Looking for Mabel Normand

Chapter 4

 

HUGH FAY

WAS NOT

THE COUNT

Sadly, today, if anyone remembers the name Hugh Fay it is because of that silly unproven rumor that Hugh was the chief drug-pusher in Hollywood.  His memory has been clouded with the story that he was a drug kingpin known as “the Count” That was not the person I found. In my exploration into the life of Hugh Fay and the other Fays, I found nothing that would indicate that this man was a drug dealer.  It was only in the Betty Fussell book on page 126, “Keystone actor Eddie Sutherland had named Hughie Faye at Sennett’s studio as the pusher who put “Mabel Normand on the junk, Wallie Reid, Alma Rubens.”  That was the only place I found his named identified as a dealer. Just for the record the Sutherland reference to which Betty added Hugh’s name is found in Kevin Brownlow's "The Parade's Gone By" (1968):  One of the most dangerous men was a charming, apparently inoffensive actor on the Sennett lot. ‘Everyone who took drugs in the industry was started by this man,’ said Eddie Sutherland.  ‘He was one of the quietest, nicest actors I've ever known.  He put Mabel Normand on the junk, Wallie Reid, Alma Rubens...’

 

In trying to understand what was going on, I turned to the noted silent film historian, William M. Drew with my musings and he was very helpful in pointing out that perhaps a single source just isn’t enough.  “I very much doubt that Betty pulled the name of Hugh Fay out of the hat and was resorting to fiction but rather did draw on Eddie Sutherland as the source for the information.  The real question, though, is should one believe this story simply because one person who was there, as significant as Sutherland was, states it as a fact?  One problem I have with this is that most of the stars of whom it is claimed Hugh Fay got them hooked when he was on the Sennett lot is that, in fact, they weren't even near Mack's studio at the time.  Has anyone checked with the biographers of Wallace Reid and Alma Rubens to see if they have documentation implicating Fay?  In the case of Wally Reid, I think it's pretty well documented that Hugh Fay had nothing whatever to do with getting him on drugs.  It was, in fact, a company doctor employed by Paramount who, at the instigation of the studio, began supplying Reid with drugs to alleviate his pain from an injury in order to keep him available to work in his films.  So why Hugh Fay is dragged in as some kind of Dr. Mabuse-like mastermind of all the drug addiction in Hollywood I have no idea, except perhaps that it makes for a good story.  How many sources, in fact, other than Sutherland, have actually independently named Fay (or "The Count") as being responsible for all the drug addiction in Hollywood?  In 1930, the year before her own drug-related death, Alma Rubens collaborated with a writer relating the melancholy story of her descent into drugs, a memoir that was serialized in the papers the next year and has been reprinted and expanded into a book by Gary Rhodes and published by McFarland.  By the time Alma began working on this account, Hugh Fay had been dead for several years.  But I don't believe that there is so much as a hint in her recollections that Fay had anything to do with it.  Account also does not provide any clues that Fay was the individual specifically responsible for her drug addiction. 

 

 As far as Mabel is concerned, during all the years when she was on the Sennett lot in the 1910s (1912 to 1915 or, if the nearby "Mickey" studio is included, 1917), I don't think there is much evidence that she was in those years even a particularly heavy drinker, let alone being on drugs.  It seems to me that her substance abuse really began when she was in New York during the Goldwyn period, and if drugs were involved at that time, Fay's involvement becomes all the more unlikely.  Furthermore, while I'm not disputing that Mabel may have used drugs at times, I don't think she was ever the hardcore addict that Wally, Alma were or became.  Wally and Alma, after all, literally died of their addiction, which was not true of Mabel.

 

 In any case, I remain somewhat skeptical of Hugh Fay's allegedly diabolic role in the Hollywood drug scene.  Do any of the books thrashing out the Taylor case mention him?  Who besides Eddie Sutherland has ever made this allegation?  Did even his ex-wife, Louise Brooks, ever mention hearing it?  Why would his name have been concealed for all the decades after his death until Sutherland made the claim in his last years?  Given Fay's untimely death, it seems more likely that he himself may have been a victim of substance abuse, whether alcohol or drugs, rather than a perpetrator.  Of course, that is purely supposition on my part, but perhaps it led somewhere along the way that his name ended up being brought into these recollections by Sutherland.  That Fay was a shoe fetishist does not him a drug pusher make!  Warmest regards, William M. Drew.

 

The darling man, did a little checking on his own and found that both of “His Off Day" (1926) and "Ham and Herring" (1927), Elfie’s films are available.  He in fact owes a Blackhawk 8mm print of "His Off Day."  He thinks it would be nice if someone would put together a DVD of the work of Hugh and his sister Elfie, and I do too...

 

1916 Photoplay Weekly Mirror

Mugging seems to be a family tradition, as Hugh and Elfie were both masters.

“Proving once again that the road to laughter and merriment has been paved with innumerable tears.  I think Elfie may have been planning a new career for herself as a film comedienne under the direction of her brother.  It was the family reunion to which she had been looking forward that would set a fresh course for her in the medium of cinema.  But then tragedy struck when Hugh died so suddenly and the new road had come to an end just as it seemed to be starting.  Who knows what might have happened had Elfie lived given her earlier celebrity on the stage?  Within a year of her death, the industry was starting to adopt sound.  I can see where Elfie might very well have become a prominent character comedienne in many talkies and played a foil for stars like Wheeler and Woolsey.  Alas, though, events moved very differently as fate once again played its tragic hand, leaving the comedy short, "His Off Day," a delightful reminder of what might have been.”

 

“Funny isn’t it But there’ll come a time, there’ll come a time”