined the
|
|
company. The name of it has vanished from my recollection, but it was heavy,
|
|
oh, very heavy, and I played a vampire part, with Bobby Harron and Grace
|
|
Henderson. They dressed me all up for a "vamp" and they gave me a huge black
|
|
velvet hat. Oh, how I loved that hat. It was a great, big one. It seemed
|
|
to me it was yards wide. I never expected to have one like it, of my own,
|
|
and I used to almost cry when I had to take that lovely hat off at night.
|
|
My chance in comedy really came as an accident. There was nothing for
|
|
me to do, one week, and Mr. Griffith sent me down to Huntington, L. I., where
|
|
the Biograph comedy unit was making a funny picture. Frank Powell was
|
|
directing it. But when I got there I found there was nothing much for me to
|
|
do in the comedy, either, so I went swimming, off the pier. In those days,
|
|
you know, comedies were born, not made. By that I mean that there was no
|
|
script. They made them up as they went along.
|
|
And as I was diving and swimming around, it occurred to Mr. Powell that
|
|
it would make a good scene for the comedy if one of the characters watched me
|
|
through a pair of binoculars. So they "shot" him as he peered through the
|
|
glasses and then they came down to the pier and turned the camera on me for a
|
|
dive or two. And that, I believe, was the origin of the bathing girl idea in
|
|
comedies. It happened to be my one and only appearance as a bathing girl but
|
|
it was the genesis of many miles of film, born of the idea that occurred to
|
|
Mr. Powell that afternoon. Doubtless it would have come eventually, anyhow,
|
|
but that picture was the forerunner of them all, as nearly as I can remember.
|
|
I had been told to do a few comedy stunts while the camera was focused
|
|
on me and they appeared to like me in the role. So they asked Mr. Griffith,
|
|
in the next picture, if they could borrow me again. At first he demurred.
|
|
In his opinion, I was a total loss as a comedienne, and besides, he had a
|
|
part for me in another picture. I've forgotten what it was now, but I
|
|
suppose I would have been completely extinct, as usual, before the end of the
|
|
last reel. I wasn't so crazy about comedy, either. I had an ambition to
|
|
become a g-r-r-reat tragedienne. I suppose I thought I was destined to
|
|
become a second Duse. But Griffith finally yielded. I was loaned to the
|
|
comedy company for a second picture and I've been an alleged comedienne ever
|
|
since.
|
|
What I didn't know about comedy then would have filled the Congressional
|
|
Library. Tears had been my role. I could cry like a 40,000 barrel gusher,
|
|
and at a minute's notice. But I couldn't smile. I had been a patient and
|
|
beautiful corpse too often. So when they told me to smile I would grin,
|
|
momentarily, and then let my face slip back into my very best funereal
|
|
expression. It was awful. They told me to hold the smile and I would assume
|
|
a "smile or bust" expression that had about as much mirth in it as Lucrezia
|
|
Borgia's company manners. My idea of smiling was to let the smile freeze,
|
|
with the result that I resembled a Cheshire cat during many hundred feet of
|
|
film.
|
|
I was furious. I thought it was terrible of Mr. Griffith to farm me out
|
|
to the comedy company. Gone were all my dreams of tragedy, of stalking
|
|
across the set, with the spectators sighing and shuddering at my art. But
|
|
again I didn't know my luck. Opportunity was knocking and I was totally deaf
|
|
to her insistence.
|
|
Next week I want to tell you how I became a determined and unrepentant
|
|
comedienne, how I left the Biograph and went to work for another company at a
|
|
salary that I thought was affluence itself. The break-up of the Biograph had
|
|
commenced, and we were scattered, gradually, all over filmdom, leaving the
|
|
home nest with much regret and taking with us memories that never have been
|
|
effaced.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
March 9, 1924
|
|
Mabel Normand
|
|
as told to Chandler Sprague
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
|
|
|
|
Mabel Normand's Own Life Story -- Chapter 4
|
|
|
|
First Salary as Star was $125 a Week!
|
|
|
|
I suppose every woman can remember the times in her life when she was
|
|
speechless. It happens so seldom. And if that temporary paralysis meant as
|
|
much to any one as it did to me, on one occasion, it is certain she would
|
|
never forget it. It was there and then that I learned the value of a closed
|
|
mouth and a quiet smile and although I haven't always profited by the lesson,
|
|
it made an ineffaceable impression.
