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Taylorology Issue 31
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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 31 -- July 1995 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Douglas and Faith MacLean
Wallace Smith: February 27, 1922
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top 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; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
for accuracy.
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Douglas and Faith MacLean
Douglas and Faith MacLean were close neighbors of William Desmond
Taylor. They both heard the shot that killed him, and Faith MacLean probably
saw the killer as he was departing. A few years earlier, Taylor had directed
Douglas MacLean in two films starring Mary Pickford. Douglas MacLean was a
prominent comedian throughout the 1920's; he is regarded by Hollywood
historian Kevin Brownlow as a "forgotten master of screen comedy." The
following press items give some background on Douglas MacLean's career and
his relationship with his wife. [1]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 1922
Grace Kingsley
PICTURE-PLAY MAGAZINE
Romances of Famous Film Folk
"We're married, but we've never been introduced!"
"No, he just sort of picked me up!"
But let me stop this shocking business right here.
In the first place, Mrs. Douglas MacLean is very pretty, very girlish,
very chic, and can say things like that last remark. In the second place, he
is the son of a Baptist clergyman, is Douglas MacLean and contrary to the old
saw about clergymen's sons, he's the most blameless and correct individual
imaginable; while she is the daughter of Grant Fremont Cole, for many years
speaker of the New York State Assembly, and the two live right up to the best
traditions of their families.
Not that the MacLeans go in at all for society, though with their
connections they might easily do so. But Douglas is much too busy with his
work as a Thomas H. Ince star, and Mrs. MacLean had so much of society life
when she was a girl that she grew heartily weary of it.
That, in fact, was how she came to meet Douglas MacLean, for, tiring of
pink teas, Faith Cole decided she would attend dramatic school, just to kill
time.
Just about that time, Doug MacLean, who was engaged in the bond business
in Philadelphia, took a vacation, and went to New York, whence he expected to
sail to Europe with a friend. But the friend's father died, and the trip was
given up.
While he was in New York, MacLean met Daniel Frohman, who encouraged him
to go on the stage. At the end of his first season, John Emerson--then a
stage director--suggested that he go to Sargent's Dramatic School, and that,
you see was the hand of fate, or Cupid, if you prefer.
"There's nothing about our romance in that!" urged Mrs. MacLean, when we
had gone that far, as we were chatting one night out on the terrace of the
MacLeans' pretty Hollywood home. She looked very piquant as she said it,
with the light from the Japanese lantern falling on her face.
"Ah, I'm just heightening the suspense!" smiled her husband. "Besides,
I never knew you through junior year, you know. When senior year came, I
decided to go back--I wanted to find out whether Alma and Olive Tell were
coming back, so I went over to the school. And there in the elevator I saw
Faith! She looked very pretty that day. I remember the dress she had on.
But she never even noticed me."
"After that my sweet husband would be standing out on the corner smoking
a cigarette, and finally--"put in his wife.
"Oh, you are away ahead of the story," interrupted Doug. "So I went up
to the office floor, where the students were waiting to see some of the
professors, and pretty soon along the hall came Faith. I looked at her and
she looked at me. Then I went and said to Frank Morgan, 'Who is that girl?'
He answered, 'That's Miss Cole. Haven't you met her? She is going to be in
our class.' She went out just then, so I didn't have a chance to meet her.
'Foiled again!' I said to myself.
"I had met about everybody else, but nobody every introduced me to Miss
Cole. But finally we were cast in a play together. So you see I made love
to her without ever being introduced to her."
"Sort of picked me up, as it were," suggested Mrs. MacLean, with a
twinkle.
"The day of the first rehearsal Faith smiled and said, 'Good morning!'"
Doug went on. "I acknowledged her greeting with aclarity, and told her, 'I
am cast to play opposite you!' Faith merely said, 'Are you?' She didn't
seem a bit excited over the news. Then the stage director came over and
called us to rehearse. So I found myself making impassioned speeches to a
lady I had not been introduced to! I read them out of a book, too, which
made it all the worse. The production went on, and we were very good in it,
I know that, especially the love scenes! Eh, Faith? Then we did 'Hedda
Gabler' together. We got to kidding at rehearsals. I'd say, 'Pistols,
Hedda?' as if I were inquiring, 'Ice cream, Hedda?' So they wouldn't put us
in plays together any more. Rotten luck, we thought it was!"
At a special matinee MacLean appeared in "The Island of Broken Hearts,"
all dressed up in green tights, and Maude Adams who was in the professional
audience sent for him to play a role in "The Legend of Leonora," which she
was then casting.
The romance between Douglas MacLean and Faith Cole went merrily on.
"We started out for 'life study' as they called it at school," said Mrs.
MacLean. "But we studied each other principally, I guess. We went together
three months, and then he proposed."
Mrs. MacLean smiled in the soft darkness. One caught a gleam of it by
the light of the match Doug lit to light his cigarette, along with the look
they gave each other. A very real love mating this, founded on
understanding, congeniality, character, and fineness of soul. So far the
winds of adversity have touched them lightly, so there's been no severe test.
One is glad of this, that their life has been smooth sailing. Their darkest
hours were during several long months in California, when Mrs. MacLean was an
invalid.
"I was taking her home from the theater one night and I proposed in a
taxicab. I told the driver to drive us around in the park for a while. I
had been rehearsing proposals to myself for days, but I never said a thing
when the time came that I had intended saying! I even had planned things to
say if I was refused. But I wasn't.
"The first time I ever kissed Faith? On the stage! We were so glad we
had that scene? At any rate I was, and Faith has admitted since that she
was, too.
"Our parents didn't object greatly, though Father Cole did think it his
duty to make a mild remonstrance. But we won him over.
"I was playing in Maude Adams' company, and Faith insisted on being
married on a Wednesday--said it was her lucky day. The trouble with
Wednesday for me was that, besides rehearsal and evening performance, I also
had a matinee. But I was finished at the end of the first act, so to please
Faith I consented. We went out to her home on Long Island, where my father
married us, and her father gave her away, and then I had to hurry back for my
evening performance. I had a busy day that day! We kept our marriage from
the company, but one of the boys that evening kept singing at me, 'Good-by,
boys, I'm ready to be married!' And Miss Adams would smile in an odd little
way every time we met. I didn't know why. We had been married very quietly
so that the papers wouldn't get the story, but they did get it somehow, and
Faith telephoned me that evening right after the show, 'Have you seen the
afternoon papers? They've got the most awful picture of me!' That seemed to
be the only thing that was troubling her--that her picture wasn't good! The
fact that the papers said, 'Miss Faith Cole marries and actor,' and that was
all they did say about me, didn't worry her in the least!"
The MacLeans went to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at the end of the run of
the Maude Adams play, where Doug went into stock at thirty-five dollars a
week.
"My salary was to have been thirty dollars," said Doug. "It was Wallace
Worsley who was managing the house who signed me. I went to him and said, 'I
don't think thirty dollars is enough.' 'How much do you want?' he asked.
'Well,' I said belligerently, 'I think it ought to be thirty-five dollars!'
So thirty-five dollars it was. Faith and I lived in a little cottage, and we
were really awfully happy. Then we went down to New York, things broke
better for me, and we had an apartment."
Douglas became interested in pictures after he had made a trip to the
Coast for Morosco, where he played in stock in Los Angeles. He became Mary
Pickford's leading man, and also played with the American Company in Santa
Barbara. His services were more and more sought, until finally, some three
years ago, he became an Ince star.
