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1132 lines
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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 8 -- August 1993 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* All reprinted material is in the public domain *
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*****************************************************************************
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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Wallace Smith: February 8, 1922
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"The Humor of a Hollywood Murder" Part 5:
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The Kidnaping of Henry Peavey;
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Doug and Mary Run the Gauntlet; The Fourth Estate; Psychic Visions
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top film Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation. Primary emphasis will be given toward
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reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it for
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accuracy.
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Wallace Smith: February 8, 1922
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The most sensational newspaper dispatches on the Taylor were coming from
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Wallace Smith of the CHICAGO AMERICAN, and Edward Doherty of the CHICAGO
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TRIBUNE. Doherty's articles were widely syndicated to newspapers throughout
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the country, but Smith's are more difficult to obtain. The following is a
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sample of his work, published a week after the murder.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 8, 1922
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Wallace Smith
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CHICAGO AMERICAN
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Secret service agents of the federal government, men famed as trailers
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of smugglers by land and sea, along the treacherous Mexican border and the
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Pacific coast, today plunged into the search for the slayer of William
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Desmond Taylor.
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Their aid was enlisted not only in the hunt for Edward F. Sands, alias
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Edwin Fitz Strathmore, Taylor's former valet and secretary and army and navy
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deserter, but to follow the trail of the dope ring gangsters whose operations
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are seen behind the mystery of Taylor's murder.
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As the secret service men began their search through the dens of the
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drug peddlers in Hollywood, Chief of Detectives David Adams and a squad of
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men hurried from headquarters on a secret tip that led them into the heart of
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the fashionable Wilshire district of Los Angeles.
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It was stated that their informant, a woman, had supplied them with the
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tale of a recent dope party in this exclusive section of the city -- a mad
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revel in which several prominent actors and actresses took part and through
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which it was declared might develop a clew leading to Taylor's assassin.
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Captain Adams made the statement today that the information in his
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possession positively links Sands with the slaying. "We have obtained secret
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information we believe virtually solves the murder," Capt. Adams said. "We
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are centering our efforts on the location of Sands. This information has not
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been made public, nor will it be, but it is positive in its character."
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Their investigation of the Wilshire district orgy was but part of their
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campaign to drag into the light the secret, hidden lives of the country's
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greatest moving picture stars -- the lives they live behind the glamorous
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screen on which they strut their flickering, worshiped hour.
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As the clear light of day pierced the fever fog of excess in which the
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set of Hollywood lives, there was a frantic scurrying for cover. The
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millions spent to build up the reputation of the idols of the screen rushed
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forward to protect the little golden gods and goddesses.
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Dope parties hastily were cancelled -- one of them, an affair to which
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all the leading drug users had been looking forward for weeks. Panic-
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stricken managers corralled their precious charges and begged them to behave
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--for just a little while at least.
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It was known that the manager of at least one male star -- in Hollywood
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they prophesy fatalistically that this actor, one of the wildest of the dope
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users, will be the next to be involved in public scandal -- had secretly
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appointed a guard to care for his high-priced popular hero.
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But chiefly the efforts of the operatives were turned on the career of
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one of the actresses mentioned time after time in the life and death of
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Taylor, the man of mystery.
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Their investigation was rewarded with an amazing record of her escapades
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from practical jokes that would have shocked the notorious Dirty Club of
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London through a dozen scandalous love affairs to downright crimes.
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All done by a woman, a victim of drugs, who is loved by millions for her
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innocent pranks on the screen.
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It was not to be lightly considered how far the protection of the movie
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millions might go to shelter these pets of filmdom. Already ugly rumors run
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through Los Angeles of attempts made to bribe those most vigorous in pushing
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the investigation.
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The police seemed to be about where they started a week ago, when the
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crime was done. They claimed to have found a clew in a handkerchief,
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initialed "S," said to have been found on the scene, and still spoke
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mysteriously about the peach-hued silk "nightie" that disappeared.
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Detective Sergeant King of the district attorney's office provided the
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one police sensation by declaring that he would swear out a warrant later in
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the day, charging Edward F. Sands, alias Edwin Fits Strathmore, with the
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slaying.
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At the same time it was predicted that the grand jury, with power to
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summon any actor or actress in range for information, would be assembled and
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being an investigation of its own.
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Mabel Normand, following her spectacular collapse yesterday at the side
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of Taylor's coffin, was reported improved today. It was reported, too, that
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the spritely film star had recovered the "blessed baby" letters which had
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disappeared from the Taylor home.
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Mary Miles Minter, also named as a dear friend of the slain director,
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was declared by her secretary to be under the care of a physician as a result
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of the shock. Her home was guarded by private detectives, who barred
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interviewers seeking an explanation of the "I love you -- I love you -- I
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love you" letter found in the Alvarado St. residence.
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But the investigation turned principally upon the astounding career of
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the screen favorite who has found herself not entirely outside the pale of
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suspicion in the Taylor mystery.
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She is a young woman -- except for the premature age that her use of
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morphine and her use of the world have given her -- who entered the world of
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films by the old-fashioned knockabout, slapstick comedy route. She came in
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to the clatter of comical back falls and the detonations of breakaway mallets
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bouncing off the heads of leading comedians. [1]
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Her progress in refinement was devoted entirely to her work on the
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screen. In her private life, with all the abandon that marked her entire
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movie career, she took the easy, downhill course. Her excesses gave her
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notoriety even in the maddest of the Hollywood atmosphere.
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Some of them were as unbelievable as they are unprintable, but once or
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twice she ran afoul of the police. The affairs were "hushed up" and the
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attractive star went on her career of playful fun-making for her admirers
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throughout the world.
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She had been brought into the business and was made a star by a famous
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producer, one whose name is known today as perhaps no other for the quantity
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and quality of female pulchritude he has exposed before the cold, clicking
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eye of the movie camera.
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There had been rumors of her marriage to a vaudeville manager. But the
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producer was generally looked upon as her one true love. She was madly
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jealous of him and to this day, despite her numerous affairs and her devotion
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to the drug that is killing her, is in love with him. [2]
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She had him watched. She herself took on the role of private detective.
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One night, when he had left her on the pretense of having a late conference,
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she followed him. He went to the home of one of his film beauties. She
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followed.
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She came upon a gay scene. The producer, with a male friend and a pair
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of female friends, was indulging in a midnight rarebit with a gulp or two of
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beer. An extreme state of dishabille prevailed.
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Into this scene burst a female fury, the young star. Reports differ as
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to the weapon she employed -- some say a knife, others a revolver -- but they
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agreed as to her purpose. She tried to kill the man who had turned from her.
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His friend, who played drawing room society man parts, picked up a handy
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beer bottle and broke it over the young woman's head. She was hurried to the
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hospital and all over the country went the report of her collapse under the
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strain of work.
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Later, no doubt, moved by this rare exhibition of affection, the
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producer permitted an ostensible reconciliation. Not long after, however,
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his fancy began to roam again. One evening he disengaged the young star's
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clinging arms, yawned and announced that he was going to his home to retire
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early.
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Maybe there was something in his eye. Maybe she had seen him whispering
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at the studio that day to another of his famous beauties. She waited a while
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and went to the apartment of the whispering beauty in the same building as
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her own quarters.
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The maid sought to bar her entrance. She knocked the maid down promptly
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and tore into the apartment bedroom to confront the man of her choice and the
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woman of his. [3]
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There was a scream of rage from the star as she flung herself on the
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producer. Then the battle was on. They fought all over the place, knocking
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over lamps, tearing down pictures and ripping up rugs.
