Estelle Taylor
Encyclopedia
Estelle Taylor was an American
Hollywood actress whose career was most prominent during the silent film
era of the 1920s.
Born Ida Estelle Taylor in Wilmington, Delaware
, the daughter of Harry D Taylor and Ida LaBertha (Barrett) Taylor, Estelle married three times. Her first husband was banker Kenneth Malcolm Peacock, her second was William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey
, the world heavyweight boxing champion, and her third, theatrical producer Paul Smith
. She had no children.
After relocating to Hollywood, she began taking bit parts in films. One of Taylor's earliest successes was in 1920 in Fox's While New York Sleeps
with Marc McDermott
. She and McDermott play three sets of characters in different time periods. This film was lost for decades, but has been recently discovered and screened at a film festival in Los Angeles. Taylor is possibly best recalled for her roles in the 1922 drama Monte Cristo
, opposite John Gilbert
; the enormously successful 1923 Cecil B. DeMille
directed The Ten Commandments
as Miriam, the sister of Moses; as Lucrezia Borgia in the 1926 Warner Bros.
' first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone
sound effects and musical soundtrack Don Juan
, with John Barrymore
, Mary Astor
and Warner Oland
; 1927's New York, featuring Ricardo Cortez
and Lois Wilson; 1931's Street Scene
with Sylvia Sidney
; the Academy Award-winning Cimarron
; and the Clara Bow
talkie Call Her Savage
in 1932.
Taylor married heavyweight boxing
champion Jack Dempsey in 1925. She was supposed to have co-starred in a movie with Rudolph Valentino
, which would have brought her more widespread fame, but he died just before production was to begin. In 1928, she and husband Dempsey starred in a Broadway play titled The Big Fight, loosely based around Dempsey's boxing popularity, which ran for 31 performances at the Majestic Theatre.
When she divorced Dempsey in July 1933, she walked away with $40,000 in cash as well as three of their cars and their $150,000 estate. When a fan came up to her for an autographed picture of her which had Dempsey's name on top, she allegedly wrote "This is the last time that son-of-a-bitch will be on top of me."
Taylor was a close friend of Mexican-born actress Lupe Vélez
. On the evening of December 13, 1944, she spent several hours at a restaurant having dinner and drinks with the actress before Vélez returned home and committed suicide
. The ensuing press coverage briefly propelled Taylor once again into the headlines.
Taylor's last film appearance was in the 1945 Jean Renoir
directed drama The Southerner. In her later years, Taylor devoted her free time to her pets and was the president and founder of the California Pet Owners' Protective League. In 1953, Taylor served on the City Animal Regulation Commission in Los Angeles, California
.
Taylor died in 1958. She had been suffering for some time with cancer and had been bedridden the last six months. She was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Estelle Taylor was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1620 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
In a 1983 American made-for-television movie biopic of Jack Dempsey, Estelle Taylor was portrayed by British actress Victoria Tennant
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Hollywood actress whose career was most prominent during the silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
era of the 1920s.
Born Ida Estelle Taylor in Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, the daughter of Harry D Taylor and Ida LaBertha (Barrett) Taylor, Estelle married three times. Her first husband was banker Kenneth Malcolm Peacock, her second was William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey
Jack Dempsey
William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey was an American boxer who held the world heavyweight title from 1919 to 1926. Dempsey's aggressive style and exceptional punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history. Many of his fights set financial and attendance records, including the first...
, the world heavyweight boxing champion, and her third, theatrical producer Paul Smith
Paul Smith
Paul Smith may refer to:In music:*Paul Smith , British record label manager and art event producer*Paul Smith , prominent composer of American film music*Paul Smith , Los Angeles jazz pianist...
. She had no children.
After relocating to Hollywood, she began taking bit parts in films. One of Taylor's earliest successes was in 1920 in Fox's While New York Sleeps
While New York Sleeps
Bold text'While New York Sleeps is a crime drama produced by Fox Film Corporation and directed by Charles Brabin, then husband of Theda Bara. The film tells three distinct episodic stories using the same actors, Estelle Taylor and Marc McDermott...
with Marc McDermott
Marc McDermott
Marcus McDermott was an Australian-born American actor who starred on Broadway and in over 180 American films from 1909 until his death.-Early life and career:...
. She and McDermott play three sets of characters in different time periods. This film was lost for decades, but has been recently discovered and screened at a film festival in Los Angeles. Taylor is possibly best recalled for her roles in the 1922 drama Monte Cristo
Monte Cristo (1922 film)
Monte Cristo is a 1922 silent film produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation and directed by Emmett J. Flynn. It is based on the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, which was adapted by 19th century thespian Charles Fechter and written for this screen version by Bernard...
, opposite John Gilbert
John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert was an American actor and a major star of the silent film era.Known as "the great lover," he rivaled even Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw...
; the enormously successful 1923 Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
directed The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (1923 film)
The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American epic silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Theodore Roberts as Moses, Charles de Rochefort as Pharaoh Ramesses, Estelle Taylor as Miriam the sister of Moses, and James Neill as Aaron, the brother of Moses...
as Miriam, the sister of Moses; as Lucrezia Borgia in the 1926 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
' first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
sound effects and musical soundtrack Don Juan
Don Juan (1926 film)
Don Juan is a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue...
, with John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
, Mary Astor
Mary Astor
Mary Astor was an American actress. Most remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost...
and Warner Oland
Warner Oland
Warner Oland was a Swedish American actor most remembered for his screen role as the detective Charlie Chan.-Biography:He was born Johan Verner Ölund in the village of Nyby, Bjurholm Municipality,...
