From Shemp!
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A Blog For Thelma Todd Thelma Todd was a star of silent movies and later the talkies. She is remembered as much today for her mysterious death as she is for her films. In this blog, we take a look at Thelma Todd, her movies, and various commentaries.
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Thelma Todd And Zasu Pitts Photo
Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd in a publicity photo for LET'S DO THINGS.
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Thursday, March 29, 2018
Pennsylvania Theater Has Thelma Todd And Zasu Pitts Films
The Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania has a program of Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts comedies on it's schedule.
Reblogged from https://thecolonialtheatre.com/programs/pitts-and-todd-comedy-shorts/
US. NR. 1 hour 17 minutes. Sonar.
35mm.
Sun., April 22, 2018
Many duos loom large in the world of comedy: Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis to name just a few. But one of the most overlooked duos was the winning team of Zasu Pitts & Thelma Todd. Put together by producer Hal Roach (Our Gang), Pitts & Todd were a major success (at one time they even out-grossed some of the biggest names in the business), but after 17 short films the duo split due to the contract shenanigans of Roach. Hopes of a Pitts & Todd reunion were quashed with Todd’s mysterious death in 1935. The Colonial is proud to present three of their funniest two-reel wonders on the big screen: The Soilers, War Mamas, and Maids à la Mode. Plus: a bonus screening of Laurel& Hardy’s Helpmates!
Maids à la Mode from the Collection of the Library of Congress.
The Soilers and War Mamas preserved by the Library of Congress.
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Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
TRUE CONFESSIONS Magazine Cover
This one is Thelma Todd, all right.
From "Thelma Todd Fans Group" on facebook.
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Swedish Magazine
An Ebay seller thought this 1929 magazine showed Thelma Todd and Gary Cooper on the cover, but they weren't certain. I'm not certain, either, but it might have been intended to depict them as they were in the movie NEVADA.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
See If You Can Count The Stars ( Vitaphone )
A publicity item for that challenges you to name the stars of Vitaphone shorts shown here.
Among the stars pictured are Abe Lyman, Shemp Howard, Fatty Arbuckle, Dorothy Lee, Ruth Etting, and Patricia Ellis.
From "The Vitaphone Project" on facebook, and originally from a May 1934 magazine.
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Abe Lyman And Bebe Daniels Photo
Abe Lyman serenades Bebe Daniels during her spell in the hoosegow.
A Birthday Serenade for Bebe Daniels!
Abe Lyman and his orchestra serenade Bebe Daniels in jail. The wicked old jailer won’t let them bring a piano into the jail so Abe Lyman, Gus Arnheim, Bill Diamond, Roy Fox, Jess Stafford, Charles Pierce, Henry Halstead and Jake Garcia stood outside her cell window and played for her.
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Thelma Todd And Zasu Pitts
Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts in a publicity photo from the Hal Roach studio.
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Sunday, March 25, 2018
Filming Locations - BEAUTY AND THE BUS
Saturday, March 24, 2018
"Funzapoppin' Comedy Carnival"
A photo of Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly turned up with a caption on the back for a "Funzapoppin' Comedy Carnival". That was evidently a film program at the studio. The date on the back of the photo is May 17, 1948. The photo is from BACKS TO NATURE, which was released in 1933,
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Brazillian Laurel And Hardy Comic Strips
From the Hal Roach studio group on facebook.
Jorge Finkielman posted two examples of a contemporary but alternate Laurel and Hardy comic strip published in Brazil, credited to Billiken (a chidlren magazine from Argentina).
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Comic Strips
From The Hal Roach Studio group on facebook.
Posted by Jack Taylor.
Laurel and Hardy comics in Australian newspapers from 1931-32.
This one is more realistic and looks like something from a press book. The others are like the first one I posted.
Okay, here's one more Australian Laurel & Hardy comic from 1932.
The Laurel and Hardy comics were replaced by a series with Marie Dressler and Polly Moran, which were based on the movie PROSPERITY.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
DETROIT FREE PRESS Sun. Nov 4,1934
Newspaper article on Thelma Todd, posted by Adam Tunney in the Thelma Todd Fan Group on facebook.
