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Taylorology Issue 18
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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
* *
* Issue 18 -- June 1994 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Adela Rogers St. Johns:
Eulogy, Apology, Psychology, Mythology
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top film Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
murder on Hollywood and the nation. Primary emphasis will be given toward
reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it for
accuracy.
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Adela Rogers St. Johns was in a unique position to comment on the Taylor case.
Although she was in New York at the time of the murder, her home was in
Hollywood. As the western editor of PHOTOPLAY she was very familiar with life
in the movie colony, the facts and the rumors. In addition she had been good
friends with Mabel Normand for almost a decade prior to the murder. Over the
years, St. Johns wrote several times about the Taylor murder and about the
personalities close to it. Some of her earlier commentary was contradicted by
her later writings. Which was the truth?
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Eulogy
Immediately after Taylor was killed she was interviewed by a New York
newspaper, and then wrote an article eulogizing Taylor.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 4, 1922
NEW YORK HERALD
...Another report brought forward in motion picture circles here was that
the director and Miss Normand had feared trouble of some sort and that they
had made plans secretly to have a wedding to head it off. Miss Adla St. John
[sic], writer on motion picture topics, who has just returned from a trip to
the coast, said she had not heard of such premonitions.
"Mr. Taylor was one of the quietest and best liked men in the motion
picture colony," she said. "His death came as a sudden shock to me, as it did
to all his friends here. I don't know of his having had an enemy. Every player
was delighted every time he heard he was going to be under Mr. Taylor's
direction."
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February 5, 1922
Adela Rogers St. Johns
BOSTON ADVERTISER
February 13, 1922
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
(New York)--One of the last people I said good-bye to when I left
Hollywood a month ago was William D. Taylor.
Now--Bill Taylor is dead, foully murdered, cut down in the prime of a
manhood that was a rock of all of us.
And it isn't very easy to write about him.
There are so many, many things that I remember about him.
So many kind, fine, big things. So much that was worth while, that was
inspirational and clean.
If they had to shoot a director, there are a lot we could have spared
rather well.
Neither his friends--and I have the honor to count myself in that list--
nor the motion picture industry could spare William D. Taylor.
As a general rule, I don't hold much of a brief for men.
I'm not particularly keen about being a woman, and I certainly wouldn't
want to be an angel. But a man--heaven deliver us!
But William D. Taylor was the sort of man that revived your faith in the
sex.
For three years it has been my business, as Western editor of a motion
picture magazine, to know as much as possible about what was going on in the
film capital. I spend my days around the studios, gathering news and
overhearing scandal--when there is any. I flatter myself that my earlier
training as a reporter has helped me to keep pretty close tabs on what goes on
in Hollywood.
In these three years, in which I have known Mr. Taylor pretty well, I
have never heard one thing said against him, one breath of criticism, one
whispered scandal circulating about the studio lots.
And that is saying a good deal of a place where we have nothing to talk
about but each other.
Why, everybody adored him.
Betty Compson dropped into my house to say good-by two evenings before I
left. She was more radiant than usual, because Mr. Taylor was going to direct
her next picture. Every star on the Lasky lot, man and woman, wanted to work
with him.
He wasn't a genius. I don't believe he knew the meaning of the word
temperament. But he was so steady, so consistent, so sure in his judgments,
that he couldn't turn out a bad piece of work.
Did you ever see him?
Tall, bronzed, erect, a captain in the Canadian [sic] army, with all the
dignity of bearing of a soldier. His hair was just beginning to gray, his eyes
were the quiet, calm blue-grey that always gives you a comfortable feeling. A
fine-looking man.
I can't tell you whether or not Mabel Normand and William D. Taylor were
engaged. I don't know. As a matter of fact, I don't think they knew. I have
seen them together, I have been with them together, and I do know that a great
affection and friendship existed between them.
It is my own belief, based entirely on what I saw and on what I know of
Mabel, that eventually they might have married. It was the sort of affection
that leads to marriage.
That's why I feel a great sorrow when I think of this tragedy.
Mabel Normand and I have been friends for twelve years. And the keynote
that I have found in Mabel's character in all those years is loyalty. It's a
fetish, a religion with her. You may not see her for six months, but if you
need her it's as though only six hours had elapsed.
What that child is suffering under this thing no one will ever know.
I am too far away from the scene of the crime to have any settled theory
of it.
But of the theories that I have heard voiced, and that have been wired me
by my friends in Hollywood, I can tell you a little, and I can tell you what I
think of them.
Personally, I believe William Taylor was the victim of a shooting that
had nothing to do with himself or with any act of his. That does happen quite
often, you know. It might even happen to a motion picture director.
Either this valet of his--Sands--with whom he had quarreled, drank a lot
of bootleg whisky and in a frenzy went gunning for the man against whom he
thought he had a grudge, or else some inexperienced burglar, knowing that a
movie director lived in that house and figuring, of course, that all motion
picture directors are rich, broke in to steal, lost his head, shot and ran.
Los Angeles has had a great many holdups lately, most of them done by
boys. And any crime expert will tell you that it is your boy on his first job
who commits murders. Oldtimers generally don't carry a loaded gun.
Then there is the jealousy theory--that possibly some one jealous of
Mabel watched her visit to the Taylor bungalow, saw her leave, and in a red
rage shot down the man with whom she had spent an hour or two.
That doesn't hold water for a very simple reason. Mabel isn't like that.
Mabel is a coquette, a flirt, the kind of a girl that men get crazy about. But-
-Mabel always ends them too quickly for damage. If she goes to a dance and
some nice boy gets a desperate crush on her, Mabel has a lovely time kidding
him. When he calls up the next day and her secretary says, "Mr. So-and-So is
on the phone," Mabel says, "I don't know him. Tell him I've gone to Europe."
In all the years of her picture work Mabel's name has been coupled with
only two men before Taylor's--and both those men are big characters, highly
respected and above suspicion.
As to some ghost from Taylor's past--maybe. I'm not idiot enough to vouch
for any man's past.
But isn't it strange that William Taylor should have anything in his past
that would cause a terrible murder--William Taylor, the fine, clean gentleman
that we all knew and loved so well?
How dare they parallel the shooting of Taylor with the Elwell murder?
What single justification is there for putting the character of a man like
Taylor, against whom not one single concrete thing can be brought, with a man
whose reputation was as notorious as that of Elwell?
How dare they begin immediately the old and always unproven stories of
wild "hop" orgies, of alleged night life in Hollywood that will be "searched
and raked over."
It is an injustice that makes the blood of everyone who knew the man
absolutely boil.
William D. Taylor, president of the Motion Picture Directors'
Association, stood for everything that was clean and fine on the screen. He
had a breadth of vision and a businesslike understanding of what the screen
needed. We are going to feel his loss keenly.
Those of us who loved and revered him have lost a friend, a man who
always thought of others, who had a splendid dignity and strength to which a
lot of us went in trouble.
I can see room for only one emotion--sorrow. I can feel only on thing in
my heart--grief for the loss of my friend, horror at this dastardly cutting
down of a man who should have lived.
That is all I can see for any one to feel.
Some day somebody is going to write for you the truth about Hollywood.
Some day some one is going to tell you the things you ought to know--the bad
things about the small group of people who do wrong, but the truth about the
great body who live decently, cleanly, and normally and who have to suffer
silently the sweeping, and as I say, always unproven denunciations of
Hollywood.
In the meantime, a gentleman has died.
As to who shot William D. Taylor from behind, I am terribly in the dark.
But his I am sure of--when the truth comes out, as it will, there will be
nothing in it to reflect in any way upon the good name of one of the finest
men I have ever known.
Nor upon the good name of the girl who loved him--Mabel Normand.
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Apology
Her eulogy of Taylor was followed by a several articles defending the
reputation of Hollywood, which was being severely attacked in many newspapers.
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February 17, 1922
Adela Rogers St. Johns
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
February 20, 1922
BOSTON ADVERTISER
(Chicago)--What in the world is this all about--this Hollywood stuff?
I have lived in Hollywood for a long time. I graduated from Hollywood
High School more years ago than I like to remember. I've only been away a
month.
But I certainly don't recognize the old home place from some of the lurid
and picturesque descriptions I've been reading lately.
I frankly admit going to a lot of Hollywood parties--a lot of them.
I admit knowing a lot of motion picture stars. First of all, it happens
to be my business. Second, I like 'em and I'm not nearly such a terrible
person as I ought to be to travel with this riproaring, hop-shooting, snow-
sniffing, immoral gang I read about.
My goodness, I wonder where they keep it?
I spend eleven months of the year out there. And I give you my personal
word of honor that I've never seen anybody sticking hypodermic needles in
their tummies yet.
I want to describe to you the best I can some of the "wild parties" I've
sat in on out there.
Last Christmas night the Wallace Reids had open house for their friends.
Mrs. Reid, who used to be Dorothy Davenport, and I have been pals for some ten
years and if any church or league of any kind can show me a finer woman or a
better wife and mother than Dot I'll donate a couple of cut glass bath robes.
Well to get to the party. In the first place, I admit there were a few
bottles around that broke the Volstead act. Why, we were so desperately
vicious we even had wine punch. There were eight or ten disabled soldiers from
the Arrowhead Hospital for whom Wally had sent his car. I remember Jeanie
MacPherson and her mother were there. Little Bill Reid's Christmas tree was
about somewhere.