; 1927's New York, featuring Ricardo Cortez
Ricardo Cortez
Jacob Krantz , known by his stage name Ricardo Cortez, was an American film actor who began his career during the silent era.-Life and career:...
and Lois Wilson; 1931's Street Scene
Street Scene (1931 film)
Street Scene is a 1931 black-and-white drama film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by King Vidor. With a screenplay by Elmer Rice adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Street Scene takes place on a New York City street from one evening until the following afternoon...
with Sylvia Sidney
Sylvia Sidney
Sylvia Sidney was an American actress who rose to prominence in the 1930s appearing in numerous crime dramas.-Early life:...
; the Academy Award-winning Cimarron
Cimarron (1931 film)
Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...
; and the Clara Bow
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
talkie Call Her Savage
Call Her Savage
Call Her Savage is a Pre-Code drama film directed by John Francis Dillon and starring Clara Bow as a wild young woman who rebels against the man she believes to be her father...
in 1932.
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
champion Jack Dempsey in 1925. She was supposed to have co-starred in a movie with Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
, which would have brought her more widespread fame, but he died just before production was to begin. In 1928, she and husband Dempsey starred in a Broadway play titled The Big Fight, loosely based around Dempsey's boxing popularity, which ran for 31 performances at the Majestic Theatre.
When she divorced Dempsey in July 1933, she walked away with $40,000 in cash as well as three of their cars and their $150,000 estate. When a fan came up to her for an autographed picture of her which had Dempsey's name on top, she allegedly wrote "This is the last time that son-of-a-bitch will be on top of me."
Taylor was a close friend of Mexican-born actress Lupe Vélez
Lupe Vélez
Lupe Vélez was a Mexican film actress. Vélez began her career in Mexico as a dancer, before moving to the U.S. where she worked in vaudeville. She was seen by Fanny Brice who promoted her, and Vélez soon entered films, making her first appearance in 1924. By the end of the decade she had...
. On the evening of December 13, 1944, she spent several hours at a restaurant having dinner and drinks with the actress before Vélez returned home and committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. The ensuing press coverage briefly propelled Taylor once again into the headlines.
Taylor's last film appearance was in the 1945 Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
directed drama The Southerner. In her later years, Taylor devoted her free time to her pets and was the president and founder of the California Pet Owners' Protective League. In 1953, Taylor served on the City Animal Regulation Commission in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
Taylor died in 1958. She had been suffering for some time with cancer and had been bedridden the last six months. She was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...
.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Estelle Taylor was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 1620 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
In a 1983 American made-for-television movie biopic of Jack Dempsey, Estelle Taylor was portrayed by British actress Victoria Tennant
Victoria Tennant
Victoria Tennant is an English film and television actress.-Early life:Tennant was born in London, England. Her mother, Irina Baronova, was a Russian prima ballerina who appeared with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, and her father, Cecil Tennant, was an English producer and talent agent who ran...
.
Partial filmography
- While New York SleepsWhile New York SleepsBold text'While New York Sleeps is a crime drama produced by Fox Film Corporation and directed by Charles Brabin, then husband of Theda Bara. The film tells three distinct episodic stories using the same actors, Estelle Taylor and Marc McDermott...
(1920) - Blind WivesBlind WivesBlind Wives is a 1920 silent film drama produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation and directed by Charles Brabin. The film reunites director Brabin with the stars of his previous success While New York Sleeps, Marc McDermott and Estelle Taylor. The film is based on a 1914 Broadway stage play...
(1920) - Monte CristoMonte Cristo (1922 film)Monte Cristo is a 1922 silent film produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation and directed by Emmett J. Flynn. It is based on the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, which was adapted by 19th century thespian Charles Fechter and written for this screen version by Bernard...
(1922) - The Ten CommandmentsThe Ten Commandments (1923 film)The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American epic silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Theodore Roberts as Moses, Charles de Rochefort as Pharaoh Ramesses, Estelle Taylor as Miriam the sister of Moses, and James Neill as Aaron, the brother of Moses...
(1923) - Dorothy Vernon of Haddon HallDorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (film)Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall is a 1924 silent historical drama directed by Marshall Neilan. The film is based upon the 1902 novel by the same name.-Production:...
(1924) - The AlaskanThe Alaskan (1924 film)The Alaskan is a 1924 silent adventure drama based on a novel by James Oliver Curwood set in northwoods country as his novels tend to be. In this case Alaska. The film was produced and released by Paramount Pictures and directed by Herbert Brenon...
(1924) - Don JuanDon Juan (1926 film)Don Juan is a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue...
(1926) - Where East Is EastWhere East Is EastWhere East Is East, is a 1929 silent movie starring Lon Chaney, Sr. as an animal trapper in Laos. The picture is Chaney's penultimate silent film and the last of his collaborations with director Tod Browning...
(1929) - CimarronCimarron (1931 film)Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...
(1931) - Street SceneStreet Scene (1931 film)Street Scene is a 1931 black-and-white drama film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by King Vidor. With a screenplay by Elmer Rice adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Street Scene takes place on a New York City street from one evening until the following afternoon...
(1931) - The Unholy GardenThe Unholy Garden (1931 film)The Unholy Garden is a 1931 drama film directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring Ronald Colman. It was based on a story by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. -Plot:...
(1931) - The SouthernerThe Southerner (1945 film)The Southerner is a 1945 American film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also...
(1945)