Text version of the article ( from the site, with corrections ):
SCREEN AND RADIO WEEKLY "Thelma Todd--the Toast of All Hollywood"
"DESIRE" I think a grass widow Is better than sod: That's why I'm waiting For Thelma Todd. - Chas Nutt in ROB WAGNER'S SCRIPT
By Molly Marsh THERE are a certain number of persons in Hollywood who become traditions. ' As an outstanding example of this interesting phenomenon, you are hereby introduced to Thelma Todd. She is by no means old enough to be ( a )tradition, yet she is one. For years everything she has done, said or left unsaid has become become significant either among her friends or in clever paragraphs that have given Dorothy Parker something to live up to during her stay in the colony. Thelma Todd is publicized as tossing off a bon mot while being thrown into the Los Angeles River or off a yacht in Santa Catalina waters. She is variously reported as flinging repartee into Hollywood's English drawing rooms and causing butlers, imported from Surrey, at great trouble and expense, to leave their cocktail trays flat in the middle middle of a casual table. No woman could possibly be as clever as Thelma Todd is said to be. yet I have been impressed more times than I can remember by this or that chit-chat chit-chat chit-chat that she is supposed supposed to have delivered without a smile. Yesterday 1 met her for the first time. We interviewed each other be-tween be-tween be-tween Chic Chandler and a couple of sailors, unknown to either of us. Oddly enough, we were at the home of NeH Hamilton, but he was away on lor-- lor-- lor-- jl THELMA TODD has the effect of four dry. Martinis, , whether yon have ever taken that many or not. In fact, she is the cocktail of Hollywood and it is no exaggeration exaggeration to say that for the past five or six years she has been the toast of the town. Now I understand ft all It is the Todds of this world who make al the difference. Neil Hamilton's swimming pool sparkling in the sunlight was just a bit of background against which the lovely Thelma Todd glowed tint a sapphire. Although things were happening 3 around as, she made one forget forget that the Hamilton terraces were all clattered tip with RKO electricians, grips, property boys, earner, lights, sound apparatus, trStf ort and what not. When the '9iy.'t need a scrumptious house, ... . . . They borrow it from one of their w,lU.be 1,ke teaching a brown nen 10 imitate a peacock. I have Thtiraa m superior to anything the habit of the Wheeler and Wool-Chat Wool-Chat Wool-Chat goes on around her-and her-and her-and she ia My and Laurel and Hardy mode ecu.!s funnier thin she is supposed "'.."J8, . ,., . . tJ "For instance, my life has been Win blonds were far less com- com- f and, blue episodes. toon m the colony than they are Everybody has taken a crack at avw, the was cotuudered one of the m- m- 1 hav the P0,'" where creen'a most beautiful blonds. Pecl break-away break-away break-away to fall on me The SnfuM of drug store products, f,rom , the, ceiling, and when it with every shade from platinum to dosn 1 feel cheated, dp gold, has not changed that . Tn,s Picture is a sort of farce. incy say, oui xu me is in bciiuus pair of shoes for six meals, still, practically everybody would have to eat. If barter and exchange became became the fashion, I wanted to be in on the ground floor." HELMA TODD didn't want to become a moving picture actress in the first place. She was a don't die school teacher and born in take this with a gasp Lowell, Mass. Her name is Thelma Todd and she doesn't care to change it for picture purposes. purposes. However, she did change it for Pat DeCicco, but Thelma Todd isn't the sort that can be tied down any more than a soap-bubble soap-bubble soap-bubble can be hitched to a wagon. Not that Mr. DeCicco is a wagon, but it's the Todd manner that subtly affects everything including similes and metaphors. . Paramount went out on a quest for new faces and found Thelma Todd. She didn't want to come to Hollywood and now that she has been here for eight years and has her own cafe, she isn't at all sure it's the place for her. She went to London once and has hopes of going again. She thinks old things like Westminster Abbey and the British Museum are more Suited to her. Thelma Todd is the sort of girl i. iL ii . ii I m 'A .1 - - x . . .Hvv; i ' C " - ' ) rJ V. THELMA TODD of whom men say: "She is grand." i i-i i-i i-i , i ,,, ... , , and write verses to her like feel more like crying than laugh- laugh- "We serve a good dinner for 75 tne t th .,!. ... ing?" She stepped on her own cents, and a few frills extra for 0aeb WaTO .dmni tt statement immediately with: "I $1. It is a mistake to think that without her his SCRIPT would don't for one. I think life is a lot screen stars spend their money like never De what it is todav of fun and very jolly, except when water. That was all in the good c, . , , . kui ior playing safe. She got her divorce in Cali- Cali- Havin nasserf hr husinrw nlare. !iil. TnAA lnnlrerf verv " wouio De Sure not to a charming cafe on the beach be- be- devilish and said: "Days before marry w,thln a yearl tween Santa Monica and Malibu, Pola Negri, of course. Since then I told her how some friends and we have settled right down to bacon I had almost stopped there, but and eggs. realizing as we did that moving they decide it might be a good gag old d. b. p. nf" to have a truck run over me." Asked what she meant by the rs n ;. wvT . ni. tuut Ptwre people would probably ex wHK WAS rdW Tn f ih. ni,.n, !. nlav P6 d,ner t0 Pw UD "Wording to -. -. - - - o r ' film 4l-iri0 4l-iri0 4l-iri0 ujs Vtarf erva ri n a book when I approached. t, lightning would never think of "I am right up to date in my striking twice if it couldn't make reading," she said. "For the first fur times, they would throw tune in three years. I am only five we iigntning out me winuow ana y--- y--- y--- y--- " 1 at the same rime. Yet there was meicuis ui n , STARTED my film salaries, we had gone right on cafe because I never found any o a hot dog stand. ,, .W- .W- th hMrh where I "My cafe is giving me more fun ... ... . and more trouble than I have ever vuu" w """" vear behind the timca I have arat Put in a shower of to The Well of Loneliness and am electric gadget that would wipe out frightfully depressed. Still this is whole village. a long breath. 