"Was Mrs. MacLean the only girl you were ever engaged to?" I asked
impertinently, I suppose.
"No, I wasn't!" Mrs. MacLean answered right up.
"Oh, pshaw! I never really was engaged to Marjorie!" Douglas insisted.
"Well, you wrote poetry to her! I found it!"
"Well, didn't I write poetry to you, too?"
Whereupon of course there was simply no stopping him. He read us some
of the scraps he had preserved. And truth compels me to admit they were
really very clever, those verses. Now he writes his wife a bit of verse on
every anniversary of their wedding.
"It's only once a year, so I can stand it!" She laughed.
So whoever the mysterious Marjorie was, and whatever her charms, one
thing is certain, that everything was off between her and Douglas forever
after he met Faith Cole.
"Do you talk your stories over with your wife?" I asked.
"Whenever she'll let me," answered her husband.
It seems Mrs. MacLean prefers her home keeping to advising her husband,
and right now one of the most interesting topics you can introduce in talk
with her is the new home she is planning to build. Her husband is letting
her have her own way about it, too, except that he insists on a billiard and
smoking room.
And they lived happily ever after for seven years--which leads up to the
present moment of writing.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 1926
Douglas MacLean
PHOTOPLAY
Trouping with Maude Adams
To reminisce of Maude Adams is to conjure up the picture of the most
gentle lady I have every known.
Beloved--almost worshipped--by those who know her, she holds a unique
place in the history of the stage. Insofar as I know, she is without an
enemy and she has never failed to win the love and respect of even the most
casual acquaintances.
It was a medieval sword that really led to my first meeting with Miss
Adams--a meeting which resulted in my initial stage engagement.
I was a student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. At the
conclusion of my senior term, my class, following a custom as old as the
Academy, prepared to present its graduating play. We chose "The Isle of
Dreams" and I was cast for the youthful lover of this colorful romance.
The prospect of facing a theater full of people for the first time clad
in the doublet and hose of the play's period and wearing the wig and sword
which the role demanded was an alarming one. Since I couldn't change the
costume, I decided to familiarize myself with it as much as possible.
Everyone in the cast thought I was crazy when I appeared at the first
rehearsal clad in full costume--including the sword. But I wore every item
of the costume at every rehearsal. The inevitable happened; I ceased to be
self-conscious about my exposed legs. And best of all, I learned to handle
that confounded sword so that it never once tripped me, never got in the way
when I sat down and never banged into the knees of the other players.
The Academy's productions are always well attended by the theatrical
profession and there were dozens of stage notables in the audience when the
curtain rose on our "Isle of Dreams." Maude Adams was one of this group,
although with the modesty which has always been one of her outstanding
characteristics, she remained almost unrecognized even in a theater crowded
with people who knew her.
So I was totally unprepared for the message which I received after the
final curtain fell. It was from Miss Adams' manager and conveyed an
invitation to meet her following her own professional appearance that
evening.
It is difficult to describe a first meeting with Maude Adams without
sounding mawkish or foolishly sentimental. But that same rare quality that
never failed to bring a roar of assenting response to her Peter Pan query,
"Do you believe in fairies?" always worked its charm in personal meetings.
In two minutes after I had been introduced by her manager I was her devoted
slave.
Miss Adams explained at that first meeting that she was planning to go
on tour in the near future in "The Legend of Leonore" and that she wanted to
use a one act play called "Rosaline," written for her by Sir James M. Barrie,
as a curtain raiser. There was a part in "Rosalind" that she thought I might
play. Before I left that night it was agreed that I should have a chance at
it and also play a minor role in "The Legend."
Rehearsals of "Rosalind" began before the completion of Miss Adams'
metropolitan engagement. There were only three characters in this charming
little play of Barrie's; Miss Adams, in the role of an actress who
masquerades as her own mother, an elder housekeeper and my role of the boy
who loved the actress.
It was in rehearsing "Rosalind" that I really learned to appreciate the
true gentleness that is Maude Adams'. She gave unstintingly of her own
invaluable experience and advice. And she insisted that we--the character
actress and I--should have every bit of credit--every chance for applause--
that our roles afford us.
When we started on a tour that carried us through most of the Eastern
states I discovered another significant and typical fact; almost every member
of the company had been one or more seasons with Miss Adams and many of them
had refused more lucrative or important roles in order to remain with her!
There was one veteran who was playing his eighteenth consecutive season with
her and there were many who could boast of five or more years in Miss Adams'
company.
As the tour progressed I learned to understand why these people served
with such devotion. It was because they loved Miss Adams and she loved them.
From call boy to leading man, they worshipped her and worshipping they give
unstintingly of their best.
Much has been said and written about Miss Adams' avoidance of the
professional spotlight of publicity. There is a legend that she was never
interviewed by the press and it is certain that she sought to remain always
in the background outside the theater.
I have heard people who did not know her hazard the guess that this
modesty was assumed for professional reasons; that it made her "different"
from the other stars of the theatrical world and thereby attracted more
attention than hundreds of newspaper interviews and acres of advertising
space might have done.
That it did attract attention is true. But the motives which animate
Miss Adams today to stay out of the public eye are the same that governed her
in her active days in the theater. An innate shyness and a very genuine
modesty were and are the real reasons as anyone who knows her will testify.
It was this sensitiveness that used to prompt her to dress in the utmost
simplicity, wear an heavy veil when traveling and remain discreetly in the
background whenever possible. The only times that I ever knew her to
relinquish her incognito were when some of her beloved company needed her
assistance--then the Maude Adams that never failed to change enemies into
friends stepped into the breach. The result was invariably the same--the
gentle lady swept all opposition before her; overcoming that which made all
of us who knew her labor for her, love her and revere her.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
October 1926
Faith MacLean
PHOTOPLAY
His Best Performance
I am afraid I spoiled what would have been one of the most romantic
proposals in history. You see Douglas and I were romantic youngsters when it
happened.
Our flare for romance had led us both to the American Academy of
Dramatic Arts. That is where we met and fell in love.
We both knew we were in love, but Douglas did not actually ask me to be
his wife until he had completed his first season as a professional, playing a
lover opposite Maude Adams.
I think he planned to propose according to all of the best rules of the
theater. But when he started I broke up the show by saying "Yes!" and
falling on his neck before he had half finished. At that, I will always
insist that it was his most perfect dramatic performance.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 1920
Gene North
PHOTOPLAY
Divorce a la Film
He had just been divorced when I saw him.
The decree had been final only a few minutes.
For such a comic young fellow, he seemed actually upset about it. But
then, I suppose these guys that get paid eighty-two dollars a minute to be
funny can't afford to spread their comedy 'round promiscuously.
"Feel pretty bad about it?" I asked.
Douglas MacLean looked at me with that quick turn of the head the public
has come to know since such classics as "Twenty-three and One-half Hours
Leave," "Mary's Ankle" and "Let's Be Fashionable."
"D'yu know," he said solemnly, "I do. I've never been divorced before
and I simply can't understand how some people make a habit of it the way they
do. The sensation is unpleasant--decidedly unpleasant. I feel like a
codfish ball that has been thrown into the deep ocean--may belong there but
doesn't feel quite natural."
"How long had you been together?"
