Stephen: I didn't realize that about him, that Charlie was so dirty. It's too much.
Minta: He was PLENTY dirty. He was a very clever man, but he was plenty dirty. And when he was here this last time, he came out here (to Hollywood), he was so afraid of assassination that his own son, Sydney, told me, "My dad is scared to death." Now he has a star on the Walk of Fame, and they wanted to put his feet into the Chinese, Grauman's, and I won a bet of $20.00 from someone, I said "He will NEVER do it, in the world." "Oh," they said, "You're jealous, or you're mad," "No," I said, "I'm not mad. I don't give a darn, but he won't do it. Because I know WHY." So when they tried to get him to do it, they wouldn't do it. Because I know WHY." So when they tried to get him to do it, they wouldn't do it, and he wouldn't have his picture taken, looking at his star, you know, he was so afraid of being assassinated, because - he left FIVE GIRLS pregnant without any protection, money protection. That's why President Truman gets to him, so he couldn't come back to America. And the American Legion, he would not pay his taxes, and in the very beginning, when he started to get checks, he would take them and he'd put them down in Mexico in a bank down there. See, he's always been a Communist, and he'll DIE a Communist, but he was Communistic, if you'll watch his pictures, as funny as they are, as marvelous as they are, Communism runs thru the whole darn thing. So, don't you think the Chamber of Commerce was scared to death because somebody had built a little statue of him, they wanted to put it at Vine on the street, on Vine and Hollywood Blvd., and they were told if they did, a bomb would be put under it. And so when - I talked to him on the phone, you know. Three different times. He lived out at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Rachel, somebody, his secretary, she said to me, "Charlie wants to know if you're coming to the Academy Awards." I said, "No, I'm not, I don't have a beau to take me, and I can't go alone," Now I'll tell you something else. It sounds very conceited, but it's the truth. If I had one call, I had a hundred calls, from people saying, "You are the natural person to give him his Award (Oscar) because you're the first person who ever worked with it, and I did nine pictures with him. All thru his getting accustomed to doing pictures." So finally I talked to him, and he said, "I'm awfully sorry, Minta, that you're not coming." "No, I won't be there, Charlie. But I wish you a lot of good luck." And he did the same thing in New York City, but they had this great big $100 thing, you know about that in New York, where you would meet Charlie Chaplin and you'd get an autograph, and have hor d'oeuvres with him, and he sat up in the box; he disappeared the MOMENT that his picture was over because he - now that cost people a hundred dollars a piece. That isn't a very nice thing to do. He should have gone downstairs and shaken hands with people and everything.
Stephen: I just want to step inside a minute...I go on Saturday.
Minta: I always have a saying, God go before you, making easy and successful your way. That's my little send-off to everybody. ...You're hearing a lot of stuff. It's all true, every word I speak, is the truth.
