William Desmond Taylor
Encyclopedia
William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner, April 26, 1872 – February 1, 1922) was an Irish-born American actor, successful film director
of silent movie
s and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s. His murder on February 1, 1922, along with other Hollywood scandals such as the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, led to a frenzy of sensationalistic and often fabricated newspaper reports. In the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, the name Norma Desmond is a reference to both Taylor's middle name and one of his actress friends, Mabel Normand
. Taylor's murder remains officially unsolved.
He was born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner into the Anglo-Irish
gentry on April 26, 1872, in Carlow
, Ireland
. He was one of four children of a retired British Army
officer, Major Kearns Deane-Tanner of the Carlow Rifles, and his wife, Jane. His siblings were Denis, Nell, and Daisy. He sailed for America in 1890, when he was 18 years old.
Deane-Tanner briefly pursued a career on the New York City
stage before marrying Ethel May Hamilton. The Episcopalian ceremony took place on December 7, 1901, at the Little Church Around the Corner
; they divorced in 1912. Although she appeared as a member of the Florodora
sextette as Ethel May Harrison, she was the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street
broker who provided him with funding to set up the English Antiques Shop, through which he could support a family. The Tanners were well-known in New York society until he abruptly vanished on October 23, 1908 at the age of 36, following an affair with a married woman, deserting his wife and daughter, Ethel Daisy. Tanner (Taylor) had suffered "mental lapses" before, and the family thought at first that he had wandered off during an episode of aphasia
. Deane-Tanner's brother, Denis, a former lieutenant in the British Army and a manager of a New York antiques business, disappeared in 1912, abandoning his wife and two children.
Changing his name to William Desmond Taylor, he was in Hollywood by December 1912 and worked successfully as an actor—including four appearances opposite Margaret "Gibby" Gibson
—before making his first film as a director, The Awakening (1914). Over the next few years, he directed more than fifty films.
In July 1918, towards the end of World War I
, Taylor enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force
as a private at the age of 46. After training for four and a half months at Camp Fort Edward, Nova Scotia
, Taylor sailed from Halifax on a troop transport carrying five hundred Canadian soldiers. They arrived at Hounslow Barracks, London on December 2, 1918.
Taylor was ultimately assigned to the Royal Army Service Corps
of the Expeditionary Forces Canteen Service, stationed at Dunkirk and promoted to the temporary grade of lieutenant
on January 15, 1919. At the end of April, 1919, Taylor reached his final billet at Berguet, France, as Major Taylor, Company D, Royal Fusiliers.
Returning to Los Angeles on May 14, 1919, Taylor was honored by the Motion Picture Directors Association
with a formal banquet at the Los Angeles Athletic Club
.
After returning from military service, Taylor went on to direct some of the great stars of the era including Mary Pickford
, Wallace Reid
, Dustin Farnum
and his protégée, Mary Miles Minter
, who starred in the 1919 version of Anne of Green Gables
.
Between 1914 and 1919 Taylor was engaged to serial actress Neva Gerber
, whom he had met during the filming of The Awakening. Gerber later recalled, "He was the soul of honor, a man of personal culture, education, and refinement. I have never known a finer or better man."
By this time, Taylor's ex-wife and daughter were aware that he was working in Hollywood. In 1918, both were attending the film Captain Alvarez, when they saw Taylor appear on the screen. Ethel responded, "That's your father!" In response, Ethel Daisy Deane-Tanner wrote to her father in care of the studio. In 1921, Taylor visited his ex-wife and daughter in New York City and made Ethel Daisy his legal heir.
at the Alvarado Court Apartments, 404-B South Alvarado Street, in the Westlake Park
area of downtown Los Angeles, California
, which was then known as a trendy and affluent neighbourhood.
A crowd gathered inside and someone identifying himself as a doctor stepped forward, made a cursory examination of the body, declared the victim had died of a stomach hemorrhage and was never seen again, perhaps owing to his own embarrassment, because when doubts later arose, the body was rolled over and it was discovered the 49-year-old film director had been shot in the back.
after the Armistice, Taylor's casket was draped in a Union Jack and buried with full military honors. After an Episcopalian ceremony, Taylor was interred in a mausoleum at Hollywood Park Memorial Cemetery. The inscription reads, "In Memory of William C. Deane-Tanner, Beloved Father of Ethel Deane-Tanner. Died February 1, 1922."
, a pen knife and a locket
bearing a photograph of actress Mabel Normand
. A two carat (400 mg) diamond ring was on his finger. With the appearance of the money and valuables on Taylor's body, it was clearly apparent that a robbery was not the motive for the killing, but a large but undetermined sum of cash which Taylor had shown to his accountant the day before was missing and apparently never accounted for. After some investigation, the time of Taylor's death was set at 7:50 in the evening of February 1, 1922.
While being interviewed by the police five days after the director's body was found, Mary Minter
said that following the murder a friend, director and actor Marshall Neilan
, told her Taylor had made several highly "delusional" statements about some of his social acquaintances (including her) during the weeks before his death. She also said Neilan thought Taylor had recently become "insane".