I suppose we made a lot of noise. Everybody danced and I do remember one
girl who had on a black velvet dress and little pink silk bloomers. She did
some comedy falls for us--like you see in pictures--and I had a flash or two
of pink silk bloomers. You can see much less--or much more--any evening you
drop in at the Follies.
Later in the evening Wally and Dot and Mr. And Mrs. Bill Desmond and my
husband and I got real reckless and played games. We sat down on the floor and
everybody took some cards. Then each represented an animal and when anybody
matched our cards we had to make a noise like the animal we were supposed to
be or else we lost our cards.
That may be terribly immoral but some how it seemed all right to me.
Another party I went to once was at Viola Dana's. It was given in honor
of Winnie Sheehan, vice president of the Fox Company. Yes, they served drinks.
How many homes are there outside of Hollywood that serve drinks at a party?
How many people who have a small cellar occasionally invite in a few friends
and have a glass or two? Is that the sole prerogative of the picture colony?
Is it never done the same anywhere else--in Chicago or New York, for example?
At this party we had the most fascinating entertainment. Viola had
prepared a two-reel feature film with some delicious take-offs on the picture
colony, quite harmless hits at our little personal vanities and
characteristics. Then Alice Lake and Buster Keaton did a lovely burlesque of
the ice scenes from "Way Down East." I never laughed so much in my life.
Afterward we danced. Maybe one or two of the boys drank too much. But I
just spent a month in New York and I saw several instances of that kind--and
they weren't all picture actors, either.
Do you know what I did the last time I spent an evening with Mabel
Normand? Sat before an open fire and read Stephen Leacock out loud. Yes, and
at 10 o'clock we had some hot chocolate. You may disagree with our literary
taste and our choice of refreshment, but surely no moral indictment can be
brought on those grounds.
Somebody published a story not long ago about Mabel making her escort
play horse and let her ride around on his back in a public cafe--said it was
her favorite indoor sport. Well, I don't know who said it and I don't care.
It's a lie. And that's that. I've told her ten million times that her
fantastic sense of humor--which, by the way, you are all glad enough to let
lighten many dark hours for you--ought to be controlled a little and not lead
her into such wild pranks. But, at that, I'll back Mabel Normand as the best
read woman in America--and you can bring on your college professors and your
high-brows any time you like.
My father is a lawyer. From the time I sat in the court room, when my
feet wouldn't touch the floor, I've been taught to weigh evidence. Sit down,
if you're interested in this thing and weigh the evidence a little bit. I
don't mean what people say, but the actual evidence. On what can you base an
indictment of Hollywood? Two or three nasty scandals--the Arbuckle case. The
Taylor murder. But who shot Bill Taylor? Is there anything yet to convince you
that he was killed for any immoral reason or that he was killed in any way as
a result of his connection with pictures?
Suppose Mary Miles Minter was in love with him. She's an unmarried girl
and her mother keeps pretty close tab on the family wage-earner. Bill Taylor
was a big, fascinating, strong man. No wonder she fell in love with him. As
for Mabel, Mabel will fall in love and men will fall in love with her as long
as she lives. But it isn't because she's a screen star, it's because she's the
most fascinating, adorable, irresistible small creature that the witches ever
brewed.
Let's be a little fair. Let's not lose our heads and, above all, our
sense of humor. Let's not think continually and all the time about the people
who have made false steps.
After all, did it ever occur to you that if 1000 people go out for an
auto ride on a Sunday afternoon and come back happy and peaceful and
contented, their names don't appear next day in headlines? But if one of that
thousand gets killed while driving he has eight columns or so of type. That's
news.
So it is in pictures. People like the Conrad Nagels, the Jack Holts with
their three kiddies, the William De Milles with their intellectual, political
set, the Douglas MacLeans, the Sam Woods go on forever leading exemplary lives
after which any one might model. But you don't hear about them.
Don't you see?
I'm only putting one side of the case. I do believe the producers should
have morality clauses in their contracts. If a bank knows a young man in
direct contact with a large sum of money is gambling the bank fires him. If
the picture magnate knows a man or woman star leads a notoriously immoral
life, he should kick him right off the lot.
That's our job now--the job of the industry--to clean things up where
they need it. And we admit there are places where it is needed.
But in order to do that we need not and cannot admit that Hollywood is a
festering sore of perversion and vice.
The man who said girls who come who come to Hollywood all must succeed
only through immoral relations--I believe he camouflaged by saying sentimental
relations--with men probably will wake up some morning soon with his teeth
knocked down his throat. May McAvoy's brother might do it--or Lois Wilson's
father. Or Florence Vidor's husband. Bob Ellis, who is married to that sweet,
wonderful girl, May Allison, might take a crack at him.
There are immoral people in Hollywood. It is, after all, an artists'
colony. It is filled with temperamental nuts. It is a small gathering of
people who know each other very well, indeed. I know there are a few stars who
do horrible things. I know Roscoe Arbuckle lost his head under prosperity and
lived a life for which he is now getting paid several thousandfold.
If it wasn't so funny, I couldn't help resenting this picture they draw
of my home village--why it sounds like the Apache district of Paris.
If you could see it. Honestly, I think you'd never be the same again if
you'd read the press agenting stuff we've had recently. It's a nice, quiet
little village.
Lots of nights there isn't anything to do after 12 o'clock and everybody
goes to bed at home.
I have two small kids--a girl and a boy.
I haven't the faintest objection in the world to having them brought up
in Hollywood.
Nor do I admit that every girl who calls herself a motion picture actress
is one. Lots of them wouldn't recognize a camera if they saw one.
Do you read in headlines that Mary Pickford virtually supports a large
orphanage in Los Angeles? Do you have it flung at your face that Tommy Meighan
takes care of a great number of crippled children? Are you constantly reminded
that stars, after working eight or ten hours at the studio, give more hours
and more time to answering every demand of charity; that there is never a day
goes by at a big studio that they are not asked for talent to appear for
charity, and that they are never refused?
Let's be fair and a little more sane about this thing. Let's look at both
sides of it. For there really are two sides, you know.
Perhaps you don't realize how much concerted action is now taking place
among motion picture producers in an effort to guard this great art--this art
that gives you so much pleasure--against any further vulnerability along the
moral lines. Quietly, and partially awaiting the advent of Mr. Will Hays as
director-general of the industry, the big producers of the game are getting
together and mapping out moral housecleaning of the studios. They have
decided, as I know, that those whose lives are such that they may bring shame
and unpleasantness upon the name of the body of people who work in pictures
will have to go.
I talked with Mabel Normand last night over the long-distance telephone
between here and Los Angeles.
Her voice haunted me all night. She was crying. Her nurses didn't want
her to talk, but she wanted to ask me if I believed she had anything to do
with the Taylor murder, if anybody back here believed it?
And I told her what I believed, that no one connected her with it, no one
believed she had done anything that any connection with the shooting. And I
told her that I loved her and for her to take care of herself. Mabel's health
is not good. Doctor's verdicts last year were discouraging--and no one can
make Mabel take proper care of herself.
After all, outside of infinite rumors, constantly changing theories,
reports, conjectures, what have we to tie the shooting of William D. Taylor to
Hollywood, or any part of Hollywood, or any of its manners and customs?
Not a darn thing.
And I don't think we ever will have.
Nobody can keep a lot of fool girls with blonde curls from falling in
love with a man. It happens in offices--often. No one can keep them from
writing notes to him, if they haven't been taught that love letters are the
most dangerous things in the world to sign except checks.
What's that got to do with Hollywood. Doesn't it happen anywhere else?
I think so.
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February 21, 1922
Adela Rogers St. Johns
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
Last year when May Allison was going to New York she dropped into my
house for lunch the day before she left.
"Going to buy a lot of clothes in New York?" I asked.
"Good heavens, no. I'm going to get a chance to wear some of those I've
got. You never get a chance to show off your good clothes in Hollywood," said
the blonde screen star.
And that's the sad truth.
I've been in New York for just a month.
I've been back in Hollywood a couple of days, and it's pretty dull out
here, I tell you. After the bright lights of a big city, the curfew life we
lead in the famous wicked film colony is a bit difficult to take. But it's a
good place to rest up in, anyway.
No cabarets. No place to dance nearer than six miles. An occasional party
where the piece de resistance of the evening is likely to be the good old game
of consequences. Listening to Wally Reid and Wanda Hawley play duets on the
saxophone and the piano.
Oh, well, I can get the papers and read what some of these writers that I
never heard of, never saw in Hollywood, and who probably have never been
there, have to say about it. Get a thrill out of that!
Hollywood--the prize "bad town" of the West! Why, Hangtown and Bodie in
the good old days when shootin' was shootin' sound like a Seventh Day
Adventist Sanitarium on Saturday compared with the things you read about
Hollywood.
Of course I don't know anything about it. I only live and work there.
And yet--and yet--just before I came away, Mrs. Wallace Reid cried on my
shoulder because she was so bored--sitting home every night in front of the
fire with only an occasional dinner at the Hollywood Country Club to brighten
her existence.
First of all, there's our hotel life, of course. We have a very famous
hotel in Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel. A ramshackle old building which has
been standing sedately on its corner for years and years and years. But it has
housed more famous people than most architectural palaces. It has a nice
family dining room where everybody has their own table and knows the
waitresses by their first names.
