Scandal
"The mass ownership of a celebrity makes of a star a queen bee. Obeisances are offered her; she is accorded royal rank, but is, withal, a prisoner in a hive. She has no privacy, and if she insists upon a life of her own, she is despised and rejected. When she chooses to remain in seclusion, she must suffer innuendo, which, if cast upon a woman in everyday life, would bring shotguns to the shoulders of the pious.
In late September 1921, about a month before Molly O’s intended release, Mabel’s friend and former co-star Roscoe Arbuckle went on trial to face charges of rape and manslaughter in the death of actress Virginia Rappe, who had expired from internal injury following a party Arbuckle had held in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Though he was afterward, and unanimously, acquitted of all charges in the last of his court trials (in March 1922), the scandal that ensued wiped out his successful career over night. Shock waves from the event reverberated throughout the industry; such that in his autobiography Buster Keaton, in his autobiography speaks of the event as “the day the laughter stopped.” Almost from its beginning, a debate existed between film makers versus church and welfare groups in determining who should have final say about what was or wasn’t morally permissible in films and the culture movie stars inhabited and communicated from. In some respects this concern was well founded given the number of movie people whose lives did end in tragedy, and the effect these deaths might have on the public at large, particularly with regard to the values and behaviors of young people. On the other hand, the ones on whom the blame was laid were not always the ones who were guilty; and sometimes it was the most guilty who, from a position of feigned propriety and calculated self-interest, engineered blame of others who were actually innocent, or at least mostly innocent. The Arbuckle scandal then could be said to have been the fomenting into one horrific convulsion of these various forces, both the sincere, the crooked, and various shades in between (on both sides), which had already been vying with each other for creative control for some time. It has been said further that an animosity toward Hollywood had grown over time, and this out of a hitherto simmering resentment of the new class of super rich that the movies had created.
Sennett withheld Molly O’ till the storm had some time to subside. Somewhat surprisingly, when the film was released near the end of October, it was a smashing box-office hit. The public welcomed back Mabel with enthusiastic and open arms. In response, Sennett promptly began work on a big budget production for her; a comedy and costume romance set in “Old California” (circa 1840’s or 1850’s) titled Suzanna.
On the night of February 1, 1922, during time off from filming Suzanna, Mabel went to visit Paramount director, William Desmond Taylor. Taylor, an ex-antique’s dealer, ex-soldier, erudite scholar, and adventurer, was of Irish parentage, while possessed of a very English upbringing and education, and was one of the more learned and academically informed among the Hollywood community. They became good friends, and Taylor tutored her in, among other things, literature, psychology and philosophy (particularly aesthetics.) For her part, Mabel welcomed the sense of higher culture and refining influence he reflected while the reserved, much older Taylor found solace in her levity and sense of independence. Whether there was more to their relationship seems is not entirely clear; though there is some evidence to suggest something more personal than this did take place between them, based on a taped interview Mary Miles Minter gave to author Charles Higham in the 70’s. But beyond Minter’s report there is much about what was going on between them that we simply do not know with much, if any, certainty.
Mabel then that early evening in February was at his bungalow being entertained and shown some new books he had recently acquired. The visit passed uneventfully and lasted less than an hour. After she arose to leave, Taylor walked her to her car at the street curbside, and blowing him a kiss from inside her vehicle saw him alive for the last time. The following day, she received a call relaying the frightening news that he had been murdered in his home, shot from behind with a .38 caliber revolver by an unknown assailant. When the city detectives came to search the house, they found evidence linking Taylor to both Mabel and actress Mary Miles Minter, and with no little irony, a small framed picture of Mabel was found on display in the room where the director lay dead on the floor.
The Taylor murder is a strangely baffling and intricate case, replete with all manner of seeming red-herrings and possible scenarios to explain its taking place, and to this day remains a favorite puzzle for arm-chair detectives. Although the constraints of this introductory biography do not permit an in-depth examination, two things ought to be pointed out, insofar as the affair affected Mabel.
