Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Taylorology Issue 05
*****************************************************************************
* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
* *
* Issue 5 -- May 1993 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* All reprinted material is in the public domain *
*****************************************************************************
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.
Reader input is welcome, in the form of "Letters to the Editor," short
articles, and contributed source material.
*****************************************************************************
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
The Connette Episode
Deposition by Leslie Henry
"The Humor of a Hollywood Murder":
Wild Hollywood Parties--Fact or Fiction?, William Desmond Taylor
*****************************************************************************
The Connette Episode
Shortly after Taylor's murder, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford took a
business trip to New York. At every trip along the way they encountered
reporters asking their reactions to the Taylor case. One newspaper reported:
'All this talk about Hollywood is a joke, anyway,' Doug said.
'Why, say, do you know there was a prominent minister and--oh,
me--oh, my--a prominent newspaper editor seen hiding around the
Taylor house just before the murder? They're expected to be
arrested at any minute. Strait stuff! This is the real inside
story of Hollywood.'
Doug winked. [1]
Doug was, of course, joking. But within a few months a former newspaper
editor would indeed find himself the center of suspicion in the Taylor case.
Honore Connette was telegraph editor of the LOS ANGELES TIMES until June
of 1920 when he went to work for the LONG BEACH PRESS, where he remained
until January 1922. On January 11, Connette's mother died. He began
drinking heavily and became addicted to Veronal, a barbiturate. He left Los
Angeles the day after Taylor was murdered, and sailed from San Francisco on
February 7, bound for Honolulu aboard the Sonoma.
While the ship was anchored at quarantine outside Honolulu he approached
the waterfront reporter for the HONOLULU ADVERTISER with many questions about
the Taylor mystery. He asked if anything new had developed since the liner
left San Francisco. He took the reporter to a corner of the deck to ask his
questions and finally said, after looking around, in a quiet voice:
"I'll tell you one thing, that was not a woman case. You can be sure of
that."
He was asked what he meant by this and said that he had been a newspaper
man a long time, and knew lots of people in the "movie village," and had
reached that conclusion.
The HONOLULU ADVERTISER reporter then consulted the local Chief of
Detectives, informing him what Connette had said. The detective took down in
his notebook details of Connette's name, his occupation and the questions
which he had put to the reporter.
After the boat docked Connette applied for a job on the Honolulu
newspapers, but was turned down. He went to Hilo, where he was hired by the
HILO TRIBUNE.
On March 14, that newspaper published an article written by Connette
suggesting that Taylor's killer was hiding in Hilo. Connette also wrote
'...that the slaying was of the vendetta type, and that the man who did
the killing did so from a revenge motive. I believe that at some time in
Taylor's life he may have wronged some one and that this person or possibly
some near relative, a brother or father maybe, settled the account.'
Connette's article also expressed the firm belief that Sands was
innocent.
On April 25, 1922, the following statement was issued by Harry Irwin,
Attorney General of Hawaii:
The matter was called to my attention when I was in Hilo
recently at a conference held between the governor, Mr. Green and
Mr. Stevenson of the HILO TRIBUNE, and myself. They reported that
from the time of Connette's arrival at Hilo he seemed to be very
much interested in the Taylor murder case and it formed the chief
subject of his conversation during the whole time he was here.
Mr. Greene and Mr. Stevenson soon became impressed with his
interest in the case and began to observe more accurately his
actions and his statements.
Connette, upon his arrival at Hilo, made a statement to Mr.
Greene to the effect that in his opinion it would be easy for the
person who murdered Taylor to come to Hawaii, lay low for awhile
until the excitement died down, and then skip out to the orient.
He had obtained a passport to the orient before leaving
Honolulu for Hilo. One night in the office of the HILO TRIBUNE he
described in detail to Mr. Greene the way in which Taylor was
murdered. He also described details which were subsequently shown
to be substantiated at the time, but which were not published in
newspaper accounts of the Taylor murder.
Connette seemed to be worried about the whereabouts of one
Gareth Hughes.
Finally one day one of the police officers of Hilo found in
the street a partially written letter which was addressed to
Hughes.
It was shown that the letter was written on TRIBUNE bond
paper and undoubtedly written by Connette. Connette's later
stated to Mr. Greene that 'everything was all right now' because
of the fact that Hughes had gotten into Mexico and was then in a
place called Ensenada, and that he could not be extradited because
of the fact that the Obregon government had not been recognized by
the United States.
This information was all transmitted by the attorney
general's department by letter and wire to Mr. Woolwine, the Los
Angeles district attorney, who requested the attorney general's
office obtain a statement in detail from Connette. This request
was forwarded by the attorney general's department to Hilo by wire
and the reply came the same day to the effect that Connette was
leaving that day for Honolulu by the steamer Maui.
The attorney general, with the aid of Detective Captain
McDuffie and members of the detective force, then attempted to
locate Connette in Hololulu. On his arrival in Hololulu from Hilo
he left his trunk on the wharf and went away with a handbag.
Every effort was made to locate him, but without success. It
was found that he had purchased a ticket for San Francisco on the
steamer Maui. He evidently went aboard the Maui a few moments
before that vessel sailed for the coast.
His acquaintances here, as far as the office of the attorney
general is able to ascertain, saw nothing of him during that time.
The fact that he was on his way to San Francisco was wired to
District Attorney Woolwine in Los Angeles. Subsequent to this, the
attorney general's office received a wire message from Attorney
Woolwine stating that Hughes had appeared in his office, made a
full explanation of his whereabouts, and had been freed from any
suspicion as to being connected with the Taylor murder. [2]
The letter supposedly written by Connette was typewritten and not signed. It
read:
My Dear Gareth,
This may possibly be the last letter you will have from me,
and so I will be quite frank and clear things up so you will
understand when the crash comes. I expected to be well out of
this mess before this and my previous letters have led you to
believe that everything was clear sailing.
I did not want to worry you. What I did back there I have
never regretted. Always remember that I acted to an impression
stronger than faith or this thing they call religion. As I told
you in the house at San Jose, I believe in the Mosaic law: 'An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' I cleared on your score.
I did what any brother would have done if he had any red British
blood in him.