|
|
It began at Luchow's, a famous little place where the members of the
|
|
Biograph Company used to go for luncheon. I was still with the Biograph,
|
|
getting $35 per week. But several members of the company had received offers
|
|
from the New York Motion Picture Company, which was just starting.
|
|
Mr. Sennett was going to direct comedies for them and he told me, at
|
|
Luchow's that he thought I might be able to get a position with them. He
|
|
thought they might give me as much as $50 per week and he suggested that I go
|
|
with him to their offices and find out what they would offer. So I went.
|
|
The company had elaborate offices in a big building at Union Square and after
|
|
we waited a few minutes Mr. Sennett introduced me to Mr. Bauman and Mr.
|
|
Kessel, the heads of the enterprise. They were very nice, said they had seen
|
|
me on the screen and liked my work and asked me if I would sign with them
|
|
providing they gave me feature parts and capitalized my name.
|
|
At that time, as you will remember, the names of motion picture players
|
|
were virtually unknown. It was the company that was featured. Mary Pickford
|
|
was known as the "Biograph Blonde"--can you imagine it? If any one ever
|
|
spoke of me it was as "the dark-haired girl of the Biograph" or something
|
|
like that. The company considered it bad policy to play up the names of the
|
|
actors. But Bauman and Kessel were going to depart from that policy. And
|
|
they offered me $60 per week!
|
|
Right there is where the silence occurred. I thought it was wonderful,
|
|
but I didn't say anything for a minute and Mr. Bauman raised the offer to $75
|
|
per week. And while I sat there trying to find words to thank them and
|
|
exercising my fingers so they would be ready to grab a pen, they excused
|
|
themselves and went into the next room for a conference. "Oh, oh," I said to
|
|
myself, "they're going to have an argument. He offered me too much and the
|
|
rest of them won't pay it." And I sat there ready to weep at having this
|
|
chance to make real money snatched away from me. But when they came back,
|
|
before I could tell them that I would take $60, Mr. Bauman announced that
|
|
they had decided to offer me $100 provided I would sign a contract before I
|
|
left the office.
|
|
This time I got my mouth open, all right, but nothing came out of it.
|
|
Absolutely nothing. Not even a gurgle. I thought if I could make $100 a
|
|
week for one year I would have all the money I would need for the rest of my
|
|
life. I just couldn't talk, so I finally closed my lips to wait until my
|
|
tongue felt less than a foot think. And the next thing I heard was Mr.
|
|
Bauman saying:
|
|
"I don't think Miss Normand is satisfied. I guess we had better make it
|
|
$125 per week."
|
|
This time I managed to make motions for them to bring on the contract.
|
|
I was afraid the building would burn down before I could sign it. Or they
|
|
might have offered me $150 and then they would have had to phone for an
|
|
ambulance. Anyhow I signed for it, somehow. And I started to work.
|
|
The company had no studio. All our pictures were exteriors and were
|
|
made at Fort Lee, N. J. They consisted almost entirely of "chases." Of
|
|
course, there were a few other scenes but the pictures, invariably, were
|
|
built around some one getting pursued by everyone else in the company. Ford
|
|
Sterling was playing with me. Sometimes I would chase him and sometimes he
|
|
would chase me. And then just to vary it a bit we would join forces and all
|
|
the rest of the gang would chase us.
|
|
The lack of equipment and of a studio worried us a great deal and most
|
|
of the members of the company were very discouraged over the first few
|
|
pictures. But they proved a great hit and made a considerable amount of
|
|
money, for those days. That summer was terribly hot and we had been working
|
|
so hard that the company decided to sent us all to California for the winter
|
|
and let us make pictures out there. So we started in at a studio in
|
|
Edendale, on the site of the present Sennett studio. At that time it
|
|
consisted of a small house, one stage and a row of four or five dressing
|
|
rooms. It was at this time that Mr. Sennett originated the idea of the
|
|
"comedy cops" and the Keystone Comedies, as the pictures were called, became
|
|
famous for these policemen and their decrepit patrol wagon.
|
|
A good bit of our stuff we used to "steal." Thomas H. Ince, for
|
|
instance, was making war pictures at that time. I think he was filming
|
|
"Civilization" and several others that called for a lot of gunpowder and
|
|
dynamite. And we used it all, never fear.
