Felix In Hollywood

A Blog for the Smart Set

Thursday, January 13, 2011

A Delicate Flower From Cinema's Silvery Silent Past

Mabel Normand

Fan Magazine Interviewer:  Won't you tell us, what are your favorite hobbies?


Mabel Normand:  I don't know...say anything you like but don't say I like to work.  That sounds like Mary Pickford, that prissy bitch.  Just say I like to pinch babies and twist their legs.  And get drunk.




All images and so much more are here.

6 comments:

savannah said...

too funny, sugar! did she really say that? i don't know much about her, but i may just have to do some research! xoxoxo

jason said...

If she really said that, I'm in love!

normadesmond said...

when i saw the title of this post, i thought you were going autobiographical on us.

AK said...

"...but don't say I like to work. That sounds like Mary Pickford, that prissy bitch."
Funniest comment EVER! (Was Bette learning her lines for WEHTBJ from this interview?)
Good ol' Mabel-what in the hell exactly happened to her after the whole William Desmond Taylor thing?

Philip Mershon said...

Mabel continued to work, married Lew Cody in 1926 and succumbed to tuberculosis in 1930, at age 37.

TiME RIVER PRODUCTIONS said...

If you want to learn more about the incredible comedienne Mabel Normand, who in 1920 was as famous as Lucille Ball is today, and had the well deserved title of The Queen of Comedy, please visit a wonderful website put together by Marilyn Slater, called Looking For Mabel Normand:

http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com

it gives the most comprehensive and unbiased view of Mabel's amazing and tragically short life. And, if Mabel Normand didn't invent the famous pie-in-the-face gag, she definitely was on stage when the first pie was thrown. At her funeral, the most famous men in Hollywood carried her casket.