"Oh, a long time, a long time," he said pensively, "Six whole pictures.
She was--a fine little woman. I haven't a thing in the world to say against
her. You couldn't ask for a better girl in lots of ways. She was a good
partner, that girl. We hit it off fine, had lots in common, always weathered
the storms of drama successfully, were the right size and didn't enjoy
fighting more than once a week.
"And now--" He shook his head sadly.
"Now--but life is like that, isn't it? Just when you get accustomed to
meatless days, they raise the price of potatoes to $30 a quart, an where are
you?"
He gazed meditatively into space, reflective chewing a lettuce leaf
which must have belonged to the spearmint family because it didn't seem to
evaporate properly.
But seriously, Douglas MacLean did see the world through blue glasses
that day. Thomas H. Ince had just informed him that his co-starring
partnership with pretty Doris May had come to an end. The pictures for
Paramount Artcraft, which the two were engaged to make, and been completed
and the Powers That Be (who have the papers locked in the safe, you know) had
decreed that henceforth they should be separated.
And Douglas MacLean, who has probably done more to establish comedy of
the stunt-less, slap-stick-less variety than any other one man, is to be an
independent star. The second year option that Paramount held on his services
has been exercised and he is at present deep in his first starring vehicle,
"The Yanacona Yillies." (I know. I felt exactly that way about it. I may
be wrong. But after I'd had it repeated three times and spelled twice, I was
afraid they'd make me walk home so I shut up.)
"Yes, it's hard to lose a good wife, even just a professional one," went
on MacLean, "and Doris has been a good one. As a film wife, she is par
excellence. Now it's all ended. Oh, I daresay I shall have other good
wives. I have had some good ones in the past. But I shall always remember
Doris."
There was a note of sadness in his voice. Outside his swiftly moving
dramas, he looks and acts as little like a comedian as anyone I ever saw.
(That in a world where everyone in comedy wants to do tragedy and a lot of
tragedians do a lot of comedy.) He has brown eyes of the kind that lady
novelists describe as "nice and honest." Minus a little twinkle, they would
be soulful.
"You ARE married aren't you, Mr. MacLean?" I asked, since the
conversation seemed to be running on things matrimonial.
"Oh, yes," said Mr. MacLean enthusiastically.
I have been forced to ask that question of a number of men a number of
times (professionally--professionally). Some answer it flabbily, as if they
were agreeing with a rich aunt who believed in the 18th Amendment. Some
answer coldly and haughtily, as though admitting German ancestry. Some
giggle.
But MacLean was enthusiastic. Later I met her and discovered why. He'd
better keep her in California or the Follies will get her, that's all. She's
non-professional but something of a business woman, I am given to understand.
Likewise a good sport. One day in the Morosco Theater in Los Angeles,
where her husband was playing before he went into pictures, some matinee
girls asked her if she thought Douglas MacLean was married. She said
sweetly, "Oh, I'm sure he isn't. He looks too young, don't you think?"
His conversation, however, was like holding forth with Maude Adams, by
proxy. He played with her several seasons and his admiration of the great
actress amounts only to worship. In a modest sort of way he intimates,
"everything that I am or ever hope to be as an actor I owe to my experience
with Maude Adams."
"Oh, how I did want her to make 'Peter Pan' in pictures," he said. "But
she wouldn't. At first she called them 'those dreadful pictures.' Later,
when they had become so wonderful, she said to me, 'Ah, Douglas, I cannot.
Because they say that the camera is very, very unkind to people who are--
forty and a bittok.' You see, that was a line in a sketch we did, and it
means forty and just a little bit more.
"But really, Maude Adams is one of those persons who are ageless--
without any time on their work."
MacLean likes comedy and expects to stick to the clean, brilliant sort
of thing he has been doing. Born in Philadelphia, and a college graduate, he
came to the screen from a successful stage career, and was a leading man,
playing opposite Mary Pickford, in "Capt. Kidd, Jr." and "Johanna Enlists"
before he joined hands with Doris May for Paramount.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 3, 1921
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
If I let Douglas MacLean come to New York without seeing him I should
never have dared go home, and face the little girl who lives at my house.
Furthermore, I should never have dared go back to my home town, Dixon, Ill.--
which is the Main Street in my life and which served Douglas MacLean as a
residence when he was a boy in high school.
In Dixon, when Mr. MacLean's pictures are shown at the Family Theatre,
the whole town turns out en masse. They are as proud of him as Marion is of
President Harding. Dixon claims many celebrities, in fact Claire Briggs once
called for his mail at the Dixon post-office, but none of them are as
pretentions in their glory as this motion picture actor. Besides, it is such
a fine thing to be able to say, "Do you like Douglas MacLean in pictures?--
You know he comes from our home town."
The little girl who lives at my house spends her summers in Dixon.
Every few months she asks, "Has Mr. MacLean come to New York." Then I shake
my head sadly and say, "No."
"When he does come here, you will ask him about Dixon, won't you?"
I promised, and partly because no one ever dares forget a promise made
to her and partly because I wanted to see Thomas H. Ince's discover, I made
an appointment to see him.
"Don't forget," she cautioned, "to ask him if he knows the owner of the
motion picture house, the editor of the evening paper, the druggist, the one
that makes the best chocolate ice cream in the world."
Armed with all these high-brown questions, I sallied forth to meet Mr.
MacLean. The introductions were no more than over when I said:
"Did you live in Dixon, Ill., at one time?"
"Dixon?" he said. "I certainly did. I talk so much about it my wife
always suspects a hidden chapter in my life. What do you know about Dixon?"
"I could more easily say what I do not know," I replied.
Douglas MacLean went to the same high school, attended ball games at the
same field, and cheered for the football team in the same gridiron. Only, to
be truthful, his days in Main Street came about seven years after I had
forsaken the village for the city.
The elder MacLean came to Dixon to preach in the Methodist church.
O, yes, indeed. Douglas is a minister's son. He said he played the usual
pranks attributed to ministers' sons, and had the same lively times. He went
to the Chatauqua at Assembly Park every summer, and while the preachers were
urging all sinners to reform, he sat on the back seat and whispered and
giggled, and had to be frequently reprimanded by his parents, who wanted him
to listen to these uplifting words. All of these confessions had a familiar
sound--nearly every crowd of Dixon young people have had the same experience.
Those who have not yet been requested to be silent have missed something in
their lives.
We discussed the Methodist parsonage, the location of the Episcopal
church, the library, the Y.M.C.A., all the people we both know, including the
Shaws, who edit the Dixon Telegraph, and who always given an official welcome
to former residents of the town who return to visit the pretty little city on
Rock River. Mr. MacLean hopes to accept that welcome before he returns to
California. Mrs. MacLean insists he take her to see the Methodist parsonage,
where he once lived.
After we had spent an hour recalling all the familiar spots in our
erstwhile home town, I suddenly realized we had not spoken a word about
motion pictures.
It was Mr. MacLean himself who came to the subject we were expected to
mention by saying being an actor was not very different from living in a
minister's household.
"Both professions take you from town to town," he said, "and you are
always moving."
In the beginning Mr. MacLean expected to be a legitimate actor. He
started out in New York with that expectation. After a brief period on the
stage he accepted a position with Gail Kane in pictures. Pictures had been
the last thing in the world he wanted to do. In fact he had ambitions to be
a second Edwin Booth. Thomas H. Ince put a stop on this beautiful idea by
choosing Mr. MacLean to be featured in a series of comedies he had in mind.