I thought we could get away with it all. On the ship was a
man who kept trying to make friends with me. You know I was ill
with the worry of it all, but I had reasons enough not to meet
this man's advances, for something warned me. You know the old
superstition of our country, the thing that comes like a shadow
and tells of approaching death. [3]
When Connette arrived in San Francisco on the Maui he was taken into custody
by L.A.P.D. Detective Sergeant Jesse Winn. Among Connette's effects was
found a .38 calibre revolver with one shot fired. Winn took a long statement
from Connette and escorted him back to Los Angeles where he was held in jail
as a "material witness."
Meanwhile, back on Hilo, the HILO POST-HERALD reported:
According to his associates while in Hilo, Connette, during
periods of being under the influence of either liquor or drugs
made statements that would give his hearers the impression that he
was connected in the famous Los Angeles mystery.
On one occasion he gave a vivid pantomime of the murder to
one of the members of the house where he was stopping. Going
through the action of Taylor bending over a table signing his
income tax return and showing how the murderer stepped out of the
closet, steadying his revolver on a table and firing the fatal
shot that sent Taylor to his death. Again taking up the role of
the murdered man, he showed how the stricken man staggered and
fell, indicating the place where he dropped the fountain pen he
was using and other small details.
At another time after receiving a letter from the mainland he
stated to another member of the household, 'Well, I don't care
what happens now, the boy has reached a country where the United
States has no treaty, they will never catch him now.'
On another occasion he said to the same party, 'Well, I
suppose I may as well go back and face it, like a man. I can
never escape anyway and it won't make any difference as I won't
live long anyway.'
Connette kept a loaded, cocked thirty-eight revolver in his
rooms at all times and sometimes carried it on his person. When
asked why he had the revolver cocked, he replied, 'Oh some day I
may want to commit suicide and I don't want to change my mind
while I am cocking the gun.' [4]
After this story appeared in print the reporter who wrote it was taken
into custody by the Hilo Sheriff Department and questioned for several hours
regarding his sources of information. Then several other people were
summoned to verify his statements.
Back in Los Angeles, Connette stated,
"I never saw the letter until it was shown to me by Sergeant Winn. The
letter was apparently built upon things I said in a moment of levity in the
presence of a newspaper rival in Hilo. I know absolutely nothing about the
Taylor murder other than the facts that are common knowledge. A newcomer in
Hilo is a target for either fair or unfair treatment and I stirred up
considerable animosity owing to newspaper rivalry there. I suppose I drank a
bit and said things while under the influence of liquor upon which the
preposterous situation in which I now find myself, could have been built.
Another motive on the part of the newspaper rival in making the charges, is
the fact that he desired to return to California. He thought if I were held
for trial on the charge of killing Taylor, he would secure free
transportation as a witness."
Connette did admit once working in one of Taylor's films as an extra,
and having a casual conversation with Taylor about a book.
When Connette's explanation was relayed to his acquaintances, back in
Hilo, he was not believed. They stated Connette had no known enemies in the
newspaper profession and several people living in the boarding house where he
made his home also heard him make incriminating statements on the Taylor
case. He had described the murder in detail on several occasions and stated
that he witnessed it from a point in Taylor's study. Hilo Sheriff Sam Pua
sent a cable to Woolwine stating:
"Important evidence is in my possession concerning H. C. Connette. The
evidence includes a signed statement in which Connette declared he killed a
man a short time ago in defense of his honor. He also gave a description of
Taylor's room at the time of the killing."
In Los Angeles, Connette denied he ever killed anyone. He was taken to
the Taylor residence and paraded before Faith MacLean; she said he did not
resemble the man she saw leaving Taylor's home the night he was killed.
Connette was then taken to a Turkish bathhouse on Fourth Street, reportedly a
hang-out for drug addicts. He stated he had been there on the night of the
murder, registered under the name of Donald MacDonald. The name was found in
the registry and several attendants stated they remembered him being there on
that night. Actor Gareth Hughes was summoned to police headquarters,
questioned again and released. Connette was also released. The District
Attorney's office stated that no charges had been placed against Connette or
Hughes and that none would be. On April 29, THE HILO TRIBUNE headline
blared:
CONNETTE CASE TO BE HUSHED UP BY WOOLWINE
On that note, the Connette episode faded from public view.
*****************************************************************************
Deposition by Leslie Henry
Extracts from deposition by Leslie B. Henry, given July 11, 1933:
A: (By Leslie B. Henry) Some time within a month or two of Mrs. Shelby
leaving, I think it was along in March or April, 1926, Mrs. Shelby called me
and asked me to come to the house; that a situation had developed that was of
a very serious nature, and to please not fail to come.
Q: (By Mr. Schwartz) Did you go?
A: I did.
Q: What was your conversation, if you had one?
A: To the best of my recollection, Mrs. Shelby told me that District
Attorney Keyes was on his way to New York in connection with the Taylor
murder case, and that she was convinced that Mary -- She told me that Mary
would probably lie about her, and wanted to know what she should do under the
circumstances. I asked Mrs. Shelby, had she talked to Mr. Mott about it, and
she told me that she had not talked to Mott, and told me that, "A friend of
mine on the Examiner" had given her the information.
Q: A friend of yours?
A: I mean a friend of hers. I told Mrs. Shelby I saw nothing that could be
done about it until Mr. Keyes' return. She was in a hysterical state -- I
cannot describe it. She told me, "This will kill me." I told Mrs. Shelby,
"You haven't anything to fear in this. You need feel no sense of guilt."
She said, "I don't know what Mary will tell him." And whether it was just
that conversation or a series -- I don't know. This thing occupied weeks in
there.
Q: You mean you had a number of conversations on the subject?
A: Yes. I had conversation after conversation with Mrs. Shelby about this
particular incident, and it became absolutely critical -- well, Mrs. Shelby
told me, "I can't wait for this thing. I have got to get out, and get out
now." I told Mrs. Shelby that if there was any information got out that
Keyes had gone to New York for the purpose of making an investigation of this
matter, that for her to make a move at that particular time would probably to
be caught, and put in an absolutely impossible position, so far as the Taylor
case and other matters were concerned. The matter got into the newspapers.
Q: Did you see articles appearing in the newspapers at that time?
A: I did.
Q: Did you discuss any of those articles with Mrs. Shelby?
A: On the appearance of any article that had any new development in that
case Mrs. Shelby would call me and have me come to the house to talk with her
regarding the new phases of it.
Q: Will you go ahead and give us your best recollection of the conversations
you had in the series of talks, when you say you went out there frequently,
when the matter was under discussion?