In the midst of a media circus caused by the case, Los Angeles Undersheriff Eugene Biscailuz warned Chicago Tribune
reporter Eddie Doherty
, "The industry has been hurt. Stars have been ruined. Stockholders have lost millions of dollars. A lot of people are out of jobs and incensed enough to take a shot at you."
According to Robert Giroux
, "The studios seemed to be fearful that if certain aspects of the case were exposed, it would excacerbate their problems." King Vidor said of the case in 1968: "Last year I interviewed a Los Angeles police detective, now retired, who had been assigned to the case immediately after the murder. He told me, 'We were doing all right and then, before a week was out, we got the word to lay off.'"
Sands
had prior convictions for embezzlement
, forgery
and serial desertion
from the US military. Born in Ohio, he had multiple aliases and spoke with an affected cockney
accent. He had worked as Taylor's valet
and cook up until seven months before the murder. While Taylor was in Europe the summer before, Sands had forged Taylor's checks and wrecked his car. Later Sands burgled Taylor's bungalow, leaving footprints on the film director's bed. Following the murder, Edward Sands was never heard from again. Some accounts claim that Sands' body was found in the Sacramento River
in the early 1930s.
Peavey
was Sands' replacement, Taylor’s African American
valet who found the body. Newspapers noted that Peavey wore flashy golf costumes but did not own any golf clubs
. Peavey was illiterate and bisexual. He had a criminal record which included arrests for vagrancy and public indecency
involving underaged boys. Taylor had recently put up bail for him and was due to appear in court on his behalf.
According to Robert Giroux,
Eight years later, in 1931, Harvey Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum where he had been hospitalized for syphilis
-related dementia.
Normand
was a popular comedic actress and frequent costar with Charlie Chaplin
and Roscoe Arbuckle. According to author Robert Giroux
, Taylor was deeply in love with Normand, who had originally approached him for help in curing her cocaine
dependency. Based upon Normand's subsequent statements to investigators, her repeated relapses were devastating for Taylor. According to Giroux, Taylor met with Federal prosecutors shortly before his death and offered to assist them in filing charges against Normand's cocaine suppliers. Giroux expresses a belief that Normand's suppliers learned of this meeting and hired a contract killer to assassinate the director. According to Giroux, Normand suspected the reasons for her lover's murder, but did not know the identity of the triggerman.
On the night of his murder, Normand left Taylor's bungalow at 7:45 p.m. in a happy mood, carrying a book he had given her as a loan. They blew kisses to each other as her limousine drove away. Normand was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive.
The Los Angeles Police Department
subjected Normand to a grueling interrogation, but ruled her out as a suspect. Most subsequent writers have done the same. However, Normand's career had already slowed and her reputation was tarnished by revelations of her addiction, which was seen as a moral failing. According to George Hopkins, who sat next to her at Taylor's funeral, Normand wept inconsolably throughout the ceremony.
Ultimately, Normand continued to make films throughout the 1920s. She died of tuberculosis
on February 23, 1930. According to her friend and confidant Julia Brew, Normand asked near the end, "Julia, do you think they'll ever find out who killed Bill Taylor?"
and the couple were neighbors of Taylor. They were startled by a loud noise at 8 PM. MacLean went to her front door and came face to face with someone emerging from the front door of Taylor’s home whom she said was dressed "like my idea of a motion picture burglar". She recalled this person paused for a moment before turning and walking back through the door as if having forgotten something, then re-emerged and flashed a smile at her before disappearing between the buildings. MacLean decided she had heard a car back-fire
. She also told police interviewers this person looked "funny" (like movie actors in makeup) and may have been a woman disguised as a man.
was the General Manager of Paramount Pictures
. Several sources claim that in the hours following Taylor's murder, Eyton entered Taylor's bungalow with a group of Paramount employees and removed compromising items, either before police arrived or with their permission.
Minter
was a former child star and teen screen idol whose career had been guided by Taylor. Minter, who had grown up without a father, was only three years older than the daughter Taylor had abandoned in New York. Love letter
s from Minter were found in Taylor’s bungalow. Based upon these, the reporters alleged that a sexual relationship between the 49-year-old Taylor and 19-year-old Minter had started when she was 17.
Robert Giroux
and King Vidor
, however, dispute this allegation. Citing Minter's own statements, both believed that her love for Taylor was unrequited. Taylor had often declined to see Minter and had described himself as too old for her.
However, facsimilies of Minter's passionate letters to Taylor were printed in newspapers, forever shattering her screen image as a modest and wholesome young girl. Minter was vilified in the press. She made four more films for Paramount, and when the studio failed to renew her contract, she received offers from many other producers. Never comfortable as an actress, Minter declined them all. In 1957, she married Brandon O. Hildebrandt, a wealthy Danish-American businessman. She died in wealthy and comfortable obscurity in Santa Monica, California
on August 4, 1984.