The things I tell you, I know. They're not things that somebody else told me. He (Charlie) had a disease when he came to us. And he smelled so badly of idofoam (sic) that we had one director that loathed him, and he wouldn't direct him under any circumstances, because of the way he smelled. He said, "Don't you dare let him touch you." He lived in the servants' quarters at the Athletic Club downtown. When you went out with him at night, with a crowd of people, to get him to put his share of the tip in, was like pulling teeth. However, I nearly had a fit when he called me up; he called me up after I was on the British Broadcast, and he wasn't in town, he was in Mexico, and he called me up and he said, "Minta, I missed you, but I understand you spoke well of me." And do you know what I said to him on the telephone? "Yes, I spoke well of you, Charlie, but I DID tell them that you were a little Commie." He (jumped and) said, "What did you say to me?!" "I said that you're a little Communist, a Commie." And he laughed, "You don't really mean it." "Why, you know I DO mean it, and it's true." "When are you leaving?" "I'm leaving tomorrow on the Queen Mary," coming home. I'd been over there a long time. (sic)" "Gee, I thought I was going to have a chance to see you." "No." But I WILL give him this credit, it was fabulous for him to do: he had a magnum of champagne and he had a beautiful bouquet of roses for my stateroom, and he called me just before they cut the phone off, on the boat. That's the nicest thing he did, where I'm concerned. It was very easy for ME to work with him, because he was very moody, you know. Do you know that his hair was black, and they say this is a very strange thing: when he got into a `blue', the doldrums, so help me God, - he was a young man, right along here you know (at the temples), it turned gray. And the moment that he felt happy again, it went away. And you know that Syd Chaplin was his half brother and Syd had been trying to get him to go in the ocean, you know, and go swimming, - water never touched him very often, unless he drank it. But all these things I've told you about him, but as far as being clever we KNOW how clever he was, we don't have to talk about that, -
Stephen: It's like I say, you've probably seen all these pictures (stills he brought in a folder) I didn't want to BORE you with the pictures -
Minta: No-o. You never bore me. Honey, you NEVER bore me with these kind of things! (chuckle)
Stephen: Adela Rogers St. Johns said that Mabel had no parents in her book, Adela wrote a book called "The Honeycomb" and in the book she wrote, Mabel had no family and all this business, and Mabel was addicted to dope, but this picture, the reason I had it put on the cover (of Aug-Sept 1974 "Films in Review") is to show that Mabel DID have her family and she did LOVE her family, and she DID have a mother, and -
Don: It's BEAUTIFUL.
Minta: Yes. (He showed us a framed portrait, sepia, about 19" high.)
Stephen: I had more, but I just brought the most important ones.
Minta: You see, Adela Rogers St. John, I'm surprised that she -
Stephen: Well, she worked for the Hearst newspapers. That's our answer right there.
Minta: That IS her answer. That is absolutely her answer. (He showed a framed color picture, either original oil, or an oil tinted photo, in pastels, with some light blue, perhaps the dress) (We'd oh'd in unison) Well THIS is, this is the GORGEOUS picture of her.
Don: That's the one that's on the music I have. Or a pose like that, anyway.
Stephen: They call that the `mystery' photograph, because that's the one that Mabel had painted for Mack Sennett and gave it to him for his engagement present or wedding present, but Mabel took it back from him.
Minta: Isn't that BEAUTIFUL!
Don: Oh, it IS!
Minta: Oh, she was so beautiful! So beautiful. And do you know, she was so cute, she would kind of cuddle up a little to you, you know what I mean, in her little ways of expression, and she was a great tease, a little imp, a minx, I guess that is the better word. Well, Adela Rogers St. Johns is supposed to have always liked Mabel so much. Well, believe me, my dear Stephen, everybody in the world that knows Minta Durfee Arbuckle has heard just all the beautiful things that there is to be said about Mabel.
Stephen: Miss Benson has said the same. When she speaks of her, she speaks only in the highest; there aren't many people who speak of Mabel the way YOU speak of her, that's for sure; that's the shame of it all.
Minta: The moment that they start, if her name comes right up, I start running off at the mouth, dear, and I'd just never shut up 'til I've had all my say, and they just stand and look at me, and I say, "I KNOW, what I'm talking about, I KNOW." And this is true. And every word in my (book.)
Stephen: I have them in albums; it's easier that way.
Minta: I wish somebody would fix MY albums of pictures, all those pictures, imagine! - She and Roscoe would SWIM and DIVE and (for) hours upon end, they just loved to play in the water. Did you ever see that "Fatty and Mabel Adrift?"
Stephen: No. No. I haven't seen, THAT one; I HAVE seen a closeup, but not the whole thing.
Minta: Well, you HAVE to see it. Because this one - I'm going to try to BUY it.
Don: I've seen that several times, and THAT IS a classic.
