Mabel behind the screens is as full of pranks as she is on the screen. Madge Kennedy’s professional manner, on the contrary, is decorous to the point of primness.
My contract with Mabel Normand contained one clause providing that she should pay half for the clothes worn in her stories and that the company should pay the other half. Time went by, however, and brought us no bill from the star for our share of her stage wardrobe.
“How’s this,” I asked her one day.
She looked very much embarrassed. “Well, you see,” she replied, “I’ve ordered so many clothes that I don’t feel right about letting you pay anything at all.”
It was quite true. She did order lavishly. Instead of buying one hat at a time she bought twelve. With frocks and other accessories it was the same. To be sure, there are other stars whose expenditures in this direction are equally impressive. Pauline Frederick, for example, once got an exemption of fifty thousand dollars from her income-tax on the basis of an investment of that amount in her wardrobe. I am sure, however, that only a few of this number would have been halted by any such scruples as those revealed by Mabel Normand.
I had the same wardrobe arrangement with Madge Kennedy. In her case, however, developments were slightly different. One day my studio manager came to me in a towering rage.
“See here, Mr. Goldwyn,” he began truculently, “Miss Kennedy has been ordering a whole lot of clothes——”
“Sure,” interrupted I. “They always are.”
“Yes, but she doesn’t need them for her picture. She needs them for her Autumn—that’s what!”
It was with difficulty that I persuaded him of the fact that Miss Kennedy would never be guilty of such an imposition. Indeed, my success was only temporary. For almost every picture which she made revived this supposition that Madge was ordering more clothes than she needed.