The very first picture, "Twenty-three and a Half Hours' Leave," co-starring
Douglas MacLean and Doris May, was so much better than even the optimistic
Thomas H. had hoped--young MacLean's future was cemented then and there.
A little later Doris May went her way and Mr. MacLean was left alone to carry
out the promise these two young folk had made.
And now just a moment. Mr. MacLean says this split brought forth many
ugly rumors. It was said he and Doris could not agree and that there had
been jealousy and all sorts of unpleasant factors in their partnership.
"To show you how absurd it is," said Mr. MacLean, "Doris is one of our
best friends. She is coming on to visit Mrs. MacLean and we are both looking
forward to showing her New York. She is like a child and she will be so
enthusiastic over everything. I wired Wallace MacDonald. Miss May's
fiancee, last night to find out just when she is leaving the Coast."
We had talked so long on mutual friends and other small town gossip I
had to leave to attend a meeting of the National Association of Motion
Pictures and Mr. MacLean had to help his wife select a new frock. Yes, they
are happily married, and although he says they will soon celebrate their
seventh anniversary it is difficult to believe he speaks the truth. He looks
not much older than when he played football with D.H.S.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 1921
Lillian Montayne
MOTION PICTURE
Passing Thru
"He is sailing at eleven," said the voice on the wire, "so you must see
him at once, if at all."
"Why is it always our lot," we rebelled, "to be assigned to interview
stars who are just sailing for a holiday abroad, or just leaving for the
Coast after a glorious fortnight of entertainment and shopping in New York.
We must either be Pollyannaishly glad that they have an opportunity to go
across, while in our heart we're consumed with fierce envy and not glad at
all, or we must rejoice with them that they are departing for the Coast with
fat, new contracts and enough gorgeous and expensive clothes to last them
until they come again. One is quite as aggravating as the other.
However, if we interviewed Douglas MacLean before eleven, it meant a
rest from the office that morning, which was something. So we met him at the
Biltmore, and after two minutes we were strongly FOR him, and firmly
convinced that whatever he was getting, in any way at all, he had it coming
to him.
In the first place, he reminded us of two of our favorite actors:
Douglas Fairbanks, and George M. Cohan. He has the exuberance and the
willing smile of Fairbanks; the ready speech, humor and restlessness of
Cohan. But his personality is his own. One can't imagine him as having
affaires d'amour or jazzing his nights away. He is the embodiment of a
popular young university man, a clean-cut athlete, a loyal friend, a devoted
son, a husband who will be faithful thru the years--of strong character and
fine achievement in any walk of life, whatsoever.
Douglas MacLean is the son of a Methodist minister. His early life was
a nomadic one: two years here, three years there, each one of the family
being born in a different city. Douglas was educated at the Institute of
Technology in Chicago, and was not only a fine student but well up in
athletics.
It goes without saying that it was a distinct shock to the MacLean
family when Douglas decided upon a stage career. He cultivated a wonderful
gift of speech in those days, he says, trying to convince his father that he
could live just as clean and decent a life in the profession of acting as he
could selling bonds, which he was then doing in Philadelphia.
"All right, all right, Douglas," father would say, "you can TALK
convincingly about it, but you'll have to show us."
"And I did," he continued. "I was seven years on the stage before I
went into pictures, and I have never done anything except clean plays--and
never intend to. Father is actually proud of me now. Am sure he got more
satisfaction out of my success in 'Twenty-Three and a Half Hours' Leave than
anyone else did!"
Mr. MacLean had finished his picture, tentatively titled "Passin' Thru,"
and had come East on a vacation--the first in four years. It was a series of
"passing thru," he said. They stopped in Philadelphia to see his parents and
dozens of MacLean relatives, who treated him like royalty; then upstate New
York to visit Mrs. MacLean's relatives; then New York and Washington. He had
an appointment with President Harding, and told me with a boyish grin that he
was the first movie actor the President had interviewed, and that he had a
splendid time, even though there was a mistake in the date, which made him
lose one of his precious days in New York, and kept him and Mrs. MacLean from
meeting Doris May and showing her her first glimpse of New York as he had
planned.
"I can remember when I was a youngster," he said, "that mother, or my
aunts, or sisters, were always making very elaborate plans about something
and they always fell thru. It's a regular family trait. But that's just
life. There wouldn't be half the zest in living if everything came out
according to schedule."
Don't imagine that Douglas MacLean was sitting quietly while we talked.
Far from it. He was all over the place--friends and acquaintances claimed a
portion of his time--he was paged by an enterprising photographer who wanted
to take pictures of him then and there. Suddenly he gave a joyful whoop and
went bounding off in pursuit of a passing small feminine figure and came
leading her triumphantly back. It was Doris May. She had come to tell him
that she could not get to the boat to see them off, as she must work in a
street scene in "Foolish Matrons." And there they were--as we had seen them
together on the screen many times--Douglas MacLean and Doris May.
It was quite evident that a warm, wholesome affection exists between
these two, and it was very lovely to witness it. It entirely routs the
perverted idea with which some beings are possessed that there cannot be a
real, sincere friendship between two people of opposite sex. Mr. MacLean has
been married several years to a woman adored and adoring. And Miss May is
very much in love with and soon to marry Wallace McDonald--yet the
comradeship between these two co-workers of other days is very real.
"Don't wear yourself all out in New York, Doris," he said. "I never was
so tired in my life. I have had social and business engagements--two or
three a day. I have seen eighteen shows in less than two weeks. When I get
on the boat I shall sit down and see if I remember the names of some of them,
and what they were about."
"How wonderful to be sailing for Europe," we said--and meant it.
"I'm not," he grinned. "I'm sailing for California by way of New
Orleans! We will be five whole days on the boat, and, thank Heaven, there
will be no place to go and nothing to do but rest. How New Yorkers stand the
life, and how they ever get any work done, is beyond me.
"So I'll soon be on the 'Home Stretch,'" he said, "which, by the way, is
the name of the next picture I'm to make. It's about horse racing, and
intensely thrilling, I believe."
Douglas MacLean is a born comedian, and clever enough to make the most
of it. Those who have worked with him say that he has an almost uncanny
sense of humor that enables him to take a scene and bring out bits of humor
that no one else would have thought of. Not only that--he makes the whole
cast see it and helps them to make the most of their roles. An ideal star!
And while I was considering the fact that he had not said that he wanted
to direct a great picture or play Hamlet, he gave a quick look at his watch.
"The boat leaves for California in seventeen minutes," he said. "Hope I will
have more time for you next time I'm passing thru."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 1922
Douglas MacLean
PHOTOPLAY
Public Appearances
Making public appearances is one of those things like eating drumsticks
with a fork--in time you get used to it, but you never really like it.
The object of public appearances, which are made in motion picture
theaters of course, is to give everybody a brotherly interest in you and your
welfare, so that they will henceforth mob the theaters at which your pictures
appear, thereby greatly increasing the shekels in the Box Office. This
doesn't increase your salary any, but it makes the exhibitors and the
exchange men and the producers happy and it's very gratifying to make so many
people happy.
I have been publicly appearing for many weeks. I have held up the show
in some hundreds of movie palaces. I have made three round trips across the
continent in five months and I know every Pullman porter in America by his
first name and his favorite dice point.
