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| Mabel had outgrown the film roles offered her and few appropriate opportunities were coming her way. It was time for her to try her luck on the stage. Many of the skills that had made her a wonderful silent screen actress, among them her ability to register emotions before a close up camera in a natural way, were not the same skills needed for the stage. Mabel's voice was soft, low and a bit throaty, and that didn't project from the stage. She was unsuccessful in her attempt at a stage comedy, The Little Mouse. It closed after just a few performances. |
| Dick Jones had become production supervisor at Roach Studios. Hal Roach never seemed to understand Mabel's talent, but went along with Dick Jones' suggestion and signed Mabel to a three-year contract. She was very ill but started right to work, making five films in five months. Mabel didn't complete her contract because she became too ill to continue, and she had gotten married. |
| At a dinner party, Lew Cody, an actor called the "Butterfly Man," asked Mabel to marry him, and Mabel said yes. They eloped to Ventura, California on September 17th, 1926 and were married by a Justice of the Peace. After the wedding, each returned to their respective homes in Beverly Hills. They never lived together as a married couple. During the next four years, there was talk of an annulment, a honeymoon, selling of their separate homes and buying a house together, a divorce, but none of these things happened. They just drifted. Lew continued to work and made the transition to sound pictures successfully, while Mabel had retired from films completely. |
In February 1927, Mabel was taken to a hospital for treatment of a dangerous bronchial infection. An x-ray disclosed an abscess of the right lung. After several months she was able to leave the hospital. By November, she was well enough to travel to the East Coast with Lew where he was completing the Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit. Mabel's health began to fail gradually. She was growing weaker and losing weight. In March 1929, the public was told that Mabel had tuberculosis and was being taken to a sanatorium near Los Angeles for seclusion. At the same time, Lew was recuperating in Palm Springs from an attack of influenza. The same newspapers that demanded her films be banned now waxed poetic over the brave little Clown. |
"Scandal and tragedy haunt Mabel but never a single accusation of unkindness, ill temper, meanness, selfishness, envy or betrayal," one reporter wrote at the time of her death. Mabel's condition was serious. By January 1930, both lungs were infected. She was wracked with pain and fever. Flowers and letters of cheer arrived daily. In February, Mabel was given a blood transfusion, but nothing helped. Mabel Normand died February 23, 1930. |
