The Murder of William Desmond Taylor
'That's your father!'
It was 1914. Ethel Deane-Tanner and her daughter Edith Daisy were watching Captain Alvarez in a New York movie theatre. Neither had seen the star, William Desmond Taylor, for seven years, not since he left the family home in New York to get a pack of cigarettes one late October evening. He never returned. The stage name failed to confuse Ethel, who recognised her tall, elegant husband with the unusually light blue eyes immediately.
Neither she nor anyone else in America who knew Taylor knew where he had been between 1908 when he abandoned his family, and 1912, when he mysteriously turned up in San Francisco looking every inch the British army officer his father wanted him to become. But Taylor preferred to take his chances, swopping a suffocating Anglo-Irish country life for the bright lights of New York.
He went from leading man to leading director alarmingly fast. D. W. Griffith directed the first film in Hollywood in 1910, but Taylor would be every bit as much in demand. Hollywood was a very different place then, one of orange groves and sulphurous tar pits to the east; Sunset Boulevard had been named and paved, its past as a cattle trail (dating back to the 1780s) soon forgotten; the pepper trees that lined the trail did not last long. Rancher H. H. Wilcox might have been forgotten completely had he not named his ranch Hollywood. And if William Desmond Taylor had died a natural death, he too might have been forgotten.
On July 1, 1921, the Los Angeles Herald reported that 'W. D. Taylor' intended to fly (or 'wing') to Paris from England. What no one knew was that he had exactly seven months to live, shot to death in his Los Angeles bungalow the following February. He died alone; the last person who saw him alive was one of the most famous actresses in America, comedienne Mabel Normand. Normand had paid her friend a visit and he escorted her to the curb, where her car and driver were waiting. As the car drove away, Mabel playfully kissed the window, leaving a bright red lipstick print.
She would never see Taylor again.
Who would shoot a defenceless man in the back? Who would want to? And why?
Mabel was a suspect but quickly ruled out. She and Taylor worked together. They were close friends. She may have asked him for help in overcoming her addiction to cocaine. Taylor was a good friend to her, giving her books to read (both loved to read) and encouraging Mabel to take French lessons.
His relationship with another leading actress, Mary Miles Minter, was very different.
Mary Miles Minter was almost twenty and a seasoned performer. Her mother had appeared on Broadway. After having two daughters, Charlotte Shelby transformed herself into an archetypal stage mother, letting Mary tag along on her elder daughter Margaret's audition with leading Broadway producer Charles Frohman. Five-year-old Juliet cast instead. When Juliet was ten, there was a snag involving child labour laws in Chicago. No matter: Charlotte obtained her dead niece's birth certificate. wrote to her sister, whose daughter had died. Could she send her birth certificate to Chicago? With the certificate in hand, Juliet Reilly aged overnight. And she had a new name: Mary Miles Minter.
William Desmond Taylor met Mary when he directed her in Anne of the Green Gables (1919). He helped promote her. Mary, seventeen, fell madly in love with Taylor, forty-seven. They had an affair, but Taylor did not return Mary's feelings. Charlotte was aware of the affair and was worried: Mary was being groomed by Paramount as a younger Mary Pickford (Pickford had left Paramount.) Still a teenager, Mary was worth was over $1,000,000 (or about $15,000,000 today), the proverbial goose that laid golden eggs. The last thing Charlotte wanted was for that to change because of an affair with a much older man that was bound to end in tears.
One reason Taylor was not overly interested in Mary could have been that he was a closeted gay man. His new butler Henry Peavey was a gay man who cruised Los Angeles parks for himself possibly, but more likely for his employer. Given the hypocrisy-laden morality of the day, Taylor did not sack Peavey after the latter was arrested; on the contrary, he had agreed to help him, the most likely reason was that Peavey was acting on his behalf. This would have surprised many who saw Taylor in the image he had carefully cultivated: a ladies' man who could hold his liquor, his temper and his tongue.