Minta: And isn't that sweet where he leans over in shadow to kiss her, even after all the water, and the house floating out to sea and everything. It's wonderful. I never saw TWO PEOPLE who were so well adapted, to work together. Never in the history of my life. - That's sweet; that looks like mother Davenport there. I cried copious tears over her, dear, in my lifetime. When people say unkind things about her, I have to fight to (maintain control of myself.) One day I was working on a set out at Fox, and someone said to me, they said something about Mabel Normand, and this man looked up, and said, "You better look out!" And so this person came over and said to me, "You better look out." And I said, "What are you talking about?" "Mabel Normand." So I said, "Sit right down, now, and I'll give you a whole run-down on the whole subject, and when I get thru with it, for the rest of your lives, you tell people what I've told you." I could go on tour and do it. I nearly DIED at the show. ("Mack and Mabel") That's a nice picture of YOU.
Stephen: Thank you.
Minta: Very nice. That's very, very, very nice. Well, you can be proud of her, dear. - Oh, YES, THAT'S our GIRL! (chuckle) You know, she didn't have any vanity; I used to LOVE this expression, people would tell her how BEAUTIFUL she was, and she'd look up with those beautiful eyes and say, "Well, I didn't have anything to do with it, but if I ever amount to anything, I'll take a little credit."
Don: (chuckle) Which is so TRUE! - There's a quote in here from Buddy Rogers. It says, "Adorable!" - We know Buddy.
Minta: I used to have a picture like that of Mabel, and I never will forget this outfit she wore; we went down to Sunset Inn, and the whole thing was too much for a little girl,, a little beautiful thing. This was all those Egrets (feathers) that cost so much money, and they'd been given to her, so she had this turban made. And this dress was like gold lame, and it was kind of SEXY. and she stepped out of the car, and she looked like a little girl made up in her mother's dress, you know, because she was so childish (childlike.) Not mentally. I'm talking about (her appearance), the size of her. She had a house on Camden Drive (526 North, in Beverly Hills). I can't see this very well, who is this man?
Stephen: That's Jack White. George White's brother. That's at Mabel's house.
Minta: Yes. Yes. I know the house on Camden Drive, also. But the one, of course I was living in New York City, we were separated my husband and I were the CLOSEST FRIENDS that you'll ever know of in the world. He spent hundreds of dollars on telephones, called all the time, because we didn't quarrel about 'a man and woman', any kind of love affair, anything of that kind. It was all done after he was sick, they worked on him. - Isn't she sweet there? - He was a doll.
Don: Minta? This picture is on the cover of a magazine that I have. (Mack Sennett) Back in 1916 or so. It's a famous portrait that they have around. I knew it was black and white originally, and tinted in two tones.
Minta: I liked Mack Sennett very well...
Don: Oh, there he is, smiling.
Minta: That's why this story on the stage is so wrong. He was anything else BUT a dictator. You're going to direct, see, and we're wrong here. This is the way we made our stories up, by sitting here and talking about them, and if there's a gag, he might say to you, "Now, listen Steve, I think that gag would be better for Minta than it would be for him," or so forth. And then when we'd get started, he'd come out and kind of watch. And he might say, "Well, you could probably use a few more people there, or a few less people here." One of the nicest human beings in the world.
Don: She's buried in Calvary Mausoleum in Los Angeles...
Minta: Oh, yes. There she is. Look at those eyes! I'll probably cry myself sick after this is all over.
Stephen: Awh, now, we don't want to get you upset, now.
Minta: I used to have one of these. I love this one.
Don: Isn't that precious?
Minta: This is one of her first pretty gowns, PRETTY gowns that she ever wore, because she was always wearing just nothing to work in.
Don: Holding the skirt up with both hands.
Minta: Oh, she's so beautiful. So sweet.
Don: She was a model, when she was so YOUNG, here.
Minta: She was modeling at ten years.
Stephen: That's right.
Minta: With this Neysa McMein.
Don: It looks like velvet, fur, and a few roses in the front.
Stephen: When she modeled, she wished she could keep the costumes for herself.
Don: Yeah.
Minta: (chuckle) Here's a cute expression that she used to have. I would like to have one of these pictures of Mack Sennett, myself. Sennett had beautiful eyes.
Stephen: Yes, he did.