|
|
Whenever we heard there was to be an explosion of some sort at
|
|
"Inceville," down we would go, cops and all, and we would be somewhere
|
|
around, out of range of Mr. Ince's cameras when the "shot" went off. We were
|
|
plenty close, too. Rocks and cinders dropped all around us, but Ford
|
|
Sterling and I kept right on working. We really didn't feel natural if we
|
|
weren't dodging boulders or running down a hill with the top of the hill
|
|
slipping after us. And the cops became so agile I believe they could have
|
|
dodged all the raindrops in a cloudburst.
|
|
But we enjoyed it. It was great fun. "Stealing" our stuff was lots
|
|
more exciting than just "shooting" it on our own. Mr. Sterling and I became
|
|
quite adept at it. I remember a baby show that was held on the roof of a big
|
|
department store. We wanted to work this into a picture, but some other
|
|
company had bought the rights to have their cameras on the roof. So we just
|
|
butted in, as usual. We were escorted off that roof thirteen separate and
|
|
distinct times, but we weren't a bit discouraged. Being thrown out didn't
|
|
mean a thing. Back we would come and the camera man would get a lot of
|
|
people around him to conceal the camera until the right minute, then they
|
|
would step aside and I would leap off the platform where the babies were
|
|
being judged and rush madly toward the camera with Ford in close pursuit.
|
|
The other company would make a fuss and some real "cops" would lead us gently
|
|
but firmly to the stairway.
|
|
We had more fun than a circus that afternoon. We substituted a child of
|
|
slightly darker hue for one that a fond mother had left in a perambulator and
|
|
the baby show almost broke up in a riot when she came back a little too soon.
|
|
Meanwhile Mr. Sennett was looking for an additional comedian and the New
|
|
York office of Keystone wired him that they had seen an English comedian at
|
|
the old Hammerstein Theater with whom they were very much impressed. They
|
|
thought it might be a good idea for Sennett to talk to him and find out how
|
|
he would photograph. His name, they said, was Chaplin, first name Charles.
|
|
But reaching Chaplin proved difficult. He was on tour and Sennett wired
|
|
him at several different places with no result. Charlie didn't realize what
|
|
was being shaken in his face and it wasn't until he came to the old Pantages
|
|
Theater in Los Angeles that Sennett managed to talk with him.
|
|
I remember the night we all went down to see Chaplin. We liked his
|
|
performance and Mr. Sennett went back-stage to talk with him. He brought him
|
|
out and my first meeting with Charlie was on the sidewalk in front of
|
|
Pantages. I can see him now. He had on a checked suit, a black bow tie and
|
|
a derby hat, and, at that time, he had a very pronounced English accent. At
|
|
first he didn't seem to care much about talking business with Mr. Sennett.
|
|
He had an idea of going back to England and he didn't want to leave his act
|
|
until he was ready to depart. But after a visit to the studio he finally
|
|
agreed to take the job as soon as he could arrange to have some one fill his
|
|
place in his act. He signed for a year with Keystone at a salary of $100 per
|
|
week.
|
|
For a while Charlie and I played together but he soon became so popular
|
|
that he was featured in separate pictures. We worked hard and fast in those
|
|
days. We used to make a picture and have it ready to send to New York in two
|
|
weeks. And when Charlie's year was up he was perfectly willing to sign with
|
|
Keystone again, at an advance in salary. He wanted $200 a week, if I
|
|
remember rightly, and Mr. Sennett wanted to give him $175. They negotiated
|
|
for some time over this difference. We were all at San Francisco, I
|
|
remember, attending Mayor Rolph's ball and Chaplin came up there to talk with
|
|
Sennett. While they were still disputing over terms (Mr. Sennett had to
|
|
count the pennies because he was allowed a very small sum to make his
|
|
pictures), Charlie met Broncho Billy Anderson, who was making pictures for
|
|
Essanay at Niles, Calif. Mr. Anderson realized Chaplin's tremendous talent
|
|
and offered him $500 per week to sign with Essanay.
|
|
Charlie told me about it at the time and we were both thrilled. But he
|
|
didn't want to go to Chicago, where the head office of Essanay was located,
|
|
and he didn't give Mr. Anderson a definite answer. The next day I met
|
|
Charlie on the street and he told me that Essanay had offered him $1000 per
|
|
week.
|
|
Well! Neither of us said a word. We just put our hands on our hips and
|
|
stood and looked at each other. Again I was speechless. And so was Charlie.