Peavey turned up for work the morning of 2 February 1922 at 7:30 A.M. The sitting room lights were on, worrying Peavey. Then he saw the body, laid out as if in a funeral parlour. Peavey ran out the front door into the courtyard, screaming Taylor was dead. Neighbour Edna Purviance (Charlie Chaplin's leading lady at the time) may have heard him: she was the first to turn up at the bungalow. And it must have been Edna who rang Paramount; there is no question that they were contacted, because Charles Eyton, general manager of Famous Players-Lasky (a subsidiary of Paramount) turned up before the police did. Eyton claimed to have moved the body, but if he had, why did he tell the police that Taylor had suffered from stomach trouble? Eyton, a New Zealander, had been a wrestler in Australia before emigrating to the United States; he would have had no trouble moving dead weight. Eyton removed papers from the bungalow while Edna frantically went through the drawers. Meanwhile, Peavey had composed himself and when the police arrived, he was calmly doing the dishes (which struck the police as odd).
Then a mysterious man claiming to be a doctor turned up. Kneeling for a few moments by the body, he rose and announced Taylor had died of a stomach haemorrhage. Then Peavey, as if on cue, said he had bought a bottle of milk of magnesia for Taylor the day before. Then Eyton and Purviance chimed in, saying that Taylor had suffered from a stomach complaint. The policeman had had enough. He turned the body over, revealing a neat bullet wound and a pool of blood. (So much for dying of a stomach haemorrhage.)
Then the doctor (if he was a doctor) disappeared. Eyton almost certainly went to the bungalow to remove evidence of Taylor's private life, but to plant evidence. And perhaps bribe a policeman or two. His job was to make what promised to be a public relations disaster simply go away. Taylor was dead, murdered, nothing could change that. All that mattered to Eyton (and Paramount) now was damage control. And while the idea of bribery may sound far-fetched, the Los Angeles Police Department was notoriously corrupt then. And Howard Strickling and Eddie Mannix at MGM worked as a team from the 1930s into the 1960s covering up scrapes involving the biggest stars at the studio. Paramount had another problem: the timing was terrible. Paramount comedian Fatty Arbuckle, who had signed a $3,000,000 contract with Paramount, had been arrested the previous autumn, accused of raping and murdering a starlet at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Arbuckle had not yet been acquitted and the last thing Paramount wanted was another scandal.
Eyton removed evidence he found at the bungalow, removing Taylor's papers. But he almost certainly planted evidence as well. How could he have missed the passionate love letters Mary Miles Minter wrote to Taylor? Or overlooked the pink silk nightgown embroidered with her initials? (For the record, a policeman found it straightaway.) There were two reasons to plant evidence: it was vital to depict Taylor as a ladies man. And while an affair between a prominent Hollywood director and a young actress was bound to be frowned upon, it was better than the truth (in those less than enlightened days) coming to light. The second reason was that Paramount wanted to get rid of Mary Miles Minter. She could not act. More to the point, her films did not bring in enough money to justify her $1,300,000 contract. And studio executives were tired of Charlotte's constant interference. They may have been tired of Mary's obsession with Taylor as well; on at least one occasion, she disrobed before literally throwing herself at Taylor. She was a loose cannon and Paramount knew it; this on top of the fact that the studio was well aware that Mary Miles Minter was never going to give Mary Pickford a run for her money.
Mary was the prime suspect from the very start. Stupidly, she rushed to see Mabel Normand after Taylor was killed. The police attempted to turn her away, but kind-hearted Mabel let Mary in. Mary, when interviewed fifty years later, said she mentioned to Mabel that Taylor had been 'shot in the side'. But how could she know where the bullet had gone? The bullet entered his right side and ended up just above his left shoulder blade. The police believed the killer Taylor wrapped their arms around him before pulling the trigger. Between Charlotte and her daughter, Mary is far more likely to have flung her arms around Taylor. (It is difficult to imagine Charlotte, who loathed Taylor, embracing him.) They were alone in his bungalow. Did he try to free himself from her embrace? Was that when she fired the gun? (One can see why Mary believed Taylor was shot in the side.) And the wound was low; Taylor was tall. Mary, like her mother, stood just over five feet.