Shelby
was Minter’s mother. Like many "stage mothers" before and since, she has been described as consumed by wanton greed and manipulation over her daughter's career. Mary Miles Minter and her mother were bitterly divided by financial disputes and lawsuits for a time, but they later reconciled. Shelby's initial statements to police about the murder are still characterized as evasive and "obviously filled with lies" about both her daughter's relationship with Taylor and "other matters". Perhaps the most compelling bit of circumstantial evidence was that Shelby allegedly owned a rare .38 caliber pistol and unusual bullets very similar to the kind which killed Taylor. After this later became public, she reportedly threw the pistol into a Louisiana
bayou
. Shelby knew the Los Angeles district attorney socially and spent years outside the United States in an effort to avoid official inquiries by his successor and press coverage related to the murder. In 1938 her other daughter, actress Margaret Shelby
(who was by then suffering from both clinical depression and alcoholism), openly accused her mother of the murder during an argument. Shelby was widely suspected of the crime and was a favourite suspect of many writers. For example, Adela Rogers St. Johns
speculated Shelby was torn by feelings of maternal protection for her daughter and her own attraction to Taylor. Although (like Sands) Shelby feared being tried for the murder, at least two Los Angeles county district attorneys publicly declined to prosecute her. Almost twenty years after the murder, Los Angeles district attorney Buron Fitts
concluded there wasn't any evidence for an indictment of Shelby and recommended that the remaining evidence and case files be retained on a permanent basis (all of these materials subsequently disappeared). Shelby died in 1957. Fitts, in ill-health, committed suicide in 1973.
Margaret Gibson was a film actress who worked with Taylor when he first came to Hollywood. In 1917 she was indicted, tried and acquitted on charges equivalent to prostitution (there were also allegations of opium
dealing) and changed her professional name to Patricia Palmer. In 1923 Gibson was arrested and jailed on extortion charges which were later dropped.
Gibson was 27 and in Los Angeles at the time of the murder. There is no record her name was ever mentioned in connection with the investigation. Soon after the murder she got work in a number of films produced by Famous Players-Lasky
, Taylor's studio at the time of his death. One of these films was among the last made by Mary Miles Minter. Gibson (in her words) "fled" the United States to the Far East in 1934, where she married her husband who worked for Socony (later Mobil Oil). However, she returned to Los Angeles in 1940 for medical reasons. Her husband, Elbert Lewis, died in a March 1942 Japanese attack on the Socony oil refinery at Penang
, Straits Settlements
(now Malaysia) during World War II
. Lewis left Gibson with a small pension, which she lived on until her death.
In 1999, the widely cited newsletter Taylorology
published an account that on October 21, 1964, while living in the Hollywood hills under the name Pat Lewis, she suffered a heart attack. As a recently converted Roman Catholic, before dying she confessed she "shot and killed William Desmond Taylor" along with several other things the witness didn't understand and could not remember more than 30 years later. The witness to her confession later repeated his recollection in a televised documentary.
(later retired), transcribed several hundred newspaper and magazine articles from the 1910s and 1920s relating to Taylor, his murder, the suspects, many of Taylor's contemporaries and their links to Taylor. The compiled result is a journal called "Taylorology
" which contains over a thousand pages of text and has been noted as a significant archive of primary and secondary source material relating both to Taylor's murder and the early Los Angeles film colony.
, Wallace Reid
, Barbara La Marr
, and Jeanne Eagels
, which prompted Hollywood studios to begin writing contracts with "morality clauses" or "moral turpitude
clauses", allowing the dismissal of contractees who breached them.
The 1950 film Sunset Boulevard with William Holden
and Gloria Swanson
featured a fictional, aging silent screen actress named Norma Desmond whose name was taken from Taylor's middle name and Mabel Normand's last name as a way to resonate with the widely publicized scandals of almost thirty years before. Gore Vidal
's 1990 novel Hollywood
features a fictionalized account of the Taylor murder.
Taylor directed or acted in over eighty films, most of which are believed to be lost. As of 2009 the unmarked murder site was the asphalt parking lot of a local discount store.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
of silent movie
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
s and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s. His murder on February 1, 1922, along with other Hollywood scandals such as the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, led to a frenzy of sensationalistic and often fabricated newspaper reports. In the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, the name Norma Desmond is a reference to both Taylor's middle name and one of his actress friends, Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
. Taylor's murder remains officially unsolved.
Life and career
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
gentry on April 26, 1872, in Carlow
Carlow
Carlow is the county town of County Carlow in Ireland. It is situated in the south-east of Ireland, 84 km from Dublin. County Carlow is the second smallest county in Ireland by area, however Carlow Town is the 14th largest urban area in Ireland by population according to the 2006 census. The...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. He was one of four children of a retired British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
officer, Major Kearns Deane-Tanner of the Carlow Rifles, and his wife, Jane. His siblings were Denis, Nell, and Daisy. He sailed for America in 1890, when he was 18 years old.
Deane-Tanner briefly pursued a career on the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
stage before marrying Ethel May Hamilton. The Episcopalian ceremony took place on December 7, 1901, at the Little Church Around the Corner
Little Church Around the Corner
The Church of the Transfiguration, also known as the Little Church Around the Corner, is an Episcopal parish church located at 1 East 29th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The congregation was founded in 1848 by the Rev. Dr...
