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Taylorology Issue 12
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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 12 -- December 1993 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* All reprinted material is in the public domain *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Time-Life's "Unsolved Crimes"--Bravo!
Did a Canadian Army Veteran Kill Taylor?
Charlotte Shelby's Last Two Interviews (1937)
Interview with Mary Miles Minter (1937)
Wallace Smith: February 10, 1922
"The Truth About Hollywood":
Part 1 [A brief tour of 1922 Hollywood]
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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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Time-Life's "Unsolved Crimes"--Bravo!
Time-Life Books has recently published the "Unsolved Crimes" volume
(ISBN 0-7835-0012-2) in their True Crime series, and it includes a 40-page
chapter on the Taylor murder. This is unquestionably the best short recap of
the Taylor case yet published! It attempts to touch all the bases, briefly
explore all major theories, and present the pertinent facts in a lively and
well-written manner. It essentially skims the cream from the books by
Kirkpatrick, Giroux, and Long. There is a handful of minor errors--the most
glaring is the picture of Mary Miles Minter on p. 140 mis-identified as
Margaret Fillmore. But when compared to the typical error-laden recaps
published elsewhere in years past (see "Hollywood Mysteries--Shredded" in
TAYLOROLOGY 11), this recap looks like a shining jewel, and establishes an
excellent standard by which future short recaps of the Taylor case should be
judged. If you are interested in reading about the Taylor case for the first
time, "Unsolved Crimes" is the perfect place to start; if you are a seasoned
Taylor case buff, you will still want this volume for your library even
though it contains no new revelations.
Kudos to Time-Life for this one!
As would be expected from Time-Life, the chapter includes a lot of
photographs--a nice selection of 30 images. Still, the recap would have been
improved if several other visual items had been included (none of the
following were in the Giroux or Kirkpatrick books, either):
1. Photograph of Faith MacLean in Alvarado Court. She was possibly the
only one to see Taylor's killer, and was sitting on her sofa knitting a
sweater when the shot was fired. A photograph published in the May 1992 issue
of Picture-Play shows Faith and Douglas MacLean sitting outside on the bench
in Alvarado Court--just a few yards from Taylor's front door. In the
photograph she is knitting the very same sweater. Time-Life did not include
any pictures of Faith MacLean in "Unsolved Crimes."
2. The photograph of Mary Miles Minter which she had given to Taylor
with her inscription: "For William Desmond Taylor--Artist, Gentleman, Man.
Sincere good wishes. Mary Miles Minter. -1920-". That photograph is one of
the more stunningly beautiful photos of Minter ever taken, and would have
been a nice complement to the photograph of Taylor that was inscribed to
Minter, which Time-Life did print.
3. The diagram of the murder scene published in a Los Angeles newspaper
on the same day the body was found.
4. The photograph of Taylor directing Kathlyn Williams and Dustin
Farnum in "Davy Crockett" published in a 1916 issue of Film Fun. Kathlyn
Williams is of particular interest because she was the one who officially
identified Taylor's body--her signature appears on Taylor's death
certificate. She was also the wife of Charles Eyton, who was involved in the
clean-up of Taylor's home immediately after the body was found. Time-Life
only printed one picture of Taylor directing a film, a photograph showing
Taylor from behind.
5. One of the code love letters written by Minter and found among
Taylor's effects.
6. "A Cubistaylor Picture." Several editorial cartoonists used the
Taylor murder as inspiration for their drawings. One of the best cartoons on
this subject was printed in the Pittsburgh Sun on February 11, 1922.
An attempt will be made to soon place scanned images of all seven of the
above items on an Internet gopher server. Details will appear in the next
issue of TAYLOROLOGY.
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Did a Canadian Army Veteran Kill Taylor?
The facts of William Desmond Taylor's military service are as follows: He
enlisted as a private in the British Army and arrived at Camp Fort Edward,
Nova Scotia, Canada, in August 1918. He was assigned to the 5th Battalion,
Royal Fusiliers. Because of his leadership experience he was rapidly
promoted and was a sergeant major in two months. His unit sailed for England
and was assigned to Hounslow Barracks in November 1918. At that point he was
commissioned Lieutenant and transferred to the Expeditionary Force Canteen,
Royal Army Service Corps, stationed at Dunkirk. He was second in command
under Maj. Meghar. He was released from active duty around the beginning of
May 1919, and was a Captain in the British Reserves.
The rumors of a revengeful Canadian veteran stem from several press
reports:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 17, 1922
SANTA ANA REGISTER
The man who may have murdered William D. Taylor, motion picture
director, in Los Angeles, the night of February 1, was "given a lift" in
the automobile of a prominent Tustin rancher late in the afternoon of
Monday January 30. The given name of the man who was then assisted was
"Spike."
This startling information came to light here late this afternoon
when the rancher in question, who declined to allow his name to be used
in connection with the case, but whose name is known to The Register,
gave full details of what occurred when he gave "Spike" and a companion
a ride in his automobile, from Tustin in the Santa Fe tracks, Santa Ana.
Spike was the taller of the two men. During a conversation while
the rancher and the two men were en route to Santa Ana, the subject of
soldiers came up, as Spike was dressed in army trousers, wrap, leggings
and army shoes.
The rancher mentioned Captain N. M. Holderman, stating that the
latter had just received a new decoration. This set Spike to enveighing
bitterly against captains in general.
Then spike declared there was "one --- --- --- in Southern
California" that he was "going to get" if he could find him.
The shorter of the two men then asked Spike:
"You mean Bill?"
The rancher did not recall Spike's answer to this question, but it
is assured that the reply was in the affirmative.
Later, when Spike continued to talk along similar lines, the short
man cautioned Spike:
"For ---'s sake shut up."
As the two men were about to leave the rancher's automobile at the
Santa Fe crossing on First Street, an old-fashioned Colt's revolver
dropped into the mud from beneath Spike's trousers belt.
The rancher, startled, inquired of Spike what he intended to do
with the revolver.
Spike replied that they "figured that they might be held up."
As the rancher was about to drive on, Spike called to him to wait,
in order that he might clean the revolver. The mud was carefully
cleaned from the weapon and the rancher went on his way, noticing that
the two men walked up the tracks in the direction of the railroad
station.
The rancher noticed that the barrel of the revolver had been sawed
off. The sight was missing. The gun was either .32 or .38 caliber.
The rancher also recalled that the two men made minute inquiries of
him regarding train and stage service from Santa Ana to San Diego.
The two men were thereupon asked the reason for the questions, to
which they answered that "they were just getting lined up."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 28, 1922
SAN FRANCISCO CALL-POST
Investigation of the Taylor murder mystery shifted again to San
Francisco today when search was started by detectives from the office of
District Attorney Matthew Brady for a Canadian army veteran who is said
to have made the statement here in January that he was "going to
Hollywood to get revenge or satisfaction on Taylor."
While the identity of the Taylor in question was not given as
William Desmond Taylor, slain moving picture director, the Canadian
trooper said that the man he was after "had been his superior officer in
the army and had been responsible for his being courtmartialed in France
and punished by being lashed to the wheel of a gun two hours during the
morning and afternoon for ninety days."
The chance remark of the former Canadian soldier was made to
another British army veteran, now a resident of San Francisco, a week
before the moving picture director was mysteriously slain, and when the
man appeared in this city a few days ago with a sum of money much larger
than he had a month ago the San Franciscan recalled the remark of his
acquaintance that he was going to "get Taylor," and made known the fact
to District Attorney Brady, who is withholding the identity of his
informant.
District Attorney Brady listened with close attention to the
narrative told by the former soldier, now working as a house painter in
San Francisco, and declared that the report was worthy of a thorough
investigation. He immediately dispatched detectives to find the author
of the threatening remarks and check up on his actions for the last
month.