On Thursday nights they have dances in the lobby, after rolling up the
carpets. I suppose to be in the modern style of Hollywood journalism I should
call them "dance orgies", but--I just can't. I haven't a great deal of regard
for the truth in literature, but I have some inhibitions.
The last Thursday night we drifted up there we found all the nice old
ladies from Iowa and Kansas who come out for the winter sitting around in
their best black satins, ready for the fray. Anita Stewart was there, shocking
every one in the place almost to death by dancing every other dance with her
husband, Rudy Cameron. Jack Dillon and his wife were tripping the light
fantastic, and their little boy was allowed to stay up into 10 o'clock to
watch. Lila Lee had on a frock of apple green that may have been immoral, but
looked charming. With her was a good looking young millionaire to whom her
engagement is often reported. They did sit out quite a few dances, they did.
Mae Busch, startlingly vampish in black velvet, Marguerite de la Motte,
May Allison--and we all went over to the drug store on the opposite corner and
had an ice cream soda between dances.
I tell you, it's a wild and wearing life.
Yet there, in the very heart of this place which some parasites of the
industry, seeking free advertising at the expense of the hand that fed them at
least scrappily for some time say should be abolished, live and work some of
the greatest literary geniuses of the age.
Here, with alleged vice rampant about them, with wild women and dissolute
men shrieking up and down the boulevard, so they tell us, here Gertrude
Atherton wrote much of her latest novel. Here Sir Gilbert Parker lived and
worked. Somerset Maughm had a little quiet room under the eves where he
conceived and executed some of his brilliant comedies. Elinor Glyn completed
her last book in her second floor suite. Rita Welman, Mary Roberts Rinehart,
Rupert Hughes--all have lived in the Hollywood Hotel. I have visited most of
them there, seen them hard at work.
Must we forget that sort of thing utterly when we think of Hollywood?
I went to a dinner party at Charlie Chaplin's house on the hill not very
long ago. It was a real movie dinner party--most all celebrities: Charlie, Sam
Goldwyn, Gouverneur Morris, Rupert Hughes and his wife and May Allison and
Claire Windsor.
Do you know what occupied three hours at the dinner table?
I dare say some of our imported scribes would lead you to believe that
they carried in the cocaine on the tea tables, that we spent the time in
ribald jest and risque tales that would have made Boccacio blush to hear.
Well as a matter of fact, Rupert Hughes and Charlie Chaplin launched at
once into the most interesting theological discussion I have ever heard--Mr.
Hughes, with his immense fund of information and historical statistics;
Chaplin with his wonderful intellectual conception and imaginative
impressionability. They discussed religion for three hours while we all
listened spellbound.
If you want to be fair about Hollywood, will you remember all this?
While I was in New York I went to Delmonico's for supper after the
theater with some friends. Upstairs, in a private banquet room, a group of
railroad officials were having a party. There were about twenty of them, and
they may have had doughnuts in their pockets, but I don't think so. Anyway,
the pockets bulged considerably. During the evening they had a lot of girls--
dancing girls--up there and the noise was certainly indicative of a good,
rousing old time. Wine, women and song seemed to be the order of the evening.
If anybody pulled a party like that in the Hollywood Hotel or in any cafe
in Hollywood the place would be raided, the neighbors would call out the fire
department and the whole town would be shocked to death for a week.
Polly Frederick is another screen star who gives a lot of parties. Last
one she gave I lost $3.75. It was a terrible reckless evening for me. I mean,
that's a lot to lose at penny ante poker, isn't it? Polly does like the wild
life. After working all day, getting up at 6 in the morning for her ride
through the hills, she's just all ready to carouse all night. And she does
like a little poker game.
For years Mary Pickford has lived the life of a recluse. There was
nothing else for her to do.
If the film people mingle with others, if they go into society, they
can't possibly feel comfortable. I went to a reception one night with Bebe
Daniels--it was a wedding reception and the bride was an old friend of ours.
We had known her in our schooldays before we became residents of the horrible
center of vice, Hollywood.
Poor old Bebe. She was stared at, talked about, eyed, talked to in the
most insane manner I have ever heard in my life, until at last she grasped my
arm and gasped, "For heaven's sake, let's get out of this. I feel like an
animal in the Zoo."
Yet those were good, kindly, well-behaved folk of the social strata.
There is another thing that we face in Hollywood. The hangers-on. And
they are not all poor ones, by any means. The worst place in Hollywood last
year belonged to the good-fellow husband of a rich woman, whose place offered
every inducement possible for the entertainment of guests. Swimming pool,
motors, tennis court, servants, costly food and plenty of good liquor were
thrown out as bait for the film folk, with whom it was his chief ambition in
life to consort. A group of rich young men, attracted by the pretty faces of
the film stars, hang about on the fringe of the colony, delighting to mingle
on free and friendly terms with the possessors of such famous names and by
their actions bringing more censure--and more justified censure--on the
industry than any of those who get a pay envelope across the studio counter.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 22, 1922
Adela Rogers St. Johns
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
My mental picture of Hollywood is getting to the place where I have to
sit down and do a lot of remembering to be sure I'm right.
When I read about the "wild tribe of Hollywood" now under investigation I
begin to sing South Sea Island lullabies and see exotic panoramas of huts in
the wilderness, of groups of people living in cellar dives which the sunlight
never reaches, of fantastic settings like those I used to see in the old San
Francisco Chinatown.
And I say to myself: "Hollywood, my Hollywood; can you have been
deceiving me all these years? Under that bright and charming exterior that I
know so well, in that soul that I've been on such darn good terms with for all
these years--are you really a den of iniquity?"
Then I positively get the giggles.
Why, it'll probably surprise you a lot to know that we actually have
homes in Hollywood. Real homes. Where people live, with their kids, and have
problems about heating the house, and keeping the lawn watered, and getting a
cook that will stay.
Florence Vidor, for instance, has a new home that would deceive the most
hectic of our smut-seeking sleuths. You'd never dream it was anything but the
charmingly kept, tasteful home of a southern lady. Last time I was there
Florence and I were sitting in her sitting-room, satisfying our evil passions
with some after-luncheon mints. Mammy, the Negro servant whom Florence brought
from her home in Texas, had little Suzanne Vidor, Florence's 4-year-old
daughter, down in the kitchen with hear, and when she went out to answer the
telephone she told Suzanne to watch the coffee.
In a minute Suzanne came dashing in and called at the top of her small
voice, "Mamma, mamma, come quick. The coffee is frowing up all over the
stove."
Just tell that one the next time you want to give your friends an example
of the risque jokes we tell in Hollywood.
I don't think you should visit the Milton Sills home, however. It's
pretty trying work, talking with Mr. and Mrs. Sills. Maybe it wouldn't exactly
shock you, but it would give you an awful mental kick.
They talk about the effect climate has had on the development of
different races of the earth and the age of the various astronomical suns as
judged by the differences in their color. Of course, Milton used to be a
college professor, and that may have saved him from the vile clutches of the
Hollywood monster.
As to the Charles Rays--I'll hardly be able to convince you about them.
The Rays' home is quite the most beautiful place I have been in. They
spent more than two years selecting the furniture and the wall drapes and the
works of art that fill it. They own some delicious pictures and Mrs. Ray
spends about half her time between her voice and piano lessons--pretty swift
pace she keeps up, too. Their butler is the best I've ever seen, in or out of
the Sunday supplements. Mrs. Ray also is a very fine needle-woman.
Really, being in the movies, I don't see how they move in the social set
they do out there. They are quite "in" now--Mrs. Ray is on the committee of
the Children's Hospital, with all the blue blood of the town. Gets her name in
the society column and everything.
Of course, when I think of Lois Wilson I have just one desire in the
world. To see her face when she reads what kind of a place she really lives
in. Only, of course, Lois won't know what it's all about.
Last summer Lois' mother and sister went over to Catalina for a few weeks
and left Lois and her father alone in their white plaster house in the
foothills. Lois and her father did their own cooking and used to be real
devilish and toss a coin to see who washed the dishes. I went up one morning
to get Lois to go down to the beach and go swimming with me. All over the
house--pasted on Lois' dressing mirror, on the lamp shade, on the front door,
pinned on the pillow covers--was this legend in bold, black type. "Lois, don't
forget to feed the bird."
So the worst you can say about Lois is that maybe she hasn't a very good
memory.
The Jack Holts are another family that--really, all joking aside, I don't
believe in any town, anywhere in the country, you'll find another home like
the Holts. They have three kiddies, and honestly (I hope they won't see this
story) Jack just literally bores you to death telling you about them.
I think they must have meant Jack Holt when they told that story about
somebody liking to play horse. Because Jack uses the big blue drawing room
chiefly as a race course around which he crawls on all fours with Jack Jr.--
who's getting close to his third birthday--on his back.
William de Mille and his wife, Ann--the daughter, by the way of Single
Tax George--live in a big old brown house, all books and a bit shabby inside.
Once a week William has a class of devotees who come up there for a lecture on
political economy, and Bill's idea of the way to spend all the money he makes
in the movies is to conduct private political and advertising campaigns for
the legislative movements he believes in. Last year he spent a small fortune
advocating one such bill.
Oh yes--I mustn't forget this one.
Conrad Nagel is an usher in one of the biggest churches on Hollywood
boulevard. You can see him there twice on Sunday, wearing a frock coat and a
sweet smile. The Nagels have a baby daughter a year and a half old.
