William Desmond Taylor
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Image:WilliamDesmondTaylor.jpg William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner April 26, 1872 in Carlow, Ireland – February 1, 1922 in Los Angeles) was a successful US film director and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 20s. He was the victim of a murder that remains officially unsolved.
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Life and Career
He came to the United States in 1890 when he was 18. A short acting career in New York City followed, which he quit after marrying Ethel May Harrison, the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street broker who provided Taylor with funding to set up a business. He and his wife were well-known in New York society until he abruptly vanished in 1908 at the age of 36, deserting his wife and daughter.
Changing his name to William Taylor, he moved to Hollywood and worked successfully as an actor before making his first film as director (The Awakening) in 1915. Over the next few years he directed more than fifty films, served in the Canadian Army and was President of the Motion Picture Directors Association. He directed some of the great stars of his era including Mary Pickford, Wallace Reid, Dustin Farnum and his protégée Mary Miles Minter who starred in the 1919 version of Anne of Green Gables.
Unsolved Murder
On the morning of February 1, 1922, his body was found inside his bungalow in the Westlake Park area of downtown Los Angeles, California, which was then known as a trendy and affluent neighbourhood.
A crowd gathered inside and someone identifying himself as a doctor stepped forward, made a cursory examination of the body, declared the victim had died of a heart attack and was never seen again. Sometime later doubts arose, the body was rolled over and it was discovered the 49 year old film director had been shot in the back. $5000 in cash Taylor had shown to his accountant the day before was missing and never accounted for.
Suspects and Associates
Edward Sands had prior convictions for embezzlement, forgery and desertion from the US military. Born in Ohio, he spoke with a false cockney accent and had worked as Taylor's valet until seven months before the murder. While Taylor had been in Europe the summer before, Sands had forged Taylor's checks and wrecked his car. Later he burglarized the bungalow, leaving footprints on Taylor's bed. He is said to have quit a job in northern California the day Taylor was murdered and was never found, although some sources say he was found drowned in the Sacramento River.
Henry Peavey was Taylor’s African American valet, known for wearing flashy golf costumes (although he didn't own any golf clubs). He discovered the body. Peavy was illiterate and bisexual, and his prior history before working for Taylor included arrests for vagrancy and public indecency involving underaged boys. Taylor had put up bail for him and was due to appear in court on his behalf. Initially suspected of the crime, he was cleared by police. Before his death in 1937 a magazine published an interview in which he stated the murder had been committed by “a well known actress and her mother. " (ie Taylor's young lover Mary Miles Minter and her ambitious mother Charlotte Shelby). Another rival magazine published his comment as “a well known actress," with neither magazine qualifying the statement. He was said to have died in an insane asylum.
Mabel Normand was a popular comedic actor and a close friend and associate of Taylor, who had a public anti-drug stance and was alleged to have been deeply concerned by Normand’s cocaine addiction, and this may have later developed into a romantic relationship. She was the last person known to have seen him alive, having left his home in a happy mood at 7:45 pm on the evening of the murder. Normand was rejected by her fans after her reputation was tarnished through association with murder and revelations of her drug use. A few years later she attempted a comeback in films but the public was uninterested. Tuberculosis and the lingering effects of her prior drug addiction killed her in 1930.
Faith McLean was the wife of actor Douglas MacLean and the couple were neighbours. At 8pm she heard a loud noise which startled her. Going to her front door to investigate she came face to face with a young man who was emerging from Taylor’s home. McLean described how he paused for a moment before he turned and walked back through the door as if he had forgotten something, re-emerged, flashed a smile and disappeared. His casual manner caused no suspicion for McLean, who decided she’d heard a car backfire. She also said this person may have been a woman disguised as a man. Her stories however could never be varified.
Charles Eyton was the General Manager of Paramount Studios. After Taylor’s death several people said he had organised a party of employees to enter Taylor’s home and remove incriminating items before police were notified of the death. Director King Vidor later recalled a conversation with art director George Hopkins who said he helped remove items linking Taylor sexually to several Hollywood actresses along with a number of underage males Peavey had procured for him.