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Finally the man, with a punishing wrestling hold, flung the star from
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the room. She was badly injured in the combat, and again went to the
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hospital. The public once more shook its head sympathetically at the efforts
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of the star to entertain it.
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That was the last of the affair between the producer and the young woman
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he had starred. He went his way. She entered one of the wildest careers
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that ever seared the comet-swept firmament of Hollywood.
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She continued her drug-inspired career. Friends seeing its ravages
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appearing on her face and showing in her drooping figure, sought to protect
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her. They persuaded her to undertake "the cure" and break away forever from
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the thrall of morphine.
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Once more she went to the hospital. She was really ill. Her body was
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broken by the life of delirious excess. Slowly she fought her way back. The
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physicians had done what they could. But her friends reckoned without the
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insidious and sinister influence of the ring of dope peddlers, who don't so
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soon give up their human prey.
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Often on these occasions she was seen with Taylor, her teacher in the
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simpler forms of culture.
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Just a few nights before Taylor was killed the fading star and the
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director were observed at one of these dance affairs by this correspondent,
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who was engaged in amusing himself at the Los Angeles method of toddling.
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There was a sag about the once brilliant, mischievous eyes of the star.
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There was a weary droop about the once pert and vivacious gestures. She was
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dressed in a simple frock. She swayed a little as she went toward her table
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and leaned on her escort's arm.
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At a nearby table one of the finger-pointing, wise-cracking males of the
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moving picture colony winked meaningly.
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"There goes So-and-so," he whispered. "She's full of the stuff again."
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The male star mentioned as "the next one" is a man who is "just adored"
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by hundred of thousands of girls. He is the ideal matinee idol. His
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publicity agent dwells particularly on his happy married life and the fact
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that he is a father. But behind the screen in Hollywood they know him as "a
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holy terror" and shameless in his use of the drug. [4]
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If he is not "the next one" then Hollywood looks for the newest scandal
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to come from another pair known to be clinging to each other like tired prize
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fighters, at least one of them afraid to let go for fear of the punch the
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other might deliver coming out of the clinch.
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She is known as one of the saccharine types of the screen, worshiped by
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women as well as men. For years her name was in the largest lights and her
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pictures were featured all over the world. One does not see her name or her
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pictures much any more. The "dope" has her, too. She is said to favor
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opium.
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Early in her career this star became infatuated with the broad
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shouldered, genial youth who was her chauffeur. She decided to take him
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under her wing. She had wealth and power. He was "adopted" and set out to
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realize, with her backing, a hazy ambition to become a director and wear
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puttees and bark through a megaphone at actors. [5]
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The ambition was realized. He became a director. Strangely enough, be
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became rather a good one, as directors go. To the lay observer and to many
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professional minds the director is a vastly overrated institution. At any
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rate, a director he became.
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He began to get better. She began to hit the down grade. He seemed to
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weary of her. She sensed it. Finally she brought him over to the use of
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drugs. He could not stand opium. He took to the quicker use of morphine.
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Together they attended dope parties in Hollywood. They were looked upon as
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about as happy a couple as could be found in filmdom.
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Then Hollywood heard of a fight in one of Los Angeles' leading hotels.
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The star, who was losing her glitter and her debonair young director were
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having a "show down." She was leading the argument before it was hushed by
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the house detective. She was leading it with an outpouring of vilification
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that would have reddened the ears of a Thames boatman.
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"You came up with me," she screamed, "and you'll go down with me. I
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made you and you can't quit me now. If you do you'll have your name all over
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the headlines. Remember the Arbuckle case."
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Since then the star and director have been seen together again at the
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dope parties. They have become reconciled for the present, at least. The
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woman -- she is still young -- spends most of the daylight hours in her hotel
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room.
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So much for the present of the secret lives of the moving picture stars.
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The investigators found them of keen interest. Woven in them they could see
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not one possible motive but a score of them for the slaying of Taylor.
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Detective Serg. King, in his declaration that he would swear out a
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warrant for the arrest of Sands, declared that in his estimation the murder
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mystery was solved -- or would be as soon as Sands had been arrested. He
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declared "corroborative evidence" showed that Sands could clear away the
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mystery in a few words.
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The handkerchief with the initial "S" was supposed to have been at
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Taylor's side when the body was found. It was a man's handkerchief and
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soiled, it was said. The detective, for some reason or other, made no effort
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to confiscate the handkerchief for evidence, and it has since disappeared --
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if it existed.
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Miss Normand's collapse at the coffin of Taylor was a dramatic one. It
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came after the crowd outside had struggled for hours with the police to gain
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admission to the church or to view so some of the great stars of the screen
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who were expected to appear.
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Many of them had spoken words of praise for the murdered director and
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had vowed their friendship. But few appeared and these retired to the
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background.
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Miss Normand, dressed in black, with a white lace collar on her frock
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and accompanied by her maid and a woman friend, was escorted through the
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crowd by a detective. All through the services in St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral
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Church she sat in a forward pew near the casket.
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She was swept backward in the swirl of the crowd toward the doorway
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following the services. In the vestibule of the church was the coffin, with
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its guard of Canadian soldiers. As Miss Normand and her attendants reached
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the coffin, the maid and the other woman grasped her arms as if to keep her
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from going any nearer.
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The little actress strained against their retaining hold and almost
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dragged them to the side of the casket, where she might be able once more to
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behold the features of the man to whom she was once reported engaged.
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For a moment she bent over the coffin. Then with a little moan, she
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collapsed and a minute later was sobbing hysterically. She was taken into
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another of the pews until she had recovered herself sufficiently to make her
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way to her motor.
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Among those whose cards were found among the flowers were Ethel Daisy
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Taylor, daughter of the slain director; Charles Ray, Al Christie, Lila Lee,
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Thomas M. Ince, Mack Sennett, Antonio Moreno, Constance Talmadge, Charles
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Chaplin, Douglas MacLean, Betty Compson, Mary Miles Minter and Claire
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Windsor.
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*****************************************************************************
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"The Humor of a Hollywood Murder", Part 5
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Doug and Mary Run the Gauntlet
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February 13, 1922
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ALBUQUERQUE HERALD
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Douglas Fairbanks and "Little Mary" [Pickford] passed through
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Albuquerque last evening on train No. 4 and spent half an hour taking
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exercise up and down the platform.
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"Doug and Mary" denied they were headed east to avoid the scandal of the
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Taylor murder case--in fact they even professed great ignorance regarding the
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case and absolutely declined to discuss it in any way.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 14, 1922
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CHICAGO AMERICAN
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(Chicago)--Mary smiled sweetly. "Please don't make us say anything
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horrid, will you?" she asked. [6]
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 15, 1922
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NEW YORK NEWS
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(Chicago)--"All this talk about Hollywood is a joke, anyway," Doug said.
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"Why, say, do you know there was a prominent minister and--oh, me--oh, my--a
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prominent newspaper editor seen hiding around the Taylor house just before
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the murder? They're expected to be arrested at any minute. Strait stuff! This
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is the real inside story of Hollywood."
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Doug winked.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 15, 1922
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NEW YORK POST
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(New York)--"Too much has been said about Hollywood already," Mary said.
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"If I could do any good by talking about Hollywood, I would discuss it, but
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it would only be making the pot boil a little harder, and I really don't
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think it's worth while."
