Mabel Normand

This tattered piece of sheet music came from our trip up to the North Shore the other week...she was buried deep in a box of dusty music sitting under a window. As soon as I saw her sad eyes peeking up at me I knew she was coming home!
What I didn't realize was what a celebrity was hiding in that forgotten box of music. I googled the name "Harold Freeman" first (so I could save what I really wanted to know for last!) and came up with some other titles by him as well as a MySpace page for a 46 year-old gentleman living in Houston. Nothing exciting there.

When I did a search for Mable Normand, the name under the plaintive looking young lady on the cover, I was quite surprised.
Apparently I have been living under a rock, because Ms. Normand was nothing short of a phenomenal celebrity in her day. In fact, her career and life were so ground-breaking and interesting that she has been portrayed by the likes of Bernadette Peters and others in modern day plays and movies. Have you ever seen the movie Chaplin with Robert Downey Jr.? Mabel is actually in it, played by none other than Marissa Tomei. Did you know that she was the first actress to be filmed in an airplane? Or the first person credited with throwing a custard pie in that now famous theater gag?
But let's back up for a moment.

Photo credit: imdb.com

Mabel was born in New York to a poor family in 1892 (I also saw on source saying 1895). Her father was a Vaudeville performer, and by age 16 Mabel was modeling for artists and soon after appearing in films. She worked with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and was friends with the famous actress of the day Mary Pickford. She was so successful that she was able to start her own movie studio and production company. Her lustrous career was tainted by scandal, however, twice. In 1922, just moments after leaving his house, the director William Desmond Taylor was shot to death. Mabel's name appeared widely in newspapers linking her to the crime, though she claimed innocence and was never implicated in any wrong-doing. Then in 1924, Mabel's chauffeur used her pistol to shoot the millionaire Courtland S. Dines. Her name was again publicized in connection with the case. After these scandals as well as accusations of drug use Mabel's career began to decline, as did her health. She died in 1930 at the young age of 37 in a sanitarium.

Photo credit: wikipedia.org

Mabel appears on many sheet music covers, including songs featured in her movies. Needless to say, I'm completely amazed at the history behind the face on my sheet music cover. Aside from seeing Chaplin I never had heard of Mabel Normand before, but now I'm dying to know more about her.
Have you ever heard of this fascinating woman from early days of American cinema?