This book made available by the Internet Archive.

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  job, said he had experience at Pathe. We all knew he was lying. But he got the job. We always called him Pathe after that. What did you say your name is?'

  'Keystone.'

  'Better. But you still don't want to be a Cop?'

  That is my position, Mr Sennett.'

  'What the hell are you doing here, then?'

  'I was reliably informed it was your office.'

  Mack Sennett gave a basso laugh that echoed round the bathtub. The tub was solid marble. It was so large it was practically a pool. It must have been five feet deep. He was standing up in it. 'This is my office. You a gagman, Keystone?'

  'I don't understand.'

  'Gagman — a writer.' He pointed upwards. 'I keep four above this office, so I know exactly where they are. Writers need supervision. They have no telephone, books or other distractions. Just pens and paper. You sure you're not a writer?'

  'I am an artist, Mr Sennett.'

  'A what?'

  'A variety artist.'

  'Jesus Christ.' Sennett jerked back his head and hollered, 'Abdul!'

  I was practically bowled aside by a massive figure responding to the summons. He was wearing yellow boxer shorts. I had been told about Abdullah the Turk. He was an ex-wrestler hired to massage the King of Comedy and run his bath-water. He lifted Sennett like a baby from the tub and stood him on the carpet.

  'Cigar,' said Sennett. It was not an invitation. He closed his hand around the thick Havana that Abdul handed him. 'A variety artist, God help us. Let's get a look at you.'

  He circled me. I wanted work. I submitted to the

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  scrutiny of this mother-naked, dripping man as if it were the Trooping of the Colour.

  Several seconds passed before he discovered anything worth remarking on. 'You're tall.'

  'Six foot two.'

  'Who sent you?'

  'One of your scouts, Mr Del Ruth. He watched me at the Empress.'

  'So you're in vaudeville. What's your act?'

  'I commence with a dramatic monologue.'

  'Christ Almighty!' Sennett bit the end off his cigar. 'He commences with a dramatic monologue. And you want to work in movies? Forget it, friend.' He padded into the adjoining room.

  I followed him in. If I let him turn me down, I was jobless, an ocean and a continent from home. What I wanted was a character part, not a faceless future in the Keystone Cops.

  The room was furnished with a rubbing-table and a brass spittoon.

  I told him, 'I have a stooge in the audience who interrupts me. I challenge him to come up on the stage.'

  'You horse around? Keep talking.' He heaved himself onto the rubbing-table and nodded to Abdullah.

  'My stooge is short and fat, of course. He knocks me off my feet.'

  'So you can do a pratfall.'

  'After I hit the stage, I lie completely still. My stooge finds himself alone in front of the audience with an insensible man. He is unable to revive me. He tries to drag me off, but I'm too heavy.'

  'I get the picture. What's the payoff?'

  I blinked. The combination of cigar smoke and Abdullah's embrocation was painful to the eyes. 'He is too embarrassed to get off the stage. In desperation he

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  looks in my pockets for the sheet on which the monologue is written. He finds it. He walks to centre stage and clears his throat. He starts to read.'

  'It's your laundry list,' Sennett said wearily. He propped himself up high enough to jerk his head and spit into the cuspidor. 'Goddammit, Keystone, that routine's as old as papering the parlour. Tell me straight: did Hampton Del Ruth really send you here?'

  I had reached my limit. I was angry and I showed it. 'Am I the victim of a hoax?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'This so-called interview. It's bizarre. Preposterous.'

  Sennett grinned at me. 'Don't you like the motion-picture business?'

  'Is this what it amounts to — insults from a naked man?'

  He guffawed at that. He hammered the rubbing-table with his fists.

  I said, 'Candidly, I find your manners as offensive as your embrocation.'

  He covered his ears. He was shaking uncontrollably. 'Don't say any more. You'll kill me. Keystone, I can use you. You sure as hell won't be another Chaplin, but I love your style. You're hired.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'You wouldn't,' Sennett chuckled. 'That's why you're so funny.'

