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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 23 -- November 1994 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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"The Colorful and Romantic Story of Wm. D. Taylor's Remarkable Life"
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Wallace Smith: February 21, 1922
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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 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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A new book, "Dateline Hollywood: Sins and Scandals of Yesterday and Today,"
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has been just been published by Friedman/Fairfax, written by Mark Drop.
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It includes a short recap of the Taylor case that is woefully error-filled
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(the author even misspells "Shelby" as "Selby" throughout). The author
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appears to be totally unaware of the books by Kirkpatrick, Giroux and Long,
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published within the last decade. The section on the Taylor case is
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worthless.
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"The Colorful and Romantic Story of Wm. D. Taylor's Remarkable Life"
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In the immediate aftermath of the Taylor murder, MOVIE WEEKLY
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commissioned Hollywood writer Truman B. Handy to write a biography of
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Taylor's life, which was serialized over five issues of the magazine. The
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articles were based on some fragments of biographical material which had
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appeared in the newspapers following Taylor's murder. Handy's imagination
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filled in the rest. The result is padded, highly fanciful and of limited
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value, containing many errors and transposed events. [1] (For more
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substantial information on Taylor's pre-Hollywood years, see A DEED OF DEATH;
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for information on his Hollywood years, see WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A
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DOSSIER.)
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But Handy's flawed series of articles--a "biography" without any dates--
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was still the most substantial biography of Taylor published in the first half
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of this century, and presently it is rather difficult to obtain copies. Thus
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it is reprinted below.
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March 18/April 15, 1922
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Truman B. Handy
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MOVIE WEEKLY
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The Colorful and Romantic Story of Wm. D. Taylor's Remarkable Life
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Part I
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One of the most colorful, romantic careers in the motion picture
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colony--a life as redolent with "atmosphere," brilliance and adventure as
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that of any novelistic hero--was cut short when an assassin's bullet ended
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the life of William Desmond Taylor, the director.
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Irish student, actor, engineer, Kansas ranchman, Klondike miner, art
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store proprietor, sportsman, director of photoplays and soldier in the World
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War was he.
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He dared the deepest, fullest experiences of life. Profound in its
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searchings, broad and sweeping in its range, courageous in its intimate
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contacts, his life history recounts the free, glorious adventures of a
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crusader in quest of an ideal--romance.
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And yet, while Taylor lived, he remained a grey man who subdued the
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brilliant color of his career into the most somber of hues. He was not a so-
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called man of mystery, yet even his friends cannot remember having heard him
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sing of the glories of the past.
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For he lived quietly, without affectation; steeped in the study of
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books; engrossed in the art of his work at the film studio. His desire to
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bury the dim shadows of his early life seemed paramount.
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He had even changed his name. And, taking no one into his fullest
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confidence, he lived in semi-reclusion.
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Yet he stands as romantic a character as either D'Artagnan or Napoleon,
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although when he lived he was a second John Ferguson--a man of dignity,
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integrity and careful self-repression.
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Even Taylor's childhood was surrounded with romance, although at such a
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time he was not known as Taylor. It was a pseudonym that he adopted some
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years later--his stage name. He was born a Deane-Tanner.
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The Deane-Tanner family is famous in Ireland. And, over it the hand of
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Fate seems to have hung heavily for generations. Records show that tragedy,
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violence, mystery followed the Deane-Tanners with peculiar uncanniness and
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marked each of the sons indelibly.
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The Los Angeles director--murdered in his bachelor apartment--was the
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son of Major William Deane-Tanner, of County Cork. In the father there was
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the same gallantry, the same desire for adventure that epitomized the life of
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the son. He was a constant, strong opponent of Irish home-rule--an old-line
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aristocrat--and many were the speeches he made from Unionist platforms.
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Yet, while his father was an aristocrat, Taylor--or William Cunningham
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Deane-Tanner, as he was then known--was temperamentally a democrat.