The Canadian Veteran told his San Francisco friend a few days ago
that he was preparing to leave for Australia.
In telling Brady about the incident the San Francisco veteran of
the royal forces said that he met the Canadian January 25 and that in
the course of a talk about their experiences in the British forces, each
told how he had been courtmartialed for infractions of the military
rules.
Forcefully expressing himself on his punishment, the Canadian is
said to have remarked:
"I'm going to Hollywood and get Taylor. It will cost him
something, or I'll get satisfaction in some other way."
The San Franciscan told Brady that he met the man on the street two
days ago and he displayed a roll of currency containing $50 bills.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 18, 1922
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
A letter was received from a fromer army officer in London,
England, who wrote that one day after the Armistice was signed he was
dining with Captain Taylor in a London hotel. As a stranger in the
uniform of the Canadian army crossed the dining hall Taylor suddenly
remarked:
"There goes a man who is going to get me if it takes a thousand
years to do it."
Taylor then went on to explain that the man was a sergeant in his
company whom he had reported and had courtmartialed for the theft of
army property. A description of the man was contained in the letter.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In addition to those press reports, Taylor's army diary reportedly does make
a brief mention of the courtmartial. No details or names are given. [1]
However, Taylor served in the British (not Canadian) Army. So what it
all boils down to is the question: Would Canadian soldiers have been under
Taylor's jurisdiction, either in the Royal Fusiliers or the Royal Army
Service Corps? Or did the British and Canadian armies keep their units
strictly separated, even when the British units were in Canada? Certainly
the courtmartial records for both units must still exist somewhere, and
combing them for those few months should give us the names and details of any
such courtmartials.
One reason why the revengeful Canadian veteran theory has considerable
appeal is because it was reported that in the days and hours before Taylor's
murder, a man had been asking around, trying to find out where Taylor lived.
Most of the "usual suspects" (Sands, Shelby, etc.) already knew where Taylor
lived, or else they could have found out through discreet means. But an out-
of-town Canadian veteran would have had no choice but to ask strangers.
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Charlotte Shelby's Last Two Interviews (1937)
Over the years Charlotte Shelby, the mother of Mary Miles Minter, has
remained a prime suspect in the Taylor murder. She owned a gun similar to
the kind that killed Taylor and had threatened Taylor's life if he did not
stay away from Mary. Throughout her lifetime she gave very few interviews in
which she was willing to discuss the murder. The following are the last two
such interviews known to exit.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 11, 1937
A. M. Rochen
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
Mrs. Charlotte Shelby knows she is under investigation in the William
Desmond Taylor murder case and welcomes the opportunity to face the issue.
Neither defiant nor cowed, she came forward yesterday to demand
immediate action by the authorities, at any cost.
Weary of years of gossip and innuendo, she thinks the time has come to
bring before the proper tribunals every one who has any knowledge of or
connection with the 15-year-old slaying of the famous motion picture
director.
And, if in the interests of justice she must suffer temporarily the
inconvenience of questioning and investigation, she is willing to assume the
role so every vital fact may be developed, and all the "froth and fables"
with which it had become surrounded in the last decade and a half may forever
be brushed away.
This is what she said yesterday in a remarkable interview with The
Examiner, given in the presence of her attorney, Clyde F. Murphy, here in Los
Angeles.
Seven years ago, speaking to this reporter, Mrs. Shelby made similar
demands, but under somewhat different circumstances. [2]
Since then many things transpired in her life. The fortunes of her
daughters, Mary Miles Minter and Margaret Shelby Fillmore, had been all but
swept away by theft and litigation. Civil suits by the dozen have come and
passed. These suits involved disputes in her own family, and then, last
month, came the dramatic appearance before the grand jury of her own
daughter, Margaret, whose testimony laid the foundation for the present
revival of the celebrated murder case.
"First of all," said Mrs. Shelby yesterday, "I want every one to know
that I bear no malice toward anyone or resent anything my daughter Margaret
or anyone else may have told the grand jury.
"Margaret is my daughter, and her welfare and future is the important
thing.
"I feel that the truth, like murder, will out. I know that charges made
must be proven and that only through investigation and search can facts, long
forgotten or covered up, be reconstructed and made useful in an inquiry of
this sort.
"Therefore I say: If the authorities want to consider me a suspect in
this case, I am willing--if that will help once and for all to verify or
disprove the rumors and tips and ideas that have been cluttering up this case
from the very start.
"I am prepared, and will await the outcome of the grand jury
investigation with interest, but without the slightest fear," she said.
And then, for the first time, Mrs. Shelby gave her views on Mary Miles
Minter's love for William Desmond Taylor.
"This romantic attachment of Mr. Taylor for Mary was something I learned
only after Mr. Taylor was killed. It was all news to me. So far as we were
concerned, we were glad to see Mary go with Mr. Taylor. He was such a
gentleman and we felt Mary was well chaperoned when out with him to dinner or
the theater," she said calmly.
"You see," she continued, "I would have no motive.
"Neither was I in love with Mr. Taylor. To me he was just one of Mary's
directors--a fine gentleman, and that's all."
Q. "Were you ever in Taylor's house?"
A. "Yes, once," she replied.
Mary was late in coming home. She had a new car. The family worried,
Mrs. Shelby said, so she, Charlotte Whitney, the secretary, and Chauncey
Eaton, the chauffeur, drove to Taylor's house. Taylor's telephone was not in
the book and that was the only way to reach him.
"Mr. Taylor came to the door. I told him of my anxiety for Mary. He
called the assistant director--I think it was Frank Connor, and asked him if
he had seen Mary. Then he said, 'Mary should not go away like this,' and I
went home. Mrs. Whitney remained in the car, as did Chauncey.
"The rest of all this stuff they are talking about now is silly," Mrs.
Shelby went on.
"I was home on the night of the murder--with Carl Stockdale. We played
cards from 7 till 9. It was Carl Stockdale who called me the next morning to
tell me Mr. Taylor was dead.
Q. "Did you ever own a gun, Mrs. Shelby?"
"There was only one gun in the Shelby family," she said. "That was given
me by a man in Santa Barbara.
"Bullets were taken out of this gun, but that was two years before the
murder. One night, after being scolded, Mary went to my room and locked
herself in. We heard a shot. The door was locked. Chauncey and a night
watchman broke it down and there, on the floor was Mary. When we saw she was
not hurt, my mother, Mrs. Julia Miles, said to Chauncey: 'Take the bullets
out of that gun and give them to me.'
"She took the gun and I never saw it or the bullets again."
Miss Minter, some days ago, told The Examiner a similar version of the
firing of the gun. She said she was fumbling with the gun when it was
discharged. [3]
All the other allegations now being made by witnesses, Mrs. Shelby said,
are baseless--and most of them are "also silly."
"Why didn't they look into all those things at the time of the murder?"
she demanded.
"If the authorities had followed the real important clews, instead of
chasing after persons whose names had Hollywood glamour, the case probably
would have been solved long ago and all of us spared this perpetual
annoyance."
Mrs. Shelby then expressed regret that Stockdale, the veteran Hollywood
actor, has been mentioned in the case. "Poor Carl, such a faithful friend and
such a gentle soul," Mrs. Shelby sighed.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 12, 1937
LOS ANGELES NEWS
Mrs. Charlotte Shelby, mother of Mary Miles Minter, told the whole story
yesterday of the mysterious bullet for which Junior G-men of the district
attorney's office were seeking by means of a fluoroscope in the William
Desmond Taylor murder investigation. [4]
While the district attorney's clue-seekers turned the fluoroscope on the
walls of a former home of Mrs. Shelby, the latter admitted the missing bullet
had been fired from her pearl-handled revolver and that the remaining bullets
in the gun had been handed to Chauncey Eaton, her former chauffeur.