  The door was opened and a girl looked in. I recognised her face. Small, pert features framed by large black curls. Bold brown eyes. She was not embarrassed by Sennett's naked state. She said, 'Are you tied up, Mack?'

  Sennett rubbed his eyes. He said, 'Mabel, I'm in stitches. Come right in. Would you believe this guy goes by the name of Keystone?'

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  She was Mabel Normand, first lady of the Keystone Company. She placed her child-sized hand in mine. 'How are you, Mr Keystone? Are you in movies, too?'

  'It would appear so,' I replied, 'if what Mr Sennett said just now can be relied upon.'

  'You got it, Keystone,' Sennett said. To Mabel Normand he explained, 'I just hired him as the newest Cop.'

  'Congratulations,' said Miss Normand.

  I shook my head. 'There's some misunderstanding.'

  Sennett said, 'Don't start me off again.'

  I would not be brushed aside. 'I came to audition for a character part. I don't wish to be a Keystone Cop.'

  Sennett's mood abruptly altered. 'Are you ashamed to be a Cop, you lousy sonofabitch? Get this: every comic on the payroll started as a Cop, including me. What goes for Mack Sennett is good enough for some English dude — sorry, variety artist — who wants a break from vaudeville. Five bucks a day, Keystone. Take it or leave it.'

  'Then I'll leave it.'

  As soon as I had spoken, I went cold. Five dollars was an income. I had turned it down because I was ambitious. This was 1915. There were reputations to be made in motion pictures. I was talented, as I would prove to Sennett — if I gave myself the chance.

  Mabel Normand must have read my thoughts. She told me, 'Don't let him railroad you. Do you have a job?'

  Sennett said, 'Does he, hell? He was playing at the Empress.'

  The Empress in Los Angeles was the last booking on the vaudeville tour across America. I had started on the road ten months ago in New York City. Sennett knew vaudeville. My act was not the sort that managers

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  re-booked.

  Miss Normand gave me an encouraging smile. 'Why don't you work as an extra for a couple of weeks? No commitment on either side, just a chance for you to see us from the inside? Mack, what do you say to that?'

  Sennett had lost interest. He gave a shrug.

  Mabel Normand winked.

  I nodded and smiled back at her.

  I was launched in motion pictures.

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  at Keystone were notoriously dangerous.

  'How is the wind up there?' Sennett enquired of Sullivan, milking the joke for the benefit of his audience along the fence. 'What did he say? I didn't hear a goddamn word. Okay, boys and girls. One dummy run for Sullivan to get it right, and then we crank the camera. Did you get that, Harper?'

  The cameraman perched on a sixty-foot tower of scaffolding beside the rollercoaster raised an arm.

  'Everyone ready?' boomed Sennett. 'Rehearsal. Mabel? Harry? Get 'em rolling.'

  An excited chorus from the fence acclaimed Mabel Nor-mand as she appeared in view seated in a rollercoaster car. She was in a white lawn dress. She was laughing and blowing kisses to the crew while the car was transported slowly up the incline that would give the car its impetus. Her black curls under a small white hat bobbed to the rhythm of the ratchet mechanism.

  Beside her sat Harry Gribbon, a hard-faced actor in silk hat and large moustache that stamped him indisputably as not to be trusted by an innocent girl.

  In the rear were another couple, a blonde girl and a grey-haired man, both bit players. All eyes were on Miss Normand, so petite and vulnerable. The car reached the top of the rise and trundled around a bend before its first descent.

  I looked up at the high section of the track in the centre of the ride. It was the longest and steepest dip. At the point where it levelled, the Keystone Cops were standing in two files, nightsticks drawn for the chase. They wore grey domed helmets and black tunics with rows of shining silver buttons. Their trousers were finely tailored to facilitate agility. They needed to be spry. They were standing on a catwalk one foot wide on either side of the track. Hazards in the shape of sun reflectors — discs faced with tinfoil,

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  four feet across, to maximise the light — were strapped to the safety rail along the edges.