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 16, 1922
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NEW YORK NEWS
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Our hero and heroine having comfortably seated themselves on a divan in
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their suite, their guests [the press] were graciously invited to do likewise,
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which they did.
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"Now, frankly," began one bold youth with horn-rimmed glasses, "what is
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your opinion of the Hollywood scandal?"
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"Oh, dear!" murmured Mary, registering despair and rolling her eyes up
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to the ceiling.
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"Lovely day outside," said Doug, executing a handspring on the carpet.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 15, 1922
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SYRACUSE POST-STANDARD
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Movies May Quit America If It Isn't Nice To Actors
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(Chicago)--American will lose its motion picture industry unless
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senseless criticism of its people stops.
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This was the warning issued today by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford
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in response to questions concerning Hollywood.
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The real stars in Hollywood never heard of a dope ring, asserted the
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hero and heroine of the Fairbanks family, and both of them agreed on this
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statement:
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"Unless an intolerant public and press cease attaching to a
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manufacturing industry, such as the cinema, the stigma of narcotic smoke,
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scrambled domesticity, night time orgies, purple loves and freely distributed
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bank-notes, Paris, or perhaps the South Sea Islands, will be the future home
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of the camera setups.
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"Motion pictures make up an industry in which money is worked for and
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not inherited. If the United States does not like us there are other
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countries that do.
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"Paris was made famous by the same vicious reports which are being
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hurled against Hollywood. In the case of Paris, as in this, the revelers in
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nine cases out of ten were American or British visitors to the city.
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"Real estate in Hollywood will take a leap."
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 16, 1922
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SYRACUSE POST-STANDARD
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The movies may quit America if it isn't nice to the actors, say Doug and
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Mary. We take that as a personal insult. Here we are trying to amuse the
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people, endeavoring to make them smile or laugh and along come these two
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stealing our stuff. They are butting in on our preserves and we object.
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How on earth can we run a column supposed to be slightly humorous at
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times when we have such competition right on the first page of our own paper?
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We never laid any claims to the ability to produce shrieks of laughter, but
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we have tried faithfully until this blow. We have read Artemus Ward, Joe
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Miller, Mark Twain, Life, Main Street, Irv Cobb's stories, Ring Lardner,
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George Ade and a host of other humorists, but theirs are funeral orations
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compared with Mary's and Doug's remarks.
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We don't want to play in your yard,
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We don't love you any more;
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You'll be sorry when we leave you,
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To shoot our scenes on tropic shore.
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We don't like the way you treat us,
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We are angels, don't you see;
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Just you watch how swell they'll greet us,
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When we move to dear Paree.
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When we recovered from hysterics after reading the effusion of the two,
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we thought that it was rather rough on the South Sea Islands to pick them for
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one of the possible destinations of the movies. Paris isn't so bad, because
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Paris might have a say in the matter, but the poor, little, defenseless South
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Sea Islands! What have they ever done to the movies!
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We are thinking seriously of asking Doug and Mary to run the column some
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day. If they can keep up the pace they have set for rich and rare humor, it
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ought to be a humdinger from start to finish.
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If the hegira takes place (that's a fancy word meaning getaway) "real
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estate in Hollywood will take a leap," says Mary and Doug. A leap for joy?
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It's all right for movie people to come to the defense of movie people,
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but when they threaten to take their toys and go home, that's different. Why
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not pick China for the abode of future operations? Think how nice it would
|
|
sound to be able to pressagent that some of the stars were receiving
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6,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 yen a month for their
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work!
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As we threatened, we will be forced to stop running this column unless
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we have less competition from Hollywood.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 24, 1922
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NASHVILLE BANNER
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Douglas Fairbanks threatens to leave this country and make his home in
|
|
Europe if people don't stop criticizing Hollywood and the movie industry.
|
|
Chances are when he thinks of the sort of money they pay out over there his
|
|
mind will undergo a change on the subject. [7]
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 20, 1922
|
|
HOUSTON POST
|
|
Douglas Fairbanks is threatening to go to Europe because of the
|
|
unmerited criticism of the film industry. We'd hate to see Doug go, for we
|
|
like him. But we want him to understand this: If he does go, he will have to
|
|
leave little Mary behind, for America will not give her up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Fourth Estate
|
|
|
|
February 16, 1922
|
|
KANSAS CITY TIMES
|
|
It must be freely admitted that the Los Angeles reporters are energetic
|
|
enough in the Taylor murder case, whether the police are or not.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 7, 1922
|
|
ARIZONA GAZETTE
|
|
Mountains and Molehills
|
|
California newspapers, and especially those of Los Angeles, are running
|
|
wild over the recent shooting there, under mysterious circumstances, of a
|
|
motion-picture director named W. D. Taylor. The columns of the Los Angeles
|
|
dailies have literally reeked with sensationalism for several days, the first
|
|
pages being given over, to a great extent, to the exploitation of this new
|
|
morsel of criminal chronology. To say that this sort of stuff which the
|
|
California papers are playing up is sickeningly nauseating to the average
|
|
reader is putting it mildly. Why is such prominence given to this
|
|
comparatively obscure killing? Certainly the dead man's position did not
|
|
warrant it. It is safe to say that very few persons not connected with the
|
|
motion-picture industry knew anything of this man Taylor or whatever his real
|
|
name may have been. He may have been a good director. Probably he was. For
|
|
that he deserves sufficient praise. So would a good ditch digger or a good
|
|
carpenter or a good surveyor or any other man who achieved success in his
|
|
particular line of endeavor. Buy why magnify his importance out of all
|
|
proportion, merely for the sake of creating a sensation? Taylor was not a
|
|
great man; not even a prominent man. His name meant nothing to the nation.
|
|
And yet, for the sake of yellow sensationalism, and possibly to case
|
|
reflections upon the motion-picture industry and those eminently worthy and
|
|
respectable persons engaged therein, the newspapers are flaunting this case
|
|
in the face of the world as the sensation of the age. They are making a
|
|
mountain of muck out of a mere molehill. Faugh! It is sickening!
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 9, 1922
|
|
ALBANY POST
|
|
A Suggestion That Is In Order
|
|
During several days, the wires have been loaded with information about
|
|
thus far futile activities of detectives who are "working on" the Taylor
|
|
murder case at Hollywood. Names of film actresses and other personages of the
|
|
movie world have been dragged in. Silly letters said to have been written by
|
|
one of them have been quoted. Alleged clues have been exhibited. Long stories
|
|
have been written about possibilities. Almost, one is inclined to suspect
|
|
that the "news" has been produced by professional scenario writers whose
|
|
specialty has been to manufacture stories for serial reels of the blood-and-
|
|
thunder variety.
|
|
Manifestly the suggestion is in order that the output of words be
|
|
checked, and not be permitted to flow again unless and until the murderer is
|
|
caught.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 17, 1922
|
|
John Smith
|
|
BUFFALO EXPRESS
|
|
At this distance it appears possible that, if the movie business is to
|
|
retain its hold on the public, the actors and actorines must do one of two
|
|
things:
|
|
(1)--Maintain a semblance of respectability, or
|
|
(2)--Become so bad that no newspaper will print anything about their
|
|
goings on.
