Amabel Ethelreid Normand (November 9, 1893^[1][2] – February 23, 1930), better known as Mabel Normand, was an American silent film actress, director and screenwriter. She was a popular star and collaborator of Mack Sennett in their Keystone Studios films,^[3] and at the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s had her own film studio and production company,^[4] the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company.^[5] On screen, she appeared in twelve successful films with Charlie Chaplin and seventeen with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, sometimes writing and directing (or co-writing and directing) films featuring Chaplin as her leading man.^[6][7]

Normand's name was repeatedly linked with gun violence, including the 1922 murder of her friend, director William Desmond Taylor, and the non-fatal^[8] 1924 shooting of Courtland S. Dines by Normand's chauffeur, Joe Kelly. After police interrogation, she was ruled out as a suspect in Taylor's murder. Normand suffered a recurrence of tuberculosis in 1923, which led to a decline in her health, an early retirement from films in 1926 and her death in 1930 at age 36.^[9][10]

Amabel Ethelreid Normand was born in New Brighton, New York (before it was incorporated into New York City as part of Staten Island) on November 9, 1893. She took her name from her father's only sibling, who had died before her birth in 1892. Normand's mother, Mary "Minnie" Drury, of Providence, Rhode Island,^[11] was of Irish heritage; while her father, Clodman "Claude" George Normand, was French Canadian, with his ancestral lineage dating back to Normandy in France and their surname originally being LeNormand or Le Normand.^[12]

For a short time at the start of her career, Normand worked for Vitagraph Studios in New York City for $25 per week, but Vitagraph founder Albert E. Smith admitted she was one of several actresses about whom he made a mistake in estimating their "potential for future stardom."^[13] Normand's intensely beguiling lead performance in the 1911 dramatic short film Her Awakening, directed by D. W. Griffith, drew her attention and led to her meeting director Mack Sennett while at Griffith's Biograph Company. The two subsequently embarked on a chaotic relationship. Sennett later brought Normand to California when he founded Keystone Studios in 1912.^[14]

Normand appeared with Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in many short films. She played a key role in starting Chaplin's film career and acted as his leading lady and mentor in a string of films in 1914, collaborating with him as a director, co-director or co-writer.^[14] Chaplin had considerable initial difficulty adjusting to the demands of film acting, and his performance suffered for it. After his first film appearance in Making a Living, Sennett felt he had made a costly mistake.^[15] However, Normand persuaded Sennett to give Chaplin another chance,^[16] and she and Chaplin appeared together in a dozen subsequent films, almost always as a couple in the lead roles. At the start of 1914, Chaplin first played his Tramp character in Mabel's Strange Predicament,^[14] although it wound up being the second Tramp film released; Normand directed Chaplin and herself in the film.^[17] Later that year, Normand starred with Chaplin and Marie Dressler in Tillie's Punctured Romance, the first feature-length comedy.

Normand is credited as being the first film star to receive a pie thrown in the face.^[18]

Normand opened her own film company in partnership with Sennett in 1916,^[14] based in Culver City, California. She lost the company in 1918 when its parent company, Triangle Film Corporation, experienced a massive shakeup which also had Sennett lose Keystone Studios and establish his own independent company. In 1918, as her relationship with Sennett came to an end, Normand signed a $3,500-per-week contract with Samuel Goldwyn. Around that same time, Normand allegedly had a miscarriage (or stillbirth) with Goldwyn's child.^[19][20]

Normand continued making films and was signed by Hal Roach Studios in 1926 after discussions with director/producer F. Richard Jones, who had directed her at Keystone. At Roach, she made the films Raggedy Rose, The Nickel-Hopper, and One Hour Married (her last film), all co-written by Stan Laurel, and was directed by Leo McCarey in Should Men Walk Home? The films were released with extensive publicity support from the Hollywood community, including her friend Mary Pickford.^{[citation needed]}

In 1926, she married actor Lew Cody, with whom she had appeared in Mickey in 1918.^[29] They lived separately in nearby houses in Beverly Hills. Normand's health was in decline due to tuberculosis.^[14] After an extended stay in Pottenger Sanitorium, she died from pulmonary tuberculosis on February 23, 1930, in Monrovia, California, at the age of 36.^[30] She was interred as Mabel Normand-Cody at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles. The date of birth listed on her crypt is incorrect.^[1][2] Her mother was buried in the crypt above her crypt.

Normand has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to motion pictures at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.

Her film Mabel's Blunder (1914) was added to the National Film Registry in December 2009.^[31]

In June 2010, the New Zealand Film Archive reported the discovery of a print of Normand's film Won in a Closet (exhibited in New Zealand under its alternate title Won in a Cupboard), a short comedy previously believed lost. This film is a significant discovery, as Normand directed the film and starred in the lead role, displaying her talents on both sides of the camera.^[32]

• A nod to Normand's celebrity in early Hollywood came through the name of a leading character in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, "Norma Desmond", which has been cited as a combination of the names Norma Talmadge and William Desmond Taylor. The film also frequently mentions Normand by name.^[33][34]
• "Hello Mabel" is a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band released in England on their second album The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse (released as Urban Spaceman in the US.) in November 1968.
• Normand is mentioned during series 2 episode 1 of Downton Abbey by ambitious housemaid Ethel Parks. Daisy Mason (née Robinson), the kitchen maid, inquires what she is reading and Ethel responds, "Photoplay about Normand. She was nothing when she started, you know. Her father was a carpenter and they'd no money, and now she's a shining film star."^{[35][better source needed]}
• Singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks wrote a song about the actress titled "Mabel Normand", which appears on her 2014 album 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault.

Some of her early roles are credited as "Mabel Fortesque".^[39]