The first is that though it’s conceivable someone shot Taylor out of jealousy over her, Mabel herself never was, nor ever has been, very seriously considered a suspect in the shooting -- though this is not to say there haven’t been some who tried to make her one. The second point to be made is that her character was unfairly, if understandably, besmirched by her association with Taylor. To many it seemed that even if she was not guilty herself of the murder, her reputation was, nevertheless, irreparably tarnished by being so seemingly and closely connected with it. When compromising articles like a negligee and love letters were found in Taylor’s abode, it at first wasn't clear who they belonged to or what their significance was. As a result, Mabel was confusedly linked in the public mind with Mary Miles Minter, a Paramount actress, who did not conceal that she herself was deeply in love with Taylor. To make matters worse, hearsay and newspaper hype distorted or exaggerated the facts beyond recognition, such that, to this day, published accounts of the case are not infrequently at odds with each other in their conclusions. On a personal level, some of the press mercilessly ravaged her character, intentionally or no, by playing upon what might have been her role in the affair. In consequence of this publicly splashed whirlwind of both facts and misinformation, Mabel’s standing with the public, like Arbuckle's, dropped so low that a number of cities went so far as to actually ban her films.
That the bannings and incessant attacks and accusations in the press seriously injured Mabel's well-being, even to the point of almost driving her mad, is perhaps not to be wondered. Like Arbuckle, she ostensibly became a scapegoat to shadowy, behind-the-scenes Hollywood power brokers seeking to reshape the existing order. After repeatedly giving her story of what she knew about the Taylor case and being interrogated time and again by both police and reporters, she sought to flee the pressure of the spotlight by traveling to Europe in the summer of 1922. The trip apparently did help to ease things for her, and in Europe she was personally introduced to a number of Europe's royalty and a few eminent notables, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. In addition, it was during a stay in Paris that an heir to the Egyptian throne, Prince Ibrahim, offered his hand in marriage to her (which, though very flattered by the gesture, she graciously declined.)
Just as he had with Molly O’, Sennett found it necessary to withhold the release of Suzanna, until the scandal had some time to dissipate. Finally, almost a year after the Taylor murder, the film did come out, and despite, or perhaps even because of her bad press, it did well at the box-office. Viewing Mabel in Suzanna, although her pale and puffy, sometimes distraught, mien reveals the beleaguered state she was in at that time (both after and before Taylor’s death), she puts a positive and optimistic face on things that remains an encouragement and inspiration even today.
Bolstered by Suzanna’s success, Sennett's next slated vehicle for her was The Extra Girl. The story was one, later made somewhat popular by Colleen Moore and Marion Davies, about a small town girl who goes to Hollywood and doesn't make good. It gives a semi-candid, behind-the-scenes glimpse at the day to day life and workings of a movie studio, and which Sennett thought was something needed to help alleviate public worries and concerns about the industry and its people. Directed, once again, by the usually reliable F. Richard Jones, the film is most remembered for a both droll and exciting scene in which Mabel leads a real lion by a rope around some movie sets, thinking it’s only Teddy the dog dressed up.
The Extra Girl as a whole works very well, and, at least in a few moments early on, Mabel’s miming is genuinely exquisite. Yet for the most part her energy is lacking, and the effects of the anguish and trauma she’d been suffering are again all too evident. There is at times a discernible air of sadness about her that gives the film a somewhat tragic quality not warranted at all by the script. In this paradoxical way, the film is as unexpectedly moving as it is also casually entertaining.
Things went well upon The Extra Girl's release on November 9, 1923; and it was promisingly successful with theater-goers, garnering success in the Christmas season. Then, however, on New Years Day 1924, calamity struck even yet once more. Mabel, it would seem, was visiting with Chaplin's former leading lady, Edna Purviance and Edna’s then romantic interest, millionaire oil tycoon, Courtland S. Dines at Dines’ Los Angeles apartment. Though the Dines affair is not as perplexing a mystery as the Taylor case, exactly what happened is far from certain either. As related by Adela Rogers St. Johns, when Mabel first arrived, Dines, in an attempt at humor, said something insulting to her. Her young chauffeur, Kelly, whose real named turned out to be Greer, told him to take it back. Dines refused, and Mabel then went inside with him. Whether to merely take her home and or to “square things” with Dines, a short while later, Greer returned to the apartment with a revolver concealed in his pocket. An altercation arose between the two, and somehow Greer ended up shooting Dines, with Greer claiming self-defense. In the succeeding police inquiry, it was brought to light that the chauffeur, who had been hired by her secretary, was, unbeknownst to Mabel, an ex-convict. The psychiatrist officially assigned to examine Greer enunciated the clinical conclusion that the young man “had a deep, spiritual love for Miss Normand,” and was motivated by a delusion that he needed to protect her. Dines survived the incident, dropped charges, and the chauffeur after being tried was subsequently acquitted.