A: The question of the passport, and the citizenship and everything came
very much to the front in connection with this. I am trying to segregate
them. I can only tell this, that Mrs. Shelby called me to her house many
times during the period I believe of I think it was March, April and May --
it was right near the time of sailing, in connection with, as I said, new
developments in the case. Mrs. Shelby would call me and tell me, "The papers
called up today and asked me" such and such a question, and among other
things they asked her whether she was a crack shot with a revolver, and
whether she had a revolver in the house, and Mrs. Shelby said, "The only
revolver that ever was in the house as far as I know was one that Mary one
time tried to get to shoot me."
Q: Shoot whom?
A: Mrs. Shelby. She on some of these occasions asked me -- on all
occasions, asked me how she was going to stop this situation from the papers,
particularly just before Mr. Keyes got back, and I told her on each occasion,
"Mrs. Shelby, you are going to have to wait until the District Attorney is
here." She told me she had talked with Mr. Mott, and Mr. Mott had told her
the same thing.
I talked with Mr. Mott, and Mr. Mott said the same thing. "There is not
a thing that can be done on this until Mr. Keyes is here, and we can talk to
him."
I said to Mrs. Shelby on one occasion, "You are perfectly convinced that
you can tell a connected and witnessed story of what you were doing on that
night?" She told me -- I can't repeat it, but it was exactly the same story
she told me right after the Taylor murder, of what she had done that night.
I said, "I can't see why you should continue to worry about it." She was
just distraught upon each of those occasions.
I said, "Put faith in your own innocence in the situation." She said,
"I don't know what that girl will tell Keyes." I told her that after all
there was nothing she could tell Keyes that must not be subjected to
investigation and study and search. She said, "All Mary is doing is trying
to ruin me, in addition to the financial situation." Mrs. Shelby said, "And
after all she may be lying for herself." I said, "You don't mean, Mrs.
Shelby, that Mary had anything to do with that?" And she said, "She may have
been damned fool enough to have done it."
Incidentally there was a similar remark made after the actual death of
Taylor. In trying to relieve her of fear I told her, "You have just got to
stand on your own consciousness of your innocence, and the nature of the
story that you have told me, and if it will stand up the district attorney
will do nothing to you."
When Mr. Keyes returned --
Q: Did you have any further conversation with Mrs. Shelby on this same
subject after Mr. Keyes returned?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: At the same place?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you give us the conversation? First did Mrs. Shelby, if you know,
remain in the city during this period of time, or did she go out of the city
at any time?
A: During this period of February until June, 1926, I was going to tell you
that I am trying to place the time --
Q: (by Mr. Lewinson) That is not a complete answer. Trying to place the
time, of what?
A: Oh, I had not answered the question. No, she did not remain in the city.
Q: (Mr. Schwartz) Do you know where she went?
A: Mrs. Shelby told me when Keyes was expected here, and that she was not
going to stay here and be indicted for the murder of Taylor. That she was
going to get out then. And I told Mrs. Shelby, "If you leave under these
circumstances it will be quite possible in my estimation for you to be
indicted. If ever there was a time when you should be on the ground, this is
it, at this time."
She told me that to follow that kind of advice would be just to "Sit here
and not only be indicted but probably find myself confronted with framed
testimony." She said, "I can show legitimate reasons for leaving the city.
They can't indict me on the score of a departure, because if either you or
Mr. Mott get any inquiry you can tell them I am away on business relating to
my mother's affairs, my mother's estate.
Mrs. Shelby told me she was having absolutely no contact with the
newspapers, and hid herself away from any association with anybody.
Q: You mean this was in a conversation?
A: Yes, and Mrs. Shelby told me, "I am going to get out of here, and
whatever has to come through you or through Mr. Mott it can be stated that I
am out of the city in connection with my mother's affairs." To the best of
my knowledge Mrs. Shelby -- She told me that she was going down to Louisiana,
and that in the small towns there it would not be possible for anybody to
locate her.
Q: Do you know how long she remained away?
A: I don't remember whether it was several or three weeks. I cannot tell
you.
Q: Did you see her when she came back?
A: I did.
Q: Did you have any conversations with her?
A: Yes.
Q: On this same subject matter in connection with the death of Taylor?
A: Yes.
Q: Go ahead and give us your best recollection of any conversations she had
in the period before she left for Europe.
A: After I returned there was a constant rehash of this same situation, of
apprehension, not knowing what was going to happen, and she told me that Mr.
Mott assured her that if the matter had not been taken up with the grand jury
it was not going to result, in his estimation, in any action at that time.
That Keyes was apparently not prepared to go ahead with it.
Mrs. Shelby told me that Mr. Mott told her that Keyes had, I believe,
told him that he had insufficient evidence, despite what he had learned in
New York, to bring an indictment without further investigation.
Mrs. Shelby told me, "I am going to demand that the district attorney's
office make a statement exonerating me in this and call this thing off now,
or it will surely be reopened again, and it may stop me from going abroad, or
bring me back when it would be to my greatest embarrassment." I asked her
how she was going to get that kind of a statement. She said, "I have
demanded of Mott that he talk with Keyes and get that kind of a statement
from him." She said, "Don't you think I should be exonerated?" And I said,
"Unquestionably. If there is any possible way of getting you clear on this
thing I would surely leave no stone unturned in order to get it." She asked
me if I knew Keyes, and I told her that I did not. But I told her that I
knew a deputy in the district attorney's office, Fitts, and she said, "Can't
you talk to him and see whether he can -- You tell Fitts what kind of a man
I am" -- beg pardon, "what kind of a woman I am, and let him carry that word
to his superior." I told her I would do that if Mott was unsuccessful with
Keyes.
Mrs. Shelby told me that she felt very certain that Mr. Mott could get
that kind of a statement from Mr. Keyes. I asked her whether Mr. Mott had
given her that kind of an assurance, and she said she was confident that by
reason of Mr. Mott's position in the community that he could obtain such a
statement.
I told Mrs. Shelby that I could not believe that Mr. Mott had made any
such assurance to her, because I could not conceive of the district attorney
coming out with a public statement, or even a secret signed letter to her
exonerating her of a crime, especially in a situation where they evidently
were all at sea, where new developments might at some future time make the
district attorney appear in an absolutely impossible position.
I told her that seeing Mr. Fitts was just about as purposeless, and that
I would be very much surprised if Keyes signed any such statement.