I hope I am not going to hurt anybody's feelings, either private or
civic, by disserting a bit about my experiences. It's as natural to write
about your travels as it is to talk about your troubles. Everybody was very
good and kind and patient with me and I enjoyed it all so much as far as they
were concerned--it was myself I didn't enjoy.
Inside my own studio I have to objection to registering anything from
the emotions of the gallows to receiving custard pie amidnose. In the Dark
Ages, before pictures, I have even endeavored so to disport myself upon the
stage that nobody would thrown anything larger at me than an egg. But all
this in the "persona dramatis."
To stand up before hundreds of dear, good, kind, well-intentioned souls
animated only by perfectly natural curiosity and the ordinary human
skepticism and suspicion which declares that no man is perfect and wants to
see its theory upheld; to make speeches to enterprising young business men
who know more about what I am talking about than I do; to pass through Texas
shaking hands with the entire Democratic party and wonder how long it'll be
before they found out that I am a Republican and cast my first vote for
Grant; to meet all those lovely, local peaches and realize that my stay in
Utah must be so brief--indeed, there were moments when I wished I had taken
my dear old grandmother's advice and earned an honest living.
As I take my typewriter in my lap, I seem to hear in the distance the
raucous and cynical voice of the train announcer singsonging our schedule--
"All aboard for Birmingham, Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, Beaumont, Houston, Forth
Worth, San Antonio, El Paso, Kansas City, Hutchinson, Wichita, Chattanooga,
Knoxville, Nashville, Ashville, Louisville, Cleveland, Detroit, New Orleans,
Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia and New York."
My wife says I can say it in my sleep. Well, there are worse things a
man can say.
Of course when you are making a tour like that you encounter a lot of
general phenomena. There were ten thousand people who wanted my autograph
which I thought was very nice of them. I hope they won't show it to the
children, because it might lead them astray. It's so much better in later
life if people can read your handwriting. Not that it would have done me
much good. My wife doesn't believe in a joint bank account.
One hundred thousand people wanted autographed photographs. We didn't
have to pay nearly as much excess baggage going back.
And ten million wanted to know the best way to get into the movies.
Some day a clever young criminal lawyer is going to invent a new insanity
defense for murder and call it dementia movia picturibus. I did my best.
Now everytime anybody comes to the studio I run and hide the way I used
to in New York in the days when my only callers were bill collectors. I am
afraid it is one of those nice, persevering mothers, with daughters who look
exactly like Mary Pickford, who has come to keep my promise that if she ever
came to California she must look me up and I'd see what I could do.
I am not given to rash promises, but you have no idea how difficult it is to
escape mothers with daughters who look like Mary Pickford without
incriminating yourself. I live in daily dread that one will appear when my
wife is around and confronting me with a deadly stare declaim, "Remember your
promise to my daughter" and I shall look and act like the hero in a bedroom
farce.
Then next there were the banquets and the climate. I had always
understood that Los Angeles had a monopoly on climate as a civic proposition.
They even kid us about it back east. Well, let me tell you there isn't a
city I visited where they can't sing you a cantatta about the climate.
I can't understand why so many people move to Southern California.
Often it would be at 104 when I got up to speak. Not but what 104 is a
very nice heat if you like heat, and I do. But of course I'd be pitifully
nervous because I am not used to making speeches and that would sometimes
cause me to mop my brow. A fatal error. My audience generally decided I was
trying to razz their climate. So I learned to begin my little piece
something like this--
"I suppose," I'd say, smiling brightly, "I suppose you think I'm warm.
But I'm not really. I'm merely a little nervous at appearing before this
select and critical audience. Why, your climate here is perfect, wonderful,
ideal. And as for heat, don't forget that I came through Yuma on my way
east. Nothing would ever seem hot after Yuma. That may appear a broad
statement, but it isn't. Why, in Yuma, we saw a dog chasing a cat down the
street and they were both walking."
Usually it went well. If it didn't we all got cooled off.
One thing was very trying to my sensitive spirit. In every city the
people were kind enough to welcome me at the station. Sometimes they even
had out the band and a parade with automobiles with my name on and
everything. Also my business manager, Bogart Rogers, had about as much
delicacy as Barnum and Baileys in letting everybody know I was in town. As
I'd walk along the street about every other person I passed would say, "There
goes that MacLean now." Strange how the use of such a little word as "that"
can make you jump. [2]
Speaking of the heat, in Fort Worth the heat and I clashed for a brief
round and I must admit that the heat came off best--that is, I actually came
off but it was the heat that was responsible. We had been breakfasting at
the hotel--a nice, southern breakfast. For myself, I like a regular
breakfast--none of this tea and toast, coffee and fruit stuff in mine. I may
be a movie actor, but I've got the labor point of view on breakfast.
Thus I had been long over my meal. When I arose I heard a faint, sad
sound--almost a sob--suggesting of the parting with something dear. It was.
I had. Looking down, I discovered that I had left upon the chair the seat of
my trousers. It was an old suit and t'was not the loss of the seat of my
trousers so much as the manner of its loss that distressed me. I would
gladly have parted with it under more auspicious circumstances.
As it was, there was nothing left to do but wrap a newspaper about the
middle portion of my anatomy, and dash from the dining room, my wife and Mr.
Rogers forming a sort of rear guard, if I do say so.
At Hutchinson, too, I was barely saved from disaster.
They gave me a banquet at Hutchinson. It was the sort of banquet they
probably thought I was used to, after seeing the kind we use in the movies.
But I wasn't. The table was arranged in a giant horseshoe, beautifully
decorated and arranged. My place was at the head. I was as solitary and
conspicuous as a small boy's missing tooth.
Beside me sat the mayor of Hutchinson.
Have you ever eaten, dear readers, when you know that several hundred
pairs of eyes were fixed on your Adam's apple?
You try to smile and chew and the same time and probably resemble nothing
so much as a hyena with a bone.
It was also mighty tough on the mayor. He had never been a movie star
and I had never been a mayor. We couldn't find a point of contact. Just
then, in trying to reach for the bread, smile at a pretty lady down the table
and swallow a large piece of steak. I upset the salt. I thought it was a
faux pas. In reality it was an act of providence. The mayor understood me
to have evinced an interest in salt. He began to talk. It seems that all
the salt in the world comes from Hutchinson, Kansas. The mayor was one of
the most interesting, entertaining, and well-informed men I've ever talked
to. I forgot that I was supposed to be on exhibition and I had the time of
my life. And so everybody else forgot it and we all had a good time.
Young Rogers was a great help to me in one way. He's a bright boy and
he used to be a captain in the British aviation. He moves fast, but his
methods are effective. I must admit that there were times when I bid fair to
destroy the reputation of myself, my art and what is more important, my
director general, Thomas H. Ince. I'd peter out completely. My best
behavior and my company manners and my personal-appearance-try-to-make-
everybody-love-you line of action, would seem to desert me completely.
When Rogers saw I was in trouble, saying the wrong things or not saying
anything or agreeing to buy Central Park or the city hall, he'd canter up,
pulling up his cuff as he came. He'd burst in upon us, holding out his wrist
watch and cry, "Mr. MacLean, do you know what time it is?" I'd drag out my
Ingersoll and we'd compare them and I'd say breathlessly, "No! It isn't! It
can't be! Why, we've only got ten minutes. Good-by--you'll excuse us--only
got ten minutes--" and we'd vanish still talking and I'd have a chance to get
my breath and my wits and think up a couple of bright things to say.