Despite being formally exonerated, Mabel's association with this second shooting stirred up yet another hue and cry. A not so successful move arose to have her films banned throughout the nation. Ohio attorney general C. C. Crabbe expressed the sentiments of the most fervid of these when he declared, “This film star has been entirely too closely connected with disgraceful shooting affairs and her name brought into such disrepute as to warrant this suggestion,” i.e. the ban. Soon many theaters in major U.S. cities did bar Mabel's films from exhibition and on the grounds that they would “have a disastrous effect upon the youth of the community.”
To counter this, Mabel, in the April of 1924 went on a nation-wide movie theater circuit promoting The Extra Girl -- and to clear her name. The tour did manage to gain her sympathy, and the formal bans of her films were overtime ultimately lifted, with The Extra Girl actually ending up doing excellent business. The problem was, the costs in publicity to Sennett to help exonerate her were immensely expensive, and mitigated little by the film’s profits. For this and other reasons, he afterwards scrapped Mary Anne, a film that was intended to have been her next project. Thus summarily ended Mabel's long working relationship with her one time sweetheart and the film industry’s then comic titan.
September 1924 found her named in the divorce dispute of the very wealthy Norman and Georgia Church. Mrs. Church, in the complaint against her husband, claimed Church had imparted to her that Mabel had amorous meetings with him while he was in the hospital. Although it was true that in August 1923 (after The Extra Girl had been finished), Mabel was a patient in the same hospital recuperating from a collarbone injury she had suffered in consequence of a horse riding accident, she denied the charges. And even though Mrs. Church’s complaint was lodged against her husband and not her, Mabel wanted to take the opportunity to publicly vindicate herself; and so sought to intervene in the proceedings. While Norman Church later retracted what he had told his wife, and Mrs. Church for her part apologized, Mabel, after several months, lost her action in the suit on the grounds that, although her name was brought up, she did not have direct interest in the matter, and her guilt or innocence ultimately was not pertinent to the main issue.
During about this same period, Mabel attended classes on sketching and piano at the University of Southern California, and, in general, temporarily took time off, for a try at some low-profile, quiet living, including keeping a diary and writing poetry. Yet settling down permanently this way did not seem to suit her. Of course, by this juncture, it looked as though Mabel's career was over for good. And for purposes of reestablishing her once extensive box-office popularity, it indeed was. As a result, she thought she would find her career revived by going on stage, appearing in some northeastern theaters in The Little Mouse in September 1925. The script, however, did not have that much to recommend it, her stage voice was faint, and as this perhaps was simply not a good time for her to be taking up such a markedly different endeavor and discipline as theater, the play flopped.
The Last Years
“Those interested in the personality of Mabel Normand can receive no more illuminating introduction to her than the incident just sketched. There are a hundred tales of this characteristic response to any human appeal clustering about the name of Mabel Normand. One which came directly under my observation relates to a poor girl with a dependent family. The girl was stricken with tuberculosis and, although Mabel did not know her, she became interested in her condition through a friend of hers. Immediately she went to see her, and when she left she pressed something into the sick girl's hand. It was only after she had gone that the other realized what her caller had left. It was a check for a thousand dollars.
While Mabel every now and then came to speak of herself as “bad luck,” she was at least fortunate to have some staunch and loyal friends, such as the Talmadges, particularly Norma, who did stood by her during her various ordeals. Though many did turn their backs on her, including some she was most generous and giving to, not everyone took advantage of her situation, or were intimidated by the smears and mockery leveled at her. Throughout much of her troubles, some of Hollywood’s most prominent notables were there to quietly or vociferously aid her as best, under the circumstances, they could. Needless to add, it speaks honorably and courageously of such that they did not buckle under to the fear and hysteria engendered by the bizarre and sensational criminal events.
Of course, she could not but be grieved, and sometimes angry, by all that had transpired, yet Mabel was fully aware of the injustice of the attacks made against her, and for better or worse, refused to have her life held in check constantly worrying about how others might judge her. In this way, she remained more or less defiant despite the heavy odds against her. Yet for all her some times combativeness, Mabel always remained an extremely kind and generous, if sometimes lonely, person who always tried to keep up a cheery outlook and smile; even though inside she was being emotionally and physically eaten up by the various and combined challenges thrown her way. “I knew Miss Normand,” Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. has said, “She never seemed to allow her personal sorrows and problems to show and be a burden to others. She exuded all the happy charm of a fresh, lovely, bright flower.”