; they divorced in 1912. Although she appeared as a member of the Florodora
Florodora
Florodora is an Edwardian musical comedy and became one of the first successful Broadway musicals of the 20th century. The book was written by Jimmy Davis under the pseudonym Owen Hall, the music was by Leslie Stuart with additional songs by Paul Rubens, and the lyrics were by Edward Boyd-Jones...
sextette as Ethel May Harrison, she was the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
broker who provided him with funding to set up the English Antiques Shop, through which he could support a family. The Tanners were well-known in New York society until he abruptly vanished on October 23, 1908 at the age of 36, following an affair with a married woman, deserting his wife and daughter, Ethel Daisy. Tanner (Taylor) had suffered "mental lapses" before, and the family thought at first that he had wandered off during an episode of aphasia
Aphasia
Aphasia is an impairment of language ability. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write....
. Deane-Tanner's brother, Denis, a former lieutenant in the British Army and a manager of a New York antiques business, disappeared in 1912, abandoning his wife and two children.
Changing his name to William Desmond Taylor, he was in Hollywood by December 1912 and worked successfully as an actor—including four appearances opposite Margaret "Gibby" Gibson
Ella Margaret Gibson
Ella Margaret "Gibby" Gibson , generally known as Margaret Gibson or Patricia Palmer, was an American stage and silent film actress who had leading roles in Vitagraph westerns, often opposite William Clifford. She also appeared with Charles Ray in The Coward and later worked in two Westerns with...
—before making his first film as a director, The Awakening (1914). Over the next few years, he directed more than fifty films.
In July 1918, towards the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Taylor enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force
Canadian Expeditionary Force
The Canadian Expeditionary Force was the designation of the field force created by Canada for service overseas in the First World War. Units of the C.E.F. were divided into field formation in France, where they were organized first into separate divisions and later joined together into a single...
as a private at the age of 46. After training for four and a half months at Camp Fort Edward, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Taylor sailed from Halifax on a troop transport carrying five hundred Canadian soldiers. They arrived at Hounslow Barracks, London on December 2, 1918.
Taylor was ultimately assigned to the Royal Army Service Corps
Royal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps was a corps of the British Army. It was responsible for land, coastal and lake transport; air despatch; supply of food, water, fuel, and general domestic stores such as clothing, furniture and stationery ; administration of...
of the Expeditionary Forces Canteen Service, stationed at Dunkirk and promoted to the temporary grade of lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
on January 15, 1919. At the end of April, 1919, Taylor reached his final billet at Berguet, France, as Major Taylor, Company D, Royal Fusiliers.
Returning to Los Angeles on May 14, 1919, Taylor was honored by the Motion Picture Directors Association
Motion Picture Directors Association
The Motion Picture Directors Association was an American non-profit fraternal organization formed by twenty-six film directors on June 18, 1915 in Los Angeles, California.Its articles of incorporation stated as that the organization existed to:...
with a formal banquet at the Los Angeles Athletic Club
Los Angeles Athletic Club
Los Angeles Athletic Club is an athletic club and private social club in Los Angeles, California, USA. It awards the John R. Wooden Award to the outstanding men's and women's college basketball player of each year....
.
After returning from military service, Taylor went on to direct some of the great stars of the era including Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid was an actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".-Early life:Born William Wallace Reid in St...
, Dustin Farnum
Dustin Farnum
Dustin Lancy Farnum was an American singer, dancer and an actor in silent movies during the early days of motion pictures. After a great success in a number of stage roles, in 1914 he landed his first film role in the movie 'Soldiers of Fortune', and later in Cecil B. DeMille's The Squaw Man...
and his protégée, Mary Miles Minter
Mary Miles Minter
Mary Miles Minter was an American film actress of the silent film era.-Early life and rise to stardom:Born Juliet Reilly in Shreveport, Louisiana, Minter was the daughter of Broadway actress Charlotte Shelby...
, who starred in the 1919 version of Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables (1919 film)
Anne of Green Gables is a silent film directed by William Desmond Taylor based upon the novel, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This version is notable for having been adapted by famed female screenwriter Frances Marion...
.
Between 1914 and 1919 Taylor was engaged to serial actress Neva Gerber
Neva Gerber
Neva Gerber , was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 128 films between 1912 and 1930.She was born in Chicago, Illinois to S. Nelson Gerber and Jean Pullman. Her parents were separated when she was young and her mother moved her to Los Angeles, California. Neva was raised by nuns...
, whom he had met during the filming of The Awakening. Gerber later recalled, "He was the soul of honor, a man of personal culture, education, and refinement. I have never known a finer or better man."
By this time, Taylor's ex-wife and daughter were aware that he was working in Hollywood. In 1918, both were attending the film Captain Alvarez, when they saw Taylor appear on the screen. Ethel responded, "That's your father!" In response, Ethel Daisy Deane-Tanner wrote to her father in care of the studio. In 1921, Taylor visited his ex-wife and daughter in New York City and made Ethel Daisy his legal heir.
Murder
At 7:30 a.m. on the morning of February 2, 1922, the body of William Desmond Taylor was found inside his bungalowBungalow
A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...
at the Alvarado Court Apartments, 404-B South Alvarado Street, in the Westlake Park
Westlake, Los Angeles, California
Westlake is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. It should not be confused with Westlake Village, an independent municipality in Los Angeles County near Thousand Oaks and close to the Ventura County line....
area of downtown 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...
, which was then known as a trendy and affluent neighbourhood.
