Sennett, Mack, 45–46, 65, 153, 267, 294, 358–59
and Normand, 45–46
and Normand, professional relationship, 93
Serling, Rod, 423
Sex, 94
Seymour, Clarine, 31, 33, 42, 44
death, 42
Shanley’s restaurant, 299
Shawnee Hotel, 322, 355
“Sheik of Araby, The,” 184
Shelby, Charlotte, 56–63, 80–83, 116, 204, 228, 286–90
aka Lilla Pearl Miles, 57
alibi, 273–74, 400, 412
bullets, 400
childhood, 57
daughter, aspirations for, 56, 57–58
description, 57–58
and eyewitnesses, 398
grand jury testimony, 400–401
gun, 274, 304, 397, 399, 400, 412
home, 56
later life, 421–22
motive for murder, 397, 410
and police, 244–48, 272–74, 303–8
protecting her daughter, 82
public opinion, 410
shrewdness, 411
statement to police, 397
as suspect, 316, 346, 396
and Taylor, 61–62, 82–83, 143–44
and Taylor, jealousy, 362
Taylor murder, knowledge of, 396
Taylor murder, reaction to, 211
and Woolwine, 316, 409
and Zukor, 58
Shelby, Margaret, 399, 410
alcoholic, 410
grand jury testimony, 400
Shell-Shocked Sammy, 354
Shelly, Hazel, 109
Sheridan, Harriett, 377–78
Sherman Antitrust Act, 134
Sins of Hollywood, The, 294, 372
Slauson, Ruth, 51, 52
Slim Princess, The, 21
Smith, Wallace, 223, 242
Snow, Evelyn F., 251
Soul of Youth, The, 32, 84–85, 87, 129
Spoilers, The, 121
St. Johns, Adela Rogers, 23, 52, 89, 91, 268
St. Mary of the Angels Episcopal Church, 33
St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, 240
St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 42
St. Vincent’s Hospital, 73
Star Is Born, A, 421
State Theatre, 147
Stockdale, Carl, 400, 412, 416
Stone, Marie, 188, 414
Streetcar Named Desire, A, 421
Stutesman, Jessie, 423
Sultan Baths, 77
Suzanna, 189, 241, 267, 269
Swaine, Robert T., 348
Swanson, Gloria, 54, 79, 104, 109, 229, 291
Sweet, Blanche, 43
Sweet Lavender, 130
Tabor Grand Opera House, 129
Talmadge, Constance, 154, 240–41, 261, 291
Talmadge, Norma, 146, 154
Tate, Harry, 266
Taylor, William Desmond “Billy,” 4–8, 23, 26, 27, 44, 52, 79, 84
aka Cunningham Deane, 221
aka William Deane-Tanner, 111, 176, 213, 221, 244
arrest in Denver, 129
attack witnessed by Kosloff, 181
autopsy, 212
bachelor, 29
and Ben Lindsey, 32
blackmail, 413
body, discovery of, 195–97
Brunton Studios, 30
Brunton Studios memorial and eulogy, 33–34
bullet wound, 201
burglary, 172
cause of death, 198, 199, 200–201
censorship, 30, 85
change in mood, 172
childhood, 85
cooperation with drug enforcement, 91–92
and critics, 31
daughter, 213
description, 29
director, 6–7
drugs, 87, 91–92, 242, 252–53
family, 221, 236
final visit from Normand, 187–90
footsteps in alley, 190
funeral, 240–44
Furnace, The, 87
and George James Hopkins, 86–87, 115–17
and Gibson, 26, 128–30
and Gibson in Denver, 129–30
hang-up calls, 172
homosexuality, 87–88, 222–23, 245
and Mabel Normand, 23, 47, 90–91, 109, 110
McFarlan vandalism, 142
and Minter, 27, 60–63, 175
and Minter, good-bye, 174–75
and Minter, turning away, 115
and Minter’s obsession, 143–44
mood, 181
morning routine, 7
and Motion Picture Directors Association, 29
murder, and cash, 268–69
murder of, 7–8
murder of, cottage industry around, 408–9
murder scene, 196–97, 198–99, 216