'I didn't know erv sood for me. I am takinr mv drama straight and, although now Thelma Todds in Hollywood!) and again 1 feci like screaming; Hey, isn't H time for someone to bash me over the head or give me a Mack eye, I restrain myself. enough ocean and enough places .for restaurants to take care of Mus- Mus- SO many people Rniini's anticipated nnnulation an4 Thelma todd says that her biographers write all sorts of nonsense about her, such as that she likes to exercise by sitting in a comfortable seat and watching a polo game. As a matter of fact, this is too much effort, As a rhurnmy, ping pong and tiddle-de-winks tiddle-de-winks tiddle-de-winks tiddle-de-winks tiddle-de-winks player she acknowledges acknowledges no equals. As we parted, she was standing up in a large blue car, with Ben (WhatJl Jpi,y.th,V're n5 mor er.e hungry and I had no idea how Russians. So t Mid to my. Lyon, Pert Kelton, Chic Chandler nnu in iiraa niinnririan hut . - - - , ,.,5, w, -miss -miss lodd, the day may I have learned. How I have eom. when we hand moving pic. learnedi ..ra. a u ik.. K I U U S L I, "What my bookkeeper hasn't how do vou know what Mr. Sin- Sin- thoucrh. it is much easier to be seri- seri- tausht me. mv cooks or chefs havel clair has in mind for vou?' With It is possible that I shall have ous than to be funny. In real life, But now I am established on a firm that question, I decided that take up elegance as a steady diet, as well as in the films, who doesn't footing and making money. although I might .have to accept a people "S and other goodlooking draped about. "Remember," she called out, "111 pay up to $1,000 for anyone who will invent a diet composed exclusively exclusively of expensive dishes and containing containing not less than eight items!"
James L. Neibaur: Days Before Pola Negri likely means back before the Depression, back in the old days. Thelma made a gag about it (kind of clever too).
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Sunday, March 18, 2018
Pearls
Some pictures of Thelma Todd with pearls, which seems to have been a recurring thing.
From the Thelma Todd Fans Group on facebook.
Thelma Todd with the long hair she had when she first came to Hollywood. Long necklaces were considered fashionable in the flapper era.
Thelma Todd with pearls again, this time in a clamshell, because everyone knows that pearls come from shellfish. This time she has short hair, because that too was considered fashionable at the time.
Another photo from the same session, this time with a caption. I remember another publicity photo from the Roach studio with a fairy tale caption, which showed Thelma Todd in the giant bathroom set from Laurel and Hardy's BRATS. So that too was a recurring thing.
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Size 36
In ON THE LOOSE, Thelma Todd also gives her dress size as "36". I believe this is a reference to the ideal of "the perfect 36"*, but that type had been eclipsed by the "flapper" look, which was still considered fashionable in the early thirties. Thelma Todd would not actually have been a size 36 in real life. Possibly she would have been one if not for the dieting that Hollywood was forcing on the actresses, something which they claimed was necessary that was actually unhealthy.
ROUGH SEAS also said Thelma Todd was size 36.
*Something that had been used as the title of a Mabel Normand film
Saturday, March 17, 2018
"I'll Tell The World"
Thelma Todd uses the expression "I'll tell the world!" in ON THE LOOSE. This was a popular expression in that period which can be found in a number of places, including a Charlie Chan story. I more or less grasped the meaning, which I suppose is self-evident, but decided to look up a definition anyway. Here is one I found at http://www.dictionary.com/browse/i-ll-tell-the-world:
The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.
Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.
You are absolutely right; it is entirely correct : I'll tell the cockeyed world he's a crook (1900s+ esp WWI armed forces ).
The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.
Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.
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HOT MONEY To Air On TCM Tomorrow
HOT MONEY with Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly will air on Turner Classic Movies tomorrow.
Reblogged from http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?isPreview=&id=334203%7C334107&name=Hot-Money
Sunday March, 18 2018 at 08:11 AM
Films in BOLD will Air on TCM * |
VIEW TCMDb ENTRY
In Hot Money (1935), Thelma Todd stars as a Depression-era "blond wisenheimer" who finds herself -- on the day of her eviction -- in possession of fifty grand in stolen money. But to keep it, she must contend with the corpse of the hoodlum who left it with her, a rival mobster who wants the loot back, and a swarm of bumbling policemen who are trying to solve a murder and a theft, and not doing a good job with either. VIEW TCMDb ENTRY
Producer: Hal Roach
Director: James Horne
Cinematography: Art Lloyd
Film Editing: Louis McManus
Cast: Thelma Todd (Miss Thelma Todd), Patsy Kelly (Miss Patsy Kelly), James Burke (Police Sgt. Burke), Fred A. Kelsey (Police Officer Kelsey), Louis Natheaux (Trigger Louie), Brooks Benedict (The Thief), Charlie Hall (Tenant), Hooper Atchley (Beresford, Hotel Manager (uncredited), Sherry Hall (Hotel Clerk (uncredited), Lee Phelps (Policeman (uncredited)
BW-18m.
by Bret Wood
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Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Mabel Normand Poses With A Poster
Mabel Normand poses with a poster for one of the movies she made for Goldwyn, THE SLIM PRINCESS. The films she made for Goldwyn were popular at the time. but the ones she made for Sennett are better known today.