Of course they can return a terrible indictment against Lila Lee--and
Bebe Daniels. Lila lives at home with her mother and sister, Bebe has just
bought a big house in the exclusive West Adams district, where she reigns over
a bevy of grandmother, mother, aunts and such like.
*****************************************************************************
Psychology
Adela Rogers St. Johns also wrote a series of short "fiction" stories about
Hollywood. As she later stated in her autobiography, THE HONEYCOMB: "...most
of them were built on fact and often became fiction only to avoid libel
laws...In some instances it was the only way in which you could print the
truth." The following short story, "Dolls," was a fictionalized version of the
relationship between Mary Miles Minter and her mother, Charlotte Shelby; and
of the romance between Minter and Marshall Neilan. Although the incidents are
fiction, the characterizations (at least in the first three chapters) are
probably extremely accurate.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 1923
Adela Rogers St. Johns
COSMPOLITAN
Dolls
Hollywood, in spite of its youth, has its traditions. Among them is the
tradition of Mignon Variel's dolls. Also, the kingdom of the silversheet has
its anniversaries and its historical dates.
Some barbed tongue had once remarked that Mignon's sixteenth birthday
might well be called Hollywood's national holiday.
Unkind, no doubt, but Hollywood was a little weary of celebrating
Mignon's birthday. She had been younger and now she was older than sixteen.
But somehow Mignon's birthday had been cleverly surrounded with a halo--as
though it were merely symbolic.
It had grown to mean sweet sixteen as the Fourth of July means
firecrackers.
And Hollywood was a little weary, too, of the pictures of Mignon that
flooded forth afterwards--of Mignon, with her curls falling in a golden
shower, one toe turned in, and the biggest new doll in her arms.
As a matter of fact, on the drizzly morning when she sat in the office of
Sam Hartfeltz, producer, and toyed with the silken ears of a yappy Pekingese,
Mignon Variel was nineteen.
But even off the screen she looked the traditional sixteen that clung to
her. Younger, perhaps.
It wasn't only the tiny feet, in flat-heeled, round-toed slippers. Nor
the little fur cap, pulled over the long curls that reached below her waist.
Nor the undeveloped curve of her young breast beneath the white crepe frock.
One of Hartzeltz's battery of lawyers, sitting opposite her, discovered
that there was something lacking in her face that even adolescence brings.
And he decided that though it was the face of a child, somehow it wasn't
childish.
It took him some time to place the look, and then he remembered that he
had seen it in the faces of children who are raised in fashionable hotels.
Of course. Of course.
The skin was so lovely, the white of magnolia blossoms, as though grease
paint had protected it from the sting of the wind and the kiss of the sun.
The young lawyer thought of the girls he knew, who rollicked on golf
courses or tennis courts, until the wild roses peeped through their tanned
young cheeks, and he heaved a quick sigh.
Of course Mignon Variel had made a great deal of money and won and great
deal of fame, but just the same he was glad his own tousle-headed youngsters
were just--just kids.
There were six people seated about the big, polished mahogany table.
Mignon, bored and a little cross. Fidgeting impatiently.
Migon's mother.
Sam Hartfeltz. Two lawyers. A stenographer.
It was perhaps noteworthy that both lawyers were employed by Mr.
Hartfeltz.
Ma Variel needed no lawyer for contracts.
It was, indeed, another tradition in Hollywood that Ma Variel was a
match, single-handed, for anyone in the business.
Contracts were an old--a very old--story to Ma Variel.
Ever since Mignon, at the age of four, in gauzy skirts not more than five
inches long and a pair of immense butterfly wings attached to her dimpled baby
shoulders, had danced herself into the headline position on a vaudeville bill,
Ma Variel--flushed and cold-eyed, emotional but immovable--had signed her name
to many an amazing document.
For Baby Mignon's service had been in demand.
She put down the jeweled lorgnon and laughed indulgently.
"Not so bad, Sam," she said purringly. "Not so bad at all. Though 'tis a
waste of time, beginning with such stuff as that on me. Marriage and morality
clauses for a baby like my Mignon! Seems to me you and I have known each other
pretty near long enough to start right down to cases. The child cannot do
eight pictures a year. She's still growing and 'tis too great a strain on the
delicate strength of her. No, we'll start by striking that out. Six pictures,
now, that's not beyond reason."
"But--" began Mr. Hartfeltz.
"Sammy, what good is it to you to have her overtax herself? The lamb
shall have some time to play, so she shall. No one can ever say that Gertrude
Variel sacrificed her lambkin for money or for fame. Six pictures a year, Sam.
That's plenty."
"All right," said Hartfeltz slowly. "I suppose I'll have to agree to
that. Though Mignon looks strong as a horse. And the program does need more
pictures. Well, then, we'll say six pictures a year--thirty thousand dollars a
picture. That's too much, but Mignon's been with us a long time and we want to
be fair with her."
Ma Variel leaned back in the blue velvet chair and folded her pretty, fat
hands in her lap.
Her heavy round face under the elegance of her street hat took on a slow,
playful smile.
"Nobody knows better than I do that you want to be fair, Sam," she said
pleasantly. "that's the only reason I don't laugh in your face for saying
thirty thousand a picture to Mignon Variel. Four years now Mignon's been
making Hart pictures. Naturally, myself, I don't want to see her leave. I've
got some sentiment, I hope. Too much, indeed, for my own good."
Sam Hartfeltz lighted a cigarette nervously and pushed the box across to
Ma Variel, who took one sadly.
A little pause, tense and delicate, fell as the smoke wreathed upward.
"Oh, mamma, do hurry up!" said Mignon petulantly. "I'm getting so tired."
Ma Variel merely glanced at her.
"Well," said Sam Hartfeltz, flushing with the embarrassment that usually
overpowered him in moments like this. "I guess she won't need to wait any
longer now, Gertrude. We're practically through. Six pictures a year for three
years. Thirty thousand dollars a picture. I'll have the lawyers here draw it
up and you can come in again tomorrow and sign it."
"Sammy, I'm surprised at you," said Ma Variel, pleasantly, but a tinge of
crimson had begun to grow in the creases of her double chin. "I am. You know
I'm only a pore lone woman against all you smart men. But it's like a lioness
with her cub, Sammy, when you try to put something across on my baby. I've
given up my whole life without one other thought but her, and you know thirty
thousand dollars isn't enough."
"It's my top figure," said Hartfeltz, with sudden coldness.
Ma Variel gathered up her sable cloak and wrapped it about her plump
shoulders.
"All right, Sam," she said, as coldly.
Mignon jumped up and started for the door, her round young figure in its
short Persian lamb coat looking very slender and immature beside her mother's
over-groomed bulk.
As Ma Variel put a steady hand on the door know, Sam spoke again. "Where
are you going, Gertrude?"
Ma Variel did not turn.
"I'm going to see Morris of the United and tell him what a fool I've
been, letting sentiment stand in the way of my child's future. I'm going to
tell him I'll take the fair, decent proposition he, a perfect stranger, made
to me, when my best friends try--"
"Come back a minute, Gertrude," said Hartfeltz despondently. "Don't
always be going off half-cocked like that."
She turned in the doorway, poised like a large and angry seal.
"I'm no good at dickering, Sammy," she said. "I wouldn't demean myself to
do it. I know what's right and I try to do what's right, that's all."
"Well, what'd you think is right?"
"Forty thousand a picture for six pictures the first year. Fifty thousand
a picture the second year. And sixty the third year. And me to have the last
say on stories."
"Great guns!" said Hartfeltz.
"And at that, for old times' sake, I'm putting it under what Morris
offers me."
"Come back and sit down," said the man behind the table wearily. "It's
too much. It's a hold-up. It's murder. But I suppose I got to do it."
For the first time a dark wreath began to blaze in Ma Variel's eyes. The
slow flush of crimson crept up to her cheeks.
"What do you mean, it's a hold-up?" she said, coming to stand facing him,
her fist clenched on the table. "Don't play me for a fool, Sam Hartfeltz. I'm
only a poor lone woman with nothing in the world but my child, but I'm no
fool. Who carried most of your rotten old program last year? Ask any
exhibitor. Why do they take such stuff as you force down their throats from
Von Merchen and such dubs as Dorothy Vogel and Elise Devereaux? Because they
have to take 'em to get Mignon Variel, that's why.
"Don't every exhibitor in the country tell me my Mignon is the whip of
the Hart program? And do you think I was traipsing all of the United States in
the summer time at my age to amuse myself? I guess not. I've had a hard life,
and the way I like to amuse myself is to get off my corsets and my shoes and
watch Mignon playing with her dolls. No, I was finding out just what I needed
to know. Did you have any other picture clean up like 'The Rose of Avenue A'?
Think I don't know it netted three hundred and fifty thousand dollars the
first six months?
"Who's the only star on your lot hasn't had a flop this year? Mignon
Variel. And what's more, don't she give your productions a good name with the
church people and the censors, such a dear, sweet, innocent baby as she is?
Shy, it's worth every cent you pay her to know you've got one girl isn't going
to be named as corespondent in a divorce case or have her nightie found in
some man's bedroom about the time you release a million dollar picture of her
as Saint Cecilia. Don't kid me, Sammy. What did all the exhibitors in Texas
tell me?--my baby's the biggest drawing card they've ever had, that's what.