While we were in Washington, we climbed the Monument. Climbed up in the
elevator and down on our legs. We wanted to walk down. We thought it would
be good exercise. Of course, you may think we got a little scary going up in
that elevator. It is a long way to go in an elevator, isn't it? You smile
and whistle and remind yourself that thousands of people have done this same
thing before and thousands more will do it again and that there aren't many
corpses apparent. It's so safe.
Still, we walked down. I was in bed for three days afterwards because I
couldn't walk anywhere else. When I got up, I visited the Treasury and they
let me hold $160,000,000 in cash in my hands. I had to go to bed again after
that. We saw the Capitol with Chic Sale. He told us a lot of things about
it we'd never heard. I don't expect anybody else ever had either.
In passing I should like to mention one little incident that happened in
Birmingham. A young man rang me at my hotel and said, "Mr. MacLean, this is
Charles Lee Porter. You may have heard of me. I know you're very busy, but
I thought you might be glad to spare me a few moments of your time. There
are a number of things I'd like to talk with you about."
Now a couple of things had happened on this trip that had made me wary
and shy about claiming even a little quiet for myself. In Atlanta, Rogers
went ahead to stir up a little popular sentiment. When he got to the hotel
an unknown and rather casual sort of bird drifted up and in and absent-minded
way inquired, "You Doug MacLean's press agent?" Rogers admitted he was
something like that. "That so," said the bird, "When's Doug get in?"
I presume I will be pardoned for mentioning that occasionally in every
community one runs up against what are commonly termed nuts--also pests. We
had been approached by every known variety, from the innocent old lady who
wanted us to look up her cousin who lived in California to the smooth young
man who wanted us to buy a diamond necklace. The movie is always fair game,
you know.
Consequently, in order that we might have the time and attention to give
to the worthy and kind admirers who had done so much to make our trip a
success, we had to discriminate. So Rogers said, "What'd you want to know
for? May I have your name?" The man said, "Yep. My name's Yates. I'm a
cousin o' his."
I hadn't mentioned I had any cousins in Altanta. You know how careless
you can be about relations. So Rogers gave him a very high grade stare and
said, "Mr. MacLean is going to be very busy in Atlanta. Good-by."
Then in Kansas City, a fellow called up on the phone so early in the
morning I wasn't much more than a moron yet, and his voice sounded like a man
in Asheville that wanted me to endorse some new kind of depilatory, so I told
him I was Rogers and MacLean wouldn't be in for a couple of days. Then he
said, "Well, this is Mr. X. I'm a friend of Mr. Ince's and Mr. Ince wired me
to look MacLean up and take him around." I fainted.
But, worse still, in ten minutes Rogers came dashing in and says, "I
just met Mr. X. in the lobby and when I told him who I was he said 'What kind
of a damn fool joke is this anyway?' and beat it."
It took us two days to square that.
Of course there were a few sad moments on that trip. One little old
lady in Ashville came to the theater in a wheel chair. She'd been an invalid
for years but she said she liked my pictures because they were always nice
and clean and she wanted to see if I was a good, clean boy myself. I felt
about as big as a fly on Babe Ruth's hand.
I am whole-heartedly grateful for all the wonderful kindness shown to
me. I never before thoroughly appreciated America, Americans, American
hospitality and American humor.
It can't be beat.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 9, 1922
LOS ANGELES HERALD
"I am still clinging to my original theory of the crime--that the man
with the cap whom my maid saw loitering in the allyway the night of the
murder slipped into Mr. Taylor's apartments when he escorted Mabel Normand to
her motor and shot him immediately after he had returned to his suite and
closed the door behind him."
Such was the assertion today of pretty little Mrs. Douglas MacLean, wife
of the famous screen star, and whose apartment in the court at 400 South
Alvarado street diagonally faces that of the slain cinema director, William
Desmond Taylor.
According to Mrs. MacLean, in the three years Taylor had occupied the
apartment at 404-B South Alvarado, he had only entertained a few times,
living on the whole a quiet and secluded existence and visited only by his
intimate circle of friends.
"It seemed strange to see them moving Mr. Taylor's belongings today,"
said Mrs. MacLean. "He was certainly an ideal neighbor in every respect.
Mr. MacLean and myself used to frequently see men visitors go to his
apartments and now and again we would hear the familiar voice of some
celebrated star chatting outside on his steps.
"But he never gave any wild parties--indeed, he never gave any other
kind, either, but seemed to enjoy best simple amusements.
"It seems perfect plausible to me that the murderer could have slipped
into Mr. Taylor's apartments during those few minutes when we all know he was
escorting Miss Normand to her waiting motor car. Mr. MacLean any myself
discovered that it would have been possible for the man whom my maid reported
as loitering in the alleyway to have kept watch on Mr. Taylor's front doorway
from where he was standing.
"My maid declared that the man was unusually still and silent for a
loiterer. I suppose that I undoubtedly saw the murderer as he left Mr.
Taylor's apartments that night. But it was dark and I couldn't see his face
at all.
"According to my theory the man who killed Mr. Taylor was crouched back
of the door, by the wall, and so was not discovered until after the door had
been closed by Mr. Taylor. Then I believe that the man shot almost
immediately.
"Mr. MacLean and myself are certain that we heard the shot and Mr.
Jessurun, the manager, who has the adjoining apartment, also heard the
report. But you know how little attention one pays to such noises--
especially when they are not repeated. We supposed it was a motor car and
let it go at that.
"But I think that every one in any way affiliated with the motion
picture industry is determined never to give up the trail until the slayer is
apprehended."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 12, 1922
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
Douglas MacLean, of 406-B South Alvarado, told one of the most
interesting stories of all.
Mrs. MacLean was the one who saw the mystery man leaving the Taylor home
just after the shot was fired.
Her description of the man has been given time and again, and both say
that they have been bothered greatly by detectives and newspaper men,
repeating over and over the same story.
"Mrs. MacLean and I had just finished dinner," Mr. MacLean said.
"The night being rather chilly, I had gone upstairs to the bathroom, to
get a small electric stove we have there, and bring it downstairs.
"I heard a report like a shot, but thought it merely an automobile
backfiring.
"Mrs. MacLean also heard it. She went to the door and glanced around.
She saw the man on Taylor's porch. He was standing with the screen door in
his hand, apparently looking about. He then turned back to the door as if
speaking farewell, and after doing so left the porch, walking down the walk
toward Alvarado street. [sic] No, he didn't run, nor did he seem hurried."
Mrs. MacLean said she did not see the man's face. In fact, it's rather
hard to distinguish anyone at that distance in the court, because of the
peculiar lighting system.
And Mr. MacLean, to demonstrate this fact to the detectives, went from
his house to the porch of the Taylor home and posed in the same manner as the
man whom his wife had seen.
"Mrs. MacLean thought nothing of the incident," he concluded, "and we
started playing dominoes together, doing so for some time, before retiring."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
October 1923
PHOTOPLAY
The preview nights at "The Writers" in Hollywood are becoming
increasingly popular. Big new films are shown there for the first time to
members of the club only. The recent showing of "Going Up," the new Douglas
MacLean comedy, nearly brought down the roof. A very select and celebrated
audience came to view it, including Mr. and Mrs. William de Mille, Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Brabin (Theda Bara), Mabel Normand, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Sir
Popham Young, Clara Beranger, Josephine Quirk, May Allison, Richard Dix,
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ray and a number of prominent writers.