|
|
"Do you think they mean it?" he asked me. "Do you really believe they
|
|
can be serious? Is there that much money?"
|
|
It was so amazing that he should jump, overnight, from $100 to $1000 per
|
|
week that we couldn't believe it. We thought Essanay were just talking for
|
|
exercise. But it was all true and Charlie signed the contract and went to
|
|
Chicago at the first really big salary in the history of motion pictures.
|
|
It was shortly after this that Mr. Griffith, Mr. Ince and Mr. Sennett
|
|
united in forming the Triangle Motion Picture Company and that was where I
|
|
got my first real chance. I was still making two-reelers almost exclusively
|
|
but it was decided to let me graduate. I had made, I believe, only two five-
|
|
reelers up to that time. One was "Tillie's Punctured Romance," with Chaplin
|
|
and Marie Dressler, and the other was a picture with Owen Moore.
|
|
So they built a studio on Sunset boulevard, called it the Mabel Normand
|
|
studio and began to make "Mickey." F. Richard Jones was the director and the
|
|
picture proved to be the first real big comedy hit of the industry. By
|
|
virtue of having been the star of that picture I became a very valuable young
|
|
lady and I too began to get $1000 per week.
|
|
It was at about this time that I received a long distance phone call
|
|
from Samuel Goldwyn, in New York. He had told me, previously, that if ever I
|
|
expected to make a change to let him know and when he telephoned me it was to
|
|
say that he was leaving the Famous Players-Lasky Company, organizing Goldwyn
|
|
pictures, and would like to have me work for him at an increase in salary.
|
|
After a considerable amount of negotiations I accepted his offer and went to
|
|
New York to appear in Goldwyn pictures. My first release was called "Three
|
|
Million Dollars" and was directed by the late George Loane Tucker who
|
|
directed "The Miracle Man." I remained with Goldwyn all through the war and
|
|
had several directors who since have become national figures in the industry.
|
|
Next week I will tell you of my return to the Sennett company and of my
|
|
more recent days in pictures.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
March 16, 1924
|
|
Mabel Normand
|
|
as told to Chandler Sprague
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
|
|
|
|
Mabel Normand's Own Life Story -- Chapter 5
|
|
|
|
Comedienne Says Taylor Slayer will be Captured
|
|
|
|
Lack of punctuality is said to be an indication of poor breeding. If
|
|
that is true, I must be the most ill-bred person in the world. I'm always
|
|
late, somehow or other, no matter how hard I try to be on time. And when I
|
|
was working for the Goldwyn Company I used to get a daily scolding either
|
|
from Mr. Goldwyn or from Abraham Lehr, his associated, for this very bad
|
|
fault. But I escaped once, thanks to a happy thought. I was reminded of it
|
|
yesterday by glancing over Mr. Goldwyn's book "On the Screen" in which he
|
|
relates the incident.
|
|
I was supposed to be on the set, made up, at 9 o'clock. But I wasn't
|
|
there, and as I was hurriedly donning the make-up in my dressing room I
|
|
cudgeled my brain for some excuse which would let me out of the scolding I
|
|
knew I deserved. I had just had some new photographs taken which were very
|
|
good, so I seized one of them, autographed it to Mr. Lehr and dashed out on
|
|
the set.
|
|
"Here's what made me late," I declared to Mr. Lehr, who was standing
|
|
there with a face like a thundercloud. "It took me a terribly long time to
|
|
make up my mind what to write on your picture."
|
|
Mr. Lehr took the photograph and read:
|
|
Roses are read
|
|
And violets blue.
|
|
When I'm late
|
|
I think of you.
|
|
That saved my life. The storm clouds lifted, and I went to work,
|
|
thankful for the inspiration.
|
|
But my pictures with the Goldwyn Company were not particularly good, in
|
|
my opinion. The stories were more suitable, in some instances, for the stage
|
|
than the screen, which made it very difficult for the director and the star
|
|
to turn out creditable work. I felt I was standing still, and I wanted to
|
|
progress. Three years I worked for Goldwyn, two of them at Fort Lee, N. J.,
|
|
and the last year at Culver City. And it was when I came to California that
|
|
John Waldron, general manager for Mack Sennett, brought me a story to read.
