Looking for Mabel Normand
Madcap Mabel Normand
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LOOKING FOR MABEL
IN
(1893-1930)
Mabel Normand began her career at Biograph, and when Mack
Sennett left to form his own company to produce comedies, she
went with him and reigned supreme as the queen comedienne of
Keystone Comedies. She and Sennett were to be married until, as
the story goes, she caught him with someone else. Things were
never the same between the Mack & Mabel even though he tried
many times over the years to win her back and rebuild her career,
although unsuccessfully, with films such as "Mickey" and "The
Extra Girl."
When director William Desmond Taylor was murdered, Normand
and young actress Mary Miles Minter were caught up in the scandal
and this haunted her until her death. Mabel lived recklessly, and her
career went downhill. Toward the end of the 1920's, she was making
two-reel comedies for Hal Roach. She contracted tuberculosis, and,
as one author put it:
"Like a meteor which burns itself out by the very speed which gives
it light, Mabel Normand had burned herself out." The shooting star
died Feb. 23, 1930, at age 38.