I cannot differentiate these conversations. Mrs. Shelby told me on more
than one occasion after that, in conversations at her home, that she had not
been able to get anything out of Mott. That Mott had not gotten this
statement which he had promised to try to get for her. And finally, I
believe it was within a month of the time she sailed, she told me that Mott
had told her that Keyes would not sign such a statement, and she told me,
"Without that exoneration I cannot stay in this country safely. You must
speed up everything for me to get away from here before something happens."
That was about the substance of those conversations at that time.
Q: Did you have conversations with her in New York on that same subject?
A: That was in New York, when that came up. I am trying to place --
Q: (by Mr. Lewinson) Mr. Schwartz, I don't understand whether that question
has been answered yes or no, whether he had conversations in New York?
Q: (by Mr. Schwartz) He said yes. Did you answer, Yes?
A: Yes.
Q: You say you are trying to place when and where it occurred?
A: Yes, whether in the express office, or coming away from the express
office -- I don't remember.
Q: Was there anyone present besides the two of you?
A: I don't remember whether Barbara was with me or not. I cannot really
place Barbara in that picture. Mrs. Shelby asked me, did I think that she
could be caught before she left on the boat, by a warrant from the district
attorney's office in connection with the Taylor murder case. She said, "I
seem to have gotten by the Government as far as my passport is concerned, but
can the district attorney at Los Angeles pick me up here in New York on a
warrant for my arrest?"
Q: On a "warrant for my arrest?"
A: Yes. I told her that I did not think a warrant could be issued against
her unless she had been indicted, or a complaint had been filed, and it had
been very evident before she left Los Angeles, from information Mr. Mott had
given her, and from what Mr. Mott had told me, and that I told her, that they
were not going to take any chances on indicting Mrs. Shelby without better
evidence than they had, or they would have done it when they came back from
New York. She said, "They might do it, if it is found out in Los Angeles
that I am out of the city with this property, because no action can be taken
by Mr. O'Melveny against me here. Mr. O'Melveny might use the district
attorney's office to stop me in some way." I told her I though that was
ridiculous, and not to worry herself in the few hours before she was to sail,
over a matter of that kind.
One of the last things she asked me in New York was, "Can they extradite
me in Europe without indicting me?" I told her I was certain they could not.
She said, "Well, I can't get caught off-guard," and I told her if there was
any indictment developed in the case that I was certain that Mr. Mott would
have early acquaintance with it, and that while he would on discovery that
she was in Europe be very, very angry over having been left in a somewhat
embarrassing position of he as her attorney not having been informed of her
departure; that I though Mr. Mott would be the first one to be informed as to
anyone that could reach her, telling her of any danger of that nature, and
that it would probably be in the newspapers, and certainly there would be
speedy enough information to inform her, so that before the service of a
warrant, or any extradition proceedings she would know what her situation
was. She told me, "Well, they will have to find me if you or Margaret get
word to me that an indictment has come." I told her to forget the
indictment. That was about the substance of the talk.
*****************************************************************************
"The Humor of a Hollywood Murder", Part 2
Wild Hollywood Parties: Fact or Fiction?
March 12, 1922
CHATTANOOGA TIMES
(Chattanooga)--Declaring that he had recently been in Hollywood and
other points in Southern California, and was thus informed of conditions
there, evangelist John Brown told his congregation of women that what little
they may have read of the degradation and vice existing in the motion picture
colonies had but touched at the edges of things as they are. One hundred of
the leading actresses have organized as the "Nude 100," he said, and the
fetes of the organization could not have been surpassed in wicked Sodom and
Gomorrah of old.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 13, 1922
Lindsay Denison
NEW YORK EVENING WORLD
(Los Angeles)--There was a "party" which was raided by the police though
nothing came of the raid. After a commonplace entertainment remarkable only
for stupid vulgarity, "refreshments were served." But the servants had not
food and drink on their trays--they had hypodermic needles, papers of "snow"
and opium layouts. There was a "pill cooking contest" between noted
headliners. It was at this point that the police broke in. The host broke
out at the same moment and a few minutes later appeared at his front door in
his palatial car, demanding to know "what had been going on his absence."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 9, 1922
Edward Doherty
NEW YORK NEWS
(Los Angeles)--William Desmond Taylor would have been a Patrician had he
lived in Rome when it was at its greatest and wickedest. Taylor's ghost
might boast to the other ghosts of having been at better parties than any
that they had seen. He might tell them, for instance, that little tale told
by an humble Jap. [5]
The Jap served as valet to half a dozen stars; was butler at a number of
houses. Let him, for the story's sake, relate his tale in English.
It was the Jap's first time in the mansion--the home of one of the most
beautiful and famous actresses in the world.
"They asked me serve the dinner for them last night. I was delighted
when they asked me. I said to myself, 'I will really see this angel-like
creature, this woman that has filled my life with beauty.' I was exhalted. I
tread reverently in that house.
"The guests came, two by two, man and wife, in great automobiles. They
came in laughing, full of happiness. I had seen them all. The greatest
stars in the world!
"A dozen of them there were. And how I admired them!
"One of them sang while the dinner was getting ready; one of them played
the piano. Then one of them danced. I peeked through the door, which I held
open just a little--so. The dinner was ready. The guests sat down at the
table. Such silverware! Such wonderful linen! Such great heaps of food!
Lamps were burning everywhere, and there were many flowers.
"I served the cocktails. I brought on the courses. I brought on wine
and highballs, and green drinks, and yellow, and orange, and purple drinks.
"I was bringing in the coffee service on a cart when the big man threw a
plate of food at me. He hit me with it. He hit me in the face. The gravies
trickled down my vest and on to the rug--the rug worth thousands of dollars.
"They thought it fun. They shouted. Men commenced to throw things at
the women. The women threw things at the men.
"Soon the food was flying all over the room. Costly china plates were
smashed against the walls. Statues were thrown down and broken, pictures
were ruined. Flowers were strewn everywhere, mashed under heels.
"They got up, drunk, most of them. They threw whisky and wine at each
other. One man poured a bottle of champagne down the front of a sweet little
girl's neck and the language she used! Never have I heard such words!
"The victrola was turned on; the big man yanked the tablecloth from the
table and put it on him and gave a war whoop like the Indians, and danced
around, making gestures that were nasty.