Minta: And he had a BEAUTIFUL voice, oh God! ...I'll show you a cameo that my husband had made of me. I think Roscoe thought HE was going to wear it. It's so large. (About 5" high, oval, carmel color, with white figure, head and shoulders, profile. Eyelashes are notable.) But it's been photographed and talked about, and written about. (long pause while she went to other room, while we looked at pics) I believe it was taken from the picture that's in the hall, there. And I didn't know the picture was gone. I have a (hand painted one?) someplace. Now if you turn it, you can see all the eyelashes and everything. He paid a big price for it. I didn't know he had it done. As I say, I think the poor darling thought HE was going to wear it. Turn it THIS way and look at it, see the eyelashes.
Don: Ohh, look at that.
Minta: You've seen this, haven't you, Don.
Don: Nope.
Minta: I wore it in a picture, one time, with a gorgeous gown, velvet gown Orry Kelly made for me. I had more letters come from it, says "We see that you're wearing yourself." I wear that in "Mickey" I think!
Don: How were these made, Minta, carved or what?
Minta: It was carved by a man who came from Europe. Roscoe paid $900 to have made. By a special man that came to this country. He came to one of our big jewelers, and the jeweler got in touch with everybody and said, if you have something unusual that you would like to have done," well, at that time, I had a beautiful five carrot stone and I had a bracelet, a diamond bracelet, and so this is what Roscoe got, and I never knew that the picture left the house. Then after I came back after being gone all these years, I wore was red, and Alice Faye said to me, "My God! That's so beautiful!" I was working with her, see I was gone so many years that - there's a LOT of SCANDAL that I'm glad I don't know anything about. Because it's bad enough to know what we DO know. And anyone in show business, if everybody on this street would run out, and I would run out, and fall down they'd write me up, they wouldn't write the lady up next door, and down here in the next block. SO you HAVE to LEARN. Don: You have to think a little bit before you do something, how it's going to LOOK.
Stephen: Right. Because they're watching everything.
Don: Yes. Where they wouldn't pay any attention to somebody else. - Ohhh! I don't have to say it, YOU know THAT, those pictures are MAGNIFICENT!
Stephen: That's my grandfather, but she had him with a camera; he's in the center.
Don: Just posing, as a cameraman? Or he really was?
Stephen: Yes. Mabel got him a job out here.
Don: Oh, good...
Minta: (Came back with an oval picture, torn, of Roscoe, about 6" high, in a cap, waist up). Here is exactly how Roscoe looked the first day I ever saw him on the Red Streetcar (meant Big Red Car) going down to Long Beach. He had a brown cap, brown suit, and a bow tie. He wanted to carry my suitcase and I said, "Please, do not TOUCH my suitcase. Because I don't like blondes, or fat men." And in five months, I was married to him. He was just a boy, you know. (long pause) Well, you have a lovely collection there.
Stephen: Thank you.
Minta: You never did tell me, I thought you worked in a banking concern.
Stephen: I DO work in a bank, part time. Because I have to have SOME money coming in. But I work in the office for a savings bank on Staten Island. It's more convenient there, it's closer to my home, and the hours commuting and all that, it's much easier to work nearby. So sometimes I'm at the window, at other times I'm at the desk, with people selling traveler's checks and things like that. Sometimes I'm a bank teller, all around, depends on what they want to do on those days when I come in, if somebody is out sick or a lot of customers, whatever. It's taken me a long time - you see, I have to do all this, as you know when you're writing a book, I'm doing Mabel's biography, and it takes a long time also. A lot of work, typing, re- typing.
Minta: Well, if there's ever anything I can tell you about, in writing her biography, put it in. And you can say that I have told you, so it won't be hearsay. It won't be something conjured up in your mind.
Stephen: Thank you very much. Always a direct quote, never any other way.
Don: This house, isn't that SOMETHING! On Staten Island, the turret and everything.
Stephen: She had it built for her.
Don: Oh, she had it built!
