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Mabel Normand: The Life and Career of a Hollywood Madcap
American silent film star Mabel Normand (1892-1930) appeared in a string of popular movies opposite the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle during the 1910s and 1920s, before dying of tuberculosis at age 37. Her brief but remarkable career, which included director and writer credits as well as heading her own studio and production company, was marred by scandal--police connected her to the unsolved 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor--that defined her legacy. This book highlights Normand's substantial yet long overlooked contributions to film history and popular culture, tracing her life from humble beginnings on Staten Island to the heights of world superstardom.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 25, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 7, 2020
A charming and informative biography of the madcap silent film comedienne with a heart of gold, whose career was plagued by scandal, through little fault of her own. As much a history of the early film industry as biography, the author's research and notes are impressive as is his entertaining (but not fawning) writing style. Things I didn't know about Mabel: she was a HUGE star who has all but been forgotten today (and, when she is, it's tainted with the scandals), she was fearless in her willingness to try new things, she was a devout Catholic, and she was kind and generous, but not a pushover.
April 14, 2016
I would like to top this review with noting McFarland was kind enough to provide a review copy for the Mabel Normand Estate.
McFarland has long wanted a Mabel Normand biography. In 2008 I signed on to do it, but found their terms not agreeable for me. It not only gave me my own publishing company but relief from becoming the type of author I hate: thinking they got it all together, when they don't. There's a reason I've never done a Mabel biography since: I don't think all the information is out there. Even if one were to focus on strictly actionable things, there's a lot of gauze to pull away.
Stephen Normand (Mabel's great nephew) was signed on next and found himself out of time for completing a full biography. And so it went. When I attempted this I was told by university press' (usually the best publishers on stuff like this) that Mabel was 'too unimportant'. I was told by Bear Manor that she was too big for them. It was a weird time.
Then there's the forward in which Lefler paints what I personally call the 'Saint Julia' myth. Casual fans won't be in the know, but Julia Benson was a woman who worked on and off as Mabel's personal nurse during her life time. Julia's services were paid for by the estate and that should have been the end of that...except she and her boyfriend walked off with basically everything they could grab (including a Louis Vuitton trunk.) They kept these items until Julia's death, leaving her partner Lee to give them to his much younger girlfriend.
Not many people know this story, though Stephen Normand has been more vocal about it in the past year. However one would think if you are to do a book on Mabel, this would be covered. Sadly, despite citing my site in the acknowledgements (themabelnormand.com) where this story is told, Lefler, for whatever reason, did not cover it. He also did not cite Stephen Normand or the estate.
Kicking off with Lefler's account of accidentally being locked in on a visit to Mabel's grave, one quickly becomes lulled into a bit of hope. Lefler seems to have great adoration for his subject, his writing in the early chapters is breezy and fun. Nothing seems too off. In fact by the time we hit Chaplin's arrival at Keystone I'm saying to myself "Why this might just be a very good biography after all!" Sadly I know from experience with subjects like this one can not judge the overall bio before hitting the scandal parts. This biography was already coherent and well written, so at best it would be above Fussell by a long shot. But the handling of the 'troubles' as I call them would really make or break this book. Sadly it broke it.
The sourcing of this book looks very academic, better than Fussell or even Tinseltown, which relied heavily on Fussell. Sadly that doesn't make it better, but the average Joe will never take the time to find out why. While he doesn't cite Fussell much at all by name, he takes her claims and makes them fancier. Fussell's book has been out since the 70s, almost any book or article on Mabel today will be tainted by it. Instead of citing Fussell citing Loos like Tinseltown, Lefler wisely just goes to Loos. But that doesn't make her a good source.
I covered extensively how the 'vase myth' (which he covers, incorrectly, on page 71) is at the root of all the Mabel drug rumors (once again ON A SITE LEFLER CITED AT THE START OF HIS BOOK). I posted it after Tinseltown came out and Lefler well before his publication deadline should have seen it (as my site is in the opening mentions of the copy I have.) From this point on (Chapter 12) the book goes from 'hey pretty good' to 'ugh I can't recommend this to anyone no matter how well meaning he was.'
The vase story of course leads to 'totes did drugs' and from this point on we keep seeing variations on 'I think she did coke but hey I'll throw in alleged to keep the critics at bay.' He vexingly throws in a line about how there is no 'definitive proof' Mabel did drugs on page 105. He also does not acknowledge the estate's strong stance that Mabel never did drugs. A solid biography on Mabel would have to acknowledge the long incorrect rumors, but Lefler takes them as fact while leaving out the estate's say.