"Everybody followed him. They yelled. They whooped. They threw chairs
at mirrors. One man, very graceful he was, turned cartwheels, and his feet
struck a woman and knocked her down. She put her arms around him and kissed
him and bathed his hair with half a tumbler full of whisky.
"Then the big man jumped on the table and pulled open his shirt and
exposed his stomach. He held his stomach with his big left hand, and with
the other he plunged a hypodermic needle into it. [6] It sickened me, but
everybody laughed.
" 'This is the life!' he shouted, and jumped down and took a lady in his
arms and went into another room. She was not the lady he came in with.
Everybody left the room too, with everybody else's wife, except the lady that
owned the house; and she laughed, and told me to get busy and clean up the
place."
Perhaps the ghost of the murdered Taylor may come back to the scene of
these old revels and visit with the blades that still hold orgies in the
palaces of Hollywood.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 7, 1922
Adela Rogers St. Johns
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
I spend eleven months of the year in Hollywood. And I give you my
personal word of honor that I've never seen anybody sticking hypodermic
needles in their tummies yet.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 13, 1922
Lindsay Denison
NEW YORK EVENING WORLD
It was under such influences as the unlimited supply of intoxicants and
narcotics that a "distinguished gathering" (speaking filmily) at the mansion
in a village near Hollywood became a "menagerie party." The guests got down
on all fours and proceeded to conduct themselves each as he conceived the
animal he was imitating would act in his native jungle or sty. As the
festivities became "jazzed up" the terrific noises and the squeals and
screams of some of the women, who didn't like the playful tricks of the human
wild beasts, caused quieter members of the community to violate their usual
reticence and call the police. The Chief of Police undertook the errand
himself. The noise died down for a time; about daylight it became so
outrageous again that a committee of scandalized outsiders gathered at the
front door. They were just in time to meet the Chief of Police coming out,
hatless, with his hair tousled, blood running from a torn ear and with an
"extra" girl hanging unconscious in his arms. He declared he was "the
original Borneo organ-outang returning to the jungle with the fairest of the
villagers." The sight of the horrified neighbors sobered him into releasing
the fair villager, but he isn't Chief of Police in that suburb any more.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 19, 1922
Frank O'Malley
NEW ORLEANS ITEM
For many weeks past, the news from California as published in the public
prints would lead us to believe that the chief indoor sport of the movie
folks was setting fire to all the child movie actors at the end of the day--
just to see the children burn with a clear blue flame.
We have been led to believe that all those lads and girls cavorting
before the movie camera in Hollywood and vicinity are daily guilty of more
rascality than all the deviltries ever charged against John Doe and his
degenerate relative, Richard Roe, put together.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 3, 1922
TACOMA LEDGER
If all those stories told of the Los Angeles movie colony are true, why
do the sensational film producers go to all the trouble of scenarios and
posed pictures? Why not just turn their cameras on Hollywood from day to day?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 9, 1922
Edward Doherty
NEW YORK NEWS
(Los Angeles)--The "love cult" angle was introduced into the case late
in the day through the troubled conscience of a resident of Chinatown. This
man through an intermediary communicated with the District Attorney's office
and asked that he be given immunity in exchange for information in his
possession.
He had supplied the opium for the members of this cult, all men, of
which, he says, Taylor was a member. He declares the men would lie in silk
kimonos, smoke the essence of the poppy flower and so commence their ritual,
old as Sodom.
The Chinese asserted that the members of the cult were held together by
a bond, unthinkable, unnameable, unbelievable, and that each had sworn an
oath of undying affection for the others.
He believes the jealousy of one of these degenerate cultists may have
caused him to slay the movie man.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 22, 1922
Herb Westen
SAN FRANCISCO CALL-POST
(Los Angeles)--There seems to be a concerted move to muffle the reports
of Hollywood vice. The Chamber of Commerce has taken it up and a petition,
it is understood, is now being circulated to prevail upon a Chicago
newspaperman to "go away from here."
Local interests charge that he has painted the colony too black--that
his imagination has run away with his judgement.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 25, 1922
Rob Wagner
OAKLAND TRIBUNE
Eastern newspapers now are painting pictures of a "movie colony" that
surpass anything our wildest directors ever put on the screen to show
decadence and crime.
This modern Gomorrah is known the world over as Hollywood, and,
according to population imagination, its streets are lined with dance-halls,
cabarets, magnificent gambling joints and opium dens, the denizens of the
film colony working but one or two temperamental hours a day, devoting the
other twenty-three to delicious sin. Movie queens, in inlaid limousines,
roll through the golden avenues to meet wicked directors intent upon their
happy ruin, bathing parties nightly plunge into tanks of eau-de-cologne,
while beautiful "snow birds" attend cocaine parties at which the Japanese
servants administer drugs from silver needles; while every morning the
police, seizing the blonde curls of your beautiful film favorite, drag her
from some subterranean hop-joint. [7]
One eastern paper goes so far as to say that "the needle-hounds of
Hollywood order their drugs over the telephone like groceries." [8]
No, puzzled reader, these tales of "love cults" and "dope rings" are
just good old newspaper hokum. The only real evidence I can offer in the use
of narcotics is the hectic nonsense emanating from the drugged sconces of the
newspaper fellows, who have been looking at Hollywood through dope rings of
their own blowing.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 25, 1922
Baxter
MOVING PICTURE WORLD
In Hollywood the poppies blow,
Tall columns rise of poppy smoke.
The correspondents snuff the "snow,"
Then write in dreams that come from "coke."
The hop pipes glow, the stories grow--
Old heroin provides the facts--
Imaginations slumming go,
And twist the simple, kindly acts.
The hemp, the hashish and the dope
Arrange that blameless folk bear blame.
Fake interviews with shadow ghosts
Are easy when you use no name.
The orgies that they write about
Are brain creations of their own.
The lethal fumes arising high
Come in rings that they have blown.
It matters not how wild the lie.
If readable "It's fit to print."
The buzzards to their carrion fly
And gorge their public without stint.
In Hollywood the poppies blow,
They will continue so to do
Until the voice of Truth prevails
And tells the liars they are through.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 6/7, 1922
Edward Doherty
CHICAGO TRIBUNE/DENVER POST
Writer Answers Screen Defense of Soiled Nest
"How can there be men and women writers anywhere on earth base enough to
invent any or all of the lurid stories that have been printed so generally
about Hollywood and the film people?"