Mabel made a brief comeback in 1926 and 1927 with a series of two and three reelers produced by Hal Roach and distributed by Pathé. In these she typically plays a poor, overworked waif, who has to contend daily with petty cheats and, as well, a thick-headed father in order to scrape a meager living for her impecunious family. They are Cinderella stories, but with the difference that Mabel’s Cinderella must be wooed to be won, and it isn't always clear that the different prince-charmings ever manage to succeed. Hers is a rather curious, paradoxical figure in these comedies. There is in her eyes a wary skepticism betokening a more profound sense and understanding of life. And yet at other times, paradoxically, she comes across as silly and light-headed as a five year old.
Though the effects of time and the fragility of her constitution show, she, oddly enough, looks more healthy in these films than she does in The Extra Girl. One usual flaw of her post-1920 films in generally is that she’s simply too old to be playing these little girl roles. Raggedy Rose, the title of one film, aptly describes the impression she sometimes gives. Nonetheless, in most of the films, and considering the enormous pain she was suffering in her private life, she performs effectively enough, if with some stiffness to her movements, as the life-worn, little ragamuffin. The general tone and pacing of these films are far different than anything thing she ever did with Sennett, and are convincing proof that, even at this relatively late period of her life, she could play a greater range of roles than previously permitted by either producers or audiences.
In September 1926, while giving a small party for some friends, she and Lew Cody, her Mickey co-star and chum of many years, to the amusement of guests, acted out a marriage proposal. Following this, he asked her on a dare, to marry him. She accepted, and before (it was said) she could voice other word, he whisked her off to a Ventura Justice of the Peace. By next morning, the two had been made legally man and wife. It turned out, that Cody had proposed to her a number of times before -- and so he later averred --- but she had turned him down. The sudden wedding made front-page headlines and understandably came as a big surprise to everyone.
Perhaps not so surprising, the marriage had problems. Among other difficulties, it is not unreasonable to assume that Cody did not stringently hold to his vows. And even though Mabel could or did know this in advance, still it must only have brought her more grief. The marriage then inevitably wound up becoming an arrangement of convenience as anything else. For the most part, they lived in separate homes and were usually kept apart by conflicting schedules and lifestyles. Yet it did have its benefits. Both shared that lively sense of humor, that had played its part in their tying the knot in the first place. As well as being a very popular Hollywood idol, admired by men and sought after by women, Cody gave Mabel a strength and protection in her isolated life she badly needed. While sometimes presented as a drunkard and a bit of a rascal, which on occasion he perhaps and apparently could be, Cody was arguably a shrewder and even nobler soul than he is given credit. In addition to being a kind of shield to Mabel during her last years, he was one of those who stood publicly alongside Arbuckle when the scorned comedian attempted a comeback in the early thirties.
As for Sennett, he says, at the end of his autobiography, “I never married. There was only one girl.” If finally losing Mabel to Cody in this embarrassing way weren't enough, he also lost almost the entirety of his massive financial holdings as a result of the crash of 1929 and ended up spending most of the rest of his life getting by on a humble and modest income. Up to his death in 1960, much of his time was taken up in retrospective productions and celebrations of his early career. With almost religious devotion, the one subject he most frequently and tirelessly delighted in raising and reminding people of was his former Keystone star and one time fiancée.
In March and August 1927, Mabel, reported acutely ill with pneumonia, was hospitalized. In November, however, of the same year, she was apparently well enough to make a trip to the nation’s capitol with Cody. Then in December 1928, she was diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis; symptoms of which had been hinted at perhaps as early as Mickey.
She had hoped she could be cured in her home. Yet as her health rapidly deteriorated, she finally consented, in September 1929, to move to a sanitarium in Monrovia, CA. for ongoing medical attention. Nonetheless and after battling the rapacious disease there for five months, she died at last on February 23, 1930, at 2:25 am, conscious to the end. Kept from her the while was that Lew himself was the victim of a heart ailment that in 1934, within just a few short years of her own passing, proved fatal.
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“The mad desire of human beings to maul their idols has been described in all its pathological manifestations by crowd psychologists in terms of religious frenzy. Case histories abound in the cinema." [Gene Fowler, Father Goose]
“Nor does Mabel wait for the large demand upon her sympathy. Gifts from her come unprovoked as manna. She is likely to go out and buy a hundred dollar beaded bag for a stenographer in the organization, and just as likely to invest a corresponding amount in remembering somebody whom she has met once and happened to like.” [Samuel Goldwyn, Behind the Screen]