murder scene, ransacking of, 200
and Neva Gerber, 87–88
nightshirt, 108–9
and Normand, argument, 179–80
and Normand, drug dealer, 90
and Normand, jade ornament, 180
outing, 116–17
papers, 417
past, 236
pawn ticket, theft, 175–76
Peavey, intervention for, 189
protectiveness of Hollywood, 85–86
prowler, 144, 181–82
quote on film industry, 119
residence, 5, 6
sadness, 30
and Sands, threat, 181
schedule, 30
secrets, 34, 213
shooting, 191–92
Soul of Youth, The, 32, 84–85, 87
stranger asking for address, 186–87
valet. See Peavey, Henry, and Sands, Edward
Vitagraph, fired by, 54, 130
and Zukor, 18, 30
Taylor murder investigation, 211–17
blackmail, 216
bullets, 400
closed, 401
coroner’s jury, 233–34
drugs, 236
eyewitnesses, 410, 412–14
“find the woman,” 222, 232
fingerprints, 217
grand jury, 400
hair, 315–16, 397, 410, 411
handkerchief, 247
love triangle, 234
and Minter, 235, 246–48
missing evidence, 314–16
motive, 284
nightgown, 234–35, 242, 411
papers, 238–39
powder burns, 231, 232
prowlers, 213
reopened 1925, 396
reopened, headlines, 397
Shelby and eyewitnesses, 398
spiritualist, 305
studio shielding suspect, 253
suspects, 213–14, 216, 231, 235–36, 245, 283–85, 303–8
Taylor’s papers, 213
timeline, 214–15
tip, 216
witnesses, 215
Taylorology, 409
Teapot Dome, 294
Tempest, The, 75–76, 130
Thomas, Olive “Ollie,” 18, 24, 30, 31, 33, 40, 123
death, 24
funeral, 42–44
Thompson, Houston, 134, 148
300 Club, 386
Tiffany, Manley “Earl,” 108, 111–12, 113, 115, 116, 142, 232, 284
fired by Taylor, 143
Tillie, 253
Tillie’s Punctured Romance, 46
Titanic, 12
Tol’able David, 271
To the Ladies, 370
Traeger, William, 232
Traprock, Walter, 205
Trebilcock, Officer Lester, 51
Triangle Motion Picture Company, 77
True Detective Mysteries, 399
Tufts, Nathan A., 16–17, 122, 134
extortion, 17, 122
trial, 147
verdict, 160
Twain, Mark, 188
Twisted by Knaves (Shelby), 421
United Press, 200
Urquhart, Mrs. J. C., 334–35
Valentino, Rudolf, 146,
262
Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 107
Van Nuys, Mr. and Mrs. Benton, 116
Van Trees, Jimmy, 197, 200, 225, 240
Van Vechten, Carl, 386
Variety, 14, 103, 126, 148, 153, 156, 225, 249, 250, 328, 329, 361, 384, 390, 391
Veiled Mystery, The, 69
Vennum, Florence, 77
Vidor, King, 408
Vitagraph, 25, 26, 54, 69, 130
Wachter, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur, 188
Wagner, Robert, 393
Waldorf, 252
Walker, James J. “Jimmy,” 65, 119, 121–22, 123, 134, 300, 391
and Marcus Loew, 65
and Sydney Cohen, 65
theater convention, 133
Wallace, Mrs. Neil, 68
Wallace Apartments, 75, 76
Waterman, Mrs. Clarence, 105, 120
Web of the Law, The, 309–10, 312–13, 359
Webster, Clark E., 294
Weh, George, 77, 97, 127, 163, 184, 185
Weinshank, Al, 259–60
West, James, 338
West, Nathanael, 75, 76–77
West Hotel, 131
Westlake Park, 5
Wetherell, Gladys, 212
Wheeler, L. C., 378
Whitney, Charlotte, 61, 63, 82, 399–400
Wilcox, Sylvester, 420
Williams, Clara, 319–20
Williams, Cyrus J., 75–76
Williams, Guinn “Big Boy,” 162
Wilson, Edmund, 386
Wilson, Woodrow, 40
Windsor, Claire, 181
Winn, Jesse, 203, 235, 273, 283, 284, 303
partner with King, 218–19
Woburn, Massachusetts, 15
Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 105
Women’s City Club, 69
Woodlawn Cemetery, 42–43
Woods, A. H., 385
Woolwine, Thomas Lee, 83, 211–17, 231, 245, 256, 263, 268, 306, 316
and Charlotte Shelby, 245–46
illness, 345, 346
resignation, 346
Yarrow, Lloyd, 236
Yellow Contraband, 420
YMCA, 294
Zeigler, Thompson, 198, 199, 201, 213
Ziegfeld, Florenz, 393
Ziegfeld Follies, 43
Zukor, Adolph, 11–18, 30, 34, 35–41, 58, 207
advisory role, 424
ambition, 36
America, embracing, 66
Arbuckle, defense of, 158
and Arbuckle, 155–57
Arbuckle films, 279–82, 333–34, 425
Arbuckle films shelved, 339
Arbuckle trial, 275–76
arcades, 12, 13
Astor Hotel meeting, 261, 263
Automatic Vaudeville, 35
block-booking, 132, 389
Camille preview, 147, 148
car, 66
and censorship, 18
challenges against, 66–67
cigars, 123
control of Hays, 292
cover up of murder, 417
“Creepy” nickname, 11
daughter’s wedding, 37
decision not to go to police, 225–26
and DeMille, informing of murder, 220–21
description, 11
dreams, 12
dress, 36
and Eva Lord, 16
extortion, 17, 122
Famous Players-Lasky, 11, 13
Farm, 99, 107
fast rise, 67
father, 39
Feature-length films, 37
financial situation, 118–19
flyers about Sands, 252
and FTC hearings, 348–49
grandchild, 301–2
Harding election, 64–65
Hiram Abrams, firing of, 17
home, 66
Hungarian roots, 12, 67, 157–58
on immorality, 251
and James J. Walker, 65
and Jesse Lasky, production code letter, 104
job of filmmakers, 32
later life, 424–26
lawsuit, alienation of affection, 16–17
legacy, 424–25
life insurance, 178
loan from Kuhn, Loeb & Co., 39
and Loew, 35–40, 132, 300–301
Loew, competition with, 35, 118–19
Loew, death of, 394
and Loew defense, 136
and Loew rivalry, 146
marriage, 15, 123–24
and Minter, 80
Mishawum Manor, 131–34, 147, 160
movie theater control, 38
and MPTOA, 38
new industry guidelines, 254
newspapers, 12–13
organization of exhibitors against, 38
Orphans Bureau, 157–58
Paramount Building, 389, 393
paranoia, 41
partners, 392
personal reputation, 37
and police investigation, 252
politics, 64–66
production code, 101–6
production cuts, 119
Putnam Building, 12, 118, 119, 298
religion, 12
Republican, 66
scandals, 40–41, 122–23
and Sidney Cohen, 350
and Sydney Cohen, 70
Taylor narrative, change in, 252–53
tennis, 36
theater convention appearance, 131–34, 135–37
theater ownership, 12, 84
and trustification, 134
vision about movie industry, 137–38
wealth, 13
West Coast trip, 223–26, 249–55
and Will Hays, 166–71
Zukor, Lottie, 15, 37, 107, 123, 425
and Mishawum scandal, 132
Zukor, Mildred “Mickey,” 37
wedding, 37
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Bobby Miller
WILLIAM J. MANN is the author of Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn; How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood; Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand; and Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, which won the 1999 Lambda Literary Award. He divides his time between Connecticut and Cape Cod.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
PHOTOGRAPHIC INSERT
William Desmond Taylor. “A camouflaged man,” one colleague called him.