|
|
Cynics who have a good opinion of neither the movie colony nor the
|
|
newspapers may claim that neither course is possible.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 10, 1922
|
|
OAKLAND TRIBUNE
|
|
A Reporter at Hollywood
|
|
Wishing to solve this Southern mystery we have sent one of our most
|
|
trusted sleuths to Hollywood with instruction to break away the film, film
|
|
directors and huskies who surround the case and give us the facts. His first
|
|
dispatch follows:
|
|
Sir:--I have arrived here disguised as a cowboy willing to accept a
|
|
$100,000 salary during the winter grazing season and, at once was given the
|
|
entree to movieland. Except for twelve hundred reporters I am the only one
|
|
who is, as you might say, on the ground floor. Frankly, I am without a
|
|
theory. My training led me at first to suspect the butler but as he is not
|
|
here to turn white and to run his fingers around his collar, I am not so
|
|
sure. Men in one movie camp tell me the most likely suspects are in the
|
|
others and the Los Angeles reporters have it that anybody is a suspect whose
|
|
picture looks well on the front page. The recipe for writing a story is three
|
|
parts dope, to one part bootleg. Stir well and add tobasco. It is a good
|
|
recipe as it brings a new result each day. You may say for my readers that I
|
|
am supplied with a number of disguises and an immense determination, that I
|
|
am followed hourly by press agents and that whatever I say will be up to the
|
|
accepted standard for reliability.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 11, 1922
|
|
CHICAGO POST
|
|
People are interested in movie stars because they know them by sight. So
|
|
the latest crime in Hollywood movie circles has had an unusual drawing power
|
|
as news. But for lack of progress in the detection of the criminal, certain
|
|
Chicago papers have begun to vie with each other in the turning up of
|
|
foulness and degeneracy, and in the brazen openness and cynicism with which
|
|
they have forced on their decent readers all sorts of filthy gossip about
|
|
depravity and unnatural vice. None of it is fit to print.
|
|
It is getting hard to tell which are the most demoralized and
|
|
demoralizing, the overpaid, underbalanced decadents who form a lunatic fringe
|
|
of the movie world, or the cynical scandalmongers of the Chicago press.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 14, 1922
|
|
Joe Webb
|
|
AUSTIN AMERICAN
|
|
Perhaps the reason Movie Boss Will Hays wants to move the movie colony
|
|
to the east is so that the New York reporters can be rushed to the scene
|
|
without loss of time whenever a new scandal develops.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 23, 1922
|
|
Roy Moulton
|
|
ARIZONA CITIZEN
|
|
Solved, At Last, By Headline Writers
|
|
"Taylor Was Shot by Holdup Man."
|
|
"Jealous Rival Murdered Taylor."
|
|
"Taylor Shot Protecting Normand."
|
|
"Police Say Man Was Surely Murderer."
|
|
"Police Sure Woman Did the Murder."
|
|
"Prominent Movie Magnate Fired Shot."
|
|
"Man in China Fired the Fatal Shot."
|
|
"Prosecutor at Sea But Not Seasick."
|
|
"Well-Known Comedian Surely the Guilty One."
|
|
"Former Employee Was the Real Murderer."
|
|
"Authorities Agree Actress Fired Shot."
|
|
"Man Concealed in Desk Drawer Fired Shot."
|
|
"Police Say Female Blackmailer Fired Shot."
|
|
"Police Believe Male Blackmailer Guilty."
|
|
"Murderer, a Film Actress, About to Confess."
|
|
"Police Will Have Guilty Chauffeur by Night."
|
|
"Prominent Manicure Probably Did Murder."
|
|
"Lingerie Dealer Sought as the Murderer."
|
|
"Lady Dope Peddler Murdered Taylor."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
May 1922
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
During the investigation in the Taylor murder case, when each day the
|
|
sensational newspapers would come out with fresh "clues" and scandals only to
|
|
cast them aside the day following for new ones, a certain noted motion
|
|
picture star was approached by reporters of a Los Angeles daily with an
|
|
interesting proposition.
|
|
They wanted him to "disappear" over the Mexican border so that the paper
|
|
might run a sensational story fixing the guilt temporarily upon him. Of
|
|
course, they said, he could return immediately and be cleared by an alibi.
|
|
The idea behind the proposition was that the star would get a lot of
|
|
free publicity and the newspaper would get a corking new yarn to excite the
|
|
fans--and, consequently, sell the paper.
|
|
But they picked on the wrong star. The gentleman they chose--we will
|
|
call him Mr. M. [8]--hurled the reporters out of the room. Another paper got
|
|
wind of the stunt and attempted to interview Mr. M., but he refused on the
|
|
ground that too much sensational stuff had been woven about the unfortunate
|
|
tragedy.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 13, 1922
|
|
OAKLAND TRIBUNE
|
|
Our Correspondent
|
|
Hollywood.--There is nothing more promising than the clues they have
|
|
here. In spite of reports to the contrary, I find all the police officers,
|
|
detectives, strong-arm men and press agents most accommodating. They press
|
|
clues upon me from all sides until the task that is left for me is draw the
|
|
right one out of the pile. To set at rest some wild rumors, I made a personal
|
|
investigation today. They do not deliver dope to the Hollywood back doors in
|
|
milk wagons. There are no pipe lines of booze in any of the bungalows to
|
|
which I have been invited, and the bootleggers do not exactly fight for first
|
|
privileges at the newcomer. They draw lots or shake dice like gentlemen. The
|
|
longer I work on this case the more I am convinced that I am as good a
|
|
detective as there is on the job. Perhaps I am better--for I know nothing to
|
|
conceal.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 8, 1922
|
|
HOLLYWOOD NEWS
|
|
Hearst Circulation in Hollywood Should Be Zero
|
|
As has been generally expected, the Los Angeles Examiner has broken into
|
|
print with another exhibition of vulgar language directed against the film
|
|
colony of Hollywood in their follow-up of the William D. Taylor murder.
|
|
Perhaps a reprint of one of the most obnoxious remarks might better serve the
|
|
purpose of showing the folks of the movie colony just what is being said
|
|
against them. Here is what the Examiner has to say anet motion-picture
|
|
directors when speaking of certain night clothes found in William D. Taylor's
|
|
bungalow:
|
|
"Taylor never wore those nighties, yet few nights passed that they were
|
|
not worn, according to the police. Sands knew that Taylor was no better than
|
|
any other film director in Los Angeles."
|
|
It is an outrage to Hollywood. Hearst papers should be choked off here
|
|
until the local circulation is just what the little boy hit when he shot at
|
|
the bird--nothing.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 14, 1922
|
|
NEW YORK HERALD
|
|
(Los Angeles)--District Attorney Woolwine today made a statement in
|
|
which he deplored what he termed "faked and fraudulent interviews" on the
|
|
case, and particularly one purporting to have come from him.
|
|
His statement follows:
|
|
"In the early edition of the Examiner for Monday morning there appeared
|
|
on the first page an interview purporting to come from me which was never in
|
|
effect given.
|
|
"This interview never took place and there is not a word of it that I
|
|
have ever authorized to be printed nor did I have the slightest intimation,
|
|
directly or indirectly that it would be.
|
|
"There is not a sentence that contains my exact language about anything.
|
|
It is composed of some things that I have uttered in substance. There are
|
|
some half truths, many absolute falsehoods. Language purported to have been
|
|
uttered by me is out of whole cloth and is viciously false.
|
|
"It is certainly an outrage for any newspaper to be guilty of such a
|
|
faked and fraudulent interview.