Lefler had cited Adela Rogers St Johns' fanciful autobiography before this point and uses it to back up said claims, complete with a never happened suicide attempt that apparently 'furthers' this super bad head injury she 'for real' had (pages 70-72).
But with the vase story debunked in 2 hours time on a night I was drinking champagne and watching Dateline for background noise...I'd like to think someone sincere could simply use google...or read a site they've already mentioned they have used for sourcing THAT DEBUNKS THE WHOLE THING.
Lefler documents a few more people documenting Mabel's supposed drug use, but fails to realize most of them are unreliable (Anita Loos and Adela Rogers St Johns would write anything that sold some books) and ALL the claims were made long after we'd all heard the drug rumors about Mabel. They started with the Taylor murder and being insinuated in the trashier press, to making people go 'well she died young and she seemed okay, so maybe there was truth to that.' If there were any truth to it you think people like Chaplin, Arbuckle, Sennett (though he could be unreliable in nostalgia), Billie Dove, Bebe Daniels, the list goes on...people who really knew Mabel, had nothing much to say about any of it. Its kinda like the Valentino gay rumor if you will: nobody had heard it until the 70s so Ullman, Rambova, Acker had no reason to comment on it: it was untrue and the rumor was unknown. Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson, his son and brother all lived past the rumor and never had anything to say. The only one that did was someone who vaguely knew him: Alice Terry, who had a grudge to settle claimed both Pola and Rudy were gay in the very late 80s.
Lefler let's the misinformation train flow by basically taking Hollywood Babylon/Tinseltown's version of Olive Thomas' death (a friend of Mabel) and defaming Olive's husband Jack Pickford as well. In the interim he manages to get even simple things wrong he states he has a source for, like them marrying in 1916 (they claimed that, but it was really 1918. This is well documented as it came out about 10 years ago.) Jack Pickford wasn't a wife beater and didn't have syphilis...the list goes on.
One may say "Well he's not writing on Olive Thomas so what?" I think you can tell a lot when a biography gets stuff like this wrong. One or two obscure details fine, but when 3 pages and the entire brief story is wrong well...it doesn't bode well. And it extends to Mabel: Lefler claims she was the first female studio head which is quite a leap (she had her own studio briefly, but she wasn't the first.)
I think what I find most infuriating is once he's declared Mabel 'likely' took coke, he basically insinuates it for the rest of the book. "Mabel may have started her cocaine use on the Keystone lot...", "She had been at the Watkins Glen Sanatorium in late 1920, allegedly for the treatment of a cocaine addiction...", "Mabel was wrong about cocaine...". You can't state 'no proof' then basically hint for the other half of the book she did use. It's not an and/or situation.
This unsavory 'well maybe' attitude pervades into the Taylor murder. Anyone with half a brain can tell Mabel was rightfully cleared, and Lefler seems to lean toward that; then he waffles and makes statements that maybe something was being hidden. I have no problem with presenting both sides to a theory, but the tone was way off.
There's other odd parts that mostly start with the Adela stories and go to the end. Adela claiming Mabel was a virgin, while Saint Benson claimed to Betty Fussell that Mabel was impregnated by Goldwyn (not included in this book at all, which is wise.) Lefler continually takes shaky sources (Minta Durfee, Julia Benson, Benson's fan group, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Anita Loos, etc) and picks what he likes (for instance from Loos: coked out rambling letters, but not the silly claim Loos brother attended Mabel as she died and tried to trick her into thinking she was home. The doctor claim was proven untrue) while never informing the reader that for example while Adela tells fun stories, she may not be the most reliable. I have a feeling when the sources are included it'll be a bunch of late life memoirs, newspaper puff pieces, and books that took these things and tried to pretend they had good sourcing.) Its a hard job to do, which is why like I said I didn't pursue it further.
And perhaps most unsettling, he includes Mabel's last wishes and even a bit of her will (but not all of it?) but never mentions Benson's sticky fingers. And while he tries to wrap Mabel's story up, no focus is given at all on what happened with her estate or legacy. Even in rudimentary terms one could have covered Sennett's obsessive quest to make it up to his long gone Mabel.
Mabel couldn't be in anymore need of a new biography. Fussell is terrible and not even usable for an outline. And Lefler could have really done something here. If you take out the offensively bad information, the book does give a nice outline on Mabel's life and career.