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Mabel Normand With A Movie Camera
Mabel Normand with a movie camera. The little tube in front of her eyes is the viewfinder you look through to frame the picture.
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Mabel Normand In The 1913 Rose Bowl Parade
Mabel Normand in the back seat of a car that was in the parade.
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Mabel Normand Publicity
A biography of Mabel Normand gives her place of birth as Boston* and makes her out as an upper-class type.
Thelma Todd was also said to have been from Boston in some of her publicity. Actually she was from Lawrence, which is some distance away, but still in the same state.
*It has been said that Mabel Normand's birthplace was not known for certain. New York was also given at times.
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Tuesday, March 13, 2018
William Desmond Taylor
The William Desmond Taylor mystery-
Who could make sense of it all?
William Desmond Taylor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| William Desmond Taylor | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | William Cunningham Deane-Tanner 26 April 1872 Carlow, Ireland |
| Died | 1 February 1922 (aged 49) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Homicide |
| Resting place | Hollywood Forever Cemetery |
| Nationality | Irish-American |
| Other names | William D. Taylor William Taylor |
| Occupation | Director, actor |
| Years active | 1913–1922 |
| Spouse(s) | Ethel May Hamilton (m. 1901–1912) |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | Denis Gage Deane-Tanner (brother) |
Taylor's murder on 1 February 1922, along with other Hollywood scandals, such as the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, led to a frenzy of sensationalistic and often fabricated newspaper reports.[2] His murder remains an official cold case[3]
Early life
Deane-Tanner briefly pursued a career on the New York City stage before marrying Ethel May Hamilton. The Episcopalian ceremony took place on 7 December 1901, at the Little Church Around the Corner;[5] they divorced in 1912.[6]
Although Mrs Deane-Tanner had appeared as a member of the Florodora sextet as Ethel May Harrison,[7] she was the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street broker who provided Deane-Tanner with funding to set up the English Antiques Shop, through which he could support a family.
The Tanners were well known in New York society until Deane-Tanner abruptly vanished on 23 October 1908 at the age of 36, following an affair with a married woman, deserting his wife and their daughter Ethel Daisy.[1]
Deane-Tanner (Taylor) had suffered "mental lapses" before, and his family thought at first that he had wandered off during an episode of aphasia.
Deane-Tanner's brother, Denis, a former lieutenant in the British Army and a manager of a New York antiques business, would also disappear four years later, in 1912, abandoning his wife and two children.[7][8]
Career
Deane-Tanner changed his name to William Desmond Taylor,[1] and was in Hollywood by December 1912. He worked successfully as an actor—including four appearances opposite Margaret "Gibby" Gibson—before making his first film as a director, The Awakening (1914). Over the next few years, he directed more than fifty films.In July 1918, towards the end of World War I, Taylor enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a private at the age of 46. After training for four and a half months at Fort Edward, Nova Scotia, Taylor sailed from Halifax on a troop transport carrying five hundred Canadian soldiers.[9] They arrived at Hounslow Barracks, London on 2 December 1918.[9]
Taylor was ultimately assigned to the Royal Army Service Corps of the Expeditionary Forces Canteen Service, stationed at Dunkirk and promoted to the temporary grade of lieutenant on 15 January 1919.[10][11] At the end of April, 1919, Taylor reached his final billet at Berguet, France, as Major Taylor, Company D, Royal Fusiliers.[12]
Returning to Los Angeles on 14 May 1919, Taylor was honoured by the Motion Picture Directors Association with a formal banquet at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.[12]
After returning from military service, Taylor went on to direct some of the most popular stars of the 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. Between 1914 and 1919 Taylor was engaged to serial actress Neva Gerber, whom he had met during the filming of The Awakening. Gerber later recalled, "He was the soul of honour, a man of personal culture, education, and refinement. I have never known a finer or better man."[13]
By this time, Taylor's ex-wife and daughter were aware that he was working in Hollywood. In 1918, both were attending the film Captain Alvarez, when they saw Taylor appear on the screen. Ethel responded, "That's your father!" In response, Ethel Daisy Deane-Tanner wrote to her father in care of the studio. In 1921, Taylor visited his ex-wife and daughter in New York City and made Ethel Daisy his legal heir.[14]
Murder
At 7:30 am on the morning of 2 February 1922,[15] the body of William Desmond Taylor was found inside his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments,[15] 404-B South Alvarado Street,[16] in the Westlake Park area of downtown Los Angeles, 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 Taylor had died of a stomach haemorrhage. The doctor was never seen again, perhaps owing to his own embarrassment, because when doubts later arose, the body was rolled over by forensic investigators and it was discovered the 49-year-old film director had been shot at least once in the back with what appeared to have been a small caliber pistol which was not found at the scene.