|
|
"I am informed that this fake has been telegraphed all over the United
|
|
States, which magnified its iniquity."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 26, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES TIMES
|
|
Lauding to the skies Hollywood and its motion-picture industry in his
|
|
Los Angeles papers and reviling them in his Eastern sheets as a pesthole of
|
|
iniquity and as the dregs and offscourings of the lowest type of social
|
|
criminals, William Randolph Hearst has reached new heights of journalistic
|
|
hypocrisy--for revenue only.
|
|
No praise is too fulsome or extravagant for Heart's LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
|
|
to heap upon the film industry in Los Angeles, its home. No insults are too
|
|
gross or baseless to hurl at that same Los Angeles industry in Hearst's
|
|
CHICAGO AMERICAN and his dozen-odd other eastern papers. The damage done to
|
|
Los Angeles by the circulation of these unfounded libels is past computation.
|
|
Nor has Hearst the excuse that his eastern reports are prepared at a
|
|
distance by writers not in a position to get the facts. These reports have
|
|
every one been written by Hearst employees in Los Angeles working out of the
|
|
Los Angeles Examiner building and using the Hearst wires from this city. That
|
|
they are recognized as unbridled fabrications is proven by the fact that the
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER, which has to live here, has printed not a line of them.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 22, 1922
|
|
OAKLAND TRIBUNE
|
|
Our Hollywood correspondent seems to have fallen by the wayside. "I am
|
|
lost in an empenetrable forest of grills and quizzes," he writes, "but I
|
|
shall write myself out."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 9, 1922
|
|
DENVER POST
|
|
(Los Angeles)--Turning to their old friends, the police, reporters found
|
|
the same reserve that the film colony has adopted. Asked why and how and when
|
|
and where, the police answer was epitomized by one detective:
|
|
"We don't know anything. The newspapers are doing all the work on this
|
|
case. Why bother us with questions?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tall Tales #2: Harry Fields
|
|
|
|
February 24, 1922
|
|
ARIZONA REPUBLICAN
|
|
Los Angeles Film Murder Was Plotted in Hop Joint
|
|
According to Detroit suspect Harry Fields the murder of Taylor was
|
|
plotted in a "hop joint" at Venice, a beach suburb of Los Angeles.
|
|
Arrangements were completed shortly before noon Feb. 1, eight hours or
|
|
more before Taylor was killed. At that time a woman named by Fields and
|
|
Jennie Moore, and Wong Lee, a Chinese, and an American, Johnnie Clark sat in
|
|
a dingy room in Venice and reviewed alleged plans for slaying Taylor because
|
|
of their belief he was interfering with the drug traffic.
|
|
Fields said he was offered $900 for driving the murder party to the
|
|
Taylor apartments, but, he maintained, he was not invited to take an active
|
|
part in the murder.
|
|
They stopped the car, according to the confession "nine doors south of
|
|
the Taylor bungalow on Alvarado street and on the other side of the street."
|
|
Fields was said to have declared, the woman, carrying an automatic
|
|
pistol, of heavy calibre, the Chinese holding a .38 calibre break down
|
|
pistol, and Clark carrying a blackjack, left the automobile and disappeared
|
|
into the bungalow court.
|
|
Three minutes later, according to Fields, he heard the "muffled report"
|
|
of a revolver and 30 seconds later the woman, the Chinese and Clark were back
|
|
in the car urging Fields to go "away from here."
|
|
The remainder of the night was passed at the Venice "hop joint," as
|
|
Fields described it, and the following day Wong Lee and Fields departed for
|
|
the east by way of Seattle.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 24, 1922
|
|
HARTFORD COURANT
|
|
The wild stories bearing on the killing of Taylor cannot be expect to
|
|
get any wilder than this about the taxi-driver who was paid the modest and
|
|
naturally expected price of $900 for carrying three murderers to do the deed.
|
|
Presumably the normal charge was $1,000 and 10 per cent off for cash reduced
|
|
it to a discount rate of $300 apiece.
|
|
The mere fact that the author of this startling scenario confesses
|
|
himself a drug fiend does not seem to have reduced its probability in the
|
|
minds of those who are "detecting" the criminals. There are skeptics who will
|
|
pronounce this discovery a pipe dream, and, if it is not repudiated before
|
|
this article is printed, that will be surprising. The explanations and the
|
|
promises that have come out of Los Angeles in this case have been unique and
|
|
ridiculous.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 26, 1922
|
|
DETROIT NEWS
|
|
(Detroit)--Angered at the skepticism with which authorities have
|
|
received his confession to participation in the slaying of William Desmond
|
|
Taylor, Harry M. Fields declared Saturday night that he had not yet begun to
|
|
tell the real story of the crime.
|
|
Fields, who is confined at the Wayne County Jail awaiting sentence after
|
|
conviction for forgery, asserted that he wished now to reveal enough of the
|
|
facts to convince the police that he possesses real knowledge of the plot
|
|
against Taylor's life.
|
|
"I'm a low down jailbird," he said, "but I still have some shreds of
|
|
self-respect left. I've a daughter 16 years old, and I'm determined that her
|
|
father shall not be hanged. I shall tell the whole story of the Taylor
|
|
assassination when I have been promised immunity from the death penalty. When
|
|
I tell the real story it will involve many names prominent in filmdom."
|
|
Fields has confessed that he was the driver of the automobile which
|
|
carried Taylor's assassins to the movie director's home at the time of the
|
|
slaying.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 26, 1922
|
|
NEW YORK HERALD
|
|
(Detroit)--Fields says his motive for confessing was self-defense.
|
|
"I knew well enough one of us would spill it," he told the police. "I
|
|
wanted to beat the others to it, knowing the one that confessed would stand
|
|
the best chance to cheat the gallows. I have plenty of facts to support what
|
|
I say, but I don't intend to drop them until I know I won't be hanged for my
|
|
part in the mess."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 26, 1922
|
|
SAN DIEGO UNION
|
|
(Seattle)--Mrs. Lilly Fields, divorced wife of Harry M. Fields, held by
|
|
Detroit police in connection with his declaration that he could clear up the
|
|
Taylor murder case, said here tonight that Fields "always told wild stories
|
|
about himself--and he's probably telling lies to the Detroit police."
|
|
Mrs. Fields, who is ill in a hospital here, said her former husband was
|
|
a constant user of opium.
|
|
Mrs. Fields, who is soon to undergo an operation, declared that her
|
|
condition was due to Fields' neglect of her and their two children. She
|
|
charged that he would contribute noting to their support, and was continually
|
|
getting into trouble. Mrs. Fields said she had secured his release from
|
|
prison in British Columbia twice, and when reminded of the fact Fields told
|
|
her, "I would be better off in prison than here."
|
|
Fields' former wife told of his bringing a number of his acquaintances
|
|
to the house, and of their wanting to use narcotics there. When she objected,
|
|
Mrs. Fields said, Fields broke up the furniture and left the house "a
|
|
complete wreck."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 26, 1922
|
|
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
|
|
(Detroit)--Asserting he had previously given fictitious names in
|
|
identifying the persons he claimed were implicated in the murder of William
|
|
Desmond Taylor, Harry M. Fields told authorities today that a prominent
|
|
motion picture actress, who was one of the quartet that planned the killing,
|
|
preceded the other three participants to the Taylor home, with the
|
|
understanding that she was to give the signal when the opportune moment
|
|
arrived to do the shooting and escape.