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As a child he was severely reprimanded by his father once for advocating
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democracy among the employees of Maj. Tanner's estate at Mallow, and when the
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stern parent once imposed a hardship upon young William's personal groom the
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youth surprised his family by announcing that hereafter he would attend to
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the full care of his horse himself.
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Family tradition decreed that William would study either medicine or law
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or engineering. The youth, on the other hand, secretly rebelled. Once he
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threatened to join a company of strolling players. His father's influence was
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brought to bear, however, and he was returned to school.
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Again, when Maj. Tanner discovered that his son was sponsoring an
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amateur theatrical "repertoire" company which comprised a group of Mallow's
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humble peasantry, he threatened to disinherit William if such unwonted
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actions were continued.
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Then, for the first time, young Deane-Tanner tried to enlist in the
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British Army. He was not exactly robust, however. The surgeons returned him
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to his home and told him he had a bad heart, and he secretly rebelled again
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and determined to live his own life as he chose.
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For some months thereafter he lived separate from his family in a small
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caretaker's house on the Tanner estate where he alternately studied and wrote
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and completed a play which, however, never saw the light of production.
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It is traditional for sons of upper-class England to be educated at the
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classical colleges, therefore the lad was sent to Clifton College for
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preparatory work in engineering.
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"But I don't wish to be an engineer!" he kept protesting. "I would
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rather--"
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He was never allowed to utter the word. It galled his family to think
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that he should look forward to the stage as a career. His mother was afraid
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he would marry an actress; his father revolted at the thought that anyone of
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his heritage should wear grease paint and crepe hair.
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In accordance with the utmost wishes of his parents William enrolled in
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college--but not under the family name.
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"I have changed my name," he wrote his mother, "because I do not wish to
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be shown any favoritism on account of my family. I want to rely on myself--my
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own exploits--the same as any other man who does not happen to be backed by
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family."
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It was then that he assumed the name of William Desmond Taylor. And,
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strange to say, the family did not register objections, recognizing for the
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first time this manifestation of his indomitable spirit.
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At college Taylor conducted himself very much after the fashion of Tom
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Brown at Oxford. During his first year he was a "fag" for a coterie of the
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older students, to whose whims he catered faithfully. [2] His second year,
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however, showed him to be a champion of his under-classmates, and his
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democratic utterances on various occasions caused a sensation in the school.
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"I hate this life," he wrote to his family. "It is one of prudery--silly
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snobbery and mawkish sophistry."
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Even the rigid routine of Clifton failed to kill his ambitions for
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theatricals. He became acquainted with various actors. Their life appealed to
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him. Not being a rampant idealist he did not particularly believe in the so-
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called "romance" of the theatre, for to him it was a business-like venture in
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which he found himself tremendously interested.
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Between his courses at Clifton he sojourned on the Continent. For a time
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he was a resident of the student quarter of Paris, the life of which,
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however, did not particularly appeal to him.
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"I am not a good Bohemian," Mr. Taylor reminisced, one evening shortly
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before his death, "I'm too practical."
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And to change his venue, he crossed the border into Germany, wandered
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for a time through the Teuton cities of Munich, Leipzig and Berlin--and
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finally settled himself for a term in Heidelberg with his studies.
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Shortly after his eighteenth birthday he was again in Manchester,
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working on an engineering project. Maj. Tanner, his father, urged him to join
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the engineering forces of His Majesty's army. And again came the examiners'
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report that, physically, he was unfit.
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To please his family and to satisfy himself that he could master a
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vocation even though it were unpleasant for him, the young Taylor continued
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engineering. One evening, at a supper party, an actor friend of his suggested
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that Taylor accompany him to a performance of "The Private Secretary," a
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popular stage success in which the English star, Sir Charles Hawtrey, was en
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tour.
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Between the acts, his friend took Taylor back stage. It was his first
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time "in the wings" of a really first-rate company. He was interested in
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everything he saw, and finally, when he was presented to Sir Charles, he
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asked for employment in the company.