An actor before he was a director, Taylor was fired for unknown reasons soon after completing the lead role in Captain Alvarez (1914).
In the weeks after Taylor’s murder, the newspapers were filled with accounts of his many aliases. COURTESY BRUCE LONG
Beautiful, defiant, subversive Mabel Normand was Taylor’s best friend.
Famous Players–Lasky, the most powerful movie studio of the 1920s, the progenitor of Paramount, with its founders: Jesse Lasky, Adolph Zukor, Samuel Goldwyn, and Cecil B. DeMille. PHOTOFEST
Marcus Loew was Adolph Zukor’s greatest rival—except the rivalry seemed to go only one way.
Almost single-handedly, Zukor created the system by which American movies are made, sold, and shown. PHOTOFEST
Olive Thomas’s accidental drug-related death in 1920 launched half a decade of scandals that forever changed the way Hollywood did business.
Among the other scandals were the drug addiction and death of popular actor Wallace Reid . . . PHOTOFEST
. . . and the rape-and-manslaughter trials of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Zukor did his best to manage the fallout from the Arbuckle case, just as he did with the Taylor murder.
Mabel was devastated by Arbuckle’s troubles, remembering happier days when they made comedies for Mack Sennett, such as the famous Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916). PHOTOFEST
When the irreverent Mabel spoke, “toads came out of her mouth,” said Blanche Sweet—nobody minded. Everybody loved Mabel.
COURTESY RAY LONG
Margaret Gibson was poised to become a huge star in 1916. Then she was caught in a kimono during t
he raid of a brothel in Little Tokyo. COURTESY RAY LONG
A little thing like being arrested didn’t derail Gibby’s ambition. She’d promised her mother to find a way out of the dire poverty they lived in, just as she often did on the screen. COURTESY RAY LONG
Mary arriving in New York with her sister Margaret and mother. PHOTOFEST
Eighteen-year-old Mary Miles Minter lived in a world of fantasy and illusion, one in which she was free of her controlling mother, Charlotte Shelby, and united in love with her “soul mate,” William Desmond Taylor.
Mary (left) with her mother and her beloved grandmother, Julia Miles. During the summer of 1922, the aged Mrs. Miles traveled back to her home state of Louisiana and threw a gun into a bayou.
Gibby starred with Taylor in The Riders of Petersham (1914).
Mary and Gibby attended a 1916 exhibitors’ convention together in Indianapolis. COURTESY BRUCE LONG
Mary and Taylor pose for the publicity cameras after completing a picture together.
A rare shot of Taylor, Charlotte Shelby, and Mary together. The look Shelby seems to be giving Taylor pretty well sums up her feelings for the director. From the Los Angeles Express, October 14, 1919. COURTESY OF BRUCE LONG
George James Hopkins was Taylor’s set designer and his lover. He’d go on to win Oscars for A Streetcar Named Desire, My Fair Lady, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Hello Dolly!. ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES
Henry Peavey discovered Taylor’s body. He was later kidnapped by journalists trying to scare a confession out of him, an act resulting in charges by the NAACP. CORBIS
The murder made front-page headlines for weeks, especially in the Hearst papers. COURTESY BRUCE LONG
Attorney Thomas Lee Woolwine, was protecting the killer. In fact, Woolwine was one of the few honest DAs in Los Angeles before World War II. THOMAS LEE WOOLWINE PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY NICOLE WESTWOOD
Detective Ed King was a top-notch detective, and might have solved the Taylor case had he not become convinced that his boss, District ED KING PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY KING FAMILY
Faith and Douglas MacLean, Taylor’s neighbors, in the pergola at Alvarado Court. Faith saw the killer leave Taylor’s bungalow, and her testimony was key to cracking the case. COURTESY BRUCE LONG
Mary’s love letters to Taylor were splashed all over the newspapers. Rather than humiliating her, the publication of Mary’s missives only made her devotion to Taylor stronger. COURTESY BRUCE LONG
A newspaper photograph and diagram of the murder house. CORBIS
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