Nobody else is so beautiful and young and such an actress--that's what they
told me. And exhibitors only see through the box office window, I guess I know
that. And you've got the nerve, after all the money she's made for you--"
Tears were streaming down her cheeks now.
"Instantly Mignon was at her side, arms about the shoulders heaving in
their tight frock. "Mama, don't!" she pleaded. "Oh, mamma please don't cry!
You're a hateful old thing," she flung at the dark, troubled man. "You made my
mamma cry, after all we've done for you, too. I don't want to work for you any
more. I can work any place. I'm going to have my own company, that's what I'm
going to have."
Ma Variel's sobbing stopped abruptly. "Don't talk like that, Mignon," she
said. "That's no way for a little girl to talk. Well, Sammy?"
"It's all right," said Hartfeltz. "Only--that story thing. Honestly,
Gertrude, you got to leave the stories up to the scenario department. I had
more trouble last year than Congress, trying to fix up rows between you and
the scenario department. More fuss it was than all the rest of the studio to
run put together. Please now, don't start that all over again. I tell you, I
give you a bonus this year if you let the scenario department pick out the
stories for Mignon."
With a small square of colored lawn, Ma Variel wiped the tears from her
cheeks. When her dignity and calm were restored, she said impressively: "Your
whole company hasn't got money enough to pay me such a bonus. Who found 'Sweet
Violets' and 'Springtime,' I want to know! Me, or your scenario department?
Who got 'Nurse Adeline,' eh? Me. When they want to put her in stories any
grown-up star could do."
Sam Hartfeltz pulled himself up by his boot straps for his next remark.
"But Gertrude," he said, "Mignon ain't so young as she was. She's getting
a little bit heavy around the hips that she should play little girls any more.
I don't ask she should do sex stuff. But you know the critics ain't so gentle
in saying she should stop being so childish all the time. Nice, clean stories,
yes. But Mignon is going on twenty now. She can't play with dolls all her
life."
For the first time Mignon's self-satisfied little face broke into sudden
interest. "Oh yes. I'm awfully tired of playing little girls. I'm nearly
twenty and I'd like to do grown-up parts."
Sammy Hartfeltz was not a brave man. He was only a very good showman with
a strange gift of knowing the mind of the public. He had made a vast fortune,
but the shy delicacy and self-consciousness of his downtrodden youth still
clung to him.
But even had he been a brave man, a very brave man, he must have quailed
before the fury that flamed into Ma Variel's face.
The crimson had gone purple. Her temples pulsed with it.
She screamed at him, and Mignon shrank back against the door, her young
face suddenly old and wizened, like a child's at the sight of a lash it has
felt across its tender body.
"Don't you go putting ideas like that into my child's mind! There's time
enough in the years ahead for her to grow up. She's only a baby yet. A little
baby. Why, she doesn't look a day older than she did when she played 'The
Flower Girl' in London and the King and Queen gave her a decoration.
"That's the way the public wants her. That's the way I'm going to keep
her, and don't you forget it. At home, don't she still play with her dolls?
Don't you dare talk to me about how she should grow up. And putting in
marriage and morality clauses!"
"She might get married sometime," said Hartfeltz desperately. "And for
morality, what can you tell? You think everybody else is a fool, Gertrude.
What about Jack Garford, eh?"
The purple faded to gray, to white.
"You've got the nerve to throw that up to me now. It wasn't terrible
enough that a degenerate dog of an actor tried to compromise my baby, just for
blackmail because he heard I'd stored away a little money, but you've got to
throw it up to me now. The saints help me!"
"All right," said Sam Hartfeltz, "all right. You draw up the contract and
bring it down here tomorrow and I'll sign it."
II
Mignon had never noticed Mickey O'Toole at all until the morning that she
caught him, in the wide corridors of the dressing room building, giving an
imitation of her usual morning entrance on to the set.
He was, to her, merely another leading man. And she hated all leading
men.
Of course, Mignon had no business in the dressing room building.
She had her own elaborate bungalow. But she had been up to the wardrobe
to get her costume for the new sequence and she had mistaken the turn.
It was a very good imitation.
Mickey had a genius for that sort of thing. Hollywood rated him as one of
her prize entertainers.
Aside from that, he was a handsome youngster, with dark red hair that
photographed black, a quizzical mouth and inquisitive, impudent eyes.
Daring was written in the very poise of his head.
As Mignon came round the corner, he was holding a large audience utterly
convulsed as he enacted the scene which took place each morning when Mignon
arrived on the set for work.
He needed only one actor--himself--to present the case complete.
Mignon herself, with the dogs, Ma Variel, carrying a doll under her arm.
The frantic, overloaded maid. The uniformed chauffeur, carrying a hamper of
flowers. The fussy, efficient secretary.
With the merest intonation, expression, gesture, he put before them the
entourage, in all its absurdity and self-importance.
Then Depew, the director--toadying suavely and diplomatically.
The whispering chorus of script holders and musicians and actors and
publicity men and writers, all breathing a murmured, awe-struck welcome. Their
bowing, smirking, "Good morning, little lady" or "How's our sweet little star
today?" and "You're as fresh as a rosebud, Miss Variel."
Very well done.
The very essence of biting, devastating, brutal caricature.
Mignon's heart stopped beating. Fear, anger, a sickening nausea she could
not understand.
It was his imitation of herself that drove her back into the cold shadow
of the stone walls, stunned into silence.
That stolid hauteur. That obnoxious self-satisfaction. That simpering,
nasty-nice egotism.
Horrible. Horrible.
Her brain, that had never operated outside a set groove, like a chipmunk
on treadmill, began to beat frantically at her temples, her forehead.
These were people. People like herself. Mickey O'Toole, whom she had
despised--he had opinions about her. They all had thoughts about her!
Independent thoughts.
Like flashing pictures trickled into her brain. Like the small darting
pains that follow a second after the bullet.
Her isolation. The giggles of the other girls. The way the publicity
department had to be clubbed into working for her. Her lights always missing
and the sullen expression on the faces of the electricians when they were
discovered on some other set. Her friendlessness. Other girls, arm in arm.
Lunching in each other's dressing rooms.
Oh, they made fun of her! Of her and her dolls.
She had told mamma that. She had. She had begged not to have her picture
taken with her dolls any more.
How she hated dolls! What could she do? Mamma--mamma--mamma--
Her thoughts would go no further. Mamma had always thought for her,
decided for her. Protected her. Why, she had actually believed the whole
studio adored her greatness from afar.
Ma Variel lacked many things. But courage she had.
And her only child discovered in that moment that some of it had been
bequeathed to her.
Mignon sucked in her lower lip and walked deliberately around the corner
into the wide corridor where Mickey O'Toole played to his audience.
In the checked gingham rompers and the short socks, with her curls
falling about her and a big rag doll tucked under her arm, she did look
absurdly like a child.
Only a slight thickening of the tissues of her whole body and a lack of
perfect suppleness, which only an artist might have noted, betrayed her.
"How dare you?" she cried violently, and was furious that her voice
failed her. "Oh, how dare you make fun of me, you--you horrid--"
Mickey O'Toole's eyes narrowed. It was not a fortunate beginning. The
O'Tooles were rather apt to dare.
"Good morning, Miss Variel," he said, a new grin leaped into his eyes,
with sheer joy that such a situation should develop for his amusement. "I
didn't intend that you should be part of my audience for this little impromptu
performance. 'Tis hardly worthy of your attention. Give me time, and I'll try
to give you something a bit more--artistic."
"I shall tell Mr. Hartfeltz about your impertinence at once, and you'll
be dismissed and never work on this lot again," said Mignon, her eyes hot and
her lips cold.
"Can you imagine that!" said Mickey O'Toole. "Well, 'tis a comfort to
know I can always go back to digging ditches. But--it'll cost him a pretty
penny to turn me out now and remake half a picture. How he will weep over
that!"
The audience had faded, reluctantly.
It was all very well for Mickey.
Mickey had no sense anyway.
But they knew something of Ma Variel's power and temper.
"I suppose you think you were very funny," said Mignon. It was plain now
that she was too inexperienced, too untrained, to be a worthy opponent. "But I
think you're just hateful--hateful."
Partly from anger, partly from sheer terror at the revelation dawning
upon her, Mignon sank down, cross-legged, upon the stone floor, buried her
head on the rag doll and began to cry.
Her curls caught the morning sun and shone like the shimmer of autumn
wheat fields. Her clutching fingers closed about the toes of her futile little
Mary Janes.
"Oh now, don't do that," said Mickey O'Toole, and quite naturally went
and sat down on the floor beside her. "I say, don't cry. There isn't anything
to cry about, really. Here, stop it! I'd no idea you could cry like that."
Mignon raised her head and looked him straight in the eyes.
"Why do you hate me so?" she asked. "Why does everybody hate me so? Oh
dear. Oh dear."
"Bless your heart, you silly little thing," said Mickey O'Toole. "I don't
bother to hate you. I just think you make an awful idiot of yourself most of
the time."
Mignon gasped.
"Does everybody think that?"
"Well, I dare say there are lots of people don't think about you at all.
But a lot of them think that."
"Why?"
Mickey looked long into her eyes. They were dumb eyes, but they were very
pitiful. Almost like the eyes of a puppy who has been kicked and doesn't know
why.
"Well," he said at last, "I dare say it's on account of your mother.
