There Once Was a Girl

The talented, whimsically no-nonsense silent film comedienne Mabel Normand died 79 years ago yesterday. Her effervescence lit up early movie screens as the reigning funny lady of the flickers. She, along with the entire young industry, learned camera-acting the hard way, on her feet with the film rolling. At a time when making movies required a physical participation and recklessness almost entirely unthinkable for today's stars ( unless you are, perhaps, Daniel Craig ), even the most delicate flowers exerted, sweated and risked life and limb for the sake of economy, realism and speed.
Mabel learned to drive a car, not well but intoxicatingly fast, at a time when many men had never sat behind a wheel. She climbed up and on things, including the wing of that even newer mode of transportation, the aeroplane. She also went behind the camera, out of necessity and sheer why-the-hell-not-ness, before film-making was even film-making, before it became the near-exclusive purview of men. Even Chaplin, whose genius is more readily remembered than Mabel's, though none-the-greater, owed her more than his ego would ever admit. She helped teach him a thing or ten about being funny for the camera, of which he knew next to nothing before she waltzed his way and showed him how it was done.
She was model-pretty, a man-magnet who cared more for jewels and furs than settling down, much to the chagrin of Mack Sennett and countless other suitors and would-be Romeos. She caused some scandals the old-fashioned way ( by actually doing many of the crazy things that the papers and movie weeklies said she did) and others by knowing the wrong people ( she was involved, though not implicated, in the murder of faux-English Aristo director William Desmond Taylor). Her career never fully recovered from the mountain of bad press.By this time, her health and looks had been tragically undermined by increasing drug use and illness. A late marriage to star Lew Cody did nothing to stop her career from hemorrhaging.
She died of tuberculosis at only 37, many years a has-been.Be sure to check out the wonderful tribute on YouTube that is embedded to the right.Although they can only begin to hint at the talent, inventiveness, and kinetic beauty of Mabel, there are several other short clips available on that site. For any one that has ever seen the otherwise excellent film 'Chaplin' (1992, starring a sublime Robert Downey, Jr.), please try to erase Marisa Tomei's representation of Mabel Normand from your mind. However satisfactory you may find that performance, no stand-in could ever begin to capture the luminous energy, wit and appeal of the real woman. Thanks to YouTube, the lady can finally speak for herself to an even wider audience than she enjoyed in her own brilliant, unforgettable heyday.