Mrs. Shelby said the missing bullet, believed to have lodged in a closet
wall, was fired by Miss Minter two years before the murder, apparently as a
joke.
A .38 caliber bullet was found on a rafter in the basement of Mrs.
Shelby's former home by investigators several weeks ago, according to the
district attorney's office. Eaton said he placed the remaining bullets from
Mrs. Shelby's gun there after the shooting at the closet wall by Miss Minter.
The bullet did not lodge in the ceiling, as the investigators assume,
Mrs. Shelby declared.
"It penetrated the door jam of the closet and lodged in the back wall of
the closet. The bullet hole in the wooden door jam was plainly visible for a
time afterwards. I really don't remember whatever was done about it--whether
a new paneling was put on or not," Mrs. Shelby said.
"When we rushed into the room," Mrs. Shelby said, "Mary was lying on a
rug on the floor with her hand over her face. She removed her hand, looked at
us, and said, 'ha-ha'."
Witnesses to the scene, Mrs. Shelby said, were Mrs. Charlotte Whitney,
her former secretary, Eaton, her chauffeur, and Mrs. Mary Miles, her mother,
now dead. [5]
"My mother demanded the gun, saying, 'There'll be no more of this gun-
play around this house'," Mrs. Shelby continued.
"She took the gun and handed it to Eaton, telling him to unload it.
Eaton emptied five remaining shells from the little pearl-handled gun into
his hand and handed the gun back to my mother. I don't know what mother did
with it after that."
Mrs. Shelby "pooh-pooed" a recent declaration of a witness of knowledge
of threats made against Taylor's life.
"One night in June, two years before the murder," the mother continued,
"Mary had not come home at a late hour. She was driving a new car, and I was
worried about her. Charlotte Whitney and I decided we should look for her.
Eaton knew where Taylor lived, and I ordered him to drive out there. That was
the only time I was ever in Mr. Taylor's bungalow. I merely asked him if he
knew the whereabouts of my daughter. He replied that he did not, and we
left."
A report made to the district attorney's office by Albert E. Harris,
former taxi driver, that he drove Miss Minter, weeping and hysterical, and an
actor from the Ambassador Hotel to Miss Minter's home the afternoon of the
Taylor Taylor was shot, and overheard scraps of conversation, was branded as
"silly, and ridiculous" by Mrs. Shelby.
"Mary was on location at the beach that day, her work requiring her to
dive into the ocean all day. She had caught a bad cold, and returned from
work late in the afternoon, just in time for dinner. She certainly was not
galivanting around from the Ambassador to her home in a taxicab," Mrs. Shelby
said.
A narcotic smuggler, Mrs. Shelby said she believes, killed Taylor.
"I believe he was slain by someone who has never been under
investigation, but who wanted to remove Taylor from the path of narcotic
smugglers.
Mrs. Shelby said she knew that Taylor was safeguarding a prominent film
actress from attempts of underworld characters to lead the actress into the
drug habit. [6]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Several of Shelby's statements in the above two interviews appear to be
false:
1. Shelby stated "This romantic attachment of Mr. Taylor for Mary was
something I learned only after Mr. Taylor was killed. It was all news to me.
So far as we were concerned, we were glad to see Mary go with Mr. Taylor."
On the contrary, there are several reliable sources--including Mary's own
statement--which clearly show that during 1920/1921 Shelby knew about the
Taylor/Minter romance, and she was strongly opposed to it.
2. Shelby says her gun was given to her by a man in Santa Barbara, but he
(Harry Harris) denied giving it to her. It appears the gun was given to her in
1920 by Frank Brown, a night watchman, while the family was living in the
mansion on Fremont.
3. Shelby says the last time she saw the gun was on the day of Mary's
"fake suicide scene" which took place in 1920 while the family was living on
Fremont. But the chauffeur, Chauncey Eaton, stated that Shelby unloaded the
gun and gave the bullets to him several months after the murder--when Shelby
was living at Casa de Marguerita on New Hampshire--and that he placed the
bullets on a rafter in the basement at that time. Since a bullet was indeed
located on the Casa de Marguerita rafter, it indicates that Shelby was lying
about never having seen the gun again after living on Fremont.
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Interview with Mary Miles Minter (1937)
May 6, 1937
LOS ANGELES HERALD-EXPRESS
...Miss Minter discussed the new development and the Taylor case history
in detail. [7]
"I'll be glad to tell them all I know," she said. It'll be something
like this:
"There is nothing in the diaries I would not be willing to show the
world, if I thought it would help in the case. Most of them were written long
before the murder--by a girl going to school and working. Can you imagine
there is anything there that would help? Don't you think I would have turned
everything over to the police if it could have done the least possible good?"
As the used the word "murder" to refer to the death of her loved one,
Miss Minter's voice broke.
"I was sitting on the sofa in my home--my sister was there, and she
knows I was there that night that--that--" She was unable to finish the
sentence.
She referred to the night of Feb. 1, 1922, when Taylor was shot to death
in his swank apartment.
"My dear precious grandmother, Julia Branch Miles, and our cook, Belle
Simpson, was with us that evening, I remember," Miss Minter continued.
We knew nothing about it until the next day. Those next days were almost
a blank for me.
"And mother knew nothing of it. My mother likes to talk for a long time
on the telephone and that night she made several calls and talked to people
for hours. My sister knew that, too."
Miss Minter told how she came back to her home last night after dining
out, to find Capt. Jesse Winn, district attorney investigator, there.
"He said he'd been there since 5 o'clock," Miss Minter said. "My maid
was frightened to death. He had searched the entire house.
"I helped him in the search--he was nice about it, although I made a
mistake and called him 'Detective Winn' instead of 'Captain.'
"I wanted him to take everything he wanted, but he took only the
diaries. Then he gave me the subpoena. I asked him: 'Is this another attempt
to involve me or my family?' but all he said was: 'Just be down there in the
morning.'
"I'll be there, and I'll tell all I known again--but I'm afraid its just
another scare case that won't amount to a hill of beans."
Miss Minter said she believed the present re-opening of the case was due
to an "upheaval" by her sister.
"Margaret has been bitter against our mother, as you know," the actress
said. "They, as well, as I have been involved in litigation of some kind for
years.
"Margaret wanted to be an actress and yet I took the limelight.
"It's all come out in court, anyway, and as you remember in one case had
Margaret kept out of court by calling a doctor for her.
"I'm afraid this is just an upheaval."
Asked if she had any theory of her own as to who shot her fiance, Miss
Minter shook her head sadly.
"What do you think I've thought about these 15 years? If I had any
theory I would have taken it to the police at once. I've wracked and wracked
my brains--I can't think of an enemy in the world that Mr. Taylor might have
had."
Miss Minter was asked about the possibility of Edward Sands, Taylor's
valet, who was charged with the murder but who was never apprehended, being
involved in the crime.
"Sands?--No. He was just a fat, jolly cockney. He couldn't have done it.
I just wish I knew where he was so I could tell him to come out and clear
himself."
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Wallace Smith: February 10, 1922
The following is another sample of Wallace Smith's sensationalized reporting,
published 10 days after the murder.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 10, 1922
Wallace Smith
CHICAGO AMERICAN
One of filmland's best known producers of pictures, also known for a
notorious affair conducted with an actress named in the mystery of William
Desmond Taylor's slaying, was sought by detectives today to account for his
movements on the night the eccentric director was murdered. [8]
Ever since Taylor's death, it became known, this producer has instructed
his secretary to inform callers he was too ill to be seen. This instruction
also held good for the police, who accepted it. Such seems to be the
reluctance of the Los Angeles police to investigate too sharply any incident
that might annoy the Hollywood moving picture colony.