Stephen: It was a French house. A French chateau. They were French, the family was French. (long pause, we moved to the dining room, so MInta could sit at the table and look at the stills). You know, we have more things at home, (lost words), oil paintings, and possessions which were hers, and (lost words) and of course the pictures.
Don: I'm crazy about ANYTHING about movies. Not current, but back. (long pause)
Stephen: She used to quote a lot of French; this is her French teacher.
Don: There's Samuel Goldwyn there. (long pause) (THIS is where Minta walked to the dining room, saw the tape recorder and said, "Oh-ho-ho, if her thinks I'm going to do some taping today, he's foolish.") That miniature portrait is ABSOLUTELY MARVELOUS.
Minta: Absolutely Exquisite. Well, I think that picture of her, that large one you have there, is also in the book of Mack Sennett's. I think THAT is one of the most beautiful pictures I ever saw of anybody. ANYBODY.
Stephen: Yes, I DO love that myself, it's remarkable.
Minta: Do you have a studio in the EAST?
Stephen: Oh, no! I just work from my home in New York, yes. It's a nice section.
Minta: I went over there one time with her. On a little ferry. Just think how many years ago that is!
Stephen: I know.
Don: (reading note) She slipped gears on a Stutz Bearcat.
Stephen: Mack Sennett gave it to her. I recall seeing you in a - I have a collection of her films which I brought, 8mm, you're in this film, dancing, let's see now, how does it go? It it's Charlie Chaplin, Mabel and you, and he is a waiter and he poses himself off as a Prime Minister of Greenland, and Mabel was a wealthy girl and all this business and she invites him to her home and you're in the restaurant dancing with someone. And there's an orchestra playing. I can see you - it's just unbelievable and THAT'S how many years ago? To think - and all your films are still seen today. You should publicize yourself more. I think you should get out and make known that you're around and you should give a vocal opinion of things that are going on, I think you're WRONG in staying quiet. I think you should come out and let people know what you have to say.
Minta: Well, you see, what I HAVE been doing, I have a manager up in San Jose, and I have these pictures that I SHOW, then I tell the vignettes about it, I have questions and answers, and San Francisco, I have to tell this to you, I've never seen such a rainstorm since God made rain. And of course I wear beautiful evening clothes, I mean I always dress for everything that I do like that. And when we wee riding up from San Jose, maybe an hour's ride, I thought to myself, there won't be a SOUL in the theater. It's a very famous old theater, it holds 1,000 people. I had 900 people in a driving rain that I wouldn't have put my FOOT out-side. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, had I been a person that was going to be a patron. Well, when I got thru, I had a standing ovation. He made a tape recording of it, and I stood up there, and they would ask me about my husband's trial. And I had the answer for them if they HAD. So he said to this manager, "Don't worry about Mrs. Arbuckle, she's very articulate. And she will answer." But they didn't. I told them and I told them and I ranted and I raved around about Mabel Normand, and I had over a hundred pictures of Mabel, and more Mabel, and all this business. I told them a great many of the very things that I have told you today. And instead of those people having brains enough to go home, in the rain, and go home, they were WAITING in the LOBBY when I get thru, and my pictures, I autographed I think a hundred pictures, half of them were Roscoe, I have a very cute picture of Roscoe, with all of his little things around him, and I'm up in the corner. And they STILL wanted to know more about Mabel Normand. So I said, the manager said, this is just what he said to me, "We don't care HOW long we keep the place open, because I live upstairs." That's what I do. Then I went to the colleges. On my 82nd birthday, I did all the colleges on the Northern part, from San Jose up. Carry right on, with Mabel Normand. Because we had pictures up there, you know. And I go right into it.
Stephen: I appreciate that.
Minta: It's TRUE. Everybody that KNOWS me, dear, knows that THIS and my husband are very touchy subjects with ME. Because BOTH of them have been so absolutely MISTREATED by the press. Which makes me like I am. I don't hate anybody in the world, but I mean, when I get a chance, to open my big mouth, I do it.
Stephen: That's good. You should do that. It's not a big mouth, it's very fortunate that you're able to get up and talk and say it because a lot of people just don't have that way. They DO keep silent.
