Marilyn; and with her grand-daughter, Sarah; Julia and Lee in 1953.

"Put the Crinks in the Jinx...By Jinx. For Jinx."

We just of late, thanks once more to Marilyn Slater, have a new Mabel Normand sheet music song to add our MIDI collection, and that is "Jinx" (1919, a tie in with the Goldwyn film of that name), and which you can download/listen to here, and or else see the complete MN MIDI/music archive, including lyrics to all the songs, at our Mabel Normand sheet music page.

As it seems must be always, we express our humble and sincere gratitude to Marilyn for her tireless and ongoing assistance in helping us bring to you here all things Mabel. It's only fitting therefore to take this occasion to remark on what a truly munificent benefactor Marilyn has been to me these past 10 years or so, and but for her there almost certainly would not be any Mabel Normand Source Book beyond the very imperfect first and second editions I put out in the 1990's. There was a time back about 2000 when I was a my tether's end with personal difficulties; such that continued work on the MNSB became all but impossible. In spite of this, thanks in no small part to the timely telephone and internet meeting of Marilyn at that time, the MNSB was saved to become something much fuller and better than what it originally was. In addition, Marilyn has at numerous times been personally very kind to me; generous and thoughtful -- in the true and genuine Mabel spirit. Granted, as I am sure she will readily admit, we haven't nor do we always agree on everything. Buy whatever differences we had or have, the pluses of working together have immeasurably exceeded any minuses.

She herself knew and grew up knowing Mabel's own nurse Julia Benson, and as well Julia's work associate and one time Lew Cody house employee, Lee Westerlund. I not long ago asked Marilyn if she would write me something about her relationship to Julia, and here's what she sent:

"My time with Julia Benson is not something that I am ready to write about in detail, yet. She was a friend of my family, when my parents were having a messy divorce, I went to live with her that was in 1950 and I lived off and on at her home until I married in 1965. It was though Julie that I developed my interest in Mabel Normand as her home was a virtual shine to her dear friend of ten years. After my marriage, I spoke with Julie almost every day, as she grew older and I became busy with my marriage, my children and my work, we talked less and less.
"When the time came to dispose of Mabel Normand’s material, Julie and I went though the collection, I took what I liked; we packed the items to donate. During my years with Julie, Mack Sennett was working on his KING OF COMEDY and Cameron Shipp was a frequent guest. I was a little girl, so it was years later that I realized that these people that were Julie’s friends were thought to be historically important.
"Mabel had always been a presence in the house so I don’t remember a time that she wasn’t a part of my life however when I became aware of the internet, I found the Mabel Normand Home Page and realized that I had something to contribute; hence the Looking for Mabel website that started as an annex."

No doubt a large number of you by now are acquainted with Marilyn's "Looking for Mabel" webpage. In multiple respects, the work she does there is extensive and most impressive; both in terms of sheer volume and quality. Yet as I have told her myself, it leaves much to be desired as far as ease of navigating goes. There is such good stuff there that unless you follow her regular postings, a casual browser will have a time of it getting a proper idea of all the gems and small wonders that it contains. Of that which I am singularly enthusiastic about is Marilyn's many articles on Mabel and silent film era Hollywood. I told her she should put these all in a tabled and easily searchable .pdf book, and yet she still to his day refuses my entreaty. To help then at least in a small way to make up for this, the following are links to some of these pages for the benefit of those who possibly don't know of them.

RE Larry Semon designed paper cut-out toys (courtesy of illustrator-cartoonist Kim Deitch.)

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To whom it may concern, the above photo (at this very moment up for auction on ebay) I am strongly convinced is a counterfeit or hoax photograph; done by the likes of Tucker, Esper, and Ireland. I just reported my considered opinion to ebay, but whether anything will come of my doing so, I can't say. My reasons for believing as I do, I can't at present get into at length; except to say the people depicted and the composition do not look real, and what one sees upon closer examination does resemble the work of such as Tucker, Esper, and or Ireland.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360263205296&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

If the above link no longer works, see here.

Later Note. In discussing the above with someone, it was suggested that the picture is or may be connected to the 1915 film "Hogan's Romance Upset," to which speculation I responded:

"Well, as you point out, if it is from 'Hogan's Romance Upset,' what is MN doing there? Granted it may a film of hers we previously did not know of, but given the date of the film -- and when production was more developed and relatively sophisticated, this seems exceedingly unlikely.
"Again, it is not completely impossible that I am or may be mistaken, but this said I very much don't think so; and among other things, the composition is elaborate (i.e. getting all those people to sit together), and yet on the face of it, it would seem to have been taken as if it were sort of a spur of the moment joke; with the weird expressions of the sitters being not unlike that of emoticons.
"But if this is a hoax photograph as I contend, there is a trail of other films and photographs like it (go, for instance, and have a look on DVD at the films of Phil Tucker, Dwaine Esper and O'Dale Ireland) -- and that are the work of counterfeiters under the supervision and using the expertise of spirit people who happen to be criminals, and which is in effect a form of warcraft, or excuse me, I meant witchcraft -- which forbidden subject, among other topics, I write about at length at my website www.gunjones.com --"

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