It was declared that Prosecutor Thomas Lee Woolwine, who had taken the
investigation out of the hands of the police, was ready to demand the
appearance of the famous producer. In fact, it was stated the prosecutor had
motored to the studio where the producer was said to be in seclusion.
The affair of the producer and the actress was one of the scandals of
Hollywood. These dispatches recently referred to the history of the
"romance," the first fights between the two and their final separation, which
led the actress to the fatal slavery of drugs.
Recently the affair was revived. All Hollywood buzzed with gossip as it
learned the actress had returned to the direction of this producer in the
films -- and it was rumored, in life. [9]
Then came rumors of the actress' affair with Taylor, the producer, his
affection rekindled, was known to be jealous. It was stated the actress had
endeavored to break off her association with the director and that a final
quarrel between them occurred last New Year's eve. [10]
Later, it was stated, the slain director refused to abandon his latest
light o'love and this, it was said resulted in a bitter enmity between him
and the producer.
It was theorized today, the producer resolved to win back the whole love
of the actress, confronted Taylor, demanded he drop out of the young woman's
life and finally killed him.
The district attorney, while waiting to assemble the story of the
director, began a hunt for a secret safety deposit box said to have been
maintained by Taylor. In it he hoped to find some clew to the mysterious
slaying.
Earlier in the day the district attorney had given three film actresses
known from Broadway to the narrowest main street that ever supported a split-
reel nickelodeon, the chance to come before him and tell what they knew of
Taylor's strange life and his weird death.
The three actresses were:
Mabel Normand, once reported engaged to wed Taylor, who was a visitor at
his home a matter of minutes before the assassin wiped out Taylor's life.
She was to be asked of her visit, her long companionship with Taylor, the
statement of his valet that she and Taylor were to marry "and have a little
baby," an alleged quarrel with the director and the letters she wrote to the
man of mystery.
Mary Miles Minter, who was Taylor's confidante -- except in regard to
his deserted wife and daughter -- and who was to be questioned regarding the
"I love you -- I love you" note written on her stationery and found in
Taylor's home with a dainty handkerchief bearing the initials "M.M.M."
Edna Purviance, leading woman for Charles Chaplin and neighbor of Taylor
in Alvarado St. She visited the Taylor home at midnight the day of the
slaying and saw the lights burning in his study, but could not gain an answer
to a ring at the bell. [11]
It was reported that Claire Windsor, another actress whose name had been
linked with Chaplin's as well as with Taylor's, and Neva Gerber, once engaged
to marry Taylor, also might be called by the prosecutor.
The stories of the actresses were waited as District Attorney Thomas Lee
Woolwine created a sensation by taking charge in person of the investigation
of Taylor's death, which appears to have been badly bungled by the police.
As he drove forward in his inquiry, it was reported that a special grand
jury would be demanded by the authorities to batter down the wall of silence
which has been built to protect the wilder set of Hollywood -- and behind
which the slayer of Taylor has escaped.
Whether or not the three film stars would appear was a question that
seemed to rest between them and their managers.
Miss Normand, who had been reportedly sufficiently recovered from the
shock of Taylor's death to resume her studio work, was reported to have had a
relapse shortly after it was known that the prosecutor desired to speak with
her.
At the home of Miss Minter it was stated that the young star still
suffered from the nervous jar occasioned by Taylor's death, a jar which she
confided to friends brought to her face an expression never seen there before
-- "frozen horror," she called it.
It was learned that Miss Minter had already been questioned by the
district attorney for two hours last Tuesday evening. The Lasky beauty, it
was stated, had admitted her great affection for the slain director. This
interview, however, was considered quite unsatisfactory and the star was to
be given an opportunity to talk again.
That she was the first to be questioned was considered of deep
significance because it had been rumored from the first that, whatever her
feeling toward the director, he had shrined her in his heart as the one woman
in the world.
There was a new significance given the letters of Miss Normand, too,
when it was reported that she had informed certain officials that she had
gone to the home of Taylor on Wednesday to demand that he return the letters
she had written him.
"Not that they meant anything to any one but us," declared Miss Normand,
"but I feared that they might fall into other hands and be misconstrued."
According to one version of her alleged demand for the letters Taylor
told Miss Normand that he had mailed the packet of letters to her home. It
was on this assurance that she left his Alvarado St. home a short time before
the hour upon which the police have agreed the murder occurred.
It has been remarkable from the time Taylor's body was found that those
who seemed closest to the tragedy were not closely questioned by the police.
Certainly this sensational case, a crime that has aroused the entire country,
has not been conducted with anything resembling even the rudiments of police
work.
There have been sinister rumors of attempts to smother all inquiry into
the crime -- even reports that money has changed hands. It seems incredible
that even the millions of dollars that are tied up in the movies would be
used in such a manner to protect the pampered darlings of the pictures.
Yet the police at the time the prosecutor took hold of the investigation
seemed to be exactly where they were at the time the crime was discovered. A
little more bewildered, if anything.
Personages of the films, apparently because of their might in front of
the camera, were not disturbed, despite the fact that every circumstance
indicated they would be able to shed light on the crime.
Just two calls were made on Miss Normand, it was learned. She refused
to pay any attention to the first. At the second, after keeping the
detectives waiting in their high-laced hiking boots and mackinaw jackets, she
issued a formal statement.
Prosecutor Woolwine declared his intention of taking a stenographic
signed statement from each witness called to his office. His work began
yesterday and went on until close to midnight.
In that time he interviewed, among others, Henry Peavey, Taylor's
houseman; Mrs. Douglas MacLean, actor's wife and neighbor of Taylor's;
Douglas MacLean; Christine Jewett, nurse in the MacLean household; Harry
Fellows, assistant director to Taylor; Howard Fellows, Taylor's chauffeur; an
unnamed male witness said to be the sweetheart of a movie player and Arthur
Hoyt, film actor.
The chief information reported to have been distilled from this
questioning was that Edward F. Sands, former valet and secretary to Taylor,
was not the man seen by Mrs. MacLean at Taylor's door immediately after the
shot was heard.
But the new investigation brought about the discovery of a new witness,
a Los Angeles policeman named Thomas Long, who told Prosecutor Woolwine that
on the night of the murder he had seen a man skulking behind a telephone pole
in the vicinity of Taylor's home.
"He ran when I came up, said the policeman, "and he disappeared in the
dark before I could reach the spot. I noticed near the telephone pole where
he had been hiding the stubs of two cigarettes. They were gold tipped and a
brand I never heard of before. When I read how Taylor always smoked that
kind and that some were stolen from his house, I thought that this man might
have had something to do with it.
Another report was that an earlier woman visitor had preceded Mabel
Normand to Taylor's study. The prosecutor was especially interested in
discovering why the name of this woman -- said to have been another movie
star of the first magnitude -- had been concealed.
The federal agents called into the case, who already have compiled quite
a secret history of Hollywood's hidden life, were said to be on the trail of
a new woman in the case. Incidentally they still pursued the twisting path
of the drug peddlers in the private studio life of the moving picture colony,
despite the protests of the movie magnates.
The latest chapter they opened concerns one of the strangest "triangles"
that ever was introduced in Hollywood domestic geometry. It has for its
chief character a famed foreign actress, known almost as widely for her
eccentricity of dress as for her extremely emotional acting. [12]
The other two were an actor and actress recently divorced. He has
recently won great fame in a celebrated picture, his graduation from his
former role as a dancing partner. [13]
The foreign actress took a great fancy to the young woman. Always known
for her friendship for girls, she seemed especially fond of this one. So
much so that she invited her to live at her home. The invitation was
accepted and the foreign star lavishly furnished a room to be occupied by the
other.