|
|
When the car containing the Chinese, the white man, and woman who, he
|
|
said, were the others implicated, arrived at Taylor's bungalow, Fields is
|
|
said to have declared the actress emerged from the house and waved a bag of
|
|
candy. The two men immediately left the automobile and a few seconds later
|
|
Fields heard a shot. The men stepped from a window of the house and reentered
|
|
the car. Meanwhile the actress who had given the signal disappeared.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 27, 1922
|
|
INDIANAPOLIS NEWS
|
|
That fellow under arrest in Detroit, and who claims to know so much
|
|
about the Taylor murder, has about reached the point where his imagination
|
|
must be paid for overtime, or else it will strike.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
March 2, 1922
|
|
NASHVILLE BANNER
|
|
A Detroit man confessed to complicity in the murder of Taylor, the
|
|
Hollywood movie director, but he has such a reputation as a liar that nobody
|
|
will believe him.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 27, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES TIMES
|
|
Harry M. Fields, the man under arrest in Detroit and exploited in the
|
|
last few days as one of the slayers of Taylor, yesterday took his place in
|
|
the "confession hall of defame." Fields was finally eliminated by dispatches
|
|
from Indianapolis stating that Guy Broughton, Federal narcotic agent there,
|
|
arrested Fields in Buffalo, N.Y., February 2, the day after Taylor was
|
|
killed, and turned him over to the Detroit police. Fields was taken into
|
|
custody on a drug-peddling charge. The Federal officers expressed an opinion
|
|
that Fields indulged in a little too much of his own merchandise.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
March 1, 1922
|
|
DETROIT NEWS
|
|
Harry M. Fields, the opium smoker who named himself an accomplice in the
|
|
slaying of William Desmond Taylor and who adorned the story of the Los
|
|
Angeles shooting with a Chinese tong fighter, a paper bag of candy, a $1,000
|
|
bank note, a prominent picture actress, and a pearl-handled revolver, will be
|
|
reduced from the notorious place he claimed as driver of the death car to the
|
|
ignominy of a penal cell at Jackson Prison.
|
|
With his colorful story fading like a puff of drugged smoke from his own
|
|
pipe, Fields came before Judge William M. Heston in Recorder's Court Tuesday
|
|
and was sentenced to serve for from three to 10 years for obtaining money
|
|
under false pretenses. This charge, to which the drug addict had pleaded
|
|
guilty before he made his "revelations" of the tragedy in Los Angeles, was
|
|
the result of a series of worthless checks which he passed on Detroit
|
|
department stores and restaurants early in 1921.
|
|
Almost coincident with the disposition of Fields' case, disclosures were
|
|
made by his cell-mates at the County Jail which reveal that he had a motive
|
|
for his story which make it more than the un-premeditated figment of a drug-
|
|
tortured mind. Fields hoped his narrative would take him to Los Angeles and
|
|
free him from the charge here, his fellow prisoners say.
|
|
He expected the story would bring him a trip to California. He declared
|
|
that once in Los Angeles he would be immediately able to establish that he
|
|
knew nothing at all of the Taylor mystery and that he would then be free.
|
|
When his description of the ride to Taylor's home first appeared in the
|
|
newspapers, Fields became greatly excited, his fellow-prisoners say. He ran
|
|
back and forth in the cell block, holding the papers high and shouting that
|
|
he would certainly go to Los Angeles and escape the waiting sentence here.
|
|
When Judge Heston ordered him to Jackson Tuesday, Fields paled and he turned
|
|
and walked slowly to the court cell without speaking.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Psychic Visions
|
|
|
|
February 11, 1922
|
|
NEW YORK NEWS
|
|
Girl Psychic Says Sins Will Destroy Hollywood
|
|
Destruction of Los Angeles within the next five years "for sins of
|
|
Hollywood," was predicted today by Miss Eugene Dennis, seventeen-year-old
|
|
Atchison, Kan., girl psychic wonder.
|
|
Miss Dennis, whose psychic powers are being investigated by David P.
|
|
Abbott for the American Society of Psychic Research, said a catastrophe--
|
|
probably an earthquake--would "level the city."
|
|
"It will be a greater catastrophe than the San Francisco earthquake and
|
|
fire," Miss Dennis said. "Los Angeles has had many warnings. Recent small
|
|
earth tremors should awaken the city to its coming doom."
|
|
Miss Dennis believes William D. Taylor was murdered by a medium sized
|
|
brunette woman, "no longer young but pretty."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 28, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
Mayor Cryer was placidly cutting open his mail this morning when he came
|
|
to an envelope dated from Omaha, Nebraska. He was somewhat nonplussed when he
|
|
read the following letter:
|
|
"The report published in certain papers throughout the country stating
|
|
that I have predicted the destruction of Los Angeles, is absolutely false.
|
|
"I have never mentioned anything of the kind. I do not predict world
|
|
events with which I am not in personal contact."
|
|
After making this modest assertion denying that she has made any evil
|
|
predictions concerning Los Angeles, she signs herself as Eugene Dennis,
|
|
"known as the 'Wonder Girl.' "
|
|
And to prove that she is the one and only "wonder girl" she attached a
|
|
statement from David P. Abbott, who says that he is "the gentleman conducting
|
|
the investigation of Miss Dennis for the purpose of making a report to the
|
|
American Psychical Institute and Laboratory of New York City."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 6, 1922
|
|
CLEVELAND PRESS
|
|
"You can't pull the trigger. You can't even hold the revolver."
|
|
Sure enough. The trigger remained unpressed; the weapon fell from the
|
|
unnerved grasp of Hardmuth, the lawyer.
|
|
The scene is from "The Witching Hour"--a study in the realm of hypnotism
|
|
and inherited insanity.
|
|
William Desmond Taylor directed the movieized production of "The
|
|
Witching Hour." An article descriptive of Taylor in action at the time told
|
|
how he himself went thru the scene, first putting himself in the place of the
|
|
man with the pistol, than in the place of the one at whom the pistol was
|
|
pointed.
|
|
But when William Desmond Taylor dealt with the realities of death at the
|
|
hands of an assassin in his Los Angeles home with witching hour was an hour
|
|
of actual tragedy, instead of an hour of tragedy averted by the power of
|
|
mental suggestion.
|
|
That mental suggestion, so strongly featured in the drama which helped
|
|
make Taylor famous as a director, did play a part in the last evening of his
|
|
life is shown by what he said to Mabel Normand:
|
|
"I have the strangest and most ghastly feeling that something is going
|
|
to happen to me." [9]
|
|
In "The Witching Hour" mental suggestion is worked out the point that
|
|
one man sits in his room at home and influences the verdict of a juror in the
|
|
courtroom, blocks away.
|
|
Conceding that mental suggestion is as powerful a force as it is made
|
|
out to be in the play, and that the person who killed Taylor was enough of a
|
|
master of mental suggestion to notify him by that process of the impending
|
|
doom, that person then will possess enough ability as a psychic to influence
|
|
the very jury that tries him--if he's caught.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 9, 1922
|
|
Carl Bronson
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
Psychics Seek Solution of Murder
|
|
While police, sheriff's deputies and district attorney's detectives are
|
|
following every earthly clue in the endeavor to track down the mysterious
|
|
person who murdered William D. Taylor in his Alvarado street apartment, the
|
|
psychical research societies and the spiritualistic devotees of Los Angeles
|
|
are seeking through the invisible lanes of the supernatural to establish
|
|
communication with the slain man on the "other side."
|
|
Friends of Mr. Taylor say that he was a devout believer in the ability
|
|
of spirits of the departed to manifest themselves to those still occupying
|
|
their earthly bodies.