What interested Charlotte most was money. A former actress, she may have realised that her daughter had neither talent nor star power. The $1,300,000 contract must have looked more and more like a fluke. All Charlotte could do was guard her daughter's reputation, hoping against hope that her contract would be renewed. Much to her horror, Mary had an affair with actor James Kirkwood when she was just fifteen, leading to a termination. Two years later, she became infatuated with Taylor.
Eighteen months before Taylor's murder, Charlotte and Mary had a fierce argument, triggered by Charlotte accusing Mary of having an affair with Taylor. She wanted it to stop. (To be fair, while Charlotte was concerned about Mary's image, she may very well have seen that Taylor was not going to marry Mary.) The quarrel escalated until Mary grabbed Charlotte's handgun, ran upstairs to her mother's bedroom in the magnificent Beverly Hills mansion her Paramount contract had made possible and locked the door. The safety was on, but Mary managed to fire the gun three times. She had no intention of killing herself; when Charlotte managed to get into her bedroom, Mary was lying on the floor, her hand over her eyes. Then she removed her hand and said: 'Boo!' (This says everything about Mary.)
It was 1914. Ethel Deane-Tanner and her daughter Edith Daisy were watching Captain Alvarez in a New York movie theatre. Neither had seen the star, William Desmond Taylor, for seven years, not since he left the family home in New York to get a pack of cigarettes one late October evening. He never returned. The stage name failed to confuse Ethel, who recognised her tall, elegant husband with the unusually light blue eyes immediately.
Neither she nor anyone else in America who knew Taylor knew where he had been between 1908 when he abandoned his family, and 1912, when he mysteriously turned up in San Francisco looking every inch the British army officer his father wanted him to become. But Taylor preferred to take his chances, swopping a suffocating Anglo-Irish country life for the bright lights of New York.
He went from leading man to leading director alarmingly fast. D. W. Griffith directed the first film in Hollywood in 1910, but Taylor would be every bit as much in demand. Hollywood was a very different place then, one of orange groves and sulphurous tar pits to the east; Sunset Boulevard had been named and paved, its past as a cattle trail (dating back to the 1780s) soon forgotten; the pepper trees that lined the trail did not last long. Rancher H. H. Wilcox might have been forgotten completely had he not named his ranch Hollywood. And if William Desmond Taylor had died a natural death, he too might have been forgotten.
On July 1, 1921, the Los Angeles Herald reported that 'W. D. Taylor' intended to fly (or 'wing') to Paris from England. What no one knew was that he had exactly seven months to live, shot to death in his Los Angeles bungalow the following February. He died alone; the last person who saw him alive was one of the most famous actresses in America, comedienne Mabel Normand. Normand had paid her friend a visit and he escorted her to the curb, where her car and driver were waiting. As the car drove away, Mabel playfully kissed the window, leaving a bright red lipstick print.
She would never see Taylor again.
Who would shoot a defenceless man in the back? Who would want to? And why?
Mabel was a suspect but quickly ruled out. She and Taylor worked together. They were close friends. She may have asked him for help in overcoming her addiction to cocaine. Taylor was a good friend to her, giving her books to read (both loved to read) and encouraging Mabel to take French lessons.
His relationship with another leading actress, Mary Miles Minter, was very different.
Mary Miles Minter was almost twenty and a seasoned performer. Her mother had appeared on Broadway. After having two daughters, Charlotte Shelby transformed herself into an archetypal stage mother, letting Mary tag along on her elder daughter Margaret's audition with leading Broadway producer Charles Frohman. Five-year-old Juliet cast instead. When Juliet was ten, there was a snag involving child labour laws in Chicago. No matter: Charlotte obtained her dead niece's birth certificate. wrote to her sister, whose daughter had died. Could she send her birth certificate to Chicago? With the certificate in hand, Juliet Reilly aged overnight. And she had a new name: Mary Miles Minter.
William Desmond Taylor met Mary when he directed her in Anne of the Green Gables (1919). He helped promote her. Mary, seventeen, fell madly in love with Taylor, forty-seven. They had an affair, but Taylor did not return Mary's feelings. Charlotte was aware of the affair and was worried: Mary was being groomed by Paramount as a younger Mary Pickford (Pickford had left Paramount.) Still a teenager, Mary was worth was over $1,000,000 (or about $15,000,000 today), the proverbial goose that laid golden eggs. The last thing Charlotte wanted was for that to change because of an affair with a much older man that was bound to end in tears.