But instead he missed what was right in front of him, including not contacting the estate until the book was off to print. If you're going to present a supposed both sides to Mabel guilty/innocent on Taylor, one would think would could cover the estates views on many bits, right down to the fact they've been very vocal there is no proof she took drugs. And vocal as in as of now The Fix's article mentioning their objection is #3 when you google Mabel Normand.
Lefler is well meaning, and I have been there. Nothing stings more than when you've tried very hard to have some obnoxious person point out fatal flaws to your work. I do wish him the best. And if McFarland will ever free his book I hope he can fix the worst of it, rewrite and make it shine, and take it somewhere he'll actually be paid for his efforts. In full disclosure I waited until the print book was sent to us, as Lefler promised to make some changes. He apparently didn't. In the meantime he spammed up every Mabel tinged forum/page with his book until he had to be banned (I don't blame him, first time authors are excitable.)
As for Mabel sadly until the estate gets to their biography (still in the works) I don't think her story will be properly told. And even sadder now we get a better looking repackage of Fussell facts that the average fan will take seriously. Fussell has polluted every book/article on Mabel for 30 years, I guess it's Lefler's turn.
McFarland has long wanted a Mabel Normand biography. In 2008 I signed on to do it, but found their terms not agreeable for me. It not only gave me my own publishing company but relief from becoming the type of author I hate: thinking they got it all together, when they don't. There's a reason I've never done a Mabel biography since: I don't think all the information is out there. Even if one were to focus on strictly actionable things, there's a lot of gauze to pull away.
Stephen Normand (Mabel's great nephew) was signed on next and found himself out of time for completing a full biography. And so it went. When I attempted this I was told by university press' (usually the best publishers on stuff like this) that Mabel was 'too unimportant'. I was told by Bear Manor that she was too big for them. It was a weird time.
Then there's the forward in which Lefler paints what I personally call the 'Saint Julia' myth. Casual fans won't be in the know, but Julia Benson was a woman who worked on and off as Mabel's personal nurse during her life time. Julia's services were paid for by the estate and that should have been the end of that...except she and her boyfriend walked off with basically everything they could grab (including a Louis Vuitton trunk.) They kept these items until Julia's death, leaving her partner Lee to give them to his much younger girlfriend.
Not many people know this story, though Stephen Normand has been more vocal about it in the past year. However one would think if you are to do a book on Mabel, this would be covered. Sadly, despite citing my site in the acknowledgements (themabelnormand.com) where this story is told, Lefler, for whatever reason, did not cover it. He also did not cite Stephen Normand or the estate.
Kicking off with Lefler's account of accidentally being locked in on a visit to Mabel's grave, one quickly becomes lulled into a bit of hope. Lefler seems to have great adoration for his subject, his writing in the early chapters is breezy and fun. Nothing seems too off. In fact by the time we hit Chaplin's arrival at Keystone I'm saying to myself "Why this might just be a very good biography after all!" Sadly I know from experience with subjects like this one can not judge the overall bio before hitting the scandal parts. This biography was already coherent and well written, so at best it would be above Fussell by a long shot. But the handling of the 'troubles' as I call them would really make or break this book. Sadly it broke it.
The sourcing of this book looks very academic, better than Fussell or even Tinseltown, which relied heavily on Fussell. Sadly that doesn't make it better, but the average Joe will never take the time to find out why. While he doesn't cite Fussell much at all by name, he takes her claims and makes them fancier. Fussell's book has been out since the 70s, almost any book or article on Mabel today will be tainted by it. Instead of citing Fussell citing Loos like Tinseltown, Lefler wisely just goes to Loos. But that doesn't make her a good source.
I covered extensively how the 'vase myth' (which he covers, incorrectly, on page 71) is at the root of all the Mabel drug rumors (once again ON A SITE LEFLER CITED AT THE START OF HIS BOOK). I posted it after Tinseltown came out and Lefler well before his publication deadline should have seen it (as my site is in the opening mentions of the copy I have.) From this point on (Chapter 12) the book goes from 'hey pretty good' to 'ugh I can't recommend this to anyone no matter how well meaning he was.'
The vase story of course leads to 'totes did drugs' and from this point on we keep seeing variations on 'I think she did coke but hey I'll throw in alleged to keep the critics at bay.' He vexingly throws in a line about how there is no 'definitive proof' Mabel did drugs on page 105. He also does not acknowledge the estate's strong stance that Mabel never did drugs. A solid biography on Mabel would have to acknowledge the long incorrect rumors, but Lefler takes them as fact while leaving out the estate's say.