This was before the marriage of the recent divorcee. He came in from
location one evening and called on the young woman. It was a Hollywood
formal call. with plenty of liquor for both. While the alcohol still was
working it struck them that it might be an innovation to get married. They
did so.
Next day the foreign star heard about it, after the young man had gone
back to work on location. The young bride came to take possession.
"You did not think I could be jealous, eh?" said the great foreign star.
"Look!"
She led the young woman to the lavishly furnished room. Then, as the
other stood there spellbound, the foreign actress began wrecking the place.
She tore down pictures and ripped up rugs. She slashed open cushions and
tore the bedclothes to ribbons. She gouged the tinted walls and hurled
pottery though the window.
"Now go, ingrate," she hurled at the young woman. She left -- and has
not returned.
The divorce was a sensation. The friendship of the young bride and the
foreign actress was not mentioned in the divorce proceedings. Nor were the
escapades of the young bride with other women whose friendship formed part of
Hollywood's daily gossip.
Strangely enough, on a recent eastern trip, the young actor -- then
getting divorced -- and the foreign actress traveled in the same car. [14]
It may not be ethical but this correspondent asks indulgence to make a
correction of his reports through these dispatches. Two or three days ago he
recounted the adventure of a prominent actress who, during a fight with her
favorite director, was struck over the head with a beer bottle. [15]
This was hotly denied today by a friend of the director, who grieved
that such an impression be made public. He admitted the secret love affair
conducted by the star and her director, as well as his affair with another
woman that provoked the assault.
"But it wasn't a beer bottle." explained this champion. "He hit her
with a shoe."
There have been many denials about the Hollywood revelations. Public
officials have been prevailed upon to utter statements defending Hollywood.
Movie magnates have upheld the cavortings of their golden pets.
Generally these denials are every bit as convincing as that which
substituted the boot for the beer bottle. Since the entrance of the federal
agents into the investigation these denials have been especially directed at
the stories of the operations of the dope ring in Hollywood and the weakness
of several of the country's leading stars for drugs.
In reply to these might be taken the statement of one of Los Angeles'
leading physicians. It is typical of the views of several physicians
interviewed on the subject. Their names, of course, may not be revealed.
"Don't make any mistake about the dope ring," declared the physician.
"The dope peddlers deliver the stuff to the homes of the actors and actresses
as the grocer or butcher delivers goods at the homes of other people.
"What is more, they take orders over the telephone just like any market.
That is what makes it so easy for these spoiled children of the films to find
their way to the downward path and why it is so difficult for them to win
their way back again.
"It is the business of the drug peddlers to hold their own customers and
get new ones. And they are business men.
"There is one case of a woman named in the Taylor case. It is pitiful.
She is a gay personality and she has made a game fight to redeem herself. [16]
"She began to use morphine and go to these dope parties after she had
broken with her director. They tell me she really loved him. And he seemed
very fond of her at one time. They split finally when he took up a young
girl she was trying to help out in the pictures.
"It seemed to harden her. Finally her health broke. Friends took her
to a hospital and she went through the torture that a drug victim must go
through in the effort to break the habit. She seemed to have been cured.
"But always 'way back in her brain was the craving. And what with the
loss of the man she loved her brilliant success on the screen seemed empty to
her. She grew moody and depressed. There came a day when she could stand it
no longer. And on the same day a friend offered her a 'shot.' She took it,
and she has been going downward ever since.
"I don't think she will ever try to cure herself again and it can be
only a year or so before she will be through with the pictures forever.
"It is amazing and shocking to see some of these young women whose looks
mean everything to them -- their very life -- taking to the drugs that will
rob them of every vestige of beauty within a few months.
"There was one of these screen stars in here the other day, begging me
to do something to save her. She is just coming into her full power as a
star and already every trace of the drug fiend is apparent in her. [17]
"Her mother was with her and she wept as she pleaded with me to save her
daughter. I could not handle the case. I sent her to another surgeon. He
told me that the girl seemed willing enough to take the cure.
"But even while he had her in the hospital she was visited by friends
who brought her the forbidden 'dope.' That is another way the dope ring
works. It has its agents even among the actors and actresses who are quick
to take advantage of an opportunity.
The activities of the dope ring also were said to interest the British
royal secret service, which, according to Maj. Thomas A. Osborne, British
consul at Los Angeles, has undertaken to solve the mystery of Taylor's
slaying.
The police have not abandoned the theory that Taylor was killed by a
blackmailer and they have renewed their search for "Dapper Dan" Collins, a
New York gunman, wanted for murder in the East. Collins, it became known,
had been in Hollywood a few days before Taylor's slaying.
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
In the aftermath of the Taylor murder, many newspaper articles were
written purporting to reveal the truth about Hollywood. Some, like the
sensational writings of Wallace Smith, Edward Doherty and Richard Burritt,
focused on lurid rumors--reporting every sensational whisper as fact. Other
stories, penned by the screen writers and press agents, attempted to
whitewash the truth about Hollywood. The New York Herald sent one of their
experienced investigative reporters to Hollywood to investigate and write the
balanced truth, as he found it. His five-part series, "The Truth About
Hollywood," published in the New York Herald between March 12 and April 9,
1922, gave an insightful look into the background of 1922 Hollywood. It
provides essentially no information about the murder itself, but it does give
information about life in the Hollywood movie colonly, the world in which
Taylor lived.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 12, 1922
Thoreau Cronyn
NEW YORK HERALD
The Truth About Hollywood
Two unfortunate incidents of a tragic nature have directed public
attention to Hollywood--a colony which, because of these happenings, has
become so widely discussed that it needs no identification.
Roscoe Arbuckle, a comedian of the screen, who has made millions laugh,
was host at a party, and one of his guests, a young woman of the screen, died.
Arbuckle and his ill-fated guest were from, and of, Hollywood.
A popular photoplay director, one of the most gifted of them all, was
murdered under circumstances that aroused public interest--an interest always
excited by the mysterious and the unexplainable. Taylor, the director, was a
leading worker in Hollywood, and about him fluttered a bevy of our most
attractive feminine celebrities of the screen. All of them his neighbors or
frequent visitors to the Hollywood community.
What kind of place is this Hollywood? It has been said widely that the
license of Babylon is as the Blue Laws in comparison to the customary
wickedness of the settlement of screen favorites. Those who live in Hollywood,
frightened by the sudden glare of public attention upon their doings, say
their beloved colony is but an average suburb, more beautiful and gayer,
perhaps. than others, but just as orderly.
And from Hollywood itself the public has turned its examining impulse
upon the "movie folk" themselves. What manner of folk are they? Primitive and
bad? Or humane and good?
These are questions worthy of answer. And the answer may be worth while
only if given dispassionately after careful, exhaustive examination into all
the aspects of Hollywood--its secrets as well as its propaganda; its people as
well as its activities; its customs as well as its laws.
It is an old saying, "there can be no smoke without a fire." So much
smoke has spread from Hollywood during the last four months, surely there must
be some fire. But is it a conflagration--or a blaze? Is it fanned from within,
as gossip says, or from without, as the people of the films declare?
On this page is presented today the first of a series of articles
resulting from careful, painstaking investigation by The New York Herald--
investigation conducted in Hollywood itself. Here is the evidence for and
against Hollywood; and the evidence for and against its players in the great
comedy-drama that otherwise is called "the movie world."