She's not popular. Maybe it's only because she loves you, but she certainly
tramples on everybody. You're not so bad, if you'd only go about your
business. You can act. But you're not the most important thing on this planet
by a darn sight. To be frank with you, my dear, since we're talking man to
man, you're an upstage, conceited, dumb little brat. That's what you are."
Mignon was nodding her head, in exact imitation of her biggest French
doll.
"I-I didn't know," she said.
"Think a minute," said Mickey. "What's the good of going around saying
your mama doesn't allow you to associate with picture people? Your mother may
be a most estimable lady, but she used to be a second-rate dancer on the small
time vaudeville and everybody knows it. They'd all forget it quick enough if
she didn't act like she was Queen Victoria reincarnated. What's the good of
cutting poor little tramps that never had a chance or a break of luck, but
who've got more brains and more heart and more honest woman emotion than
you'll ever have? What's the use of making it so hard for everybody? *I* don't
care, but most leading men that play in a picture with you get sort of tired
of having their left hand ear photographed exclusively. And you know, Mignon,
you're a big girl now. It's such a lot of apple sauce for you to pretend you
think storks bring the babies. It is really. How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"Behave, behave! How old are you?"
"Most twenty."
"Can you imagine that? What's there to be so ashamed of about being
twenty that you try to hide it all the time? Oh, what a lot of apple sauce!"
Mignon trembled a little. "I guess," she began confusedly, "I guess you
don't know what it's like to be--be an infant prodigy. With mamma. Oh, I was
treated fine. But--it's sort of a funny way to grow up. It--makes you
different from other people. When you've never done anything in your whole
life just--because you wanted to--but always for the people watching you. It--
it's funny."
She stammered and wiped the tears away with the skirt of the rag doll. "I
remember once we were in a town near a park. I ran away to the park and played
with the children." Her eyes grew wistful. "They didn't like me either because
I didn't know how to play. One little boy pushed me down and cut my lip. But I
didn't care. That was the only time I ever played with children.
"Mothers are--fine--but I guess it's funny I always thought I'd like a
papa. Maybe he'd have carried me on his shoulder and--made me a coaster. You
get awful tired of just dolls."
She stopped, inarticulate. Ashamed of her speech. Unable to describe or
explain any more of the old hurt.
But Mickey O'Toole of the Irish imagination looked into her round face
and her round, wet eyes and saw all that she could never tell.
The endless procession of hotels that were never home. The gushing
throngs of admirers. The little dark dressing rooms, on days when the shouts
of youngsters rang from every dusty hillside and every wave-washed beach.
The glare of the footlights in tired baby eyes.
He saw a lonely, puzzled baby, all by herself in the Terrible Land of
Grown-ups. He could almost hear the precise flavor of her speech and the
horror of her "cute sayings."
Robbed of her mud pies. Robbed of her broken window panes and her
bruised, mother-kissed knees. Robbed of that sacred privacy of childhood.
But oh, most of all, beyond everything else in the world, robbed of her
playmates. Of those other children who alone could have answered the incessant
cry of her lonely baby heart.
Poor little mummer! Like all those other poor little mummers he saw daily
about the studios, precocious, too well behaved, unchildlike little creatures,
doing their tricks like monkeys on a hand organ.
He though of Baby Mignon, flapping her tiny wings like a pink butterfly
on a wheel, and then he thought of that gentle Friend who understood better
than all others the delicacy of the child soul, and who said, "Suffer little
children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of
Heaven." And his heart came into his throat.
And she had been bound to serve out years in the slavery of this false
childhood. She couldn't even grow up. She had been wrapped and pinched into
that nightmare of stage childhood, as the feet of Chinese maidens are wrapped
and pinched to stunt their growth.
Unconsciously he put his arm about her, and quite as unconsciously she
relaxed against him. Gently he began to sway back and forth, as though he were
rocking a baby to sleep, patting her shoulder with regular, tender pats.
"There, there," he said softly. "I understand. Don't you worry."
"Mickey," said Mignon Variel softly, "what ought I to do first, do you
think?"
"Let's throw this away," said Mickey O'Toole. And he tossed the rag doll
over the cement wall.
III
Mignon crept noiselessly up the heavily padded staircase.
She was trembling with fright, yet she was warm with exultation.
Only a sense of pride for Mickey helped her to bite back a scream as the
light flashed on in the upper hallway.
Rigid, ominou
s, Ma Variel stood there.
"Where have you been?"
Mignon tried to speak; but her lips trembled so that she could not.
"Where have you been?" her mother repeated.
Neither moved for a long minute.
Then the older woman put out a hand. "Come here Mignon."
Like a frightened child, Mignon Variel, the greatest of screen ingenues,
crept up the few remaining steps.
"It's eleven o'clock," said the harsh, choked voice. "Where have you
been?"
Quite against her will, Mignon began to sob. "I haven't been anywhere,"
she said. "I haven't done anything I shouldn't. I just went out to dinner with
Mickey, that's all, and we danced. We went to the Ambassador. It was all
right, mamma."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because--oh, mamma, you know you wouldn't have let me go alone! I'm--oh,
mamma, I love you. But I wanted to go out alone, just once, like other girls.
Just once--"
"So that's what he's put into your head, is it? This guttersnipe. This
shanty-Irish blackguard. This bleary-eyed seducer of babies. You're easy prey,
you and your fortune, for such a scheming vampire as him. But he's forgotten--
what is it they call me in Hollywood?--Ma Variel. He's forgotten Ma Variel."
Suddenly her face hardened. One hand reached out and clutched at the mass
of golden curls, coiled with exquisite beauty on top of the round young head.
Bound there with a thin silver ribbon.
And this time the girl screamed, aloud, as that ruthless, heavy hand tore
down the glistening mop and let the famous curls fall about the shrinking
shoulders.
"So--putting your hair on top of your head. Your pretty hair that makes
you look so young and sweet and different. I've spoiled you, Mignon. I've
spoiled you. But you're all I've got in the world, and you'll have to reckon
with me if you start this sort of thing. You and this low, common actor you've
chosen to disgrace yourself with. Come in here."
Mignon fought for self-control as she followed the heavy-moving figure
into the big, luxurious bedroom, where a fire burned on the white tile hearth.
"Take that dress off and go to bed," said her mother, pouring milk into a
tiny electric kettle, "and have your hot milk and be asleep before midnight,
like a young girl should."
"Please, mamma, I haven't disgraced myself. It's only that I wanted to be
like other girls--just once--and have a good time--"
"Like other girls, eh? Like these Hollywood trollops? Chasing around with
this man and that and getting common and losing their looks and ruining their
reputations. You don't know what a girl's up against that does that, my dear.
You just stop and think a minute and you'll know how fortunate you've been all
these years with a mother to fight every battle for you and stand in front of
you and think for you. I've had some hard times, my fine young lady, and if
I'm hard now, that's the reason. What do you know about the world? And your
Mickey would be a fine one to depend on--"
"Oh, mamma, please don't say anything against Mickey! He's been so dear
and kind--"
Ma Variel towered above her as she slipped trembling between the silken,
scented sheets. Towered impressive and terrible.
"Kind, has he? I don't doubt it. As he's been kind to every cheap extra
girl and low-down female on the lot. Common, that's what he is. A drunkard. A
gutter drunkard. Mixed up with all kinds of cheap women. What d'you know about
men, you poor, innocent baby? Answer me that. It takes years and hard knocks
to teach a woman most of them are rotten. A clowning, simpering, worthless
puppy, that's what he is."
She held out the glass of hot milk. Mignon took it and raised it to her
lips. Part of it spilled on the rare lace of her gown and on the brocaded
satin coverlet.
With steady hands, Ma Variel wiped the drops away.
"But, mamma, everybody likes Mickey."
"Everybody? The rifraff and kittle-cattle of Hollywood. Why shouldn't
they like him? He's one of 'em. He drinks with them and carouses with them and
makes love to them, sure enough. You, that I've kept above all that--is that
what you want, Mignon?"
"I--no, no. But mamma, that isn't all there is. There's some decent young
fun for a girl, isn't there. Not always to be cooped up, nor posing. Nor
playing with dolls. I want a little freedom."
"Freedom? To do what? Ruin yourself. You listen to me. Ever since the day
they gave you to me in the hospital, a little, wizened, ugly brat, squalling
with fear and hunger, you've been all I had in the world. I hated your father
because he made a fool of me just like this man would make a fool out of you.
I hated him because he run off and left you--not because he left me. For
twenty years I've fought and thought and forgot I was anything but your
mother. For twenty years I haven't had a feeling or a thought outside of you,
and I've kept you a sweet, pure child and now--"
Both women were sobbing, but the mother went on in an abysmal tide of
emotion. "Now you want to leave me. You go off with the first young snip that
comes along. You forget everything I've done and sacrificed for you. You
deceive me, your mother, for a man you don't know anything about. That you
never saw until a month ago. You want to ruin the career I've built up for you
and tarnish the good name I've kept for you in this rotten business. You want
to give him the money I've schemed and lied and fought for you to earn. My
goodness, Mignon, haven't you got everything in the world a girl could want?
Don't I give you everything?"
Ma Variel, in a tenderness that was cyclonic, swept the trembling child
to her breast.