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He was inexperienced, vastly verdant, in the ways of the theatre. Yet he
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had the appearance and mannerisms of a born actor. Hawtrey subjected him to a
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somewhat critical test and made him read lines from a play he had never seen
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before.
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When he had finished, however, the star complimented him--and agreed to
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take him to London with the company. After a series of arduous rehearsals,
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Taylor finally stepped onto the stage of the Avenue Theatre in his makeup. He
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played two parts. In the first act he was an old man and wore a heavy, grey
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beard. During the second act, however, he had a romantic, juvenile role--
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a mere bit.
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This London engagement was almost a success. It would have been if
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Taylor had not relinquished his first act beard. After the performance one
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night visitors to his dressing room were announced--friends of his family. He
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had qualms, for he realized what their discovery meant.
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He entertained them. They promised to say nothing to his father about
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his stage appearance. In another week, however, Maj. Tanner himself arrived
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at the theatre, violently angry. When he asked for his son, William
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Cunningham Deane-Tanner--a member of the company--the door-keeper shook his
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head and refused him admittance because, he said, there was no such actor in
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the cast.
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"But he's my son!" roared the irate parent, "and you'll let me see him
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or I'll have the King's army blow this place to pieces!"
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A merry scene took place, with the doorkeeper holding the stage entrance
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reverently. For once in his life Maj. Tanner found himself successfully
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opposed. Presently the stage door opened and Taylor emerged.
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Part II
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For a week Taylor entertained his father with the lore of the theatre;
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had him meet a number of the leading actors in London at that time--and
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conclusively proved that he was neither already married to an actress nor had
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any intention of being married to anyone "in the profession."
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Admittedly, Maj. Tanner liked the life behind the scenes. He even went
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so far as to say that he could understand how his son happened to like it.
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Yet, in the next breath, he begged William to leave the footlights, to return
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to the quiet, paternal acres near Mallow--to "settle down and make a man of
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himself."
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The young actor did not wish to oppose his father when he saw that there
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were tears in the elder man's eyes, but at the same time, his fascination for
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the stage had grown into a love for it.
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It was the turning point of his career.
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He begged his father's indulgence for the time being--until Hawtrey, at
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least, could rehearse another man in his part, but Maj. Tanner remained
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obdurate--parentally unreasonable--and spoke glowingly about the family honor
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and all that.
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Such talk failed to convince Taylor, and he spoke of going on tour with
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the Hawtrey company.
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"Leave the stage--for your mother's sake," at length pleaded the father.
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"Since she heard the news that you are playing in the theatre she is
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heartbroken. She can think of nothing else, and the worry is injuring her
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health."
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This reference to his mother moved the young actor where other arguments
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had failed. With sadness in his heart he handed in his resignation to Hawtrey
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and departed from London with his father.
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The quietude of the old peat-bogs, the lazy, unprogressive life of the
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Mallow citizenry palled on Taylor soon after he returned to the homestead
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estate. He became restless and hinted that he was going to depart again for
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distant parts.
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There was constant fear in the hearts of the Deane-Tanners that their
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scion would again play on the hated stage. Letters to Taylor from Hawtrey and
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other actors confirmed their suspicions that his theatrical desires were by
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no means dead.
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News had reached England that a colony for remittance men--the
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impecunious sons of leading families--had been successfully established in
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American at Harper, Kansas. Maj. Tanner invested in acreage there, and
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offered it to his son.
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There was a reason, however, why young Taylor did not then want to leave
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Mallow for America. It was unexpressed by him at that time--but when his
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father discovered it he became all the more determined that his son should do
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nothing unconventional to blot the family escutcheon.
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As far as the father of William D. Taylor was concerned, everything
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stood in readiness for the departure of his son from the Deane-Tanner
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homestead at Mallow, Ireland, to America and the remittance-men's colony at
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Harper, Kansas.
