Twice-Banned Star’s Grim Fight

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 857, 28 December 1929, Page 18

Twice-Banned Star’s Grim Fight

MABEL NORMAND, FORMER SCREEN IDOL, AFTER FIGHTING HER WAY BACK TO POPULARITY NOW LIES AT DEATH’S DOOR

rswOTwgn ATE has played harsh tricks with Mabel Nor- . jSjw, ! maud, the film star, who ; . now, not so very long after her marriage to

Lew Cody, another screen star, lies dying in a California nursing home, whither she has been taken after a grim six months’ fight against the ravages of consumption. There is practically no hope of her recovery, declare the doctors who have been attending her.

Mabel Normand has been charged with many sins of which she was not guilty, and there has been a great affinity between her and tragedy. She has know the height of success, and she has known the depths cf disillusionment and sorrow.

Twice when she climbed to the very apex of popularity, crimes in which she took no active part besmirched her reputation because of her friendship with the victims.

The public then turned its back on the girl who has probably brought laughter to more souls than any other actress on the screen. For Mabel ha 3 been long before the public—longer than most—yet she has never faded from their memory. And even when stricken with her terrible illness she can smile, and say, “I hold no grudge against life—lt’s too short.” On the night of February 1, 1922, Mabel Normand was a person to be envied by millions. Her sparkling brown eyes, her slim form, and dead white skin against the black hair which was always a bit unruly, was good to look upon. She had bought her parents a 25,000-dollar home at New Brighton, Staten Island. She fead lavished gifts upon her friends.

She possessed exquisite clothes and furs, a car, a fortune in jewels, and a goodly sum in the bank. Mabel Normand, loved by many, had not married. It was said in Hollywood that she had had a disastrous love affair when she was quite young; that although Mabel’s ideal had feet of clay, and Mabel had seen them crumble, she was still loyal to the man to whom she had given her heart years ago.

However that may be, Mabel Normand was on such friendly terms with William Desmond Taylor, the mysterious Britisher whose real name was William Deane Tanner, that she wrote him letters to which she signed the name, “Blessed Baby.” Mabel wanted her letters returned and Taylor lied to her and said he had mailed them. Mabel went to

Taylor’s house to recover them and he lied again and said he thought one of his men friends had them.

All the world knows that Taylor was shot less than an hour after Mabel left him that night. The film comedienne was one of the first persons questioned by the district attorney. Henry Peavey, Taylor's coloured servant, declared that his master had loved Mabel Normand and had intended to marry her. But Mabel denied that she and Taylor were engaged.

Their friendship, she said, was close but only platonic. She didn’t mind

her letters being published, she said, except for the embarrassment attendant upon telling the world anything of a personal nature. But the district attorney saw no need to disclose the contents of the missives, inasmuch as they failed to furnish a clue to the murderer. Pictures Banned The murder and the subsequent investigations which turned the bright light of publicity into the darkest niche of Hollywood damaged Mabel’s reputation. There was no evidence to connect her with the crime, but boards of censorship condemned her because of her friendship with Taylor, because of her visit to his house, and because she had written the “Blessed Baby” letters. In some States her pictures were banned. Mabel began to work again, and the boycott against her pictures was lifted. Then, one New Year’s Eve, Mabel’s chauffeur, Horace A. Greer, who calls himself a “little weazened fellow with only one lung,” was sent to the Hollywood home of Courtland S. Dines, wealthy oil man, where Mabel and Edna Furviance were having a New Year’s cocktail with Dines. Greer was to bring Mabel home from the Dines house —that’s all the chauffeur was expected to do. But the little man somehow got his instructions mixed, and he entered the room where Mabel, Edna and Dines had been entertaining one another. Greer shot Dines —just why the authorities did not ascertain. Dines said Greer was full of liquor and declared the chauffeur shot him because Greer was in love with Miss Normand, and was jealous of her. Greer said that Dines had threatened him with a bottle and both women declared they did not witness the shooting and knew not its cause. Romance Again Mabel Normand was criticised aud her pictures boycotted. Her work in “The Extra Girl,” completed about the time of the Dines shooting, received great praise from movingpicture eritics, but in spite of that, action was taken by various States

to ban her pictures. In some States they were banned , for months, and then the boycott was lifted. After many delays, Greer was tried and acquitted on a charge of assault to commit murder on Dines. Not so long ago filmland was thrilled at the news of Miss Normand's marriage to Lew Cody. And now the girl who lived and loved so intensely, who climbed to fame and tasted the depths of bitter tragedy, lies dying.