One reason Taylor was not overly interested in Mary could have been that he was a closeted gay man. His new butler Henry Peavey was a gay man who cruised Los Angeles parks for himself possibly, but more likely for his employer. Given the hypocrisy-laden morality of the day, Taylor did not sack Peavey after the latter was arrested; on the contrary, he had agreed to help him, the most likely reason was that Peavey was acting on his behalf. This would have surprised many who saw Taylor in the image he had carefully cultivated: a ladies' man who could hold his liquor, his temper and his tongue.
Peavey turned up for work the morning of 2 February 1922 at 7:30 A.M. The sitting room lights were on, worrying Peavey. Then he saw the body, laid out as if in a funeral parlour. Peavey ran out the front door into the courtyard, screaming Taylor was dead. Neighbour Edna Purviance (Charlie Chaplin's leading lady at the time) may have heard him: she was the first to turn up at the bungalow. And it must have been Edna who rang Paramount; there is no question that they were contacted, because Charles Eyton, general manager of Famous Players-Lasky (a subsidiary of Paramount) turned up before the police did. Eyton claimed to have moved the body, but if he had, why did he tell the police that Taylor had suffered from stomach trouble? Eyton, a New Zealander, had been a wrestler in Australia before emigrating to the United States; he would have had no trouble moving dead weight. Eyton removed papers from the bungalow while Edna frantically went through the drawers. Meanwhile, Peavey had composed himself and when the police arrived, he was calmly doing the dishes (which struck the police as odd).
Then a mysterious man claiming to be a doctor turned up. Kneeling for a few moments by the body, he rose and announced Taylor had died of a stomach haemorrhage. Then Peavey, as if on cue, said he had bought a bottle of milk of magnesia for Taylor the day before. Then Eyton and Purviance chimed in, saying that Taylor had suffered from a stomach complaint. The policeman had had enough. He turned the body over, revealing a neat bullet wound and a pool of blood. (So much for dying of a stomach haemorrhage.)
Then the doctor (if he was a doctor) disappeared. Eyton almost certainly went to the bungalow to remove evidence of Taylor's private life, but to plant evidence. And perhaps bribe a policeman or two. His job was to make what promised to be a public relations disaster simply go away. Taylor was dead, murdered, nothing could change that. All that mattered to Eyton (and Paramount) now was damage control. And while the idea of bribery may sound far-fetched, the Los Angeles Police Department was notoriously corrupt then. And Howard Strickling and Eddie Mannix at MGM worked as a team from the 1930s into the 1960s covering up scrapes involving the biggest stars at the studio. Paramount had another problem: the timing was terrible. Paramount comedian Fatty Arbuckle, who had signed a $3,000,000 contract with Paramount, had been arrested the previous autumn, accused of raping and murdering a starlet at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Arbuckle had not yet been acquitted and the last thing Paramount wanted was another scandal.
Eyton removed evidence he found at the bungalow, removing Taylor's papers. But he almost certainly planted evidence as well. How could he have missed the passionate love letters Mary Miles Minter wrote to Taylor? Or overlooked the pink silk nightgown embroidered with her initials? (For the record, a policeman found it straightaway.) There were two reasons to plant evidence: it was vital to depict Taylor as a ladies man. And while an affair between a prominent Hollywood director and a young actress was bound to be frowned upon, it was better than the truth (in those less than enlightened days) coming to light. The second reason was that Paramount wanted to get rid of Mary Miles Minter. She could not act. More to the point, her films did not bring in enough money to justify her $1,300,000 contract. And studio executives were tired of Charlotte's constant interference. They may have been tired of Mary's obsession with Taylor as well; on at least one occasion, she disrobed before literally throwing herself at Taylor. She was a loose cannon and Paramount knew it; this on top of the fact that the studio was well aware that Mary Miles Minter was never going to give Mary Pickford a run for her money.