Theda Bara declared as she went out that "we don't think Mr. Chaplin
ever made so funny a comedy," and William de Mille told his party during the
film that he considered it the best comedy he had seen on the screen.
Charles Brabin said: "I haven't laughed so much since the old Weber and
Field days."
So it looks as though Douglas would enliven the coming season with that
rarest and most delightful of screen entertainments--a dramatic comedy.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 1923
PHOTOPLAY
Tennis has hit the motion picture colony with a bang. And Florence
Vidor has just won the silver cup, first prize, in a tennis tournament held
on Priscilla Dean's courts.
The entrants for the ladies' singles in this tournament included
Priscilla Dean, Enid Bennett, Katherine Bennett, May Allison, Florence Vidor
and Mrs. Douglas MacLean. Among the men who made up the mixed doubles were
Fred Niblo, Wheeler Oakman, Bob Ellis, Jack McDermot and Douglas MacLean.
The mixed doubles were won by Florence Vidor and Wheeler Oakman, in a hard
fought set against Priscilla Dean and Fred Niblo.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 1924
PHOTOPLAY
The football season in the West has done a lot of damage to working days
for certain stars. Douglas MacLean, whose father is a retired Methodist
minister and much interested in the welfare of the University of Southern
California, has toured all over the country following the U.S.C. team on its
playing schedule. He and Mrs. MacLean drove to Washington to see them play
the University of Washington and then later came down to Palo Alto for the
Stanford game, and then drove clear back to San Francisco a few weeks later
for the California-Stanford classic. Doug is what he himself calls a
"football nut."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 1924
PHOTOPLAY
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Niblo entertained with an informal dancing party on
New Year's Eve and later the guests went to the big house-warming given by
Tom and Nell Ince. Among the crowd that gathered to see the New Year in at
the new Ince home were Florence Vidor, Mrs. and Mrs. Douglas MacLean, Wheeler
Oakman and Priscilla Dean, and Bob Ellis and May Ellison.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 1925
PHOTOPLAY
Mr. and Mrs. Douglas MacLean have sailed for Honolulu to spend a few
weeks of well-earned vacation. Doug has just completed his latest and best
comedy, "Introduce Me," which caused an absolute riot when it was seen at The
Writers at a preview the other evening.
Doug made four pictures under this last contract, and this was the last
one. When he started out to make these, he had a pretty hard time convincing
anybody of just how good he was, and just why he ought to be a real star on
his own.
Now after the amazing success of his four pictures, "Going Up," "The
Yankee Consul," Never Say Die," and "Introduce Me," the producers are coming
to him. In those four pictures, MacLean has put himself up with Lloyd,
Chaplin and Keaton as one of the great screen comedians.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 1925
PHOTOPLAY
(Letter to the Editor)
A few days ago I saw Douglas MacLean in "Introduce Me" and it was one of
the best pictures I ever saw. An enormous bouquet for Douglas MacLean's
acting. If there were more clean, humorous pictures like "Introduce Me," I'd
be glad...
Charlotte Coleman, Bald Knob, W. Va.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 1926
Herbert Howe
PHOTOPLAY
Getting Laughs Out of Sticks
"Come on and see the goof playing with sticks!"
Carpenters and electricians gathered in one wide grin to watch a youth
solemnly laying sticks on the floor of a studio stage, stepping among them
with silent murmurs as though muttering incantations.
The goof was Douglas MacLean...carpenters and electricians are so
irreverent.
As a comedian he certainly was funny to them--as funny as a Napoleon in
a cuckoo hatch.
"Nuts!" they murmured and walked away.
Later one of them asked MacLean what he was doing, playing jack-straws?
"Building a house," he muttered between solemn paces to the count of
one, two, three.
"Well, ain't that pretty," said the carpenter, regarding the assemblage
of sticks that might have been the beginning of a bum bird's nest. "I got a
kid at home that builds houses outa leaves on the lawn. I'll bring him over
to play with you."
Doug nodded and went on in a trace.
He was laying out a set and visualizing the chuckles.
Just another one of those cuckoo stars.
When I happened into his studio study the other day he was hunched over
an architect's drawing which he had made.
"Crosses mark where bodies were found?" I presumed, studying the sketch.
"No," said he, with the gayety of Hamlet. "They mark the laughs."
"You mean you lay down laughs like linoleum?"
"No," said he. "More like mosaic. Have to be accurate to the inch."
"How spontaneous!" I dilated.
He then proceeded to illumine my darkness by showing how you could miss
a laugh by walking one step too far between the entrance and the center table
where the merry maneuver was to be performed.
I recalled a scene of "The Arab" where Novarro takes a coin from the
hand of a beggar just after it had been placed there by a Christian gent. It
was very funny before the camera. But on the scr
een it seemed to me that
Novarro was about two steps too far behind the donor to get the maximum of
the humor.
"Timing," said Doug. "Laughs are like firecrackers. The fuss must be
just the right length and they must be thrown just at the right time. You
have to build sets to key with the action."
"Simple as trigonometry or fourth dimension," I observed lightly.
The foregoing preamble explains why Doug MacLean is a great actor. He's
such a good architect. Or, rather, a builder, for he creates the whole
structure with the aid of his men.
MacLean works precisely like Harold Lloyd. Perhaps he follows his plans
more closely.
The ordinary procedure in a studio of efficiency is as follows:
Producer pays fifty thousand dollars for a story.
He gives it to Joe Ox, the scenario sausage grinder, and tells him to
grind out a continuity in two weeks.
In the middle of the first week he finds he needs Joe on another script,
so the sausage is turned over to Lizzie Muts, who puts it through in three
days, after her own ideas.
Meanwhile the sets are being built.
Lizzie turns the weiner over to the director, who says, "Fine," and
proceeds to re-write it muttering "terrible!"
He spends a week or so on his version of the hot dog. Ten to twelve
weeks on shooting the picture.
Doug, on the other hand, knows exactly what every ingredient is and
where it goes before he starts his production.
He reverses the practical scheme of the efficient studio by spending six
weeks on the plans and four weeks on the shooting, thus economizing in the
salaries of players who are not engaged until every phase of the picture has
been visualized and plotted.
He has that faculty which constitutes genius in the collaborative scheme
of the motion picture--the ability to organize a staff and work it
harmoniously as one man. That's the secret of great motion pictures. It's
the secret few possess.
MacLean is not an actor. He's a master builder. I mean that as a
compliment. He works like an architect, a scientist, a man of sanity.
Thought rather than action is his mode. His mind holds the image
complete before he tries to perform it. Result: he is the greatest exponent
of comedy-drama in the business.
He differs from Lloyd and Chaplin in that he tells a serious story
humorously. That is, he keeps within the realm of reality. He's the supreme
farceur.
In such independent young intellects is the hope of the motion picture.
The harmony and enthusiasm of Doug MacLean's studio makes me want to
delve into the picture industry. A wilder comment I cannot make, for most
studios send me forth with a feeling of having escaped something worse than
the lower regions.
There is no pose to MacLean. He doesn't theorize of life and women and
art. He talks his own stuff, and talks it so much more intelligently than
the "commercial" producer and the "genius" star that you don't care a hoot
for his ideas on other subjects.