|
|
It was "Molly-O." He told me Mr. Sennett had suggested if I liked it and
|
|
thought I would like to do it, I might come back to the Sennett fold. I did
|
|
like it and talked the matter over with Mr. Goldwyn and Mr. Lehr, both of
|
|
whom I found most fair, as they had always been. While we were discussing
|
|
the matter I did "Head Over Heels" for the Goldwyn Company and after that
|
|
they released me from my contract and I signed with Mr. Sennett to do
|
|
"Molly-O."
|
|
This was followed by "Suzanna," and it was during the filming of that
|
|
picture that the death of William Taylor occurred. Mentioning this matter is
|
|
very unpleasant. I don't like it. Who would? Who would like to discuss,
|
|
publicly, the tragic death of a friend? Not only is it personally painful,
|
|
but, to my mind, it smacks of bad taste. However, Mr. Taylor's death and the
|
|
tremendous public interest it aroused brought all of us who knew him well so
|
|
much into the limelight that it seems silly to write my life story without
|
|
mentioning it.
|
|
I had known Bill Taylor casually for years. I believe I first met him
|
|
when he was directing Carlyle Blackwell across the street from the Sennett
|
|
studio, but I saw him very seldom, and it was not until about a year before
|
|
his death that I began to know him at all well. We were at a dinner party
|
|
one night and sat beside each other. The party wasn't particularly
|
|
interesting and we began to talk about various things, the screen, books,
|
|
life in general. I found him extremely well informed and I liked his
|
|
viewpoint of things. He was a brilliant man, a man of remarkable
|
|
intelligence. We got into an animated discussion on several books we had
|
|
read and the evening passed so pleasantly that we both remarked on it when
|
|
the party broke up.
|
|
I did not see him again for about two weeks, when he called me on the
|
|
phone and asked me to go to the opening of a picture at a downtown theater.
|
|
After that I saw him rather frequently until he went abroad. And when he
|
|
came back it happened that I was starting East on a vacation and our trains
|
|
passed each other. When I returned in October and started to make "Suzanna"
|
|
our friendship was revived. He had brought me some beautiful books from
|
|
Europe, and we went to concerts and to see pictures together. He would tell
|
|
me about new books he had read and would send them to me to see if my opinion
|
|
was the same as his. It wasn't, always, and we had many a friendly argument
|
|
about them.
|
|
During November I saw him seldom, as I was working very hard. We were
|
|
trying to finish "Suzanna" on time and I was too tired at night to go out.
|
|
I remember the studio gave me a birthday party on the tenth of November. It
|
|
was at Mr. Sennett's home and nearly every one connected with "Suzanna" was
|
|
there. I invited Mr. Taylor to go and I don't remember seeing him very much
|
|
after that until the middle of December. He passed my house in the morning
|
|
on the way to the studio and sometimes he would stop. Usually I was getting
|
|
ready to go to the studio and if I had not finished making up I would wave to
|
|
him from the window and he would go on. If I was ready he would come in for
|
|
a minute, leave a book and talk about what he was doing or discuss my
|
|
progress on "Suzanna."
|
|
On Christmas Day he called on me and gave me a beautiful set of Browning
|
|
for a Christmas gift. Please don't think I'm trying to picture myself as a
|
|
high-brow. I realize that a movie actress who reads Browning sounds like an
|
|
anomaly, but I've read him, just the same. I'm not prepared to say, however,
|
|
that I'm absolutely crazy about him.
|
|
Mr. Taylor asked me where I was dining Christmas night. When I told him
|
|
he said he had been invited there, too, but would come late. We had a long
|
|
talk that night and during the holidays I saw him more frequently. New
|
|
Year's Eve I dined with him and some of his friends at the Alexandria Hotel.
|
|
During January I saw him several times a week, if I remember rightly. He
|
|
would stop by my house and several times, on my way back from downtown I
|
|
would stop at his home to return a book, to borrow one or to talk over scenes
|
|
in "Suzanna" with him. I had great respect for his judgment and asked his
|
|
advice frequently.
|
|
On the afternoon of the night he was killed, I went downtown very late,
|
|
to have some silverware monogrammed. Some of it had been given me for
|
|
Christmas and some of it I had given other people and asked them to let me
|
|
have it monogrammed for them. I went to two different jewelry stores and had
|
|
difficulty getting in as it was the closing hour. But I finished my
|
|
business, finally, went to a safe deposit box and left some things there and
|
|
then telephoned to my house. I told my maid I thought I would stay downtown
|
|
for dinner and see a picture. But she said Mr. Taylor had phoned several
|
|
times and said he had a book for me that I had been trying to get. It had
|
|
been a cloudy day and no one was working on location or on "outside sets."