  Someone signalled to Mack Sennett.

  'Action!'

  The Cops, brandishing their batons, started running up the slope towards the high part of the ride. They seemed oblivious that the car containing Mabel Normand and the villain would reach the top and bear down on them any second.

  A woman close to me began to scream. Someone told her it was only a movie, but others in the crowd started to shout as well.

  The car appeared and topped the rise with agonising slowness. I had a clear view of what was happening in the car. Harry Gribbon was forcing his attentions on Miss Normand. He had both arms around her. She was struggling to get free. The others in the car were too far back to intervene. The silk hat flew up and the car hu rtled down the slope.

  The Cops were halfway up. They raised their hands in horror. They looked certain to be hit. With marvellous precision, they flung their nightsticks to the wind, crouched and gripped the side rails. They vaulted off the catwalk and hung by their hands in space.

  All but one. He was the slow one, Sullivan, the last in line. He had barely started up the slope.

  Instead of leaping to safety with the others, this dippiest of cops was facing the oncoming car and holding up his hands like an officer on traffic duty. Sensible at last to the danger, he about-turned and started sprinting for his life down the centre of the track. In seconds he was certain to be overtaken. It was impossible already to escape the way the others had.

  Behind me, there was panic. Men were screaming with the women. Many covered their eyes. Those who could

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  bear to watch saw the car close to within two yards of Sullivan.

  He saved himself with a marvellous leap. Above the track at the point where it levelled was a metal arch with coloured lamps. It was almost ten feet high. He sprang with arms outstretched. He grabbed a handhold. He drew up his knees. The car with its passengers flashed underneath and on its way. It was a brilliant stunt.

  'Okay, Sullivan, you got it right,' Mack Sennett announced through his megaphone. 'Take a ten minute break and then we do it for real. How did it look, Harper?'

  The cameraman looked down from his tower and gave the thumb-up signal.

  Meanwhile the car completed its trip and glided to a halt at the boarding stage. Harry Gribbon still had one arm round Mabel Normand, but she had stopped protesting. She was smiling at him. In the course of the ride, the hem of her skirt had crept almost above her knees. She appeared not to have noticed until now. She corrected it and stood up. Harry took her hand and helped her out.

  She noticed me among the extras by the boarding stage.

  I smiled back.

  She called out, 'Changed your mind yet?'

  I said, 'It's safer on the ground.'

  'But much more fun up there,' she told me.

  She was still the centre of attention. Her hair was being tidied by a woman with a brush. Another handed her a cigarette and lighted it. Mabel drew on it a couple of times, dropped it and moved away to speak to Sennett.

  Her two attendants had to jostle with propmen and technicians in the crush around the King of Comedy. The hairbrush was taken from the dresser's hand.

  Sixty feet up, theCops had hauled themselves over the safety rail and reassembled on the catwalk. Their night-

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  sticks and several dropped helmets were hoisted to them by rope and basket. In full kit again, they sat in neat formation on the edge, dangling their legs and watching the cameraman adjust the angle of the light reflectors.

  It crossed my mind that Mabel might be right. Perhaps it was more fun up there.

  Close to me, a woman's voice cried out in protest. Mabel's dresser had tracked down the missing hairbrush. It was being put to use by the blonde I remembered seeing in the rollercoaster car. She was standing on a carousel to look in one of its many mirrors. She laughed and pushed away the dresser, who stumbled and almost hit the ground. It began a barney as hilarious as anything the crowd had seen so far.

  Sennett missed it. He was laughing at something Mabel Normand had remarked. She was full of fun. Sennett guffawed and everyone around him was convulsed as well. He put his broad hand on the nape of Mabel's neck and ruffled her black curls. In the same movement he guided her towards the boarding stage. He hunched his shoulders to plant a kiss on Mabel's cheek. She was only five feet tall. She turned her face and took it lightly on the lips. She stepped into the car.

  Mack Sennett's hand withdrew from Mabel's hair and grabbed the megaphone from his assistant.

