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Note: This post has been revised several times since it was originally posted. I didn't want to delete the original text, because it shows the process. But be sure to read the comments also, because they are more informative than the post itself. I was fortunate enough to have two Mack Sennett experts comment on the post and provide input and the final answer to the identity of this bathing beauty. Thanks to http://joltenjoeswife.livejournal.com/ and http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/ for their valuable assistance. Check out their websites if you are a fan of Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, and retro glamor. )
Yesterday I was reading a very interesting post about Phyllis Haver over at
Tattered and Lost Ephemera. It was interesting enough that I felt compelled to check out my own Mack Sennett card. Could it be Phyllis? Phyllis Haver was one of Mack Sennett's bathing beauties. Sennett was known for his early keystone cops movies and also the bathing beauties, which provided the doughboys of World War I with pin-up pictures.
Sennett gave up the Keystone trademark in 1917 and started his own company, Mack Sennett Comedies. Here's the card I have:
There's nothing on this card to tell me which one of the bathing beauties she might be. The nose doesn't look right for
Phyllis Haver, but she could be
Marie Prevost. It's hard to tell, but I think it's
Mabel Normand. Here's a picture of Mabel. What do you think, same person?
Mabel Normand Pictures
O.K., so here's a little bit about Mabel. She was born in 1892 and starred in her first movie,
Indiscretions of Betty, in 1910. After that, she starred in more than fifty movies, many with
Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin. What's most unusual about Normand is that she eventually opened her own studio and produced her own pictures, something women just didn't do in those days.
Normand was linked to rumors of drug use and a number of scandals, including the murder of William Desmond Taylor in 1922; he was murdered within minutes after she left his home. She was not considered a suspect in that crime or the murder of amateur golfer, Courtland Dines. He was killed with her gun, but it seems her chauffeur did it. Ahem. Mabel Normand had recurrent bouts of tuberculosis and died from TB at the age of 37. Although her life was short, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
We think today's Hollywood stars live lives full of scandal, but it seems that the scandals and tragedy from the days of black-and-white films were much more dramatic. Just take a look at what happened to all of the various stars of the
Little Rascals and
Our Gang. Marie Prevost, another Mack Sennett bathing beauty, died of alcoholism and extreme malnutrition at the age of 38. They found her face down on her bed with lots of little bites from her dog's unsuccessful attempts to wake her.
Maybe it's time for the rest of us to take a moment to rejoice on the many benefits of not being famous.
(Edit from 3/12/10: Although this does look like Mabel, it seems it is someone else. If you have any ideas, let me know. Edit from 5/19/10. See the comment from joltenjoeswife below. We have an answer: the bathing beauty is definitely Myrtle Lind.)
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