Mary was the prime suspect from the very start. Stupidly, she rushed to see Mabel Normand after Taylor was killed. The police attempted to turn her away, but kind-hearted Mabel let Mary in. Mary, when interviewed fifty years later, said she mentioned to Mabel that Taylor had been 'shot in the side'. But how could she know where the bullet had gone? The bullet entered his right side and ended up just above his left shoulder blade. The police believed the killer Taylor wrapped their arms around him before pulling the trigger. Between Charlotte and her daughter, Mary is far more likely to have flung her arms around Taylor. (It is difficult to imagine Charlotte, who loathed Taylor, embracing him.) They were alone in his bungalow. Did he try to free himself from her embrace? Was that when she fired the gun? (One can see why Mary believed Taylor was shot in the side.) And the wound was low; Taylor was tall. Mary, like her mother, stood just over five feet.
What interested Charlotte most was money. A former actress, she may have realised that her daughter had neither talent nor star power. The $1,300,000 contract must have looked more and more like a fluke. All Charlotte could do was guard her daughter's reputation, hoping against hope that her contract would be renewed. Much to her horror, Mary had an affair with actor James Kirkwood when she was just fifteen, leading to a termination. Two years later, she became infatuated with Taylor.
Eighteen months before Taylor's murder, Charlotte and Mary had a fierce argument, triggered by Charlotte accusing Mary of having an affair with Taylor. She wanted it to stop. (To be fair, while Charlotte was concerned about Mary's image, she may very well have seen that Taylor was not going to marry Mary.) The quarrel escalated until Mary grabbed Charlotte's handgun, ran upstairs to her mother's bedroom in the magnificent Beverly Hills mansion her Paramount contract had made possible and locked the door. The safety was on, but Mary managed to fire the gun three times. She had no intention of killing herself; when Charlotte managed to get into her bedroom, Mary was lying on the floor, her hand over her eyes. Then she removed her hand and said: 'Boo!' (This says everything about Mary.)
Meanwhile, it emerged that Taylor was not the immigrant made good in the land of opportunity, the same immigrant who had laboured in the fields of the heartland. On the contrary, Taylor was born into privilege, an Anglo-Irishman (a Protestant of English descent living in Ireland) whose family had been prominent in Ireland for generations. William Cunningham Deane-Tanner was born on April 26, 1872, in County Carlow, Ireland, raised at Evington House, a cosy two-storey grey stone house in the verdant Irish countryside, built circa 1835. He grew up surrounded by antiques (a George II triple top games table was sold recently) that may have been heirlooms: his mother was an O'Brien, descended from ancient Irish kings and heiress to the Gorteeshall estate at Ballyporeen, South Tipperary. Taylor's father was Major (Thomas) Kearns Deane-Tanner; a paternal uncle sat in Parliament. But that uncle was a rebel by nature, crossing the Speaker constantly, as the Times noted in his obituary. Taylor and his younger brother Denis were just as rebellious.
Taylor fled a stultifying existence, sailing to New York in his twenties. He had spent time on a Kansas dude ranch - a source of amusement for British men whose families could afford it - but this time, he needed a job. He sailed to New York, went to work in an antique shop on Broadway, then sent for Denis. But Taylor really wanted to be an actor and along the way met and married actress Edith Hamilton; the wedding took place at the famous Little Church Around the Corner in December 1901. On 23 October 1908, the marriage ended after Taylor went out to buy a pack of cigarettes. He never returned. Edith and their daughter Edith Daisy had no idea what happened to until they went to see Captain Alvarez in 1914. (They tracked Taylor down, who finally made amends for his shameful behaviour; separately, he supported his brother Denis's family in a small Calfornia town after he too abandoned his family, never to be seen again.)
No one might have suspected Charlotte Shelby of shooting Taylor if not for a neighbour: actress Faith Cole MacLean. MacLean saw someone she described as a burglar straight out of a Hollywood movie leave Taylor's bungalow, stop, then go back in as if they had forgotten something. They re-emerged, saw MacLean and the expression on her face, smiled, then scarpered off. MacLean believed the person was a woman dressed as a man. not a man.
