26 Facts About Mabel Normand

Amabel Ethelreid Normand, better known as Mabel Normand, was an American silent film actress, comedienne, director and screenwriter.

Mabel Normand was a popular star and collaborator of Mack Sennett in their Keystone Studios films, and at the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s had her own film studio and production company, the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company.

Amabel Ethelreid Normand was born in New Brighton, New York on November 9,1893.

Mabel Normand took her name from her father's only sibling, who had died before her birth in 1892.

Mabel Normand appeared with Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in many short films.

Mabel Normand played a key role in starting Chaplin's film career and acted as his leading lady and mentor in a string of films in 1914, collaborating with him as a director, co-director or co-writer.

However, Mabel Normand persuaded Sennett to give Chaplin another chance, and she and Chaplin appeared together in a dozen subsequent films, almost always as a couple in the lead roles.

At the start of 1914, Chaplin first played his Tramp character in Mabel's Strange Predicament, although it wound up being the second Tramp film released; Normand directed Chaplin and herself in the film.

Later that year, Mabel Normand starred with Chaplin and Marie Dressler in Tillie's Punctured Romance, the first feature-length comedy.

Mabel Normand is credited as being the first film star to receive a pie thrown in the face.

Mabel Normand opened her own film company in partnership with Sennett in 1916, based in Culver City, California.

Mabel Normand lost the company in 1918 when its parent company, Triangle Film Corporation, experienced a massive shakeup which had Sennett lose Keystone Studios and establish his own independent company.

In 1918, as her relationship with Sennett came to an end, Mabel Normand signed a $3,500-per-week contract with Samuel Goldwyn.

Around that same time, Mabel Normand allegedly had a miscarriage with Goldwyn's child.

Since she had made some of her most notable works with him, much of Mabel Normand's output was withheld from the public as a result.

Director William Desmond Taylor formed a close relationship with Mabel Normand based on their shared interest in books.

Author Robert Giroux claims that Taylor was deeply in love with Mabel Normand, who had originally approached him for help in dealing with an alleged cocaine dependency, and that Taylor met with federal prosecutors shortly before his death with an offer to assist them in filing charges against her drug dealers, theorizing that this meeting caused the dealers to hire a contract killer.

Mabel Normand was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive.

However, Mabel Normand's career had already slowed, and her reputation was tarnished.

Mabel Normand was interred as Mabel Normand-Cody at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles.

Mabel Normand's mother was buried in the crypt above her crypt.

Mabel Normand has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to motion pictures at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.

In June 2010, the New Zealand Film Archive reported the discovery of a print of Mabel Normand's film Won in a Closet, a short comedy previously believed lost.

Mabel Normand was played by Bernadette Peters and Robert Preston portrayed Sennett.

Mabel Normand is played by actress Marisa Tomei in the 1992 film Chaplin opposite Robert Downey, Jr.

In 2014, Normand was played on television by Andrea Deck in series 2, episode 8 of Mr Selfridge and by Kristina Thompson in the short film Mabel's Dressing Room.