Funeral
Taylor's funeral took place on 7 February 1922 at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral. Despite having reached the Western Front after the Armistice, Taylor's casket was draped with a Union Jack and buried with full military honours. After an Episcopalian ceremony, Taylor was interred in a mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. The inscription on his crypt reads, "In Memory of William C. Deane-Tanner, Beloved Father of Ethel Deane-Tanner. Died 1 February 1922."[17] Among other famous personages, the mausoleum also holds the crypt of Rudolph Valentino.Investigation
In Taylor's pockets, investigators found a wallet holding $78 in cash (adjusted to $1,074 for 2012 inflation), a silver cigarette case, a Waltham pocket watch, a pen knife and a locket bearing a photograph of actress Mabel Normand.[18] A two carat (400 mg) diamond ring was on his finger.[19] With the evidence of the money and valuables on Taylor's body, it seemed apparent that a robbery was not the motive for the killing, but a large but undetermined sum of cash which Taylor had shown to his accountant the day before was missing and apparently never accounted for. After some investigation, the time of Taylor's death was set at 7:50 p.m. in the evening of 1 February 1922.[16]While being interviewed by the police five days after the director's body was found, Mary Miles Minter said that following the murder a friend, director and actor Marshall Neilan, told her Taylor had made several highly "delusional" statements about some of his social acquaintances (including her) during the weeks before his death. She also said Neilan thought Taylor had recently become "insane".[20]
In the midst of a media circus caused by the case, Los Angeles Undersheriff Eugene Biscailuz warned Chicago Tribune reporter Eddie Doherty, "The industry has been hurt. Stars have been ruined. Stockholders have lost millions of dollars. A lot of people are out of jobs and incensed enough to take a shot at you."[21]
According to Robert Giroux, "The studios seemed to be fearful that if certain aspects of the case were exposed, it would exacerbate their problems." King Vidor said of the case in 1968: "Last year I interviewed a Los Angeles police detective, now retired, who had been assigned to the case immediately after the murder. He told me, 'We were doing all right and then, before a week was out, we got the word to lay off.'"[21]
Suspects and witnesses
More than a dozen individuals were eventually named as suspects by both the press and the police. Newspaper reports at the time were both overwhelmingly sensationalised and speculative, even fabricated, and the murder was used as the basis for much subsequent "true crime" fiction. Many inaccuracies were carried forward by later writers who used articles from the popular press as their sources. Overall, most accounts have consistently focused on seven people as suspects and witnesses.Edward Sands
Edward F. Sands had prior convictions for embezzlement, forgery and serial desertion from the US military. Born in Ohio, he had multiple aliases and spoke with an affected cockney accent. He had worked as Taylor's valet and cook up until seven months before the murder. While Taylor was in Europe the summer before, Sands had forged Taylor's checks and wrecked his car. Later Sands burgled Taylor's bungalow, leaving footprints on the film director's bed. Following the murder, Edward Sands was never heard from again.[22] Some accounts claim that Sands' body was found in the Sacramento River in the early 1930s.[citation needed]Henry Peavey
According to Robert Giroux,
Even though the police decided, after severe questioning, that Peavey was not the murderer, the Hollywood correspondent of the New York Daily News, Florabel Muir, came to a private conclusion that Peavey was the murderer. In that era of ingenious women reporters, Muir thought she could engineer a scoop by tricking Peavey into a confession. She knew (from the movies) that blacks were deathly afraid of ghosts. With the help of two confederates, Frank Carson and Al Weinshank, she offered Peavey ten dollars if he would identify Taylor's grave in the Hollywood Park Cemetery (which she had already visited). Weinshank had gone on ahead with a white sheet, and Muir and Carson drove Peavey to the site. Weinshank, who came from a tough section of Chicago, spoke with the accents of a hoodlum. When he loomed up in the sheet and cried out, "I am the ghost of William Desmond Taylor. You murdered me. Confess, Peavey!" Henry laughed out loud. Then he cursed them roundly. Unfortunately for Muir, she was unaware that Taylor had a distinctive British accent. Weinshank, as Muir revealed in her memoirs, not only spoke like a hoodlum but was one of the Chicago mobsters who later were gunned down in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre.[24]In 1931, Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum where he had been hospitalised for syphilis-related dementia.[25]
Mabel Normand
On the night of his murder, Normand left Taylor's bungalow at 7:45 pm in a happy mood, carrying a book he had given her as a loan. They blew kisses to each other as her limousine drove away. Normand was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive.