A crowd gathered inside and someone identifying himself as a doctor stepped forward, made a cursory examination of the body, declared the victim had died of a stomach hemorrhage and was never seen again, perhaps owing to his own embarrassment, because when doubts later arose, the body was rolled over and it was discovered the 49-year-old film director had been shot in the back.
Funeral
Taylor's funeral took place on February 7, 1922 at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral. Despite having reached the Western FrontWestern Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
after the Armistice, Taylor's casket was draped in a Union Jack and buried with full military honors. After an Episcopalian ceremony, Taylor was interred in a mausoleum at Hollywood Park Memorial Cemetery. The inscription reads, "In Memory of William C. Deane-Tanner, Beloved Father of Ethel Deane-Tanner. Died February 1, 1922."
Investigation
In Taylor's pockets were a wallet holding $78 in cash, a silver cigarette case, a Waltham pocket watchPocket watch
A pocket watch is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popular after World War I during which a transitional design,...
, a pen knife and a locket
Locket
A locket is a pendant that opens to reveal a space used for storing a photograph or other small item such as a curl of hair. Lockets are usually given to loved ones on holidays such as Valentine's Day and occasions such as Christenings, weddings and, most noticeably during the Victorian Age,...
bearing a photograph of actress Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
. A two carat (400 mg) diamond ring was on his finger. With the appearance of the money and valuables on Taylor's body, it was clearly apparent that a robbery was not the motive for the killing, but a large but undetermined sum of cash which Taylor had shown to his accountant the day before was missing and apparently never accounted for. After some investigation, the time of Taylor's death was set at 7:50 in the evening of February 1, 1922.
While being interviewed by the police five days after the director's body was found, Mary Minter
Mary Miles Minter
Mary Miles Minter was an American film actress of the silent film era.-Early life and rise to stardom:Born Juliet Reilly in Shreveport, Louisiana, Minter was the daughter of Broadway actress Charlotte Shelby...
said that following the murder a friend, director and actor Marshall Neilan
Marshall Neilan
Marshall Ambrose Neilan was an American motion picture actor, screenwriter, film director, and producer.-Early life:...
, told her Taylor had made several highly "delusional" statements about some of his social acquaintances (including her) during the weeks before his death. She also said Neilan thought Taylor had recently become "insane".
In the midst of a media circus caused by the case, Los Angeles Undersheriff Eugene Biscailuz warned Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
reporter Eddie Doherty
Eddie Doherty
Edward J. "Eddie" Doherty was a famed American newspaper reporter, best-selling author, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of the Madonna House Apostolate, and later ordained a priest in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church....
, "The industry has been hurt. Stars have been ruined. Stockholders have lost millions of dollars. A lot of people are out of jobs and incensed enough to take a shot at you."
According to Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux was an influential American book editor and publisher. Starting his editing career with Harcourt, Brace & Co., he was hired away to work for Roger W. Straus, Jr. at Farrar & Straus in 1955, where he became a partner and, eventually, its chairman...
, "The studios seemed to be fearful that if certain aspects of the case were exposed, it would excacerbate their problems." King Vidor said of the case in 1968: "Last year I interviewed a Los Angeles police detective, now retired, who had been assigned to the case immediately after the murder. He told me, 'We were doing all right and then, before a week was out, we got the word to lay off.'"
Suspects and witnesses
More than a dozen individuals were eventually named as suspects by both the press and the police. Newspaper reports at the time were both overwhelmingly sensationalized and speculative, even fabricated, and the murder was used as the basis for much subsequent "true crime" fiction. Many inaccuracies were carried forward by later writers who used articles from the popular press as their sources. Overall, most accounts have consistently focused on seven people as suspects and witnesses.Edward Sands
Edward F. Sands
Edward F. Sands, born Edward Fitzgerald Snyder, a.k.a. Edward Fitzwilliam Strathmore, a.k.a. Jazz, was a suspect in the murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor on February 1, 1922....
had prior convictions for embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
, forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
and serial desertion
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
from the US military. Born in Ohio, he had multiple aliases and spoke with an affected cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
accent. He had worked as Taylor's valet
Valet
Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...
and cook up until seven months before the murder. While Taylor was in Europe the summer before, Sands had forged Taylor's checks and wrecked his car. Later Sands burgled Taylor's bungalow, leaving footprints on the film director's bed. Following the murder, Edward Sands was never heard from again. Some accounts claim that Sands' body was found in the Sacramento River
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River is an important watercourse of Northern and Central California in the United States. The largest river in California, it rises on the eastern slopes of the Klamath Mountains, and after a journey south of over , empties into Suisun Bay, an arm of the San Francisco Bay, and...
in the early 1930s.
Henry Peavey
Henry Peavey
Henry Peavey was the illiterate African American cook and valet of Hollywood silent film director William Desmond Taylor for six months. His prior history before working for Taylor included employment by Mrs. Christy Cabanne...
was Sands' replacement, Taylor’s African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
valet who found the body. Newspapers noted that Peavey wore flashy golf costumes but did not own any golf clubs
Golf club (equipment)
A golf club is used to hit a golf ball in a game of golf. Each club is composed of a shaft with a grip and a clubhead. Woods are mainly used for long-distance fairway or tee shots; irons, the most versatile class, are used for a variety of shots; Hybrids that combine design elements of woods and...