Mary Miles Minter was a popular actor and teen screen idol who had been guided through her career by Taylor. Letters found in Taylor’s home suggested the possibility of an intimate relationship between the 50 year old Taylor and 22 year old Minter that had started when she was below the age of consent. Minter was vilified in the press after Taylor’s murder. The suggestive letters were at odds with her screen image of a modest young girl. Rejected first by her fans, then by the Hollywood Studios, she left films entirely. Never comfortable with her career as an actress, she proclaimed her love for Taylor throughout the rest of her long life, dying in utter obscurity (although wealthy due to smart investments) in 1984.
Charlotte Shelby was Minter’s mother. She was described as having an obsessive hold over her daughter and a vested interest in her career. Writer Adela Rogers St. Johns speculated that Shelby was torn by feelings of maternal protection for her daughter and her own attraction for Taylor. Others, including Minter's sister, accused Shelby of wanton greed and manipulation but she and her mother were bitterly divided by financial disputes and lawsuits. Shelby reportedly owned a pistol and bullets very similar to the kind which killed Taylor and after this later became public, had thrown the pistol into a bayou in Louisiana. She knew the Los Angeles district attorney socially and spent years outside the United States in an effort to avoid official inquiries and press coverage related to the murder.
Theories
Through a combination of poor crime scene management and apparent corruption, much physical evidence was immediately lost and the rest vanished over the years. No court records or police files are known to remain. Various theories were put forward after the murder and in the years since but no hard evidence has ever been uncovered to link the crime to a particular individual.
Theories included Taylor’s jealous and bitter first wife returning to kill him, his current valet killing him to hide evidence of sexual crimes, murder by a disgruntled young man who had offered sexual favors to Taylor only to be rejected, a former valet returning to rob him or exact revenge, an associate from the Canadian Army killing him because of a grudge, Mabel Normand committing a drug-related murder, Mary Miles Minter killing him in a fit of jealousy or her mother Charlotte Shelby killing him out of either maternal sentiment or jealousy.
Various books have expounded upon each theory, but no person has ever been charged with the crime and the case remains officially open.
Possible confession in 1964
In 1999 there was a report that in 1964 silent film actress Margaret Gibson [1] (aka Patricia Palmer), confessed to the murder while dying from a heart attack. Gibson had worked with both Taylor and Minter, and was involved with Taylor sexually at the time of the murder, although that was unknown at the time of the investigation.
![[1]](http://silentladies.com/annex/GibsonM.jpg){kind=link}
At the time of the confession, Gibson was living in the Hollywood Hills on a widow's pension from an oil company. About a year after the 1922 murder, Gibson had been indicted (but not convicted) in an unrelated blackmail scheme.
Hollywood legacy
The Taylor murder, along with the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and the drug related deaths of such stars as Olive Thomas, Wallace Reid, Barbara La Marr and Alma Rubens were catalysts in the effort of Hollywood to purge itself of undesirable influences. In the future contracts would include morality clauses which would allow for contractees to be summarily dismissed if they breached them.
The 1950 film Sunset Boulevard with William Holden and Gloria Swanson featured a fictional, aging silent screen actress named Norma Desmond, whose name was almost certainly borrowed from Taylor's middle name as a way to resonate with the widely publicized scandals of almost thirty years before.
Taylor directed or acted in over eighty films, many of which are believed to be lost. In 2005 the unmarked murder site was on the asphalt parking lot of a local discount store.
Reference
- New York Times; February 8, 1922. "Film star faints at Taylor's funeral; Sands is accused; Miss Normand Weeps as Women Shriek in Rush to Enter Disturb Rites. Thousands storm church. Love Letter on Mary Miles Minter's Stationery Is Found by Police In a Book. She admits she loved him. Dead Man's Butler, It Is Announced, Will Be Charged Today With His Murder. Los Angeles, California; February 7, 1922. Sweeping the police aside crowds stormed the doors of St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral today in an effort to force an entrance when the funeral services were being held for William Desmond Taylor."