PART 1 [Brief Tour of 1922 Hollywood]
Every pilgrim with a movie education feels the moment he steps off the
train in Los Angeles that he has been cheated. He looks hungrily around for
the familiar scenes of his imagination and finds them not. By every right of
press agentry and tourist tales he expects to see Charley Chaplin diving
between the legs of a small town cop, Douglas Fairbanks doing a headspin and
the bathing beauties wiggling their toes in the sand of the neighboring beach,
while assorted peons and East Side gunmen sit about in makeup waiting for some
one to bellow "Action--camera!" through a megaphone.
But he learns that the studios are far from the city, that the street
traffic of ever growing Los Angeles is far too serious a thing to be trifled
with by pursuit chasers, and that the nearest beach is a dozen miles away. He
approaches his hotel with some hope, for he has been led to believe that all
the famous stars not actively engaged on the "lot" or on "location"--the
pilgrim has desperately mastered the movie lingo so as to feel at home with
the Personages when he meets them--are to be seen draped in the lobby,
possibly waiting for the gong to announce the beginning of the orgies.
But all I could see was a number of pinch backed youths with nothing on
their minds but the necessity of getting a good seat in the basement cafeteria
into which prohibition has converted the men's grill.
In the streets it was to be noted that some of the motion picture
theaters were showing films not yet seen in New York. I was told that one of
them had recently been advertising a Mary Miles Minter picture with a strip of
canvas lettered "I love you--I love you--I love you," this being part of a
letter she wrote William Desmond Taylor, the director who was murdered. It
occurred to somebody that perhaps this was not very good advertising after all
and the strip had been taken down.
It was plain that no movie people, recognizable as such, were to be found
in the city proper. They may have been there once, but Iowans have crowded
them out. It is a stock joke that there are more Iowans in Los Angeles than in
Iowa, and I half believe it. The reason for the hegira as given me is that
Iowa is the only state in which farmers can lay by enough money to retire and
go where they want to go.
But it was Hollywood this traveler started out to see, not Los Angeles--
Hollywood, the home of the movies, where some kind of a "colony" lived in a
beauteous, palm bowered stockade and, not lingering to remove the grease paint
of the studios, plunged into orgies the moment the dinner dishes were cleared
away by soft footed, incurious Japanese.
I got into a taxicab, noted that the meter registered 30 cents at the
start, just as it does in New York, and set forth. Hollywood, it seemed, lay
seven miles northwest of the center of Los Angeles. Twenty years ago it had a
population of 1,200 persons, living on fine estates separated by lemon and
orange orchards. Now it has 70,000. It joined Los Angeles in 1910, and has
kept pace with the growth of that astonishing city.
On the way I had the taxicab stop in front of the bungalow court where
William Desmond Taylor lived. The bungalow court is, I believe, peculiar to
southern California. On a plot of ground about the site of that occupied by a
large apartment house in New York a parallelogram is laid out and along three
sides one or two story houses are erected, the fourth side being the street.
The houses are separated from one another by a space of fifteen feet or more.
Within the central court which all of them face are planted palms,
evergreens and shrubbery over a spread of lawn. They are beautiful and
attractive places. The true bungalow is one story high.
Taylor's home, a duplicate of all the others on this court, had two
stories. He had half the ground floor and half the second floor and another
family the other half. Each tenant has his own doorways. It is what is called
in the East a two family house. I don't know what rent Taylor paid, but from
what I heard of prices elsewhere would guess it was about $125 a month. Taylor
was not a "high liver."
Well, the trip to Hollywood took us up and down the hills of Los Angeles,
through streets lined with date and fan palms and streets with palms on one
side and advertising signs on the other, and every so often a monstrous real
estate board boasting of the present and piling million on million of
population for the future. The reigning sensation in Los Angeles outside the
"Taylor case," by the way, was somebody's prediction that the city would have
3,000,000 souls (even the movie people are credited with souls for statistical
purposes) by the year 1940, I think it was.
With no more digressions we shall now proceed to Hollywood.
Past automobile service stations almost as neat and alluring as the
bungalow courts, past open spaces and green hillsides and rows of deep shading
pepper trees, along one of those justly famous California highways, we rode
along and came to the gate of movieland.
It wasn't a gate, but a high green wooden fence suddenly appearing behind
a file of palms at the left, and mammoth white letters spelling "William Fox
Studios." It was like the fence enclosing the fairgrounds in an Eastern county
seat, and the letters seemed to rival closely the Colgate sign in Jersey City
for size. Above it were to be seen roofs like those of barns and hangars and a
silhouetted sierra of timbers and walls, which I later discovered were "sets,"
the scenery of the movies.
The next block proved to be Fox, too, but the fence and the buildings
were of stucco. Then more studios, all shouting their name in big letters--
Warner Brothers, Christie Comedies, and others, with blocks of dwellings
between. Then a block surrounded by automobiles parked beneath pepper trees
and a sign, much smaller than the others I had seen, "Famous Players-Lasky
Studios."
The object of this expedition was a survey of the whole town of
Hollywood, not the studios, so I kept on. In passing, however, I noted with
chagrin that not a Rolls-Royce was to be seen in all the automobile show
outside the "Lasky lot." Most of the cars were common tumbrils in fact, and
badly in need of a wash, and there weren't nearly as many chauffeurs lolling
about as I had hoped. Where were all those glorious vehicles with gold inlay
and platinum wheels the press agent had pictured? Here was a solecism to be
investigated later.
A friend who is not in the movies transferred me from a taxicab to his
plebian car and guided me through residential parts of Hollywood. I wanted to
see the homes of all the big actors, but as that would take several days we
compromised on a ride ending at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks,
Beverly Hills.
While passing studios and now while traversing the boulevards I kept on
the lookout for persons identifiable as film celebrities, but saw none. Not a
star, not an "extra," not a painted face, not a camera, not a director in knee
breeches and puttees or otherwise, not even a group of cowboys or a single
cowboy sleeping under a tree or rolling marihuana cigarettes while waiting to
be called.
All preconceptions wrong. Not a hint or symptom save an occasional studio
giving assurance that this is really the Pittsburgh of the motion picture.
Nobody hanging around the studios. No one clamoring to get in. Ordinary
looking persons walking the streets, and apparently minding their own
business. Just a southern California city of the landscaped, well tailored,
prosperous looking sort, with a special fineness of situation because it is
built along a valley and a slope with a background of hills which Joseph Urban
could not improve upon.
Kearny and Fremont, Castro and Pico fought over these hills, and later
the terrifying bandits, Tiburcio Vasquez and Joaquin Murrieta, held them.
Modern Hollywood, one regrets to say, knows little of the romance caressing it
from out of the past or of the ghosts that patrol the Pass. Only one of the
many persons from whom I sought this information knew that the heights had not
always been called Hollywood Hills. He was a clerk in a bookstore.
My guide rolled me along a well kept asphalt highway, which I think was
Santa Monica boulevard, past houses half hidden by palm trees, peppers, and
the pungent eucalyptus. The prevailing color is white or cream, varied with
blue and pink, with red or green tiled roofs; the favored material is stucco,
which does not seem to crack in that climate as it does in the East.
Many of the walks leading to the houses were bordered with geraniums.
Rose bushes climb valiantly up wall and trellis, but because of the January
freeze California is sadly lacking in roses this year. The same frost that
swatted the citrus crop killed the posies. Down at Santa Ana I heard of an
outdoor fete in which artificial flowers had to be used. That is the extreme
of desolation in the land of sunshine and flowers.
We passed Swiss chalets, glorified flat roofed Aztec 'dobes, English
cottages, Norman castles, Mesopotamian mosques, all kinds of architecture;
also plain redwood California bungalows, each with its vines and shrubbery and
maybe half a dozen orange trees, laden with golden bulbs.