The Los Angeles Police Department subjected Normand to a grueling interrogation, but ruled her out as a suspect.[27] Most subsequent writers have done the same. However, Normand's career had already slowed and her reputation was tarnished by revelations of her addiction, which was seen as a moral failing. According to George Hopkins, who sat next to her at Taylor's funeral, Normand wept inconsolably throughout the ceremony.[28]
Ultimately, Normand continued to make films throughout the 1920s. She died of tuberculosis on 23 February 1930. According to her friend and confidant Julia Brew, Normand asked near the end, "Julia, do you think they'll ever find out who killed Bill Taylor?"[17]
Faith Cole MacLean
Faith Cole MacLean was the wife of actor Douglas MacLean and the couple were neighbours of Taylor. She is widely believed to have seen Taylor's killer. The couple were startled by a loud noise at 8 pm. MacLean went to her front door and came face to face with someone emerging from the front door of Taylor’s home whom she said was dressed, "like my idea of a motion picture burglar". She recalled this person paused for a moment before turning and walking back through the door as if having forgotten something, then re-emerged and flashed a smile at her before disappearing between the buildings. MacLean decided she had heard a car back-fire. She also told police interviewers this person looked "funny" (like movie actors in makeup) and may have been a woman disguised as a man.Charles Eyton
Charles Eyton was the General Manager of Paramount Pictures. Several sources claim that in the hours following Taylor's murder, Eyton entered Taylor's bungalow with a group of Paramount employees and removed compromising items, either before police arrived or with their permission.Mary Miles Minter
Robert Giroux and King Vidor, however, dispute this allegation. Citing Minter's own statements, both believed that her love for Taylor was unrequited. Taylor had often declined to see Minter and had described himself as too old for her.
However, facsimilies of Minter's passionate letters to Taylor were printed in newspapers, forever shattering her screen image as a modest and wholesome young girl. Minter was vilified in the press. She made four more films for Paramount, and when the studio failed to renew her contract, she received offers from many other producers. Never comfortable as an actress, Minter declined them all. In 1957, she married Brandon O. Hildebrandt, a wealthy Danish-American businessman.[29] She died in wealthy and comfortable obscurity in Santa Monica, California on 4 August 1984.
Charlotte Shelby
Margaret Gibson's 1964 confession
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Gibson was 27 years old and in Los Angeles at the time of the murder. No record of her name was ever mentioned in connection with the investigation. Soon after the murder she got work in a number of films produced by Famous Players-Lasky, Taylor's studio at the time of his death. One of these films was among the last made by Mary Miles Minter. Gibson (in her words) "fled" the United States to the Far East in 1934, where she married her husband who worked for Socony (later Mobil Oil). However, she returned to Los Angeles in 1940 for medical reasons. Her husband, Elbert Lewis, died in a March 1942 Japanese attack on the Socony oil refinery at Penang, Straits Settlements (now Malaysia) during World War II. Lewis left Gibson with a small pension, which she lived on until her death in 1964.
In 1999, the widely cited newsletter Taylorology published an account that on 21 October 1964, while living in the Hollywood hills under the name Pat Lewis, she suffered a heart attack. As a recently converted Roman Catholic, before dying she confessed she "shot and killed William Desmond Taylor" along with several other things the witness didn't understand and could not remember more than 30 years later.[32] The witness to her confession later repeated his recollection in a televised documentary.[33]
Taylorology
From 1993 to 2000 Bruce Long, a staff member at Arizona State University (later retired), transcribed several hundred newspaper and magazine articles from the 1910s and 1920s relating to Taylor, his murder, the suspects, many of Taylor's contemporaries and their links to Taylor. The compiled result is a journal called Taylorology, which contains over a thousand pages of text and has been noted as a significant archive of primary and secondary source material relating both to Taylor's murder and the early Los Angeles film colony.Lack of evidence
Through a combination of poor crime scene management and apparent corruption, much physical evidence was immediately lost, and the rest vanished over the years (although copies of a few documents from the police files were made public in 2007).[34] Various theories were put forward after the murder and in the years since, along with the publication of many books claiming to have identified the murderer, but no hard evidence was ever uncovered to link the crime to a particular individual. Given Margaret Gibson's thoroughly documented background, the report of her dying confession attracted the attention of film historians,[2][35][36][37] but aside from circumstantial evidence, no independent confirmation has emerged.[38]Aftermath