Lefler had cited Adela Rogers St Johns' fanciful autobiography before this point and uses it to back up said claims, complete with a never happened suicide attempt that apparently 'furthers' this super bad head injury she 'for real' had (pages 70-72).
But with the vase story debunked in 2 hours time on a night I was drinking champagne and watching Dateline for background noise...I'd like to think someone sincere could simply use google...or read a site they've already mentioned they have used for sourcing THAT DEBUNKS THE WHOLE THING.
Lefler documents a few more people documenting Mabel's supposed drug use, but fails to realize most of them are unreliable (Anita Loos and Adela Rogers St Johns would write anything that sold some books) and ALL the claims were made long after we'd all heard the drug rumors about Mabel. They started with the Taylor murder and being insinuated in the trashier press, to making people go 'well she died young and she seemed okay, so maybe there was truth to that.' If there were any truth to it you think people like Chaplin, Arbuckle, Sennett (though he could be unreliable in nostalgia), Billie Dove, Bebe Daniels, the list goes on...people who really knew Mabel, had nothing much to say about any of it. Its kinda like the Valentino gay rumor if you will: nobody had heard it until the 70s so Ullman, Rambova, Acker had no reason to comment on it: it was untrue and the rumor was unknown. Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson, his son and brother all lived past the rumor and never had anything to say. The only one that did was someone who vaguely knew him: Alice Terry, who had a grudge to settle claimed both Pola and Rudy were gay in the very late 80s.
Lefler let's the misinformation train flow by basically taking Hollywood Babylon/Tinseltown's version of Olive Thomas' death (a friend of Mabel) and defaming Olive's husband Jack Pickford as well. In the interim he manages to get even simple things wrong he states he has a source for, like them marrying in 1916 (they claimed that, but it was really 1918. This is well documented as it came out about 10 years ago.) Jack Pickford wasn't a wife beater and didn't have syphilis...the list goes on.
One may say "Well he's not writing on Olive Thomas so what?" I think you can tell a lot when a biography gets stuff like this wrong. One or two obscure details fine, but when 3 pages and the entire brief story is wrong well...it doesn't bode well. And it extends to Mabel: Lefler claims she was the first female studio head which is quite a leap (she had her own studio briefly, but she wasn't the first.)
I think what I find most infuriating is once he's declared Mabel 'likely' took coke, he basically insinuates it for the rest of the book. "Mabel may have started her cocaine use on the Keystone lot...", "She had been at the Watkins Glen Sanatorium in late 1920, allegedly for the treatment of a cocaine addiction...", "Mabel was wrong about cocaine...". You can't state 'no proof' then basically hint for the other half of the book she did use. It's not an and/or situation.
This unsavory 'well maybe' attitude pervades into the Taylor murder. Anyone with half a brain can tell Mabel was rightfully cleared, and Lefler seems to lean toward that; then he waffles and makes statements that maybe something was being hidden. I have no problem with presenting both sides to a theory, but the tone was way off.
There's other odd parts that mostly start with the Adela stories and go to the end. Adela claiming Mabel was a virgin, while Saint Benson claimed to Betty Fussell that Mabel was impregnated by Goldwyn (not included in this book at all, which is wise.) Lefler continually takes shaky sources (Minta Durfee, Julia Benson, Benson's fan group, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Anita Loos, etc) and picks what he likes (for instance from Loos: coked out rambling letters, but not the silly claim Loos brother attended Mabel as she died and tried to trick her into thinking she was home. The doctor claim was proven untrue) while never informing the reader that for example while Adela tells fun stories, she may not be the most reliable. I have a feeling when the sources are included it'll be a bunch of late life memoirs, newspaper puff pieces, and books that took these things and tried to pretend they had good sourcing.) Its a hard job to do, which is why like I said I didn't pursue it further.
And perhaps most unsettling, he includes Mabel's last wishes and even a bit of her will (but not all of it?) but never mentions Benson's sticky fingers. And while he tries to wrap Mabel's story up, no focus is given at all on what happened with her estate or legacy. Even in rudimentary terms one could have covered Sennett's obsessive quest to make it up to his long gone Mabel.
Mabel couldn't be in anymore need of a new biography. Fussell is terrible and not even usable for an outline. And Lefler could have really done something here. If you take out the offensively bad information, the book does give a nice outline on Mabel's life and career.