The question was asked in an article by Frank Woods, president of the
Screen Writers' Guild of the Authors' League of America, and Thompson
Buchanan, chairman of the Writers Club, which was printed in the CHICAGO
TRIBUNE of March 1 and in other papers throughout the country.
The article, a defense of Hollywood and the film people, is in reality
an attack upon Wallace Smith of the CHICAGO EVENING AMERICAN and myself--and
Mr. Woods and Mr. Buchanan mentioned our names, branding us as liars, fakers,
slanderers, dealers in scandal.
Mr. Smith and I have been warned repeatedly that gangs of men employed
in the studios have sworn to "get us." [9] We have been called "space
writers," representatives of the "scurrilous eastern press," and it has been
intimated that we are users of drugs ourselves--we who complain that a few
movie actors ease their worries with a sniff or a shot in the arm. But the
movie people who have threatened violence have taken the more prudent method.
They have not come near us. They have left the matter to their writing men--
and these have attacked us in the newspapers.
I should not have replied to these articles had the TRIBUNE, for which I
write, not printed the Woods-Buchanan article. The TRIBUNE printed it
because the TRIBUNE believes in fair play. Had there not been a reference to
Mr. Smith and myself I should not have challenged a single statement of these
two Hollywood writers.
In the first place let me explain that neither Wallace Smith nor Edward
Doherty is a space writer. [10] Both of us, writing space, could have made
thousands of dollars; neither of us made a cent. We wrote what we pleased,
spending extra hours to send it, merely because we were assigned to the story
and felt it our duty to tell the world about Hollywood.
Not a line of what we wrote was faked. Not a story was invented; not
one article that either of us wrote contained a single thing that was untrue.
[11] Both of us know that if we did print anything untrue there would be libel
suits. There have been many articles in which we were referred to as liars
and slanderers--but no libel suit has been started; and we do not believe one
will be started.
I live in Hollywood. I have lived there since last October. I have a
year's lease on a house. I intend to go on living in Hollywood. I know
Hollywood, and I know my neighbors.
Wallace Smith has lived in the Ambassador Hotel since last November, but
he knows Hollywood, too. He has frequently visited it in the company of
actors and actresses. He has been to some of the Hollywood parties which--
according to Messrs. Woods and Buchanan--never occurred.
It may be an interesting sidelight to record the fact that I, a
conscienceless liar, a slanderous scandal monger, a reporter who has told so
many untruths about Hollywood, should be offered the opportunity of becoming
the chief publicity man for "Fatty" Roscoe Arbuckle--and that I should reject
the offer as soon as it was made.
I covered the Arbuckle story on three occasions in San Francisco. I had
excellent opportunities for "faking," as the Woods-Buchanan combination calls
it. But it appears I sadly neglected it--and the offer to become Arbuckle's
publicity man came from one of Arbuckle's attorneys, a man who has read
everything I have written, including my articles on Hollywood.
"Hollywood is angry," said this lawyer. "The truth stings."
I feel rather proud of this.
The Woods-Buchanan article intimates that I sided with the district
attorney against Arbuckle. I sided with nobody. I never do. I tell the
facts as accurately as I can get them. I feel with the Screen Writers in
this--that Arbuckle is innocent of the death of Virginia Rappe.
"Arbuckle's mode of living," they said, "which was too often the same as
that of thousands of young men of other stations in life, who, like him, have
too much money, was nevertheless indefensible, and, somehow, someway, the
impression was conveyed that he was a fair example of the film folks'
depravity."
That's what the Screen Writers said. I wouldn't have said that.
Strange to say, I believe Arbuckle one of the cleanest of all moving picture
actors. I didn't think so--but the conviction was drilled into me through
watching him in his three ordeals and to listening to the evidence against
him.
"This quiet and beautiful section of Los Angeles has been treated to a
drenching of slander unequaled in American journalism," the defenders say,
"while film people themselves have been pictured largely as drug addicts,
drunkards, profligates, and degenerates. If a half or a quarter or even a
tenth of this muckraking is founded on fact then the people engaged in making
motion pictures, particularly the stars, are of the wrong class and ought to
be eliminated."
True, and the "muckraking" is founded on a talk with a member of the
state board of pharmacy, who has control of the drug addicts of Los Angeles
and who has registered not a few moving picture stars and lesser lights with
deputy sheriffs; with decent men and women picture players; with the local
reporters, who wish they could print what they know; with the records in the
police blotters.
Neither Smith nor I was born yesterday. We have been in many cities in
the United States and Mexico. Both of us have become more or less accustomed
to looking on the seamy side of life--and both of us were amazed at the
conditions that exist in the land of the movies. We were incredulous at
first. We investigated. We found out the truth. And at the earliest
opportunity, without consulting each other, we began to tell it.
I regret to say that we were not the first to tell of what is going on
in Hollywood--I do not say was going on, but is going on.
Theodore Dreiser told some plain, blunt, ugly facts about directors and
extra girls and other incidents in SHADOWLAND, a moving picture magazine.
[12] I have not heard that either Mr. Woods or Mr. Buchanan called Mr. Dreiser a
liar or a faker or a muckraker or even a space writer.
Let's sum up the rest of the article briefly:
"Work in pictures is exacting and mentally and physically exhausting--so
much so that a great majority of the active workers have no time, strength,
nor inclination for the revelries and orgies which have been pictured as the
rule rather than the exception."
But there is a minority that does find the time. We did not say the
majority was rotten. We do say the minority is.
"The camera is relentless, and no actor or actress, especially the
younger ones whose faces are literally their fortunes, can remain long in the
spotlight and at the same time give way to any sort of self-indulgence."
Correct. There are a lot of favorites, still young, still beautiful,
who no longer dare the camera's scrutiny. There are others who will be
"removed" very soon. It is understood that Adolph Zukor came to the coast
recently to get rid of one of the most prominent male stars in the world--who
has been using a hypodermic needle. [13]
"Taylor, himself, who had been a man of exemplary habits, fine
deportment, and high ideals, turned out to have had an adventurous past. He
had taken a stage name, like many others of theatrical profession, and this
was made much of."
He had a woman's nightgown in his home. He was attended by persons of
no character. He was an intimate of several women, had deserted his wife and
child. He took a couple of stage names. There are other accusations against
him. One could go on indefinitely.