|
|
I think the book was something by Ethel M. Dell. My maid also told me I
|
|
had a call from the studio to report for work at 8 o'clock.
|
|
"Why don't you come home for dinner?" she said. "Stop at Mr. Taylor's
|
|
and get the book and come home and go to bed. You will need the rest if you
|
|
have to get up early."
|
|
So I said I would not stay down and I told my driver to go to Mr.
|
|
Taylor's. His butler answered my ring and said Mr. Taylor was talking over
|
|
the phone. I went in and I could hear him talking. But his answers
|
|
consisted of "yes" and "no," and in thinking of it afterward I got no clue to
|
|
the person on the other end of the wire.
|
|
"Oh, I know what you've come for," he said when he hung up the receiver.
|
|
"Mamie (my maid) told you I had that book for you."
|
|
He was having dinner and I sat at the table with him for a few minutes
|
|
and then told him I was going home as I had to rise early. He said he would
|
|
go to the car with me, and as we were walking he said he had a lot of work
|
|
to do, but might call me about 9 o'clock to see how I liked the book. But he
|
|
never called. The last I saw of Bill Taylor was when he waved "good-by" to
|
|
me as my car pulled away from the curb. I turned and waved to him through
|
|
the glass in the back. But I didn't think it was going to be such a long
|
|
good-by.
|
|
In the morning, while I was making up to go on location for "Suzanna,"
|
|
my telephone rang. It was a friend who lived in the same court with Taylor.
|
|
She told me that his butler was running up and down the court shrieking that
|
|
Bill was dead. "He died of heart failure," she said. I implored her to find
|
|
out if it was true and to call me back immediately. In a few minutes she
|
|
called again.
|
|
"Yes, it's true," she said.
|
|
"It was a terrible shock. I liked and admired him so much. And I had
|
|
talked with him only twelve hours before. I phoned the studio that I could
|
|
not work that day and took off that remnant of my make-up that had not
|
|
already been ruined by tears. As a matter of fact it was three weeks before
|
|
I returned to work. Those of you who followed the Taylor case, in all its
|
|
intensity, undoubtedly realize what I went through. I was the last person
|
|
known to have seen him alive. I was interviewed, questioned, had statements
|
|
taken by stenographers and was harassed by newspapermen until I was forced to
|
|
move into the country and was on the verge of nervous prostration.
|
|
Detectives and district attorneys swarmed around me and my name was flaunted
|
|
on the front page of every newspaper in the country for weeks. It was a
|
|
terrible experience. As I look back on it now, I don't blame them, so much.
|
|
They wanted to find out who had perpetrated this atrocious murder. And they
|
|
were leaving no stone unturned that might hide a clue. But at the time I did
|
|
blame them. I thought it was terribly unfair. I was doing everything I
|
|
could to help the authorities, but no one seemed to give me any credit for it
|
|
whatever.
|
|
And that is why I want to say right here that there is no person in the
|
|
world who will be as glad as Mabel Normand when the murderers of Bill Taylor
|
|
are brought to justice. Not only because he was my friend, but because I
|
|
have a peculiarly feminine desire to have a lot of people feel sorry for the
|
|
way they treated me during those hectic days. I believe implicitly that
|
|
Taylor's death will be solved. It is impossible for me to believe that the
|
|
person or persons who did that thing will escape forever from paying for
|
|
their crime. If I have my own convictions on the matter, I have not an iota
|
|
of proof and my own experience would make me the last person to point a
|
|
finger of suspicion unjustly.
|
|
There, that's done. If you knew how I've been dreading this part of my
|
|
story, how I hated to discuss this most poignant episode of my life, you
|
|
would realize how glad I am that its finished. But there's still a fly in
|
|
the ointment. Next week, in the last installment of my story, I suppose I've
|
|
got to discuss the Dines matter. It, too, aroused a lot of public comment
|
|
and I'm not going to dodge it. But it was very different from the Taylor
|
|
case. It was so unnecessary, so foolish, almost a burlesque tragedy, but it
|
|
came near being more serious, to me, than the death of Mr. Taylor.
|
|
I have brought my story now up to the point of "The Extra Girl," my most
|
|
recent picture. Next week I will finish and say "Good-by," or at least "Au
|
|
revoir."