. Peavey was illiterate and bisexual. He had a criminal record which included arrests for vagrancy and public indecency
Public indecency
Public indecency refers to conduct undertaken in a non-private or publicly-viewable location, which are deemed indecent in nature, such as indecent exposure and sexual intercourse or masturbation in public view. Such activity is often illegal...
involving underaged boys. Taylor had recently put up bail for him and was due to appear in court on his behalf.
According to Robert Giroux,
Even though the police decided, after severe questioning, that Peavey was not the murderer, the Hollywood correspondent of the New York Daily NewsNew York Daily NewsThe Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
, Florabel MuirFlorabel MuirFlorabel Muir was an American reporter and newspaper columnist from the 1920s through the 1950s. She was famous for covering both Hollywood celebrities and underworld gangsters....
, came to a private conclusion that Peavey was the murderer. In that era of ingenious women reporters, Muir thought she could engineer a scoop by tricking Peavey into a confession. She knew (from the movies) that blacks were deathly afraid of ghosts. With the help of two confederates, Frank Carson and Al Weinshank, she offered Peavey ten dollars if he would identify Taylor's grave in the Hollywood Park Cemetery (which she had already visited). Weinshank had gone on ahead with a white sheet, and Muir and Carson drove Peavey to the site. Weinshank, who came from a tough section of ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, spoke with the accents of a hoodlum. When he loomed up in the sheet and cried out, "I am the ghost of William Desmond Taylor. You murdered me. Confess, Peavey!" Henry laughed out loud. Then he cursed them roundly. Unfortunately for Muir, she was unaware that Taylor had a distinctive British accent. Weinshank, as Muir revealed in her memoirs, not only spoke like a hoodlum but was one of the Chicago mobsters who later were gunned down in the infamous St. Valentine's Day MassacreSt. Valentine's Day massacreThe Saint Valentine's Day massacre is the name given to the 1929 murder of 7 mob associates as part of a prohibition era conflict between two powerful criminal gangs in Chicago: the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone and the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran. Former members of the...
.
Eight years later, in 1931, Harvey Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum where he had been hospitalized for syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
-related dementia.
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
was a popular comedic actress and frequent costar with Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
and Roscoe Arbuckle. According to author Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux was an influential American book editor and publisher. Starting his editing career with Harcourt, Brace & Co., he was hired away to work for Roger W. Straus, Jr. at Farrar & Straus in 1955, where he became a partner and, eventually, its chairman...
, Taylor was deeply in love with Normand, who had originally approached him for help in curing her cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
dependency. Based upon Normand's subsequent statements to investigators, her repeated relapses were devastating for Taylor. According to Giroux, Taylor met with Federal prosecutors shortly before his death and offered to assist them in filing charges against Normand's cocaine suppliers. Giroux expresses a belief that Normand's suppliers learned of this meeting and hired a contract killer to assassinate the director. According to Giroux, Normand suspected the reasons for her lover's murder, but did not know the identity of the triggerman.
On the night of his murder, Normand left Taylor's bungalow at 7:45 p.m. in a happy mood, carrying a book he had given her as a loan. They blew kisses to each other as her limousine drove away. Normand was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive.
The Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
subjected Normand to a grueling interrogation, but ruled her out as a suspect. Most subsequent writers have done the same. However, Normand's career had already slowed and her reputation was tarnished by revelations of her addiction, which was seen as a moral failing. According to George Hopkins, who sat next to her at Taylor's funeral, Normand wept inconsolably throughout the ceremony.
Ultimately, Normand continued to make films throughout the 1920s. She died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
on February 23, 1930. According to her friend and confidant Julia Brew, Normand asked near the end, "Julia, do you think they'll ever find out who killed Bill Taylor?"
Faith Cole MacLean
MacLean is widely believed to have seen the killer. MacLean was the wife of actor Douglas MacLeanDouglas MacLean
Douglas MacLean was a silent motion picture actor, producer, and writer.-Life and career:...
and the couple were neighbors of Taylor. They were startled by a loud noise at 8 PM. MacLean went to her front door and came face to face with someone emerging from the front door of Taylor’s home whom she said was dressed "like my idea of a motion picture burglar". She recalled this person paused for a moment before turning and walking back through the door as if having forgotten something, then re-emerged and flashed a smile at her before disappearing between the buildings. MacLean decided she had heard a car back-fire
Back-fire
A Back-fire or backfire is an explosion produced by a running internal combustion engine that occurs in the air intake or exhaust system rather than inside the combustion chamber. The same term is used when unburned fuel or hydrocarbons are ignited somewhere in the exhaust system. A visible flame...
. She also told police interviewers this person looked "funny" (like movie actors in makeup) and may have been a woman disguised as a man.
Charles Eyton
EytonCharles Eyton
Charles Eyton was an actor-producer who became General Manager of Famous Players-Lasky Corporation during the silent film era....
was the General Manager of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. Several sources claim that in the hours following Taylor's murder, Eyton entered Taylor's bungalow with a group of Paramount employees and removed compromising items, either before police arrived or with their permission.
