Cat. #00196313: MABEL NORMAND

Ultra-rare handwritten, inscribed sentiment in black fountain pen on a folded 4x6-inch tan sheet of stationery, dated 1923. In good condition and superb for display. Lovable, sad-eyed Mabel Normand-- who gained new fame in the 1980s, when Bernadette Peters portrayed her in Jerry Herman's "Mack and Mabel"-- made her film debut in 1911, displaying irresistible charm and impeccable timing in scores of silent shorts at Biograph and Vitagraph in New York City. In 1912, she was lured to Hollywood by Mack Sennett, who cast her in a whopping 50 hit films at his newly-formed Keystone Studios, launching her to stardom. Beginning in 1915, Normand appeared in a string of enormously popular features opposite Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and her 1918 film Mickey is said to have single-handedly salvaged Sennett's studio from financial ruin. Almost certainly a manic-depressive, the comedienne's private penchants for merrymaking, cocaine-snorting and impulsive spending gradually eroded her career and, after