Taylor was shot with a .38 handgun. Charlotte Shelby owned a .38 handgun. But Mary lived with her mother; there was little to prevent her from taking it. Her behaviour after Taylor's death was downright bizarre; during a 1970 interview, Mary made her obsession with Taylor only too clear, rushing to the morgue and letting the attendant believe she and Taylor were married. Her intensity is alarming today, fifty years after writer Charles Higham spoke to her. Mary was still upset that she was too small to lean over Taylor's dead body and kiss him on the lips.
Mary's contract expired in 1923. It was not renewed. She never acted again. Charlotte is said to have paid off three generations of corrupt Los Angeles police officers, the story passed down over the years for financial gain. But if Charlotte did pay off policemen (one Hollywood historian claims to have seen bank statements), was that protect herself? Or to protect Mary? The latter seems likely considering Charlotte asked to have the case reopened in 1937, hardly what a guilty person would do. It might have exonerated her, had Mary's sister Margaret not accused Charlotte of murdering Taylor. But Margaret was an alcoholic, as well as a paranoid; her word could not be taken at face value (Charlotte was found neither innocent not guilty thanks to the ravings of her elder daughter.)
If Mary murdered Taylor, she paid a heavy price: her reputation was ruined. She was a has-been, more or less forgotten and did not marry until her mid-fifties, too late to have children. And she never shook herself of her obsession with Taylor. (And blamed Charlotte until the very end.)
© Katja Anderson 2020
Taylor fled a stultifying existence, sailing to New York in his twenties. He had spent time on a Kansas dude ranch - a source of amusement for British men whose families could afford it - but this time, he needed a job. He sailed to New York, went to work in an antique shop on Broadway, then sent for Denis. But Taylor really wanted to be an actor and along the way met and married actress Edith Hamilton; the wedding took place at the famous Little Church Around the Corner in December 1901. On 23 October 1908, the marriage ended after Taylor went out to buy a pack of cigarettes. He never returned. Edith and their daughter Edith Daisy had no idea what happened to until they went to see Captain Alvarez in 1914. (They tracked Taylor down, who finally made amends for his shameful behaviour; separately, he supported his brother Denis's family in a small Calfornia town after he too abandoned his family, never to be seen again.)
No one might have suspected Charlotte Shelby of shooting Taylor if not for a neighbour: actress Faith Cole MacLean. MacLean saw someone she described as a burglar straight out of a Hollywood movie leave Taylor's bungalow, stop, then go back in as if they had forgotten something. They re-emerged, saw MacLean and the expression on her face, smiled, then scarpered off. MacLean believed the person was a woman dressed as a man. not a man.
Taylor was shot with a .38 handgun. Charlotte Shelby owned a .38 handgun. But Mary lived with her mother; there was little to prevent her from taking it. Her behaviour after Taylor's death was downright bizarre; during a 1970 interview, Mary made her obsession with Taylor only too clear, rushing to the morgue and letting the attendant believe she and Taylor were married. Her intensity is alarming today, fifty years after writer Charles Higham spoke to her. Mary was still upset that she was too small to lean over Taylor's dead body and kiss him on the lips.
Mary's contract expired in 1923. It was not renewed. She never acted again. Charlotte is said to have paid off three generations of corrupt Los Angeles police officers, the story passed down over the years for financial gain. But if Charlotte did pay off policemen (one Hollywood historian claims to have seen bank statements), was that protect herself? Or to protect Mary? The latter seems likely considering Charlotte asked to have the case reopened in 1937, hardly what a guilty person would do. It might have exonerated her, had Mary's sister Margaret not accused Charlotte of murdering Taylor. But Margaret was an alcoholic, as well as a paranoid; her word could not be taken at face value (Charlotte was found neither innocent not guilty thanks to the ravings of her elder daughter.)
If Mary murdered Taylor, she paid a heavy price: her reputation was ruined. She was a has-been, more or less forgotten and did not marry until her mid-fifties, too late to have children. And she never shook herself of her obsession with Taylor. (And blamed Charlotte until the very end.)
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