A spate of newspaper-driven Hollywood scandals during the early 1920s included Taylor's murder, the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, the death of Olive Thomas and the drug-related deaths of Wallace Reid, Barbara La Marr, and Jeanne Eagels, which prompted Hollywood studios to begin writing contracts with "morality clauses" or "moral turpitude clauses", allowing the dismissal of contractees who breached them.[39][40]In popular culture
- The 1950 film Sunset Boulevard with William Holden and Gloria Swanson featured a fictional, aging silent screen actress named Norma Desmond whose name was taken from Taylor's middle name and Mabel Normand's last name as a way to resonate with the widely publicised scandals of almost thirty years before.[41]
- Gore Vidal's 1990 novel Hollywood features a fictionalised account of the Taylor murder.[42]
- Taylor's murder was depicted in David Merrick's production of the Jerry Herman - Michael Stewart "cult" musical Mack & Mabel which opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre on 6 October 1974 and ran for six previews and 66 regular performances. Directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, the production starred Robert Preston as Mack Sennett and Bernadette Peters as Mabel Normand, with James Mitchell portraying William Desmond Taylor.[43]
Directorial career
- The Diamond From the Sky (1915)
- The Heart of Paula (1916; *co-directed with friend Julia Crawford Ivers)
- Davy Crockett (1916)
- Tom Sawyer (1917)
- Mile-a-Minute Kendall (1918)
- How Could You, Jean? (1918) with Mary Pickford
- Anne of Green Gables (1919) with Mary Miles Minter
- Huckleberry Finn (1920)
- The Soul of Youth (1920)
- Judy of Rogue's Harbor (1920)
References
- ^ a b c d USC-Lib-WDTaylor "The Unsolved Murder of William Desmond Taylor". University of Southern California (USC), July 2, 2000, USC.edu
- ^ a b "Taylorology". September 2003, retrieved 6 January 2008
- ^ Taylorology Issue 4 -- April 1993 Retrieved 12 May 2013
- ^ Higham, Charles (2006). Murder in Hollywood: Solving a Silent Screen Mystery. Terrace Books. p. 26. ISBN 0-299-20364-6.
- ^ Higham, Charles (2006). Murder in Hollywood: Solving a Silent Screen Mystery. Terrace Books. pp. 33, 34. ISBN 0-299-20364-6.
- ^ "Interviews with Taylor's Ex-Wife". Taylorology (45). September 1996.
- ^ a b "Slain Movie Man Had Career Here; Deserted His Wife" (PDF). The New York Times. 5 February 1922. Retrieved 7 April 2009.
- ^ Taylorology-45 "Taylorology" (newsheet) Issue 45, September 1996, Editor: Bruce Long
- ^ a b Giroux (1990), page 105.
- ^ Taylorology, Taylorology 40, April 1996, retrieved 22 February 2008
- ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, 27 January 1919, p. 1333, retrieved 23 February 2008. The published note reads, "Canteens.—William Desmond Taylor to be •temp. Lt. (without pay or allowances). 15 Jan. 1919."
- ^ a b Giroux (1990), page 107.
- ^ Giroux (1990), page 82.
- ^ "Taylorology 45". public.asu.edu, September 1996, retrieved 13 February 2008
- ^ a b c TheMinx-WDTaylor "Crime & Passion" (on William Desmond Taylor). Minx, The Magazine Volume Two. Issue Two. (Minx), Neal Patterson, 1998–99.
- ^ a b "William Desmond Taylor." Internet Accuracy Project.
- ^ a b Giroux (1990), page 239.
- ^ Giroux (1990), page 15.
- ^ "Shot in the Back." Crime Library, Courtroom Television Network, LLC, 2005.
- ^ "Statement of Mary Miles Minter." (LAPD) 7 February 1922. (retrieved 28 Aug 2007)
- ^ a b Giroux (1990), page 180.
- ^ "Badly Wanted". Time. 29 August 1929. Retrieved 21 July 2007. "Edward F. Sands, 34, 5 ft 5 in., for the murder of William Desmond Taylor, cinema director, whose butler he was. Questioned in this case were Cinemactresses Mabel Normand, last to see Taylor alive, and Mary Miles Minter whose lingerie and love letters were found in the Taylor apartment."
- ^ "Valet in Court on Vagrancy Charge", Los Angeles Record (February 3, 1922), reprinted in Taylorology 60.
- ^ Giroux (1990), page 131.
- ^ "Film Star Faints at Taylor's Funeral.". New York Times. 28 February 1922. "Los Angeles; 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."
- ^ Robert Giroux, A Deed of Death: The Story Behind the Unsolved Murder of Hollywood Director William Desmond Taylor, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1990.
- ^ "Press Film Star For Taylor Clew". New York Times. 7 February 1922, Tuesday. "A motion picture actress was subjected to what the police termed a "long and grueling" examination at her home here tonight in an attempt to obtain a clew to the murderer of William Desmond Taylor."
- ^ Giroux (1990), page 236.
- ^ Giroux (1990), pages 159–160.
