Looking for Mabel Normand

 

How to Earn a Sable Coat

 

Marilyn Slater

Looking for Mabel

August 22, 2009

  

Here is another story told among friends of Mabel Normand, I think it should begun…two women walked into a bar… both were successful, beautiful, progressive with a wicked sense of humor but it isn’t my story. 

William M Drew found it in a Leonard Lyon column, “Lyons Den”, October 1, 1947; printed in the Oakland Tribune, thanks William.   If anyone else finds a Mabel Normand story, and would like to share it with the rest of us…send it along.

 

“…Mabel Normand, who was one of the pioneer comediennes in the movie industry, also was one of its highest paid.  One winter, when she visited New York, Miss Normand walked down Fifth Avenue with Dorothy Parker, who admired her sable coat.  “I’ll show you how I got it,” said Miss Normand.  “Hold the coat for me.”  Then she took a running start, flopped to the icy pavement, slid along the street and said; “That’s how.”