Mary Miles Minter
Mary Miles Minter
Mary Miles Minter was an American film actress of the silent film era.-Early life and rise to stardom:Born Juliet Reilly in Shreveport, Louisiana, Minter was the daughter of Broadway actress Charlotte Shelby...
was a former child star and teen screen idol whose career had been guided by Taylor. Minter, who had grown up without a father, was only three years older than the daughter Taylor had abandoned in New York. Love letter
Love letter
A love letter is a romantic way to express feelings of love in written form. Delivered by hand, by mail or romantically left in a secret location, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation of feelings...
s from Minter were found in Taylor’s bungalow. Based upon these, the reporters alleged that a sexual relationship between the 49-year-old Taylor and 19-year-old Minter had started when she was 17.
Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux was an influential American book editor and publisher. Starting his editing career with Harcourt, Brace & Co., he was hired away to work for Roger W. Straus, Jr. at Farrar & Straus in 1955, where he became a partner and, eventually, its chairman...
and King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
, however, dispute this allegation. Citing Minter's own statements, both believed that her love for Taylor was unrequited. Taylor had often declined to see Minter and had described himself as too old for her.
However, facsimilies of Minter's passionate letters to Taylor were printed in newspapers, forever shattering her screen image as a modest and wholesome young girl. Minter was vilified in the press. She made four more films for Paramount, and when the studio failed to renew her contract, she received offers from many other producers. Never comfortable as an actress, Minter declined them all. In 1957, she married Brandon O. Hildebrandt, a wealthy Danish-American businessman. She died in wealthy and comfortable obscurity in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
on August 4, 1984.
Charlotte Shelby
Charlotte Shelby
Charlotte Shelby was a popular Broadway actress in her youth and was long noted as a suspect in the murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor.-Stage mother to scandal:...
was Minter’s mother. Like many "stage mothers" before and since, she has been described as consumed by wanton greed and manipulation over her daughter's career. Mary Miles Minter and her mother were bitterly divided by financial disputes and lawsuits for a time, but they later reconciled. Shelby's initial statements to police about the murder are still characterized as evasive and "obviously filled with lies" about both her daughter's relationship with Taylor and "other matters". Perhaps the most compelling bit of circumstantial evidence was that Shelby allegedly owned a rare .38 caliber pistol and unusual bullets very similar to the kind which killed Taylor. After this later became public, she reportedly threw the pistol into a Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
bayou
Bayou
A bayou is an American term for a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying areas, and can refer either to an extremely slow-moving stream or river , or to a marshy lake or wetland. The name "bayou" can also refer to creeks that see level changes due to tides and hold brackish water which...
. Shelby knew the Los Angeles district attorney socially and spent years outside the United States in an effort to avoid official inquiries by his successor and press coverage related to the murder. In 1938 her other daughter, actress Margaret Shelby
Margaret Shelby
Margaret Shelby was an American stage and motion picture actress, daughter of actress Charlotte Shelby, older sister of silent film star Mary Miles Minter and one of many public figures noted in the scandals which followed the murder of William Desmond Taylor in 1922.-Film career:Born as Margaret...
(who was by then suffering from both clinical depression and alcoholism), openly accused her mother of the murder during an argument. Shelby was widely suspected of the crime and was a favourite suspect of many writers. For example, Adela Rogers St. Johns
Adela Rogers St. Johns
Adela Rogers St. Johns was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies and, late in life, appeared with other early twentieth-century figures as one of the 'witnesses' in Warren Beatty's Reds, but she is best remembered for her...
speculated Shelby was torn by feelings of maternal protection for her daughter and her own attraction to Taylor. Although (like Sands) Shelby feared being tried for the murder, at least two Los Angeles county district attorneys publicly declined to prosecute her. Almost twenty years after the murder, Los Angeles district attorney Buron Fitts
Buron Fitts
Buron Rogers Fitts was a California politician, who was the 29th Lieutenant Governor of the state from 1927 to 1928 and Los Angeles County district attorney thereafter until 1940....
concluded there wasn't any evidence for an indictment of Shelby and recommended that the remaining evidence and case files be retained on a permanent basis (all of these materials subsequently disappeared). Shelby died in 1957. Fitts, in ill-health, committed suicide in 1973.
Margaret Gibson's 1964 confession
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
dealing) and changed her professional name to Patricia Palmer. In 1923 Gibson was arrested and jailed on extortion charges which were later dropped.
Gibson was 27 and in Los Angeles at the time of the murder. There is no record her name was ever mentioned in connection with the investigation. Soon after the murder she got work in a number of films produced by Famous Players-Lasky
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, Taylor's studio at the time of his death. One of these films was among the last made by Mary Miles Minter. Gibson (in her words) "fled" the United States to the Far East in 1934, where she married her husband who worked for Socony (later Mobil Oil). However, she returned to Los Angeles in 1940 for medical reasons. Her husband, Elbert Lewis, died in a March 1942 Japanese attack on the Socony oil refinery at Penang
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
, Straits Settlements
Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia.Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867...
(now Malaysia) during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Lewis left Gibson with a small pension, which she lived on until her death.