The article complains that reporters said certain movie people
questioned by the officials were "grilled." Smith and Doherty said they were
not grilled, but should have been--and we repeat it.
After telling how Smith and Doherty "seized on the Taylor mystery as an
excuse for digging up and rehashing all the dead scandals of the picture
people that had accumulated in the last ten years" the article admits "there
were only a bare half dozen of them," adding, "but they were embellished,
added to, and enlarged until they read like juicy stuff."
Here's confirmation right out of the screen people themselves. We not
only dug up a lot of dead scandals which were news because they had not been
printed before--but we also told a lot of new ones. A writer in New York [14]
tells how the film folk there recognized the persons talked about, even
though in the first place the stories were untrue, and the characters, thinly
disguised. This writer, after denying everything we wrote, added very
naively, that we must have paid "some one on the inside" very well for our
information.
Then there is reference to an "alleged interview with a Jap butler--pure
fiction."
It was I who told the Jap butler's story. I don't know whether the
story was true, however. I could not verify it. So I told it, as it came to
me and quoted the Jap butler for what he was worth--nothing more.
There are more ridiculous articles being printed by the Screen Writers
than two reporters can reply to. They are all of the same type, denying the
stories written by us, calling us fakers, picturing us as "trampling the
daisies under foot" and proving nothing.
However, as Smith has told, the biggest hotel in Los Angeles has given
its waiters order to "sap over the head" any actor who "sniffs a nail full of
snow, or mixes a drink, or makes a rough crack in the dining room."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
William Desmond Taylor
February 12, 1922
Jane Dixon
NEW YORK TELEGRAM
Fate is Seen in Tragic End of Filmdom's "Love Pirate"
It's a man's game--that of love pirate.
The man plays, and plays--and PAYS.
A potent, pulsing personality; a magnetism dangerous as it is
compelling; a heart attuned to the voices of many women; a quick wit; a ready
tongue; an adventuring that brooks no interference, moral nor material; a
mad, reckless whirl through the shining hour of sun; and at the end--the
leaden period of death.
William Desmond Taylor, dabbler in dreams. Ink is scarce dry on the
cancelled mortgage the powers of evil held against his life.
So, out of the rainbow past, the long, long past reaches the arm of
expiation, pointing a merciless finger toward the hour of earthly reckoning.
There is no escaping that finger.
Ignore it if you dare.
Defy it.
Beat upon it with a will to destroy it.
Still it points, and will point, until the ardent adventurer comes into
his travail, until expiation has been done.
Filmdom welcomed William Desmond Taylor, gave him a seat among the
mighty, hearkened to his word, moved at his command. Its men looked and
admired. Its women looked--and loved. What richer sea could a love pirate
sail?
A list of the girls, the women, taken aboard the love pirate's ship of
dreams for a brief cruise on the sea of pleasure would read like a slightly
deleted directory of the screen's feminine stars. There is another
directory, too, made up of the names of lesser planets, simple little extra
girls who left the safe harbor of their homes to seek fortune in the world of
make-believe. To them the great man behind the megaphone was a god whose
favor was to be sought at any cost.
Now, if we may believe rumor, the sated appetite of the love pirate
called for stronger stimulants than a conquest of hearts. One report has him
a member of a cult with an unmanly ritual. Another speaks boldly of drugs--
opium, cocaine, Lethian fogs of forgetfulness, ending in wild orgies, during
which women, in jealous frenzies, tore the clothes from each other's bodies
and, stripped to the waist, fought like tigers for the favor of the pirate
ship captain.
Once, at least, since he has been privileged to gather blossoms willy-
nilly in the glamorous garden of love, the pirate has eaten of his own dead
sea fruit. His chauffeur tells how, after a New Year's eve party in the
fashionable Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, he was so unhappy over an
altercation with his companion [15] of the evening that he broke down and
wept. The bitterness of unrequited love seems to have been his portion in
this particular case. He was reaping the whirlwind of his own sowing.
Who sped on its horrid way the leaden pellet which brought the eventful
story of the love pirate's life to a tragic close?
Was it one of the fair ships he had scuttled?
Was it another pirate vessel, jealous of a rival's plunder?
Was it a legitimate craft, the captain of which could not endure the
depredations of the modern Captain Kidd?
Was it a derelict, its crew gone mad from dipping into a contraband
cargo of drugs?
Was it a phantom ship sailing out of the past to drive the pirate from
the seas?
Of only one fact we are sure--that William Deane-Tanner, alias William
Desmond Taylor, could no longer escape the moving finger of Fate. He had
made a bargain. The hour was at hand when he must pay--in silent expiation.
Destiny, as is just, has taken her toll.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 3, 1922
LOS ANGELES RECORD
Star Talks of Slain Man
"No, I never was engaged to marry William Desmond Taylor, I regret to
say." This statement was made by pretty Mary Miles Minter in an interview at
her home last night.
"Do you know where his ex-wife and daughter are?" Miss Minter was asked.
Miss Minter's violet colored eyes flashed fire.
"Why he had no wife--he was never married. I'm positive of that," she
replied.
"But, maybe Mary, he didn't tell you he was married," broke in Mother,
Charlotte Shelby.
"But mother, I knew him so well--I am sure he wasn't married. I asked
him if he was, and he told me no."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 11, 1922
LOS ANGELES RECORD
Mrs. J. M. Berger, income tax specialist, talked about William Desmond
Taylor who had called at her office just a few hours before he was slain in
his bachelor apartments.
"He was here in the afternoon to attend some business," she explained.
"I do not think there is a woman in the case.
"Why--" her white hand pointed to a large picture of Mary Miles Minter
that was hanging on the wall of her room.
"Of course little Mary loved Mr. Taylor--who didn't? We all loved him.
"Of course, Mary Miles Minter is only a child.
"Her letters, published, are purely those of a very young girl, and as
Mr. Taylor said, 'a child.'
"I had asked him how she was on that day he called here and he said 'she
has a touch of tonsillitis and temperament.' "
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 8, 1922
CLEVELAND PRESS
Hardly an hour passed without gossip whispering around the name of some
new ingenue of the movies--some sweet, lovely young thing, whose demureness
on the screen perhaps has been an example pointed out to thousands of
daughters by thousands of mothers--in connection with the supposed chivalries
and romances of William Desmond Taylor.