As the passion of all the ages lay in her quivering, tear-stained, fear-
ridden face. The passion of motherhood and of fatherhood; of possession and of
service; of worship and of jealousy. The passion of a woman to whom a child
has been husband and lover and work and reward and religion for many years.
A fierceness of possession swept her, that would have taken this child
back into her very blood before giving her to another.
The blanket of it fell, smothering, on Mignon Variel. The thrill of
Mickey's presence vanished. The inspiration of her new self faded.
The other cone of that passionate, selfish, material mother-love
suffocated her.
She sobbed, once or twice. Nodded wearily. And fell into an exhausted
sleep of childhood.
Her mother sat there, hour after hour, holding her against her breast in
ecstasy.
IV
On a certain day in June when the oranges hung on the velvet trees like
colored balls on a Christmas tree and the fields were a mass of yellow mustard
bloom, Mickey O'Toole and Mignon Variel went to Santa Ana and were married.
For weeks the battle had raged.
Hollywood, amazed and amused, had watched with mingled chuckles and
thrills.
Each step of the drama had been known to the eager colony.
They knew, for instance, the exact hour when Ma Variel ordered Mickey
from the house and forbade him ever to return.
They knew, almost to a word, what took place in Sam Hartfeltz's office
when she blacklisted him at the Hart studio, and every other studio where she
or Hartfeltz had any influence.
But public sympathy was with Mickey. There were a number of people in
Hollywood who had old scores against Ma Variel. Mickey didn't lack influential
supporters.
They knew, too, about the time that Mignon actually climbed out of an
upstairs window in the dead of night for a stolen motor ride. And some
versions declared that she had left a cleverly conceived dummy in her bed.
There were rumors of terrific scenes in the Variel household. There were
rumors that Mignon had actually defied her mother on occasion--but not for
long. And that in the end Ma Variel had turned Mignon over her knee and
spanked her soundly with a hairbrush.
Here and there it was said that Ma Variel had stooped to the deepest
trickery to compromise and ruin Mickey.
The whole staff knew, and nearly burst with excitement, when Red--an
adventurous and impertinent prop boy--smuggled notes to Mignon under her
mother's very nose.
Altogether, Hollywood hadn't had so much fun in a long time.
When Mignon arrived at the studio, under guard, and was marched to her
dressing bungalow entirely surrounded by watchful eyes, they decided it was
almost as good as one of the old time romances, when kings hid haughty
princesses within impregnable towers to keep them from the arms of low-born
lovers.
After all, in her way Mignon was a princess.
The wedding was a surprise to no one.
Only the details were exciting.
And exciting they certainly were.
After days of failure, it was understood that Mickey had thought out the
plan.
Mignon was working on a big county fair set. And, after losing herself
among the vast throng of extra people, she had slipped through a side gate
into a waiting touring car, and made a wild dash for Santa Ana, where Mickey
awaited her.
And so Mignon Variel, who earned a quarter of a million dollars a year
and whose face was known in every land under the sun, was married by a justice
of the peace, in a county courthouse, in a calico dress and a straw hat with a
hole in it. And while the sandals hid her toes, they could not hide the bare
whiteness of her ankles.
She still wore, too, the grease paint of her screen make-up.
In two hours she was back on the set.
And because there had been another figure mingling with the extras, in a
calico dress and a straw hat, Ma Variel hadn't missed her.
The secret held for three days.
And then it broke with a dull thud in the morning papers. Eight-column
headlines, myriad photographs and much elegant description.
Fortunately Mickey, who was not sleeping well, awoke in the dawn and read
his paper early. So that just as Mignon, dizzy from the shock of that
screaming black type, was staring into her mother's eyes across untouched
grapefruit, the bridegroom walked in.
"Hello, mother," said young Mickey O'Toole with a grin. " 'Tis not the
way I would have announced it to you, but you've got Mignon so scared of you
there was no other way without frightening her to death."
Ma Variel did not look well in negligee and she knew it. If it takes ten
generations to make a man look like a gentleman in evening clothes, it takes
twenty to make a woman look like a lady in a pink negligee.
"Get out of my house," she said briefly. "Quick. And don't every come
back or I'll set the dogs on you."
"All right, dear," said Mickey. "Come on Mignon. The car's outside."
Mignon half rose. "Sit down," said her mother. "You get out of this house
and let my daughter alone."
"Oh no," said Mickey. "Can't do that. Sorry. She happens to be my wife,
you known. And you remember that the jolly old Bible says you should forsake
your father and mother and cleave unto your husband. Mignon, come here."
His tone was quiet, but for the first time an actual panic seized Ma
Variel, for it was as cool and steady and purposeful as it was quiet.
Mignon went to his side. "Please, mamma--" she began.
"Never mind, dear," said her husband. "You two women have had enough
chance at managing this thing. What you actually need is a man in the family.
I let you come back once, now I'm going to run it my way. Mother, let me tell
you a few things. Mignon is married to me. She's of marrying age and it's
legal. And the law is quite squiffy about people trying to separate husbands
and wives. It is, really. In fact, they do all sorts of unpleasant things to
you in this State if they find it out.
"I may not be much good, but I'm a better man than you are. Because I'm
willing to concede that Mignon is a woman and a human being with a few rights
of her own. Mignon loves you a lot, and there isn't any reason why we
shouldn't all live happily together. If we can't--you'll have to get used to
living alone."
Ma Variel rose and there was a flash of fire in her eyes.
"And if you try any rough stuff," said young Mickey O'Toole, "much as I'd
hate to do it, I should just naturally be forced to hand you a good stiff
wallop on the jaw. Because that's the only kind of language a selfish old
Biddy like you understands. There are too darn many mothers like you around
Hollywood.
"Now Mignon and I are going honeymooning."
"If you go," said Ma Variel, "you'll never get a cent of my money. You'll
take her in the clothes she's got on."
"I'd take her in less than that," said her son-in-law. "Of course when my
wife's twenty-one you'll have to make an accounting to her of all the moneys
she's earned. She's got a right to that. And don't call me a fortune hunter.
Because I know I'm not one and my opinion is the only one I really value. So
I'm certainly not going to let Mignon's money interfere in our happiness."
The very air quivered.
The butler, coming in with hot toast, glanced at the three motionless
figures and retreated hastily.
"Now, mother"--Mickey smiled engagingly--"now's the time for you to pull
that great old classic about not having lost a daughter but gained a son.
You've no idea what a lot of help I'm going to be to Mignon. She'll never have
to depend just on you for her thinking again."
Ma Variel rang a bell. She was panting for breath now.
A trim, white-capped maid came down the stairs.
"Pack my things," said Ma Variel, her voice cracking like a whip, "and
have Agnes pack Miss Mignon's. We're going to Coronado for a few days."
"You mean"--Mickey was puzzled but pleasant--"you mean all of us?"
"I mean I think you're a filthy little blackmailer, and if you've got
this poor, ignorant child in your clutches so she can't get out--I'm going
along."
"On our honeymoon? Oh, I assure you, mother darling, you'll feel
frightfully in the way. Awfully, awfully de trop. Really you will. Ever been
on anybody else's honeymoon?"
"Shut up," said Ma Variel. "I'm going with my daughter. She's never spent
a night away from me since she was born."
"I know, dear, and they couldn't have Prohibition either," explained
Mickey. "Isn't there an old proverb about there being a first time for
everything? Mother, I think you're a great old girl. I respect you as a worthy
antagonist. I suspect, moreover, that we have a lot in common. You're going to
love me before you get through. But I cannot, I really cannot, take you on my
honeymoon. In fact, if I had wanted you on my honeymoon I'd have married you.
You'll have a honeymoon of your own yet, don't you stew, ma."
It is no exaggeration to say that Ma Variel choked.
She made one step forward and Mignon shrank. "You little fool--" she
cried.
"Easy on," said Mickey, and his eyes were cool and dangerous. "You're
speaking to my wife, you know. And a woman."
"I'm her mother--" said Gertrude Variel.
"I know, dear," said Mickey, "and motherhood is a beautiful thing if you
don't abuse it. You can go right on being her mother, but you aren't going to
be a war lord any more."
"Then go--go both of you. I never want to see you again," said Ma Variel.
"Oh, Mignon, my baby--you won't leave me like this? You'll kill me--my baby--
you can't leave your mamma like this--"
She had broken. She was pleading now.
"Mamma!" Mignon O'Toole held out her arms.
But a firm masculine hand circled her wrists. "That's a good way to feel
about it," said Mickey quietly. "You just think it all over while we're gone
and get your place in the scheme of things worked out in your head. And when
we get through having a nice, long, glorious honeymoon--Mignon'll come back to
work. And we'll probably see a lot of you then."
V
Drama gets into the blood.
Ma Variel had not intended to be sitting in front of the fire, rocking
that biggest doll of Mignon's, when her daughter came back.
But she was.
And when she saw the golden curls and the dimples and the round young
face alive with happiness, her dramatic instinct made her begin to weep and to
hold out the doll as she cried: "Oh, Mignon, it's the baby doll you used to
love so much. The one you always played with."
Mrs. Mickey O'Toole walked straight across the big, empty drawing room to
her mother's side.
She took the doll in firm, vigorous young hands and with one swift
movement brought its china head down against the brick mantel.
The tinkle-tinkle on the hearth was like the shattering of a fallen idol.
"I don't want any more dolls, mamma," said Mignon O'Toole. "I want a
baby. And I'm going to have one."