In 1999, the widely cited newsletter Taylorology
Taylorology
Taylorology was a fanzine centered on the unsolved 1922 murder of Hollywood silent film director William Desmond Taylor. The editor was Bruce Long, a staff member at Arizona State University....
published an account that on October 21, 1964, while living in the Hollywood hills under the name Pat Lewis, she suffered a heart attack. As a recently converted Roman Catholic, before dying she confessed she "shot and killed William Desmond Taylor" along with several other things the witness didn't understand and could not remember more than 30 years later. The witness to her confession later repeated his recollection in a televised documentary.
Taylorology
From 1993 to 2000 Bruce Long, a staff member at Arizona State UniversityArizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
(later retired), transcribed several hundred newspaper and magazine articles from the 1910s and 1920s relating to Taylor, his murder, the suspects, many of Taylor's contemporaries and their links to Taylor. The compiled result is a journal called "Taylorology
Taylorology
Taylorology was a fanzine centered on the unsolved 1922 murder of Hollywood silent film director William Desmond Taylor. The editor was Bruce Long, a staff member at Arizona State University....
" which contains over a thousand pages of text and has been noted as a significant archive of primary and secondary source material relating both to Taylor's murder and the early Los Angeles film colony.
Lack of evidence
Through a combination of poor crime scene management and apparent corruption, much physical evidence was immediately lost, and the rest vanished over the years (although copies of a few documents from the police files were made public in 2007). Various theories were put forward after the murder and in the years since, along with the publication of many books claiming to have identified the murderer, but no hard evidence was ever uncovered to link the crime to a particular individual. Given Margaret Gibson's thoroughly documented background, the report of her dying confession attracted the attention of film historians, but aside from circumstantial evidence, no independent confirmation has emerged.Hollywood legacy
A spate of newspaper-driven Hollywood scandals during the early 1920s included Taylor's murder, the Roscoe Arbuckle trial and the drug-related deaths of such stars as Olive ThomasOlive Thomas
Olive Thomas was an American silent film actress and model. She is best remembered for her marriage to Jack Pickford and her death.-Early life:...
, Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid was an actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".-Early life:Born William Wallace Reid in St...
, Barbara La Marr
Barbara La Marr
Barbara La Marr was an American stage and film actress, cabaret artist and screenwriter.La Marr was known as "The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful", after a Hearst newspaper feature writer, Adela Rogers St...
, and Jeanne Eagels
Jeanne Eagels
Jeanne Eagels was an American actress on Broadway and in several motion pictures. She was a former Ziegfeld Follies Girl who went on to greater fame on Broadway and in the emerging medium of sound films....
, which prompted Hollywood studios to begin writing contracts with "morality clauses" or "moral turpitude
Moral turpitude
Moral turpitude is a legal concept in the United States that refers to "conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals." It appears in U.S. immigration law from the nineteenth century...
clauses", allowing the dismissal of contractees who breached them.
The 1950 film Sunset Boulevard with William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
and Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
featured a fictional, aging silent screen actress named Norma Desmond whose name was taken from Taylor's middle name and Mabel Normand's last name as a way to resonate with the widely publicized scandals of almost thirty years before. Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
's 1990 novel Hollywood
Hollywood (Vidal novel)
Hollywood is the fifth historical novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series. It was published in 1990. It brings back the fictional Caroline Sanford, Blaise Sanford and James Burden Day and the real Theodore Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst from Empire...
features a fictionalized account of the Taylor murder.
Taylor directed or acted in over eighty films, most of which are believed to be lost. As of 2009 the unmarked murder site was the asphalt parking lot of a local discount store.
Directorial career
Taylor directed more than 60 films. The notable among these include:- The Diamond From the SkyThe Diamond from the SkyThe Diamond from the Sky was a 1915 silent era adventure motion picture serial starring Lottie Pickford, Irving Cummings, Charlotte Burton, and William Russell.Directed by Jacques Jaccard and William Desmond Taylor, the film is considered to be lost...
(1915) - Tom SawyerTom Sawyer (1917 film)Tom Sawyer is a 1917 Paramount Pictures silent film starring Jack Pickford, Robert Gordon, and Clara Horton; it is based on Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer....
(1917) - How Could You, Jean?How Could You Jean?How Could You, Jean? was a silent comedy-drama film, starring Mary Pickford, directed by William Desmond Taylor, and based on a novel by Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd...
(1918) with Mary Pickford - Anne of Green GablesAnne of Green Gables (1919 film)Anne of Green Gables is a silent film directed by William Desmond Taylor based upon the novel, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This version is notable for having been adapted by famed female screenwriter Frances Marion...
(1919) with Mary Miles Minter - Huckleberry Finn (1920)
- The Soul of Youth (1920)
Further reading
- Kirkpatrick, Sidney D.Sidney D. KirkpatrickSidney D. Kirkpatrick is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and a bestselling historical author. He grew up in Stony Brook, Long Island and attended Kent School, Connecticut, Hampshire College, Massachusetts and New York University....
A Cast of Killers (King VidorKing VidorKing Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
's view of the Taylor murder), publisher: Onyx; Reprint edition, September 1, 1992, paperback, 336 pages, ISBN 0-451-17418-6. - 'Fallen Angels, a Blackwood McCabe Hollywood Mystery' by Dominic Lagan, Strategic Books, New York 2009, ISBN 978-1-60860-196-7
External links
- Taylorology Homepage Links to all issues of Taylorology (4 through 98).