Herein you behold the plausible harmony of art and commerce. It is
plausible, though it doesn't seem so until you meet with a man of applied
mentality who is equipped for the medium in which he works.
The Jew is considered the finest business man in the world.
But here is an instance where I think a Scotchman has him licked.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 1926
PHOTOPLAY
Douglas MacLean has been elected president of the Masquers Club, which
is a very exclusive Hollywood organization made up of actors, writers and
directors of unusual talent and ability. It has been called the "Lambs of
Hollywood" and is noted for its clever entertainments. Doug follows Robert
Edeson into the president's chair.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
November 1926
PHOTOPLAY
[from an interview with Douglas MacLean]..."Make your audience feel
superior to you," continued Doug, dropping the famous grin for a moment as he
purled forth priceless words of picture wisdom, "but don't let them get
derisive. Make them feel a bit superior to the characters in the story, but
don't let them feel superior to the picture. Don't let them know it is a
picture. Make it a bit of human drama--or humor--that is going on before
their eyes...I don't try to make my pictures comic. I try to make them
entertaining."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 1929
PHOTOPLAY
Photoplay Reviews the Film Year
...The comedians have had a tough year. Charlie Chaplin and Harold
Lloyd maintain their preeminence, but such comic figures as Buster Keaton,
Harry Langdon and Doug MacLean have passed into eclipse...
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Wallace Smith: February 27, 1922
The following is another of Wallace Smith's sensationalizing dispatches on
the Taylor case.
February 27, 1922
Wallace Smith
CHICAGO AMERICAN
Somewhere in the tangle of telephone and telegraph wires traveling up
the coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco may be the echo of a frantic
woman's voice -- and the solution of the mystery in the murder of William
Desmond Taylor.
For that voice, and in a desperate hope that they have hit the right
trail at last, detectives hunted today after it became known that the woman
Taylor loved, the last woman he held in his arms and kissed before he was
killed, not only telephoned on the night of the murder, but had sent three
telegrams imploring help.
The detectives directed their search for a mysterious "Mrs. Walker," to
whom both the long distance call and the telegrams were addressed. Two of
them, especially assigned by District Attorney Woolwine, picked up the trail
in San Francisco.
It was to be remarked that a private detective, employed by friends of
the woman involved, also had interested himself in the hunt for "Mrs.
Walker."
It had been rumored that this detective had been hired not so much to
uncover evidence, as to cover it up and obscure every trail that might lead
to the woman.
Were it not for apparent leniency shown by some officials in Los Angeles
the private detective would be rather busily engaged covering trails inasmuch
as every one so far found has headed directly for the door of the woman. [3]
With the report of the telegrams, as well as the telephone call, it was
stated that the woman would be called upon for some sort of an explanation.
Already several discrepancies have been discovered in the story she told at
the first secret and "polite interview" which passed for an investigation.
In that story she said that she had spent a quiet evening at home,
reading. She had expected a telephone call from Taylor, she admitted, but
when it did not come she did not bother especially. She retired at 9 o'clock
according to that story.
Yet at this very time, according to detectives, she was frantically
telephoning "Mrs. Walker" at a San Francisco hotel.
"I'm in trouble," she cried over the wire. "I need help."
The same evening and while she was waiting for the long distance
connection to be made, she is said to have sent the first telegram. It, too,
was an appeal for assistance.
The second telegram was sent the morning Taylor's body was found, but
before news of the tragic discovery had been made public. The third followed
within two hours, according to the investigators.
The detectives, of course, reckoned that the telegram and the telephone
call must have had their inspiration in the shooting of Taylor. They are
taken to indicate that the woman knew of the killing before accounts of the
tragedy were published in the newspapers here.
It was a secret at the office of Undersheriff Eugene Biscailuz that the
woman has been under suspicion from the beginning, if not as the murderess,
then at least as one who could clear away every shred of the mystery and name
the slayer.
There is a feeling that she is concealing her information because if the
facts of her relationship with Taylor and her dealings with the dope peddlers
were made public, here life as an actress would be snuffed out overnight.
Her connection with the drug ring, and the fact that she was among a
score known to have been blackmailed by three narcotic pirates, has been
notorious. In regard to this, too, the detectives claim she lied when she
was submitted to the "polite interview."
She swore that she had never even touched drugs. As she was making this
vow operatives learned that eight weeks before she had received a wholesale
consignment of heroin.
The real identity of the shadowy "Mrs. Walker" was a mystery. It was
known, the San Francisco authorities are reported to have said, that "Mrs.
Walker" had been stopping at one of the leading hotels of that city. It was
to this hotel that the long-distance call from the Los Angeles woman was
traced.
The very next day or the day following, the mysterious "Mrs. Walker"
disappeared from the hotel. The early search failed to reveal where she had
gone.
Another alluring and mocking clue in the spectacular slaying was the
finding of a reddish hued amber hairpin in the bedroom of Taylor's home. Its
familiar curve seemed to twist itself into a taunting question mark. Surely
the owner of that hairpin could throw some light into the mysterious shade.
Perhaps the owner itself was involved in the motive of jealousy which some of
the investigators still see behind the crime.
The trail of the dope peddlers still twined through the jungle of the
theories and speculation. From one of their number, locked up in the county
jail, one of the sheriff's men secured information confirming the report that
Taylor was killed because he had thrashed a dope peddler.
"Taylor was crazy about this woman," said the jailed drug runner. "She
stood for him, although I don't think she was especially crazy about him.
"She thought enough of him, though, to lie to him when he heard a report
that she was going against the dope. She started out using nothing but
morphine, but now she'll go against anything she can get. Heroin is one of
the things she has picked up a liking for.
"Well, she told Taylor that she had been against the dope but that she
had taken the cure and was off the stuff. We all laughed because we knew she
was getting it regular.
"Then one night Taylor called at her house. He got there just as this
dope peddler was delivering a consignment of the stuff. Taylor grabbed the
dope and the peddler, too. He gave him a terrible beating and threw him down
the stairs.
"Of course, the story got around. We all kidded this peddler plenty.
He didn't get real sore, though, until a couple of dames started to ride him
and ask him if he was going to let this fellow get away with that stuff and
take his character away from him like that. She was worth about $2,000 a
month to the kid.
"These women got his goat right because he was stuck on one of them.
They were sisters. And a fine pair of highbinders they are, too. They're
the two that left Los Angeles for Bakersfield and points north right after
the killing.
"And take it from me, when you get them or get this fellow you'll be
able to find out who killed Taylor."
At the Altadena home of Mabel Normand it was stated that the actress,
who suffered a severe relapse last week, was recovering slowly from a severe
attack of pneumonia and the shock she suffered at Taylor's death. At the
Mack Sennett studios it was reported that she expected to return there before
the end of the week for the completion of the picture, "Susanna," which was
interrupted in production by the tragedy.
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NOTES:
[1] Some portions of the official statements made by the MacLeans to the
District Attorney regarding the Taylor murder can be found in KING OF COMEDY.
Faith MacLean's most detailed statement to reporters can be found in WILLIAM
DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER.
[2] Bogart Rogers, the business manager of Douglas MacLean, was Adela Rogers
St. John's brother.
[3] Again, Smith is referring to Mabel Normand.
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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
ftp.etext.org
in the directory pub/Zines/Taylorology
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