February 23, 1930: Mabel Normand Dies

February 23, 1930: Mabel Normand dies of tuberculosis in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia, California. She was 37, and was one of the most scandalous actresses in Hollywood.

Amabel Ethelreid Normand was born on November 9, 1893 in the New Brighton section of Staten Island, New York City. 

In 1912, she got her 1st job in Hollywood by sleeping with the director, Keystone Kops creator Mack Sennett. She later found she had no problem submitting to the womanizing of Charlie Chaplin. In 1913, in A Voice from the Deep, she became the 1st woman to be hit with a pie in the face in a film.

She starred alongside Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in a few films. There's no evidence that they fooled around with each other, but when he was arrested for rape and murder in 1921, she testified on his behalf. He was finally acquitted on the 3rd try, but the process couldn't save his career, and pretty much ruined hers, as it turned self-appointed moral arbiters against her.

Things got worse: She was friends with director William Desmond Taylor, but things soured, and when he was murdered in 1922, she was a suspect. Both murders remain officially unsolved.

Hal Roach, director of the Our Gang films, and Stan Laurel, of Laurel & Hardy, tried to revive her career by writing films for her in 1926, with little success. Also in 1926, she married actor Lew Cody. By the time of her death, she hadn't acted in 3 years, and the Talkie Era had begun. We'll never know if it would have helped her comeback.

She died on the same day as Horst Wessel, an early figure in Germany's Nazi Party, who had been shot on January 14.

Cody did make the transition to "talkies," but died in 1934, of a heart attack, only 50 years old.

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February 23, 1930 was a Sunday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the then-new building that would later be called the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Cougars beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the new Chicago Stadium. The Cougars became the Detroit Falcons the next season, and the Detroit Red Wings in 1932.