|
|
"When I go into the great adventure," he is quoted as having said, "I
|
|
will use every effort that is possible on the 'other side' to get back into
|
|
communication with those remaining on earth," and it is with the belief that
|
|
Taylor's spirit will retain the power to carry out this promise that the
|
|
psychics and spiritualists of Los Angeles are centralizing their efforts upon
|
|
the attempt to get into communication with him.
|
|
These devotees of the occult firmly believe that it is possible for this
|
|
to be done and they hold it would prove a tremendous proof of the truth of
|
|
their beliefs if through spirit means a solution of the baffling death
|
|
mystery could be worked out.
|
|
Thus far, however, they freely admit that nothing definite has been
|
|
obtained from their concerted efforts.
|
|
This difficulty is being explained away by the psychics by the statement
|
|
that in cases of sudden death, such as that of Mr. Taylor, the resultant
|
|
mental shock and confusion of the instant is liable to last some little time
|
|
after the death of the body and the spirit is very apt to linger around the
|
|
old home, trying to adjust itself to the more familiar physical surroundings.
|
|
According to their beliefs there is a very definite reason why word is
|
|
not easily obtained from the unseen when related to the commission of a
|
|
crime, and that is that as such information is invariably subject to the laws
|
|
of destiny, not fate.
|
|
According to this law, they say, the whole tape of experience must
|
|
unravel itself in its own sequence, just as the flower exposes its true
|
|
nature in its complete unfolding.
|
|
The fundamental laws upon which these psychics say that they will base
|
|
their efforts for communication are exactly the same as those which govern
|
|
the underlying principle of wireless telegraphy.
|
|
Some of the most noted psychics of the city have expressed the keenest
|
|
interest in the effort and will try to secure what they term "dependable
|
|
communications" from the deceased motion picture director through one of
|
|
their centers and from some one of the spiritual planes.
|
|
Authorities claim that the conditions for the success of such a
|
|
communication are more favorable now than ever before, since a certain cycle
|
|
which has passed seems to have materially thinned the intervening veil.
|
|
Many will await with interest the outcome of this widely organized
|
|
effort.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 16, 1922
|
|
BUFFALO NEWS
|
|
Would End All Mystery
|
|
How much of the report that efforts will be made to get into
|
|
communication with William Desmond Taylor in the spirit is based on fact, or
|
|
how much of it exists only the imagination of the host of special writers who
|
|
have descended on Hollywood, remains to be seen. Much of an imaginative, or
|
|
fictional, nature has been coming from the Pacific coast since the moving
|
|
picture colony again took up the public attention.
|
|
There are many sincere and intelligent people who believe that it is
|
|
possible to communicate with the departed of this world. Few of these,
|
|
however, will be inclined to regard it as ethical to use psychic powers in
|
|
police work. Detectives' tasks would be made easy were it possible to
|
|
penetrate the fourth dimension and call back the spirit of a murdered man to
|
|
point out his slayer.
|
|
The report is interesting, even if not true, or even if nothing comes of
|
|
it of benefit to the cause of psychic research or to the authorities in the
|
|
quest of the murderer of the picture director.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 11, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES RECORD
|
|
An assassin hired by a motion picture leader, member of an alleged "dope
|
|
ring," killed William Desmond Taylor, in the opinion of Ruth Wing Taylor,
|
|
wife of Ted Taylor, the dead director's publicity agent.
|
|
Psychics have aided her in reaching her theory, Mrs. Taylor, who before
|
|
her marriage was a screen actress, said. She explained:
|
|
"Since Mr. Taylor was killed, two persons of the highest standing in the
|
|
study of the occult have come to me, saying that they believe I held the key
|
|
to the murder.
|
|
"Things have come to me, one by one, that have convinced me that Mr.
|
|
Taylor was slain by a hired assassin, paid by a certain noted picture leader,
|
|
whose money, I believe, has been able to purchase a quieting of suspicion and
|
|
immunity from investigation.
|
|
"It is true the authorities have conducted a superficial investigation
|
|
into his movements, but this psychic power within me tells me that he is the
|
|
one responsible. The only woman with whom he has been really in love for
|
|
several years was friendly toward Taylor and I believe he conceived this plan
|
|
to rid himself of Taylor, whom he believed his rival for the woman's
|
|
affections but who actually was interested in her only from a more or less
|
|
intellectual standpoint." [10]
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 13, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES RECORD
|
|
Beg Pardon
|
|
Ruth Wing Taylor today asked that newspapers retract the "psychic"
|
|
explanation of the slaying of William Desmond Taylor, in which she was quoted
|
|
as receiving a "key" to the solution from occult students. THE RECORD wishes
|
|
to explain to its readers that the story came from indirect sources, and
|
|
sincerely regrets its publication.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 15, 1922
|
|
OAKLAND TRIBUNE
|
|
Taylor Came to Me, Medium Says
|
|
(Oakland)--Complete details of her "communication from beyond," which,
|
|
she says enabled her to learn the identity of the slayer of William Desmond
|
|
Taylor, were made public today by Mrs. Edith C. Jones, a medium.
|
|
Mrs. Jones declared that Taylor was shot accidentally by a 4-year-old
|
|
boy, the child of a noted film actress, who has been mentioned several times
|
|
in connection with the case.
|
|
"I am able to tell these things," Mrs. Jones said today, "because I am
|
|
often allowed to look into the great beyond--into the world behind the veil,
|
|
so the speak. I can communicate with the departed, and William Desmond Taylor
|
|
came to me one night and I was shown how he was killed. He was not happy and
|
|
could not rest because he knew that, while his death was accidental, someone
|
|
might at any time be arrested for his murder.
|
|
"The shadow of this thing is also hanging over the head of that innocent
|
|
little boy, and that is making Mr. Taylor sad. His spirit cannot rest."
|
|
Then pulling the shades in order to shut out as much light as possible
|
|
from her sitting room, the medium told how "a communication from beyond made
|
|
me acquainted with the facts" of the Los Angeles mystery.
|
|
"It was on last Friday night," she said. "The rain was pouring down and
|
|
I was sitting in here. Suddenly everything became quiet and I knew I was to
|
|
hear from someone outside--by that I mean from someone who has departed.
|
|
"In the window I could see the face of William Desmond Taylor. He seemed
|
|
to be unhappy for fear that justice was not being done, and his lips seemed
|
|
to say 'Tell the world the truth.' Then the face disappeared.
|
|
"Immediately it was replaced by one of a 4-year-old boy. The boy held a
|
|
pistol in his hand as though he was playing and said: 'I will shoot you.'
|
|
Then I heard a report and the face disappeared.
|
|
"Next voices from departed spirits began telling me all the details.
|
|
This little boy came in to play with Mr. Taylor, who liked children, and was
|
|
fooling with the pistol. He shot him while Mr. Taylor was sitting at a desk
|
|
with his back turned.
|
|
"I know who this boy is and I will tell unless his mother comes out
|
|
first. His mother is a famous moving picture actress." [11]
|
|
Mrs. Jones said that the next morning, Saturday, she wrote a letter to
|
|
the authorities in Los Angeles, "Fully explaining the mystery."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 13, 1922
|
|
CHICAGO HERALD-EXAMINER
|
|
Tips Flood Woolwine
|
|
Hundreds of anonymous tips bearing on the Taylor case are being received
|
|
by District Attorney Woolwine from all parts of the country by mail,
|
|
telephone and telegraph.
|
|
Many appear absurd, but each is checked.