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
March 23, 1924
|
|
Mabel Normand
|
|
as told to Chandler Sprague
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
|
|
|
|
Mabel Normand's Own Life Story -- Chapter 6
|
|
|
|
Tragic Dines Affair
|
|
|
|
There is one locality in which I have no desire to travel. It is the
|
|
interior of Africa. For the reason that I am not particularly crazy about
|
|
lions. I came to that decision during the filming of my most recent picture,
|
|
"The Extra Girl." During several scenes in that picture I was on
|
|
conversational terms with a lion, sitting almost between his paws and trying
|
|
to look playful and unconcerned. Despite the assurance of his trainer that
|
|
he was a really nice lion, as lions go, I doubt if my heart action was quite
|
|
normal.
|
|
I got through without mishap, despite the fact that I felt most of the
|
|
time like a jungle cafeteria. But ever since I have had a great respect for
|
|
Daniel.
|
|
It was after "The Extra Girl" was finished that Courtland Dines was shot
|
|
by my chauffeur, Horace Greer. And once again my name was headlined
|
|
throughout the country. What a futile, unnecessary mess it all was! It
|
|
makes me fairly writhe, even now, in impotent anger, to think about it or to
|
|
discuss it. It was so recent and the circumstances were blazoned so
|
|
completely all over the United States that I suppose it is useless to tell
|
|
the story over again.
|
|
And as a matter of fact, I am unable, anyhow, to tell you just what
|
|
occasioned the shooting. For I didn't see it. I supposed I was making a New
|
|
Year's call, which I had intended to be brief. But I would have been better
|
|
off if I had gone to the beach and spent a nice, quiet day in a shooting
|
|
gallery.
|
|
I had remained at home all that afternoon answering Christmas and New
|
|
Year cards, and it was after 5 o'clock when I stopped at Mr. Dines' house
|
|
after leaving word at home to call me and remind me of a fictitious
|
|
engagement, so that I would have an excuse for leaving early.
|
|
And when my driver came back for me, and Mr. Dines admitted him, I
|
|
stepped to the door of another room to talk for a minute with Edna Purviance,
|
|
who was standing before the mirror there.
|
|
It was then that the shooting occurred, and just what occasioned it I
|
|
still am at a loss to understand. Greer, who is a well-meaning boy, declares
|
|
Dines attempted to hit him, and claims he shot in self-defense. Perhaps that
|
|
is true. I don't know.
|
|
But whether it is nor not, this fact remains, after the smoke has
|
|
cleared away: Greer may have aimed at Dines, but he hit me, figuratively
|
|
speaking. Dines was dangerously wounded, and Miss Purviance and I were
|
|
escorted to the police station, where they took our statements while an
|
|
enthusiastic crowd of newspaper men wrote furiously. Out over the country
|
|
went the story and the censors began to sit up and sharpen their official
|
|
shears.
|
|
No waiting for an official inquiry. No calm sifting of the facts.
|
|
I had been mentioned in headlines in a sensational story. And it was my
|
|
second offense, since I had been "featured" also in the Taylor case. So off
|
|
must go my head. And for a time it looked like the head, filmically
|
|
speaking, would roll on the stones of the courtyard. One censor in a
|
|
Southern State wrote my studio and said, "As far as we are concerned, Miss
|
|
Normand is guilty until she proves herself innocent." Twentieth century
|
|
America!
|
|
But before the movement to ban my films gained any real headway the
|
|
common sense of the country began to assert itself. Anyone who doubts that
|
|
our nation still has many a champion of fair play should have read my mail
|
|
during the next few weeks. I used to sit and read those letters with tears
|
|
of gratitude in my eyes. Most of them were from women.
|
|
Anyone who ever tries to make me believe, after this, the old aphorism
|
|
about woman's unfairness to other women will have an impossible task.
|
|
I shall never forget the sense of justice that American women manifested
|
|
toward me. In those thousands of letters the sentiment was almost identical.
|
|
"We are not going to sit by and watch this happen. We women have
|
|
something to say about things, nowadays, and we're going to see that you get
|
|
a square deal."
|
|
It was this storm of protest from fair-minded persons that slowed-up the
|
|
censors and saved me from being thrown to the lions. As I write Greer's
|
|
preliminary hearing has been held and he is bound over to the Superior Court
|
|
to answer the charge of shooting Dines. It may be months before a decision
|
|
is reached, and meanwhile newspaper stories will appear from time to time
|
|
dealing with the "Normand Case," as some of them call it. Such are the
|
|
penalties of earning one's living by appearing before the public.