At the top of a hill to our right stood a great house like a Japanese
pagoda, the home of Adolph Bernheimer (not of the pictures), a principal show
place of Hollywood. My friend was explaining that most of the people of
Hollywood are not connected with motion pictures when he broke off to say:
"Wally Reid lives there." The house to which he pointed was below the level of
our boulevard. We looked down on a roof of red tile and walls of brown stucco.
We could not see the swimming pool, but rapidly obtained the impression that
Fred Harvey's desert hotels along the Santa Fe are no niftier than the abiding
place of this same Wallace Reid.
Up the road a little piece is the home of William S. Hart, New England
colonial, shingled and white, one of the plainest and most agreeable places we
saw. We were told that the appropriate thing for tourists to say when they
reach this point on the grand tour is: "Just like Bill, isn't it?" On the
other side of the boulevard is the mansion of Pauline Frederick, with an
expanse of lawn costing a fortune to maintain in California. The house is of
stucco, cream tinted, red tiled, formal looking.
The estate of Edward L. Doheny, oil man, penetrates a canyon not far from
Miss Frederick's home, but a frieze of eucalyptus hides it from public view.
In the same neighborhood Mme. Nazimova has a yellow citadel.
Passing out of Hollywood without my knowing it we were in Beverly Hills.
Its general tone is like that of the highest priced parts of Great Neck, Long
Island, of Upper Mountain avenue, in Montclair, N.J. It is all private
residences except the Beverly Hills Hotel, where, I was told, Rupert Hughes
and some of the picture stars lived and spent their leisure in riding, golf
and contemplation of La Brea fields, the enfolding mountains and the Pacific
flashing eight miles away. Charles Ray has a tidy thatched roof, box hedged
English cottage in Beverly Hills. Will Rogers is bringing up his three
children in a rambling home near by and sticking close to his swimming pool
when in California. But every little while he has to leave the pool and go
dripping to the front gate to say, "Yes, they live right up that road," to
tourists before they have a chance to tell him that they are looking for the
place where Doug and Mary live. Homespun Will Rogers, strange to say, has a
tremendous house, with an acre or so of pillared porch and no end of formal
gardening and all that.
The road up the hill to the Fairbanks-Pickford house is nothing to brag
of. It is a steep mountain grade, wide enough for only one car, and paved at
one time, full of potholes. The tradition is that Mr. Fairbanks had the holes
dung in order to discourage trippers. They flock up the hill, roll on the lawn
and snapshot everything. One especially numerous flock of them gathered on the
lawn one afternoon just after the two stars returned from their honeymoon.
They shouted "Speech, speech!"
"Good heavens, what shall we do?" said Doug. "Do?" said Mary. "We'll go
out and speak to them, of course."
So they went out and quelled the multitude with speech and were
snapshotted and sent everybody away happy.
Back of all these are other estates projecting their flora, like green
spearheads, up the lower slopes of the hills. Many of these are owned by well
to do Eastern families that have gone to California to live. The same is true
of many of the largest homes in Hollywood itself. There is no "movie colony."
Here and there a few actors may be found living side by side, some of them,
the best of them, in bungalows renting at from $60 to $125 a month, but as a
rule they rub elbows with storekeepers, artists, bankers, insurance agents,
owners of Los Angeles factories, retired sea captains, health seekers,
brokers, bankers--with probably a healthy admixture of pirates and the clergy-
-just such people as may be found in any desirable suburb.
Many Hollywood people work in Los Angeles and motor back and forth. Even
the lowliest have cars in California. Not many of the lowliest live in
Hollywood, for it is regarded as "an expensive place," although real estate
prices are well below those of comparable towns around New York. The great
unheard of, unpress-agented majority who make their living at the picture
studios cannot afford a residence in Hollywood. A furnished room in Los
Angeles is the home of not a few. A Hollywood acquaintance told me that of all
the families on his block, along both sides of the street, his was the only
one that had any member working at the studios. This may be an e
xceptional
case, but it is obvious that the movies have not taken possession of all of
Hollywood. One well known star, I think it was Guy Bates Post, told me he
lived near Pasadena and drove twenty miles to his job every morning and back
at night.
The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce estimates that 30,000 of the town's
70,000 persons are in one or another branch of the film industry. But an old
timer said the truth was that while about 30,000 were actually engaged in the
industry, not more than one-half of them, if that, lived in Hollywood.
Some of the gilt edged performers have habitations accurately described
by the real estaters as palatial, others occupy modest houses in rows that,
save for the tropical foliage, are about like Flatbush.
Charley Chaplin rents a Moorish dwelling of about a dozen rooms on
Corotona Heights from a theosophist for $500 a month; J.M. Kerrigan has a
while clapboarded one story bungalow; Kathryn MacDonald a severe Dutch
colonial cottage; Sessue Hayakawa, the Japanese, a formidable feudal castle;
Dustin Farnum a two story chalet; William Desmond a homey colonial; Tom Mix a
chalet; Tom Moore an Aztec palace. In Hollywood, as everywhere, each to his
own taste.
After firing one guide I acquired another and conscientiously did the
business district of Hollywood. This is divided into three parts along a mile
and a half of Hollywood boulevard. Originally there were three drowsing
hamlets, and when the boom came they all spurted together and began to grow
toward one another, so that eventually they will be as one and the pleasant
interstices now filled with vestigial orange trees will disappear.
The brightness and cleanness of the business blocks strike the eye of the
visitor from the East. They are not old enough to be anything else, and the
town having no factories to speak of, there is nothing to smudge them. The
buildings are of one or two story, except one which has five stories, and a
skyscraper, now being completed, which has six. They are of stucco, concrete
or pressed brick, uniformly white or cream colored. The stores are modern
looking and cheering places to go into.
Real estate offices are notable for numbers. You learn that twenty years
ago orchard land in what is now the costliest part of Hollywood could be had
at from $250 to $500 an acre. Sixteen years ago the Hollywood Trust & Security
Savings Bank bought one of the best corners on the main street, a plot 105 by
60 feet, for $37,500. It is now appraised at $187,000. Ordinary space along
the street is worth $1,500 a front foot.
Homes do not come so high. Here are samples: Furnished five room
bungalow, hardwood floor, garage, water, adults only, $80 a month; four room
bungalow, corner, telephone, disappearing bed, garage, $75; "lovely sunny
corner room," $25; two rooms and sun parlor, telephone, $65; unfurnished six
room flat, two baths, garage, $90; seven room house, all improvements, $100;
for sale, plastered bungalow, Spanish, five rooms, unpaved, $8,000; Spanish
home, five rooms, garage, brick chimney, lawn, shrubbery, $5,900; five room
stucco bungalow, tiled roof, $7,500; plot 160 by 190, site for home for flats,
$12,600; site for court or apartment, 88 by 138, $8,700; restricted lot,
$3,000; rentals, furnished, $80, $125, $150; rentals, unfurnished, $55, $65,
$75, $90.
Though disappointed in Los Angeles and in the vicinity of such motion
picture studios as I had seen, I still entertained a hope that an actor or two
would be seen behaving roguishly in the marts of Hollywood.
It was not to be. There were a few sporty looking automobiles, go-devils
with port holes in the hood, but they stood parked and empty in front of banks
and grocery stores. I had been told to approach the Hollywood Hotel with
caution, as here was the center not only of the weird night life of the "movie
colony," but anything was likely to happen to a diffident stranger in the
daytime. They told me it was Passion's Playground. It proved to be a three
story mission style hospice, screened from the street by the regulation palms,
peppers and acacias, and built around a patio rich with tropical vegetation.
Several Iowa grandmothers with neatly parted white hair were knitting in
alcoves of the big sitting room lobby. Stepping close for an earful of
scandal, I heard nothing but a debate as to the relative merits of the Santa
Fe and the Union Pacific as a means of migration.
