Normand, Mabel (1892–1930)
Normand, Mabel (1892–1930)
American actress and comedian of the silent screen. Name variations: early in career, worked under name Mabel Fortescue. Born Nov 16, 1892, in New Brighton, Staten Island, NY; died of TB in Monrovia, California, Feb 22, 1930; dau. of Claude G. Normand (stage carpenter and pit pianist) and Mary J. (Drury) Normand; m. Lew Cody (screen actor), Sept 17, 1926; no children.
One of the greatest comedians of the silent screen, was also one of the film industry's early woman directors, taking the helm in many of the early Keystone comedies she made for Mack Sennett, and co-directing some of her later films with Charlie Chaplin, Eddie Dillon, and Fatty Arbuckle; credited with establishing a classic slapstick gesture when she impulsively threw a custard pie at actor Ben Turpin; films include Over the Garden Wall (1910), Mabel's Adventures (1912), Mabel's Stratagem (1912), The Speed Queen (1913), For Love of Mabel (1913), (also co-dir. with Sennett) Mabel at the Wheel (1914), (also co-dir. with Chaplin) Caught in a Cabaret (1914), Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), (also co-dir. with Eddie Dillon) Mabel's and Fatty's Wash Day (1915), Peck's Bad Girl (1918), Sis Hopkins (1919), The Pest (1919), Oh Mabel Behave (1922), Suzanna (1923) and Raggedy Rose (1926).
See also Betty Harper Fussell, Mabel (1984); and Women in World History.