Things had almost reached a point where stardom seemed to mean close
friendship with Taylor--the warmer the friendship the brighter the light of
the star.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 23, 1922
Joe Webb
AUSTIN AMERICAN
Neva Gerber says that despite the fact she and Director Taylor broke
their engagement to be married, they remained the best of friends. As
Taylor's checkbook showed he had given Neva $500 a few days before he was
murdered, we're inclined to believe they were on tolerably friendly terms.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 3, 1922
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
"Mr. Taylor was a man who knew everything," said Miss Normand. "If I
wanted to know the meaning of an unusual word I did not have to take the
trouble to look it up in the dictionary. I just had my secretary telephone
Mr. Taylor."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 9, 1922
SEATTLE UNION-RECORD
William Desmond Taylor was called "the love wizard" by dope-haunted
members of the Hollywood film colony.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 7, 1922
Edward Doherty
NEW YORK NEWS
Taylor was a director with brains and the artistic touch. He made the
average director look like what he is--a brainless mechanism braying through
a megaphone.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 9, 1922
DES MOINES REGISTER
Taylor is the first and only man who ever undertook to train an octopus
to act.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 28, 1922
ROCHESTER TIMES-UNION
A dainty handkerchief marked "M.M.M." was found in the murdered movie
director's apartment. Maybe they had been playing "drop the handkerchief."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 28, 1922
Wallace Smith
CHICAGO AMERICAN
Taylor was often referred to as "Simon Legree," [16] whose one care was
making a showing before his employers and whose last thought was for the
feelings of those he found working under him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 8, 1922
CHICAGO POST
According to F. D. Dalton, "Taylor's only fault was periodical drunks.
One time he went with a man named Ed Cox and a theatrical troupe to the
Hawaiian Islands. Taylor got drunk and wandered to another island in the
group and was not found until three months later. Then he was with a hula
hula crowd back in the mountains."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 7, 1922
Louisville Times
FIRE BURN AND CAULDRON BUBBLE
The movie owner and the movie director have been the men of amours since
the flying camera shutter first began to click. Handsome though he be, the
leading man has had hard sledding. Now and then a beautiful lady would fall
to his portion; and, of course, he had his share of bathing beauties and
roadhouse party-fodder; but the Guineveres, the Elaines, the Cleopatras and
the Columbines have worn the tag of owner and director.
These form the higher circle of the fast life on the Camera Coast, and
thus the new tragedy in Hollywood is interesting to the public because it
deals almost wholly with stars. Poor Fatty Arbuckle was the only l
uminary in
his case because he is an actor and has only limited favors to bestow. But
Taylor was a director in the first degree: desirable parts and large salaries
went to whom he said they should go.
He had a bijou flat in a bijou row, and it was appointed as a
garconniere [17] should be. After the megaphonics of the day the Great
Director would retire to this little nest and to him would repair some lady
artist to have a quiet nip and to discuss the burning subject of art. The
more the Great Director appreciated the qualities of these artists, the
greater their opportunities and the larger their salaries. The persistence
on the screen of many vulgar and awkward women in star roles proves how much
a director can do to make life profitable and pleasing, and his favor is even
more important than an owner's. So if he has a little flat and is hospitable
to ladies, what more delightful than to visit him as his butler is leaving
and clink a refreshing cocktail? Nearly all the lady artists have a "mother"
or an "aunt" abiding with them who are so confident of the virtue of their
charges that they are lenient with them; and these duennas can arise in time
of stress to vow that Maisie was only a causal friend and is a good girl who
never had a temperature of over 98.5 in all her life.
Taylor, being unusually well-placed to extend favors to lady artists,
and being a dashing fellow withal was popular with the fair and received a
number of visitors, for whom an inventory of his effects reveals that he
furnished every modern convenience. In many other bijou flats on other bijou
rows other directors have been in equal favor, and all in Hollywood was as
merry, if not as regular, as a marriage bell.
But the smiles of women bring the frowns of men, and a man who roves
with too many sometimes gets in trouble with one. So one night last week the
director accompanied his last fair visitor to the limousine. There came
murder and mystery into Hollywood and into the lurid columns devoted to the
tragedy came names that were not commercially benefited by it. And the
mystery endures, and the blood cries out for vengeance, and before the two
are quieted there will be a deal of uneasiness, and shattered feet of clay
will be strewn about the fallen images of several golden girls.
It is inevitable. The ingredients of scandal and immorality and tragedy
are generously found in movie colonies. Never before in the history of the
world have so many women, depending mainly on their beauty, been vying for
place and favor from men. Place and favor in the movies have all too
frequently gone for a fundamental price eagerly given, cynically received.
(Continued next issue)
*****************************************************************************
NEXT ISSUE:
Why Taylor's Servant Thought Mabel Normand was the Killer
1929 Interview with Charlotte Shelby
"The Humor of a Hollywood Murder":
Mabel's Reading Matter, The Funeral, The Investigation, The Law
Index to A CAST OF KILLERS
*****************************************************************************
NOTES:
[1] NEW YORK NEWS (February 15, 1922)
[2] HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN (April 25, 1922)
[3] SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (April 25, 1922)
[4] HILO POST-HERALD (April 26, 1922)
[5] As stated in the Introduction, some offensive stereotypes were
commonplace in the 20s, and are included here for historical purposes.
[6] Other references to this alleged incident make it clear that this
individual is supposedly Wallace Reid.
[7] "hop-joint"-- drug den.
[8] This was reported by Wallace Smith in the CHICAGO AMERICAN (February 10,
1922) but not in these exact words. Smith was reportedly quoting "one
of Los Angeles' leading physicians."
[9] For details see Edward Doherty, GALL AND HONEY (Sheed & Ward, 1941), pp.
200-202.
[10] A "space writer" is a derogatory term for a writer paid by the word.
Smith and Doherty were on a straight salary.
[11] Aside from Taylor case material, the dispatches of Smith and Doherty
during the previous month contained sensational thinly-veiled references
to such stars as Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Mix, Ben Turpin, Rudolf
Valentino, Mabel Normand, Blanche Sweet, etc.
[12] See Theodore Dreiser, "Hollywood: Its Morals and Manners," SHADOWLAND
(November 1921-February 1922).
[13] Wallace Reid.
[14] Frederick James Smith. See LOS ANGELES TIMES (February 19, 1922)
[15] Mabel Normand.
[16] The cruel slave-owning villain of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.
[17] "garconniere"-- bachelor's quarters.