- ^ Taylorology-97 "Taylorology." (newsheet), Issue 97, Editor: Bruce Long, 2007 (after 7 year hiatus)
- ^ In 1967 director King Vidor privately speculated that while Taylor escorted Mabel Normand to her car, Charlotte Shelby entered the bungalow through the open front door, found her daughter Mary Miles Minter hiding inside (supposedly explaining a nightgown found by police which, despite sensationalized reports in the Hearst press, was never linked to Minter) and shot William Desmond Taylor within an hour of his return. Biographer Sidney D. Kirkpatrick claimed in his 1986 book Cast of Killers that Vidor had solved the crime, asserting the director had not published his conclusions in order to protect people who were still living. Taylorology subsequently listed over 100 factual errors in Cast of Killers and strongly disputes Vidor's speculation on the murder, but credits the book with renewing public interest in the topic.
- ^ Taylorology-84 "Taylorology". (newsheet), Issue 84, Editor: Bruce Long, December 1999.
- ^ Jackson, Dan (Producer) (2000). Perfect Crimes? DVD Set 1. William Desmond Taylor episode. (DVD). The History Channel.
- ^ Taylorology 97 "Excerpts of Statements of Witnesses In Re William Desmond Taylor Murder 1922 – 1936", "Statement of Miss Mary Miles Minter in the Office of the District Attorney 7 February 1922".
- ^ "William Desmond Taylor." Classic Hollywood Bios. Retrieved 6 January 2008
- ^ "Taylorology 84." (also 85), December 1999, retrieved 6 January 2008
- ^ Thomas, Kevin, The Screening Room, Los Angeles Times, 20 April 2000
- ^ "Just the Facts, the William Desmond Taylor Murder." retrieved 8 January 2008
- ^ Menefee, David W. (2004). The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 132. ISBN 0-275-98259-9.
- ^ Vogel, Michelle (2007). Olive Thomas: The Life and Death of a Silent Film Beauty. McFarland. p. 6. ISBN 0-7864-2908-9.
- ^ Petro, Patrice (2010). Idols of Modernity: Movie Stars of the 1920s. Rutgers University Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-813-54732-6.
- ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (1990-01-18). "Vidal's Remaking of the American Myth". nytimes.com. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
- ^ "Mack & Mabel". playbillvault.com. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
Further reading
- Giroux, Robert (1990). A Deed of Death: The Story Behind the Unsolved Murder of William Desmond Taylor. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-58075-3.
- Higham, Charles (2004). Murder in Hollywood: solving a silent screen mystery. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-20360-3.
- Kirkpatrick, Sidney D. A Cast of Killers (King Vidor's view of the Taylor murder), publisher: Onyx; Reprint edition, 1 September 1992, paperback, 336 pages, ISBN 0-451-17418-6.
- Long, Bruce (1991). William Desmond Taylor: A Dossier. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-2490-6.
- Sennett, Mack (1954). King of Comedy. Doubleday. ISBN 0-916515-66-4.
- Brash, S. and J. Cave, ed. (1993). "The Director". Unsolved Crimes (True Crime Series). Time-Life Books. ISBN 0-7835-0012-2.
- 'Fallen Angels, a Blackwood McCabe Hollywood Mystery' by Dominic Lagan, Strategic Books, New York 2009, ISBN 978-1-60860-196-7
External links
- Taylorology Homepage Links to all issues of Taylorology (4 through 98).
- William Desmond Taylor at the Internet Movie Database
- William Desmond Taylor at the TCM Movie Database
- The Kiss on YouTube
- 16 Silent Film Celebrities & the William Desmond Taylor Case on YouTube
* * *
Antonio Moreno, who was one of the last people to speak with William Desmond Taylor, was also one of the last people to work in a movie with Thelma Todd, THE BOHEMIAN GIRL.
THE MALTESE FALCON ended with the revelation that the main woman in the story had killed Sam Spade's partner by shooting him as they embraced, something which I think may have been inspired by the death of William Desmond Taylor as that was the way some people said he'd been killed. Thelma Todd was in the original version of THE MALTESE FALCON, which has since been eclipsed by 1941 remake with Humphrey Bogart.
Much has been written about the Taylor case, but nothing has ever been proven. The "Taylorology" site discusses different books and their many errors.
The death of William Desmond Taylor is likely to remain forever one of Hollywood's Unsolved Mysteries.
Mabel Normand questioned by DA Asa
Keyes in the Taylor case.
Mabel Normand was exonerated, and Keyes himself later went to prison for accepting a bribe from a petroleum company.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' book THE GIRL FROM HOLLYWOOD drew inspiration from stories about Mabel Normand and William Desmond Taylor.
Another book purported to solve the mystery.
A CAST OF KILLERS had a "new" story that actually had already been presented in Kenneth Anger's HOLLYWOOD BABYLON and a number of other books. None of which actually proved anything.
Last surviving LAPD talks about the case.
Buron Fitts:
http://da.lacounty.gov/history/fitts.htm
Asa Keyes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Keyes
Antonio Moreno and THE BOHEMIAN GIRL:
http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2012/10/antonio-moreno-and-bohemian-girl.html
Coroner Frank Nance:
http://allanellenberger.com/tag/william-desmond-taylor/
Taylorology:
http://www.taylorology.com/
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