  That's it. We're ready to go.'

  Four and five deep along the fence, the public craned to watch the villain climb in beside Miss Normand. Moviemaking was a mystery to many. They could not fathom why she was so misguided as to take a second ride in such obnoxious company. Someone yelled to her to get out while she could. She smiled back and blew a kiss.

  Sennett checked that everyone was ready. The car was given the push that sent it on its journey. It engaged with the machinery and climbed towards the sky. Miss

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  Normand waved and people cheered and Sennett bellowed lustily for silence. He wanted his instructions clearly heard.

  He demanded order in his chaos. The gag, he had said, was all in the timing. At intervals along the track, studio assistants signalled the progress of the car. Sennett put the megaphone to his mouth.

  'Action! Camera!'

  The Cops scrambled up the slope in a glorious comic spectacle, little men in uniform insanely following their leader as the unseen car moved steadily up the other side. It surfaced at the top. They registered their panic. The car dipped for the descent. Mabel was battling for her reputation. The silk hat soared and fell.

  'Now!' shouted Sennett.

  The Cops grabbed the rail and swung to safety, all except Sullivan, the traffic cop. For a split-second he was the immovable object, left arm outstretched, right imperiously raised to halt the irresistible force.

  Then he spun on his heels and raced for his life. Four or five strides to the point where he could leap for the arch and swing clear. The car closed rapidly.

  Sullivan missed his handhold.

  I had watched his face. He somehow seemed to preconceive disaster. Panic transformed his features. His eyes were alight with fear. His mouth gaped. His head went back. His hands groped for the arch without a hope of touching it, because he failed to jump. He simply failed to jump.

  The car crashed into him a yard past the arch. It hit him with such force that it may have snapped his spine on impact. He was spreadeagled on the front and carried some forty yards, while Mabel Normand screamed and Harry Gribbon tried to reach across the safety bar to drag the man aboard.

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  He failed. The car swung into a bend and Sullivan slid clear. For two appalling seconds his body was suspended on the catwalk. Some people in the crowd believed that this was still a Keystone stunt. The figure toppled off the edge and dropped twenty feet. It hit a girder and flopped over it like cloth. It dropped again and hit the ground.

  There were piercing screams, then silence.

  I ran towards the spot. We all converged, Sennett and the crew, propmen and amusement park officials. The only service we were able to perform was to screen his body from the public. When we had covered him, I turned away. My legs were shaking.

  The rollercoaster car had finished its fatal circuit practically unnoticed. Mabel Normand, lily-white, got out. Someone supported her.

  The Keystone Cops hurried down the ladders lashed to the ironwork of the ride and ran across to have confirmed what they already knew.

  Recriminations started in the crowd. It was too dangerous a stunt. It was indefensible to risk men's lives for entertainment. Some of these movie people were insane. They would try anything to turn a profit. They killed men and called it comedy.

  An ambulance was driven in. The police arrived. Real cops in caps questioned Keystone Cops in helmets. They questioned Sennett and the actors who had ridden in the rollercoaster car. Mabel Normand was in a state of shock. As soon as she had made a statement she was allowed to leave in a chauffeur-driven car. The ambulance also left. A lieutenant borrowed Sennett's megaphone and told the public to disperse. There would be nothing else to see. In view of what had happened, the movie was abandoned.

  A few doggedly stayed on. They saw the camera lowered from the tower. The rest of the equipment was brought down. Harper, the cameraman, was required to make a

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  statement. Mack Sennett called him over and stood at the lieutenant's side. He made sure that he missed nothing.

  Carloads of Keystone Cops were leaving. They moved out without the customary shouts and sounding of the horn. Harry Gribbon travelled with them. The blonde who had borrowed Mabel Normand's hairbrush sat uncomfortably beside the dresser who had retrieved it, in a landau stacked with costumes and the camera. The rest of us followed in three trucks.

  Mack Sennett was the last to leave. When we pulled out, he and the cameraman were still in conference with the police.

 

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