But instead he missed what was right in front of him, including not contacting the estate until the book was off to print. If you're going to present a supposed both sides to Mabel guilty/innocent on Taylor, one would think would could cover the estates views on many bits, right down to the fact they've been very vocal there is no proof she took drugs. And vocal as in as of now The Fix's article mentioning their objection is #3 when you google Mabel Normand.
Lefler is well meaning, and I have been there. Nothing stings more than when you've tried very hard to have some obnoxious person point out fatal flaws to your work. I do wish him the best. And if McFarland will ever free his book I hope he can fix the worst of it, rewrite and make it shine, and take it somewhere he'll actually be paid for his efforts. In full disclosure I waited until the print book was sent to us, as Lefler promised to make some changes. He apparently didn't. In the meantime he spammed up every Mabel tinged forum/page with his book until he had to be banned (I don't blame him, first time authors are excitable.)
As for Mabel sadly until the estate gets to their biography (still in the works) I don't think her story will be properly told. And even sadder now we get a better looking repackage of Fussell facts that the average fan will take seriously. Fussell has polluted every book/article on Mabel for 30 years, I guess it's Lefler's turn.
October 7, 2017
Fascinating woman, just didn't feel like I knew her by the end.
January 26, 2022
I feel so sorry for Mabel and the tragedy she is remembered for because she is not a murderer she is an entrepreneur, a beacon and trail blazers for all female actresses and a woman that wanted to do so much with her life and being diagnosed with tuberculosis was usually a death sentence. I found this book after watching a Buzzfeed video of the death of William Desmond Taylor and even the hosts there being the dorks they are could see that Mabel could have nothing to do with his death being the bigger Machismo she had more class than Taylor did and I whole heartedly believe it. One of the interesting things is that this book is done by my fourth grade teacher the one that made it so I loved history so I knew I would love this book and it did not disappoint.
January 20, 2019
I read a lot. This book is kind of like the surprise of the year for me. I like the field of Women's studies and that genre is reflected is this bio. Mabel did so much with so little time. She was kind of like the Marilyn Monroe of the Jazz Age. It's strange that she didn't really go down in history. I think that people who like bios or history or the study of Women's contribution to Hollywood would like this book as much as I did.
August 8, 2023
Mabel Norm and broke ground for women
This book was a real learning experience. Mabel was beyond heroic in many ways. She made a film named Mickey, that was so beloved & so popular that it had to be released & re released, to packed audiences, for four years in a row! From 1919 thru 1924 she was an American hero to men & women. The thing that blocked her way to film immortality was an association to a scandalous murder which she didn't have anything to do with.
This book was a real learning experience. Mabel was beyond heroic in many ways. She made a film named Mickey, that was so beloved & so popular that it had to be released & re released, to packed audiences, for four years in a row! From 1919 thru 1924 she was an American hero to men & women. The thing that blocked her way to film immortality was an association to a scandalous murder which she didn't have anything to do with.
March 12, 2021
Fair
This was a fair biography. I never felt there was much analysis of Mabel Norm and; it was just a collection of stories from her life. No hint of her motives or feelings about her career, Mack Dennett, what drove her ambitions, her friendships or family, etc. I'm glad I read it but it was not my favourite read.
This was a fair biography. I never felt there was much analysis of Mabel Norm and; it was just a collection of stories from her life. No hint of her motives or feelings about her career, Mack Dennett, what drove her ambitions, her friendships or family, etc. I'm glad I read it but it was not my favourite read.
March 6, 2018
As good a bio of the fabulous Mabel Normand as we may ever get. Lefler's research is solid and he resisted any impulses to indulge in reckless speculation.
October 18, 2018
Really quick read of an entertaining and influential life of a movie star from the silent film era. Using the publication as a source for my film research paper on movie stars :)
December 22, 2018
A surprisingly good book. Much emotion, heart, and tragedy is all here. If you are curious about Mabel, this book is for you.
January 17, 2021
Intresting book about her life. If you are a silent film fan you will find it interesting.
February 13, 2024
I love reading about old Hollywood Mabel was the first female comedian who endured several scandals and died way too young
August 4, 2025
Excellent
July 23, 2018
Very nice. Word of mouth said this was a good book. I didn’t even know who she was.
July 14, 2017
Awesome book
November 5, 2017
Timothy Lefler wrote a wonderfully researched book about the life of Mabel Normand. Thoroughly enjoyable read. Thank you Mr. Lefler.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews