William Desmond Taylor
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William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner) (April 26, 1872 – February 1, 1922) was an actor, successful US film director of silent movies, and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s. [1] He was the victim of a murder that remains officially unsolved, but involved several known suspects, both men and women. Several books and websites describe details about the murder, including what some suspects said of each other, [2] along with many photographs of the people and locations.
Following other scandals, the murder of William Desmond Taylor was a catalyst that brought censorship to Hollywood movies and morality clauses to acting contracts.[2] In the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, the aging actress was named "Norma Desmond" in reference to Taylor's middle name and one of his actress friends, Mabel Normand.[2]
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[edit] Life and Career
Born in Carlow, Ireland, he sailed for America in 1890, when he was 18 years old.[1] [3] A short acting career in New York City followed, which he quit after marrying Ethel May Harrison on December 7, 1901,[3] the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street broker who provided Taylor with funding to set up a business. He and his wife were well-known in New York society until he abruptly vanished in 1908 at the age of 36, deserting his wife and daughter.[1]
Changing his name to William Desmond Taylor,[1] he moved to Hollywood in December 1912,[3] and worked successfully as an actor before making his first film as director (The Awakening) in 1915. Over the next few years, he directed more than fifty films, served in the Canadian Army, and was President of the Motion Picture Directors Association. He directed some of the great stars of his 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.
[edit] Unsolved Murder
At 7:30 a.m. on the morning of February 2, 1922, [4] the body of William Desmond Taylor was found inside his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments[4], 404-B South Alvarado Street, [5] 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 heart attack (or a stomach hemorrhage) and was never seen again. Sometime later doubts arose, the police rolled the body over, and it was discovered the 49-year-old film director had been shot in the back.
In the pockets of William Desmond Taylor were a wallet holding $78, a silver cigarette case, a Waltham pocket watch, and an ivory toothpick; a two-carat diamond ring was on his finger. [6] A sum of $5000 in cash, which Taylor had shown to his accountant the day before, was missing and never accounted for.
After investigation, the time of death for William Desmond Taylor was set at 7:50 p.m. on February 1, 1922.[5]
[edit] Suspects and Associates
Edward Sands had prior convictions for embezzlement, forgery and desertion from the US military. Born in Ohio, he had multiple aliases, spoke with a false cockney accent, and had worked as Taylor's valet and cook, until seven months before the murder. While William Desmond Taylor had been in Europe the summer before, Sands had forged Taylor's checks and wrecked his car. Later he burglarized the bungalow, leaving footprints on Taylor's bed. He is said to have quit a job in northern California the day Taylor was murdered, and Edward Sands was never found, although some sources say he was found drowned in the Sacramento River or died in Connecticut.
Henry Peavey was Taylor’s black valet, known for wearing flashy golf costumes (although he didn't own any golf clubs). He discovered the body. Peavy was illiterate and bisexual, and his prior history before working for Taylor included arrests for vagrancy and public indecency involving underaged boys. Taylor had put up bail for him and was due to appear in court on his behalf. Initially suspected of the crime, Peavy was cleared by police. Before his death in 1937, a magazine published an interview in which Henry Peavey stated the murder had been committed by "a well-known actress and her mother" (i.e., Taylor's young lover Mary Miles Minter and her ambitious mother Charlotte Shelby). Another rival magazine published Peavey's comment as "a well-known actress," with neither magazine qualifying the statement. Henry Peavey was said to have died in an insane asylum.
Mabel Normand was a popular comedic actress as well as a close friend and associate of Taylor, who had a public anti-drug stance and was alleged to have been deeply concerned by Normand’s cocaine addiction, and this may have later developed into a romantic relationship. She was the last person known to have seen him alive, having left his home in a happy mood at 7:45 p.m. on the evening of the murder. Normand was rejected by her fans after her reputation was tarnished through association with murder and revelations of her drug use. A few years later, she attempted a comeback in films, but the public was uninterested. Tuberculosis and the lingering effects of her prior drug addiction killed Mabel Normand in 1930.
Faith Cole McLean was the wife of actor Douglas MacLean, and the couple were neighbours. At 8 p.m. she heard a loud noise which startled her. Going to her front door to investigate, she came face to face with a young man who was emerging from Taylor’s home. McLean described how he paused for a moment before he turned and walked back through the door as if he had forgotten something, re-emerged, flashed a smile and disappeared. His casual manner caused no suspicion for McLean, who decided she had heard a car backfire. She also said this person may have been a woman disguised as a man, but did not look like Edward Sands. Her stories, however, could never be verified.
Charles Eyton was the General Manager of Paramount Studios. After Taylor’s death, several people said Eyton had organised a party of employees to enter Taylor’s home and remove incriminating items before police were notified of the death. Director King Vidor later recalled a conversation with art director George Hopkins, who said he had helped remove items linking Taylor sexually to several Hollywood actresses, along with a number of underage males which Henry Peavey had procured for him.
Mary Miles Minter was a popular actress and teen screen idol who had been guided through her career by Taylor. Personal letters found in Taylor’s home suggested the possibility of an intimate relationship between the 49-year-old Taylor and 22-year-old Minter, that had started when she was below the age of consent. Minter was vilified in the press after Taylor’s murder. The suggestive letters were at odds with her screen image of a modest young girl. Rejected first by her fans, then by the Hollywood Studios, she left films entirely. Never comfortable with her career as an actress, she proclaimed her love for Taylor throughout the rest of her long life, dying in obscurity (although wealthy due to smart investments) in 1984.
Charlotte Shelby was Minter’s mother. She was described as having an obsessive hold over her daughter and a vested interest in her career. Writer Adela Rogers St. Johns speculated that Shelby was torn by feelings of maternal protection for her daughter and her own attraction for Taylor. Others, including Minter's sister, accused Shelby of wanton greed and manipulation, but she and her mother were bitterly divided by financial disputes and lawsuits. Shelby reportedly owned a rare .38 caliber pistol and bullets very similar to the kind which killed Taylor, and after this later became public, she had thrown the pistol into a bayou in Louisiana. Shelby knew the Los Angeles district attorney socially and spent years outside the United States in an effort to avoid official inquiries and press coverage related to the murder. In 1938, her other daughter, actress Margaret Shelby, blatantly accused her mother of the murder to her face during an argument. In 1967, director King Vidor investigated the Taylor murder for a film and concluded: while Taylor escorted Mabel Normand to her car at 7 p.m., Charlotte Shelby entered the bungalow at the open front door, discovered her daughter Mary Miles Minter hiding inside (the nightgown police found), and realizing the affair, Shelby shot William Desmond Taylor within an hour of his return.[4]
[edit] Theories
Through a combination of poor crime scene management and apparent corruption, much physical evidence was immediately lost, and the rest vanished over the years. No court records or police files are known to remain. Various theories were put forward after the murder, and in the years since, but no hard evidence has ever been uncovered to link the crime to a particular individual other than the below-listed 1964 confession by an alleged former lover.[6]
The murder theories included:
- Taylor’s jealous and bitter first wife returning to kill him;
- His current valet, Henry Peavy, killing him to avoid evidence/testimony of sexual crimes;
- Murder by a disgruntled young man who had offered sexual favors to Taylor only to be rejected;
- A former valet, Edward Sands, returning to rob him or exact revenge;
- An associate from the Canadian Army killing him because of a grudge;
- Mabel Normand committing a drug-related murder;
- Actress Mary Miles Minter killing him in a fit of jealousy, or her mother, Charlotte Shelby, killing him out of either maternal sentiment or jealousy;
- Silent film actress Margaret Gibson confessing on her deathbed in 1964, with no apparent motive or gain as a reason to confess whatsoever.
Various books have expounded upon each theory, but no person has ever been charged with the crime, and the case remains officially open.[6]
[edit] Possible confession in 1964
In 1999 there was a report that in 1964 silent film actress Margaret Gibson (a.k.a. Patricia Palmer), confessed to the murder while dying from a heart attack. Gibson had worked with both Taylor and Minter.
At the time of the confession, Gibson was living in the Hollywood Hills on a widow's pension from an oil company. About a year after the 1922 murder, Gibson had been indicted (but not convicted) in an unrelated blackmail scheme.
[edit] Hollywood legacy
The Taylor murder, along with the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and the drug related deaths of such stars as Olive Thomas, Wallace Reid, Barbara La Marr and Alma Rubens were catalysts in the effort of Hollywood to purge itself of undesirable influences. In the future, contracts would include morality clauses which would allow for contractees to be summarily dismissed if they 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 almost certainly borrowed from Taylor's middle name as a way to resonate with the widely publicized scandals of almost thirty years before.
Taylor directed or acted in over eighty films, many of which are believed to be lost. In 2005, the unmarked murder site was on the asphalt parking lot of a local discount store.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d "The Unsolved Murder of William Desmond Taylor" (biography), University of Southern California (USC), July 2, 2000, USC.edu webpage: USC-Lib-WDTaylor.
- ^ a b c "Taylorology" (about William D. Taylor & era), Literate Web (literateweb.com), September 2003, webpage: LitWeb-WDTaylor.
- ^ a b c "Biography for William Desmond Taylor," IMDb, 2006, webpage: IMDb-WDTaylor.
- ^ a b c "Crime & Passion" (on William Desmond Taylor), "Minx, The Magazine - Volume Two, IssueTwo" (Minx), Neal Patterson, 1998-99, TheMinx-WDTaylor.
- ^ a b "William Desmond Taylor - Internet Accuracy Project" (biography), Internet Accuracy Project, AccuracyProject-WDTaylor.
- ^ a b c "Shot in the Back" (crime analysis), Crime Library, Courtroom Television Network, LLC, 2005, webpage: CLWTaylor.
[edit] References
- Sidney D. Kirkpatrick, A Cast of Killers (King Vidor's view of the Taylor murder), publisher: Onyx; Reprint edition, September 1, 1992, paperback, 336 pages, ISBN 0451174186.
- New York Times; February 8, 1922. "Film star faints at Taylor's funeral; Sands is accused; Miss Normand Weeps as Women Shriek in Rush to Enter Disturb Rites. Thousands storm church. Love Letter on Mary Miles Minter's Stationery Is Found by Police In a Book. She admits she loved him. Dead Man's Butler, It Is Announced, Will Be Charged Today With His Murder. Los Angeles, California; February 7, 1922. Sweeping the police aside crowds stormed the doors of St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral today in an effort to force an entrance when the funeral services were being held for William Desmond Taylor."