Minta: See, what I've got to do, I've got a plan to have a regular, get all my pictures back to me, and then I'm going to try to purchase some pictures. And I'm going to build for clubs, and gatherings, where I can go out and I can tell the stories. I'll have to do it partly for my living, because I'm living on a very small budget, and all that kind of thing, but that's what I'm going to do. And that's what I LOVE to do.
Don: She's very good at it.
Minta: You see, I love an AUDIENCE. I'm still a stage girl.
Stephen: Never lose that. I have a problem (with spelling) I write British, and I also write American. Sometimes you'll see a word spelled the British way.
Minta: Do you think you'll come out here to live?
Stephen: I HOPE I DO come back, yes. ...
Minta: Isn't Julie (Julia Benson) sweet?
Both: Oh, yes.
Minta: I just love her. ...
Stephen: Well, I came out at their invitation to SEE the play, ...which I DID see, and they told me that there was going to be some things I wouldn't like, they didn't say exactly what it would be. They didn't exactly say clearly what the problems were going to be. I knew there was dope in it, but I didn't know how it was going to be presented, they didn't say HOW it was going to be done. But they told me there'd be changes. I have correspondence with them, telling me this will be all ironed out by the time it gets to New York, well I have an attorney that informed them that we have the medical evidence now, and that things will be pressed, there will be a case against them if they don't change it, so when I saw the play as soon as I got back, I spoke to my attorney on the telephone and told him what I saw. So they got in touch with the Merrick office, and they claim that they're going to make changes, before it hits New York. They're re-writing the script now. It was just in St. Louis, it will be in Washington for almost a month, it starts there on Monday, it opens there. Then it hits New York. They invited me to the premiere in New York, so I guess by inviting me to the premiere, I'm sure they're going to have changes. They wouldn't want me to go thru this thing again, I suppose. That's on the 6th of October.
Minta: Well, I wish they'd take out the bad language that they have for Mr. Sennett, in all due respect to Sennett, because the thing's about the Keystone (sic,) anyway, with Mabel and him, and that guy that runs in there at the last and says something about, "Well, what do you expect, she was a heroin addict."
Stephen: I know. Also they make it look like Mack and Mabel were living together, and they make some snide remarks about Mabel's parents -
Minta: And yet there is NO ROMANCE in the darn thing.
Stephen: I didn't see any. ...Dick Jones, he was her favorite director.
Minta: Well, I hope you can do SOMETHING about it, because it is just terrible.
Don: How far along ARE you on writing the book? Just starting research or -
Stephen: It's, I have one in here that (didn't answer at this point) ... one with Mabel and Fatty together. The marquis. - I have the publisher already. As a matter of fact, the publisher himself is very interested in that.
Minta: I'm going to get up at the table. Who is your publisher?
Stephen: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. They're in New York. ...that's Sydney Sutherland, he did the biography of Mabel. I have, but didn't bring it, a picture, "The Marquis" with Mabel and Fatty. I wish I had brought it. ...So I'll have a copy made and send it out to you. ...because the publishing company does the copies for me.
Minta: We had a baseball - out here, and she was the head of the baseball business (team?) ...This was one of her favorite pictures of herself. ...Minnie. I have a picture of Roscoe and Minnie Hee Haw, it's one of the funniest ones I've ever seen; she falls in love with Roscoe, and SHE LOVED MABEL. And she used to make Mabel little slippers to wear. She loved Mabel, then she loved Roscoe, and I came third. But she ADORED Mabel. She was a Cherokee Indian and her name was Minnie Devereauex (sic) She was a very well-educated Indian woman. I could tell all kinds of funny things about her, too. ... (to a pic of Sennett) You're a sweetheart, even if you DID chew tobacco. ...Who is the man?
Stephen: His name is Arden. He was a writer. (pause) ...
Don: (pic inside a stage) was that at Goldwyn? Or -
Minta: This was never us.
To Continue...
