Slapstick #4 -- December 13, 2010

Just in time for Christmas, a pretty picture of Mabel Normand. When she was in her teens, Mabel Normand starting posing as a model for artists such as Charles Dana Gibson. She started acting in movies for several studios including Biograph, where she met Mack Sennett. When Sennett left Biograph to start Keystone in 1912, Mabel went along. She was engaged to Sennett for while, but they never married. People still debate the reasons. She became one of Sennett's most important comedians, but, like his other comedians, left Sennett for other studios and more money. Mabel starred in a series of popular features for Goldwyn, went back to Sennett, but then became tangled up in scandals, for things with which she was not involved. She died of tuberculosis at 37.

The cover of the January, 1918 Motion Picture Classic comes from AceCovers: http://www.magazine-covers.net/