|
|
Some of the tipsters go to great length to outline their theories. One
|
|
letter, in a feminine hand, read: "I dreamt last night Mr. Taylor was killed
|
|
by a fair-haired woman with a hooked nose. Find that woman and you have the
|
|
murderer."
|
|
Another from a woman: "Why don't you photograph the eyeballs of Taylor?
|
|
They always mirror the image of the last thing a person sees before death?"
|
|
"Thank you, madam," replied Mr. Woolwine. "We'll consider such a thing."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 21, 1922
|
|
CHARLESTON GAZETTE
|
|
Someone now says they dreamed that William Desmond Taylor was murdered
|
|
by a "blonde woman with a hook nose." We know of such a woman, but she was
|
|
never in Hollywood.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 23, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
Believers in spiritual communication, delvers into the occult, and those
|
|
who strive to penetrate into the realm of the unseen will be thrilled by an
|
|
announcement received from Boston today that the victim of the mysterious
|
|
film murder has been in verbal contact with an earthly human and that some of
|
|
the purported conversation centered on the mysterious slayer.
|
|
The announcement came to Los Angeles in a remarkable letter. News of the
|
|
efforts of local psychics to communicate with Taylor reached a woman in
|
|
Boston, and she, in her letter, states that previous to her receipt of this
|
|
information she had conversed with the director's spirit.
|
|
This Boston medium, who claims to discourse with spirits without the aid
|
|
of the familiar "trance" says:
|
|
"I was reared by parents of spiritualistic tendencies, so I am a natural
|
|
believer in those things spiritual. I get in touch with spirits that have
|
|
passed on easily, without trances.
|
|
"I have already 'had touch' with this man Taylor or Tanner. I asked him
|
|
which named he preferred and he answered, 'Never mind, dear lady.'
|
|
"Then I asked him, 'Who did the killing? Do you know?' He answered, 'Of
|
|
course I know. But I will not tell. Perhaps I am much to blame.'
|
|
"I asked him why he came to me and the answer was: 'I seek only rest and
|
|
peace. I find it near a stranger.'
|
|
"I asked him, 'Can you show yourself to me?' and he answered, 'No, for I
|
|
am naked. I am repenting.'
|
|
"I inquired if there were other souls who were not naked and he answered
|
|
that some come wrapped in a glory of light as a garment. 'But I have no
|
|
garment.'
|
|
" 'Why not go to those of shining aura?' I inquired and the answer was,
|
|
'Not now, presently. O, let me live awhile yet with those that walk in the
|
|
flesh.' "
|
|
Local psychics are communicating further with the Boston woman, with a
|
|
view to possible further alleged manifestations of Taylor's spirit.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 18, 1922
|
|
Leo Marsh
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
|
(New York)--While Hollywood and its environs are having considerable
|
|
trouble solving their recent murder murder mystery, Master Voros goes merrily
|
|
on his mind-reading way down at the New Amsterdam Roof, and the management is
|
|
seriously--so it asserts--considering a plan to turn him loose on the Taylor
|
|
case.
|
|
It appears Voros can read any one's mind by looking at the back of his
|
|
neck, and he even solves make-believe murder mysteries in the same way when
|
|
two or three members of the audience get their heads together and frame such
|
|
a circumstance.
|
|
If the young man can do this when there hasn't been any killing at all,
|
|
reasons the management, how much more easily will it be for him to unearth
|
|
the culprit when there has actually been a crime committed.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
October 4, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES TIMES
|
|
Spirit Has Real Dope on Killing
|
|
The murderer of William Desmond Taylor, motion-picture director slain
|
|
here last February, had better leave the country or confess, for the spirit
|
|
world is all riled up, and certain spirits intend to give the police the real
|
|
dope if the guilty party does not make a clean breast of things.
|
|
Yesterday afternoon an unknown medium telephoned to the office of
|
|
Private Detective Nick Harris, declared that Taylor's murderer was a woman,
|
|
the mother of a girl whom Taylor had wronged, and that the spirits were
|
|
determined to have the mystery cleared up. Harris himself vouches for the
|
|
authenticity of the telephone call, as do three police detectives, who were
|
|
in his office at the time.
|
|
The voice over the telephone said, in part:
|
|
"I decided last night to submit to spirit land and received this
|
|
message:
|
|
"That William Desmond Taylor was not murdered by a man but that he was
|
|
shot by a woman disguised as a man and who is prominently known in Los
|
|
Angeles. She has a daughter. The daughter, she believed, had been wronged by
|
|
Taylor. [12]
|
|
"The message further stated the spirits would not divulge the identity
|
|
of the mother for a certain period of time, but would give the guilty one an
|
|
opportunity to go before the authorities and make her confession and her plea
|
|
for self-preservation of her child's honor, and that no jury would convict
|
|
her of this crime after hearing her story.
|
|
"The voice of the spirit stated that if this warning is disregarded,
|
|
then the mother would be placed at the mercy of man-made laws, that her name
|
|
would be given to the world through this medium."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
August 1923
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Ghost stories are rare these days, but a real ghost story has caused a
|
|
lot of inconvenience to Douglas MacLean and his charming young wife. In fact,
|
|
'tis said, this ghost story caused them to rush their plans for building and
|
|
leave their Los Angeles home for the unhaunted precincts of Beverly Hills.
|
|
Mr. and Mrs. MacLean occupied an adjoining court-bungalow to that of
|
|
William D. Taylor, who was mysteriously murdered. Recently, Mrs. MacLean
|
|
began losing her colored servants. First one and then another would leave,
|
|
without apparent cause. Finally, it was discovered that all of them claimed
|
|
that at exactly the hour of Taylor's death every evening, they saw a ghost
|
|
hovering--a white and appealing ghost,--about the Taylor bungalow, and that
|
|
finally it would drift to the direction of the MacLean household. Douglas did
|
|
his best to locate the spook, but without success, so the MacLeans moved.
|
|
|
|
(to be continued)
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
NEXT ISSUE:
|
|
Mary Miles Minter vs. American Film Co.
|
|
"The Humor of a Hollywood Murder" Part 6:
|
|
Evil Hollywood, Hollywood Treads Softly, Editorial Contemplations
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
NOTES:
|
|
[1]Obviously Smith is referring to Mabel Normand.
|
|
[2]Mack Sennett, the producer of her most popular films.
|
|
[3]The other woman was actress Mae Busch. This confrontation took place in
|
|
September 1915.
|
|
[4]Clearly a reference to Wallace Reid, whose drug addiction would cause his
|
|
death within a year.
|
|
[5]The actress is Blanche Sweet, the director is Marshall Neilan.
|
|
[6]Undoubtedly a reference to what had happened to actor Frank Mayo.
|
|
[7]Germany, in particular, was experiencing tremendous inflation at this
|
|
time.
|
|
[8]Probably, Antonio Moreno.
|
|
[9]Mabel Normand subsequently denied Taylor had made this statement.
|
|
[10]This item appears to be directed at Mack Sennett.
|
|
[11]This item appears to be directed at Claire Windsor.
|
|
[12]This item is directed at Charlotte Shelby and was actually planted by
|
|
Detective Ed King. See "William Desmond Taylor: A Dossier" (Scarecrow,
|
|
1991), pp. 286-287.
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
For more information about Taylor, see
|
|
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
|
|
Back issues of Taylorology are available via Gopher or FTP at
|
|
etext.archive.umich.edu
|
|
in the directory pub/Zines/Taylorology
|