|
|
My pictures have been clean and wholesome always. I suppose even my
|
|
most bitter critic will admit that. And to carry out the analogy of the
|
|
censors if a prominent manufacturer of soups should be mentioned in a
|
|
sensational newspaper story, would it not be consistent to advise every one
|
|
immediately to refrain from partaking of his soup?
|
|
But I don't want to seem to argue the matter. The facts in the case
|
|
have been printed, voluminously. The public must judge for itself. After
|
|
all, they are the final arbiters.
|
|
But I've made a couple of resolutions. One is to always engage a
|
|
chauffeur after this who has no "chivalry complex" and who is so scared of
|
|
all kinds of "shooting-irons" that he will run a mile if any one shows him
|
|
one. The other is to depart quickly wherever I hear a loud noise.
|
|
Will Rogers says that if any one is shot in Los Angeles hereafter, and I
|
|
am known to be in the city, I am certain to be arrested on suspicion. And
|
|
from my one experience with police stations, I can think of a lot of places
|
|
in which I would rather be.
|
|
And now I have finished. This story has been brief, necessarily.
|
|
Newspapers have not the space to print a really detailed life story. Only
|
|
the high spots can be touched. But I've enjoyed telling it. And if it has
|
|
been of interest, I'm glad. If it has bored you, in spots, I'm sorry. And I
|
|
wonder, really, whether or not you have enjoyed it.
|
|
Nothing is so interesting, so worthy of study as the complex mind of the
|
|
public. Especially is it interesting to an actress. Not only because it
|
|
means dollars and cents to her, if the public happens to like her, but
|
|
because it is so variable, so dependent upon trifles and unconsidered
|
|
details. It's a marvelous thing, the public mind. Politicians and showmen
|
|
have been trying to anticipate it for a good many years. Most of them guess
|
|
wrong. But it's a lot of fun guessing, anyhow.
|
|
So now I make my exit from The Examiner columns. Or, perhaps it would
|
|
be better to say my exit as far as my autobiography is concerned. It would
|
|
be rather too much to expect a permanent vacation. Reportorial friends tell
|
|
me I have become what they call "good copy." Whatever that it, I don't like
|
|
it. But that doesn't seem to matter much. They make you like it.
|
|
So here's hoping the next time I occupy the front page it will be
|
|
something nice, something wholesome.
|
|
In conclusion, may I say a word, a serious word, not only for myself,
|
|
but for any other person in screen or stage circles who may by virtue of
|
|
unkind circumstances, attain a measure of unpleasant notoriety. Be fair to
|
|
them. Remember that since they are semi-public persons, an importance will
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be lent to their every action that may be entirely out of proportion to its
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true value.
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"Judge not" is a good maxim for all of us. To criticize is easy. But
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to view the errors of our fellow-beings with human tolerance and a kindly
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heart is more difficult--and much more wonderful.
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Au 'voir,
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MABEL.
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(The End)
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Published with the above series of articles were some interesting
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photographs of Mabel Normand as a child, young girl, model, and film
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actress, plus a drawing of her by Charles Dana Gibson and two paintings.
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The co-author, Chandler Sprague, would later be nominated for an Academy
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Award for the story "A Guy Named Joe."
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If Mabel Normand's first film was indeed a Puritan and Indian film made
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for Kalem, then perhaps the film was "Puritans and Indians" a Kalem film
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released on January 28, 1911.
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Mabel Normand's first Goldwyn release was "Dodging a Million," not
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"Three Million Dollars."
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Frank Lanning, the actor who led Mabel to Biograph, later appeared in
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some films directed by William Desmond Taylor: "North of Fifty-Three" (1917),
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"Huck and Tom" (1918), and "Huckleberry Finn" (1920). In "Huck and Tom"
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Lanning played the role of Injun Joe; in "Huckleberry Finn" he played
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Huck's father.
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The best source for contemporary information about Mabel Normand is
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"Mabel Normand: A Source Book to Her Life and Films" by William T. Sherman.
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*****************************************************************************
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*****************************************************************************
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For more information about Taylor, see
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WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
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Back issues of Taylorology are available via Gopher at
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gopher.etext.org
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in the directory Zines/Taylorology
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or on the Web at
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http://www.angelfire.com/free/Taylor.html
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*****************************************************************************
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