Two Japanese bellboys had an air of knowing something, but I got no more
out of them than they out of me, which was 25 cents for service. Otherwise the
hotel was in a state of siesta, and so it continued to be all the time I was
in Hollywood.
The new guide suggested Armstrong & Carlton's for luncheon.
"You'll see them all there," he said. This is the great nooning place of
Hollywood, although there are several other restaurants and a self-service
refectory which spells itself on the sign, "Cafateria." We went to a corner
table. Armstrong & Carlton's was full of wavy haired young men and of girls
reminiscent of the side streets above Forty-Second Street, New York. But the
guide, who is a studio veteran and really knows his crowd, had to confess that
this seemed to be an off day.
"Let's see," he said. "There's Al Green, Tommy Meighan's director, over
in that corner. That gray haired man is Bill Conklin, who plays heavies, but
is socially acquainted with the elect of Los Angeles. The lady under the big
hat is Alice Terry, who started in the pictures as a Triangle extra and earned
a living cutting film between jobs. And that's all, so far as I can see. The
rest are tourists, I guess. Anyway, studio people having luncheon are just
like other people."
With this assurance I left the restaurant to find out more about
Hollywood and was pained to learn that it has only one all night restaurant
and that a stool and counter affair. The Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador,
roadhouses and dance halls along the oceangoing highways, plenty of places of
entertainment there are, but of these we shall write about later; they are not
in Hollywood, though they have to do with it.
There have been sixty-seven studios listed at one time, but closing of a
good many of them, due to the financial slump and other causes, has reduced
the number to between forty and fifty. Hollywood has more of them than any
other district, but those within the fifteen square miles that constitute the
Hollywood area are not segregated and those outside of Hollywood are as much
as twenty miles apart.
There are now twenty-two studios in Hollywood proper, others at Culver
City, five miles nearer the ocean; Universal City, several miles beyond
Hollywood to the northwest, and elsewhere in the region bordering on Los
Angeles and between the Santa Monica mountains and the Pacific.
Of the studios I shall write in another article. The purpose here is to
give a superficial view of Hollywood, the suburb.
Former Californians remember the Hollywood of twenty years ago as a
small, "exclusive residential district," populated by a handful of retired
Easterners living in handsome homes in the midst of citrus orchards. Its
character was about like that, say of Bernardsville, N.J. Los Angeles was a
city of little more than 100,000. It had already started to boom when the
movies came.
G.M. Anderson--Broncho Billy--appeared from somewhere and began shooting
"Westerns" requiring no studio. Col. William N. Selig is credited with having
built the first studio, at Edendale. Then came the Biograph and others, one at
a time. They found in this part of California not only the greatest number of
sunlit days and the best actinic light value, but the greatest variety of
"locations" to be discovered anywhere. There were prairie, desert, ranches,
rocky and sandy beaches, gorges, mountains, snow, gardens, vegetation of every
clime, romantic villages, bustling cities, all within a small geographical
compass.
In the center of all this, Hollywood, conveniently placed between the
mountains and the sea, far enough from Los Angeles to be out of the highest
rent zone, afforded plenty of vacant space for the erection of studios. At
first each producer of pictures had his own independent personnel. For
example, each company making wild West films had its own army of cowboys. Each
outfit was jealous of the other, and as no producing company can be busy all
the time, there was time for dissipation, wrangling, sometimes serious brawls.
Since then the cowboy market has been virtually cornered by two women.
When a producer needs a ranch crowd, he telephones the women for them. When
the cowboy scenes are finished these men are paid off. They return to
headquarters and wait for an assignment to some other studio.
There is a fascinating story in the handling of the "extra people," the
thousands who work in the pictures itinerantly, in mob scenes and the like,
but it can only be indicated here. The point is that the character of the
"movie industry" is changing just as Hollywood is changing and has changed
since the days when the first orange orchards were cut up into bungalow lots.
The first studios were makeshifts. Nobody knew how the business and art
of the cinema would develop, or whether it would develop at all. Eventually
there arose permanent studios of concrete and steel and the industry acquired
a feeling of solidity. The rush to Hollywood became a stampede.
Rob Wagner, biographer of the movies, estimates that for every star 200
other persons are needed to assist his light in shining before men. The crowd
came and it sought homes. Transients, finding themselves settled for long
sojourns in California, bought or built houses. The trooper, always a nomad,
dreaming of a fixed habitation, found his dream coming true. In California he
could literally have his own vine and fig tree. He could be sure to seeking
his family every day.
There sprung up a feeling of local pride. The actor and his retinue, the
director, the scenario writer, the host of others who help to make the
pictures came to have a love for Hollywood because it was "their town."
Proudly they voted, became bank depositors, went on boards of directors. They
even joined the churches, with which some persons will be astonished to learn
Hollywood is plentifully supplied.
All this makes Hollywood, in its most interesting aspect, a social
phenomenon. Hollywood is the gypsy settling down.
The recent scandals have endangered the livelihood of these men and
women. In defending Hollywood against attack they have acted from mingled
motives of self interest, of a belief that the black sheep are few, and of
local pride.
In another article an attempt will be made to give the facts and to
estimate the soundness of the defense.
*****************************************************************************
NEXT ISSUE:
"The Truth About Hollywood":
Part 2 [Drugs, Alcohol and Sexual Morality]
Part 3 [What Happens to a New Girl in Hollywood?]
Part 4 [Brief Tour of Some Hollywood Studios]
*****************************************************************************
NOTES:
[1] See "A Cast of Killers" p. 67.
[2] That interview was reprinted in TAYLOROLOGY #6.
[3] Examination of library microfilm of the Los Angeles Examiner for this
period has failed to locate any interview wherein this statement is made by
Minter. If anyone has a copy, please forward it to us and it will be
reprinted here. Similarly, if anyone knows of any later published interviews
given by Charlotte Shelby, please let us know.
[4] The District Attorney's office was attempting to locate the bullet which
had been fired by Minter in 1920, when the Shelby family was living at
56 Fremont in Los Angeles. If the bullet could be found and shown to have
been fired from the same gun as the bullet which killed Taylor, this would
have been thephysical evidence needed to link Shelby with the killing.
[5] Shelby's mother was Julia Branch Miles, not Mary Miles.
[6] Obviously a reference to Mabel Normand.
[7] This interview was given after her diaries had been subpoenaed.
[8] The producer is obviously Mack Sennett, the actress is Mabel Normand. In
his autobiography, "King of Comedy," Sennett says he spent the night at
producer Thomas Ince's house on the night Taylor was killed.
[9] Mabel Normand achieved stardom working for Mack Sennett in 1913-1917, then
went to Goldwyn during 1917-1920. She returned to Sennett in 1921 but it is
very doubtful that their personal realtionship resumed.
[10] Some of the details of that quarrel were related by Taylor's chauffeur.
See "William Desmond Taylor: A Dossier," p. 255.
[11] The rumor that she had visited the Taylor home at midnight on the day of
the slaying, was strongly denied by Edna Purviance, and the rumor appears to be
false.
[12] This "famed foreign actress" is clearly Alla Nazimova.
[13] This "recently divorced" couple is clearly Rudolph Valentino and Jean
Acker. He had recently skyrocketed to fame in "The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse" and "The Shiek".
[14] Smith does not mention that Natacha Rambova, who would become Valentino's
next wife, was also in the car.
[15] Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand. See Taylorology #8.
[16] Again, clearly the reference is to Mabel Normand.
[17] If the incident is genuine, it is possibly a reference to Juanita Hansen,
who later wrote extensively about her drug addiction in Hollywood.
*****************************************************************************
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