Her mother stood up, swaying. Every vestige of color and expression
drained from her face.
And then slowly, cunningly, a very little smile began to creep about her
set lips. It was the first time she had smiled since, in open battle, she had
been vanquished by her son-in-law.
"Well," she said at last, and her voice was humble, "you may feel awfully
independent and sassy right now, but I expect you'll need your mother quite
considerable when it comes to having a baby."
"I expect I will, mamma," said Mignon softly.
(End)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In 1940, St. Johns wrote a character sketch of Mary Miles Minter, which
included the following:
February 25, 1940
Adela Rogers St. Johns
AMERICAN WEEKLY
Mary Miles Minter: Millions, Murder, Misery--Will They Haunt Her Forever
(extract)
...For her first big starring picture, I've forgotten what it was, it
never mattered much I guess, the director assigned to her was a man named
William Desmond Taylor.
After he was murdered, after that morning when Hollywood shrieked with
horror over the headlines announcing that his body had been found of the floor
of his apartment with a bullet hole in the back, a great deal was said and
written about Taylor's charm, his power over women, his career as a Don Juan
in Hollywood.
I knew Taylor pretty well. Knew him because he was one of the leading
directors at the time and it was my business to know him. And knew him because
he was very much in love with Mabel Normand, who was one of my best and
closest friends.
He always seemed to me a poised, rather cold man, and the thing I
remember best about him is that his face was lean and deeply tanned and that
he had a crooked smile. His eyes, it seems to me, were very brightly blue--at
least they were very bright, and it was a little difficult to tell whether he
was smiling or only looking at you very intently.
It may have been his soldier-of-fortune air that entranced the ladies.
Also--for Hollywood was fairly crude in those days and as I have said very
young--he had a worldly way with him, a sort of smiling hint that he knew a
good deal more about life than most of us, had seen more, suffered and enjoyed
more.
Women, especially very young ones, like that.
Mabel Normand who was the last person except the murderer to see him
alive, was fond of him, liked his companionship, but she wasn't in love with
him. That much I knew then.
When he and Mary Miles Minter first met--about two years, I think, before
his ill-fated death--she was still a child and he was close to fifty.
He made her first big picture, as I said. The first thing you know,
somehow, somewhere, the rumor began to drift about that Mary Miles Minter was
in love with Taylor. Later, in a sensational courtroom scene, her sister
Margaret testified that Mary had been in love with Jim Kirkwood when he was
her leading man [sic] and had gone through a "marriage in the sight of God"
with him. Maybe she did.
If I were writing the story the way I see it from what I knew of the
people, I would say that maybe Mary actually told Margaret that, maybe she
dreamed it, maybe she was tired of never having a romance and made it up. I
don't know. [1]
But at that time nobody in Hollywood ever heard of such a thing and when
the first little hints about Taylor and Mary began to be heard we were all
knocked silly.
Poor little kid. She hadn't ever had any sane romances. She hadn't gone
dancing with young juveniles or listened to the love making of gay young
scenario writers who usually tried out their love scenes on the pretty stars.
Night after night she'd been home with her mother and her sister and her
grandmother.
Day after day, she came to work at the studio, grave and quiet, hard-
working, never having any fun. Thinking it over from this distance, the
feeling comes over me that few girls ever lived so abnormal a life as Mary
Miles Minter...
How she escaped her mother long enough to fall violently in love with
Taylor is still a mystery...
Whatever it was--an affair, an engagement, or the dream-come-true
adoration of a very young girl for an older man--Mary was in love. She saw him
every day on the set. Sometimes at night she slipped out of the house and met
him for a drive, or a long walk. It was her first love--it was her first
companionship with any man--and it went deep. It began to eat her up, to be
the paramount thing in her life.
So that sometimes she even defied her mother and met him openly. Not
often--but a few times. So that even her first romance, its ending already
shadowed in tragedy, began under a dark star. Her mother disapproved violently-
-there were scenes--tears--threats--all the things that go with such a
mother's disapproval.
Perhaps Taylor was in love with her. It's difficult to tell. For he was
seeing a great deal of Mabel Normand, he was seeking her, calling her, trying
to help her. Everybody was always trying to help Mabel...
Nothing that I know of can stop people speculating after such a shocking
murder, when the police question and seek and follow clues and get nowhere. I
was in New York when it happened. I rushed home at once--mostly because I
wanted to be with Mabel Normand. Partly because I wanted to write some of the
truths that I knew, as a citizen of Hollywood, while some outside reporters
dashed in and made a Roman holiday of everyone who had ever spoken to
Taylor...
*****************************************************************************
Mythology
In her later years, Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote more about the Taylor case,
and some of her later writing contradicted what she had written earlier. Were
the earlier writings a whitewash and the later writings the truth? Or were the
earlier writings the truth and the later writings her retelling of history as
she felt it should be written?
In THE HONEYCOMB, St. Johns states that:
*Taylor and Normand "had never spoken a word of love."
*Taylor kept an emergency roll of $5,000 cash handy (no such roll was ever
discovered after his death)
*Faith MacLean was certain that the person she saw leaving Taylor's home on
the murder night was Charlotte Shelby, dressed in man's clothing.
*St. Johns' husband, Ike St. Johns, had taken an article of "MMM" monogrammed
pink chiffon step-ins from the murder scene on the morning the body was found.
*Adela St. Johns' had heard gossip about the Taylor/Minter "affair" before the
murder, and had heard the opinion expressed that Mrs. Shelby should shoot
Taylor.
In LOVE, LAUGHTER AND TEARS, St. Johns states that:
*Normand and Taylor were only friends.
*Taylor is characterized as a "rattlesnake" who deserved to be killed because
of his predatory relationship with Minter.
*****************************************************************************
Analysis
Let's list some of St. Johns' contradictions.
Early writing:
Mabel loved Taylor, Taylor loved Mabel, they might have married some
day.
Later writing:
Mabel and Taylor were only friends, and never a word of love was
spoken between them.
Early writing:
Before the murder, St. Johns had never heard a whisper of scandal or a
breath of criticism against Taylor.
Later writing:
Before the murder, she had several times heard the opinion expressed
that Taylor should be killed because of his relationship with Minter.
Early writing:
Taylor was characterized as one of the finest men she had ever known.
Later writing:
Taylor was characterized as a rattlesnake who deserved to be killed.
Early writing:
She had no idea who killed Taylor, or why he was killed, but believed
that it had nothing to do with himself or any act of his.
Later writing:
She was certain that Taylor was killed by Charlotte Shelby because of
his relationship with Minter.
So what are we to believe; which is truth and which is fiction? Perhaps one
clue can be found in what she says about Faith MacLean. In St. Johns' later
writing she states that Faith MacLean told her the person leaving Taylor's
home immediately after the murder was positively Charlotte Shelby. But when
re-questioned by investigators in 1937, Faith MacLean "partially identified"
Carl Stockdale as the person she had seen [2] That partial identification
may have been related to the fact that she originally stated the person she
saw had a prominent nose, and Stockdale's nose was very prominent; when shown
a picture of Stockdale she might have said, "Yes, it might have been him--the
nose seems similar--but I'm not certain." In any event, Faith MacLean's
"partial identification" of Carl Stockdale appears to indicate that Adela
Rogers St. Johns was incorrect. How could Faith MacLean partially identify
Stockdale if she was positive that Shelby was the person she saw? If St.
Johns' later writing was incorrect about the identification of the person
seen by Faith MacLean, then other portions of St. Johns' later writing may
also be inaccurate.
There is sufficient evidence to reasonably conclude that Taylor was in love
with Mabel Normand; they were not "only friends". The statements of Peavey and
the Fellows brothers, the fact that Taylor was sending flowers to Mabel
several times a week and giving her expensive gifts, the fact that he carried
her picture with him in a frame inscribed "to my dearest"--all point toward
his very strong affection for her. So it appears that the earlier statements
by St. Johns were more truthful in this matter.
Some of St. Johns' other writing was certainly erroneous; in LOVE, LAUGHTER
AND TEARS she reports as fact the apocryphal tale about Mabel Normand walking
off a Goldwyn film set and going to Paris; in reality Mabel's first trip to
Europe did not take place until 1922, which was long after her Goldwyn
contract had ended. She never walked off a film set and went to Europe--her
European trips all took place between films.
But overall, it is impossible to determine whether some of St. Johns' earlier
statements are more accurate than her later statements. The mere existence of
the contradictions cast doubt upon St. Johns' truthfulness as a writer, and
thus she should not be cited as an authoritative source for any facts of the
case. What she wrote is often interesting, but must be regarded as uncertain
unless independent verification is available.
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
NEXT ISSUE: The Case Against Edward Sands:
Who was Sands?
Press Items Indicating Sands was the Killer
Sands' Sexuality
Was Sands the Person Seen by Faith MacLean?
Was Robbery an Element of the Murder Motive?
*****************************************************************************
NOTES:
[1] As the affair between Minter and Kirkwood resulted in an abortion, it
certainly was not just a fantasy of Minter's. See WDT: DOSSIER, p. 328.
[2] See WDT: DOSSIER, p. 329.
*****************************************************************************
For more information about Taylor, see
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
Back issues of Taylorology are available via Gopher or FTP at
etext.archive.umich.edu
in the directory pub/Zines/Taylorology
*****************************************************************************