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But Major Deane-Tanner had not reckoned with the will and desires of the
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son who had so singularly "disgraced" his family by wanting to act on the
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stage, nor had he considered that, possibly, Taylor might be in love.
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It was, therefore, a considerable surprise to the stoic army officer
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when his son refused to accept evacuation orders from him.
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In those days, as in the later hours of his life, Taylor customarily
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gave his confidence to no one. During the time that he lived separate from
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his family in his caretaker's hut he saw little of his relatives during his
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reculsion from them. However, it did not necessarily mean that he completely
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isolated himself entirely from the rest of the world, nor that he would
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prohibit himself the society of the gentler sex.
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On the other hand, he turned romantic eyes in the direction of one of
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Mallow's "younger set," the daughter of a family of townspeople whose
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obscurity naturally precluded the possibility of their association with the
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aristocratic members of the Deane-Tanner clan.
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For generations old-time feudal spirit reigned in the hearts of the
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Deane-Tanners. In fact, some of Taylor's uncles had been known to have fought
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heroically for the hand and honor of some fair maiden, and, while Taylor
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belonged to a later and more modern generation, he was none the less
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chivalrous.
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When he returned to Mallow from his short sojourn on the stage with
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Hawtrey there was naturally a certain amount of discussion anent his
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"adventure" rampant among the townspeople, and several feminine hearts
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commenced to beat faster, and various traps were set to ensnare the
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attentions of the handsome young actor.
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On a pilgrimage into town there occurred the meeting that was destined
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to leave its deep impress on young Taylor's heart. Its circumstances were
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quite unconvential--yet quite as harmless as other circumstances of his life.
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And they proved conclusively that Sir Walter Raleigh's w.k. gallantry toward
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the fair Elizabeth was none the more gallant than Taylor's exploit with a
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humble village girl.
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One lazy afternoon, when the sun hung warm over Ireland and the odor of
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the peat bogs filled the air, Taylor set out from his hut for a walk into
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town. He had been at work on his play, and, as is frequently the case with
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authors, had come to a stumbling-block in the construction of its plot. His
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heroine was in danger! Her hero knew it and had started to help her--but
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Taylor, the author, could think of no way in which to get the young woman out
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of the difficulty, and his mind was reaching into practically every possible
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cavern of thought. He was in a brown study, a mental complex, and his steps
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toward town were mechanical, absent-minded.
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Suddenly, however, he perceived that he was crossing a stream through
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which he would have to wade to continue his journey. And, unromantically
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enough, he removed his brogans and socks, and proceeded to step into the cool
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water. He had hardly entered it when he observed, a few feet ahead of him,
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the distressing sight of a pretty girl marooned mid-stream in a cart one of
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whose wheels had broken. She was frightened herself and yet trying to calm
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her equally-frightened mule, and, between the antics of the mule and the
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broken cartwheel, she was having considerable difficulty in keeping the
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conveyance from tipping her bodily into the splashing brook.
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Taylor quickly realized the situation, and making a dash to the side of
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the cart, lifted the young lady bodily from it and carried her in his arms
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across the stream.
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His heroism had its impress. Also be it known that the colleen was
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traditionally pretty, and that after she had walked with her rescuer into the
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village she had cast a romantic spell over him.
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Form then on, through days and weeks the romance flourished and grew.
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Taylor spoke of marriage, but his words were never taken seriously. All
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through the spring and summer the two remained sweethearts, and the youth,
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who was then in his early twenties, spoke to the girl of taking her to Canada
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and of there making his fortune.
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His romance he kept secret from his parents for he knew the attitude
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they would take toward a member of their family who would consort with one of
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the peasantry. But, to Taylor, the village girl represented his ideal, and,
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furthermore, at heart he was a democrat.
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To get money with which to marry and take his bride safely to Canada he
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resolved once again to try enlistment in the British army. This latter fact
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he told his father, who arranged for him to be sent to the recruiting station
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at Sandhurst. Both the physical and mental tests were then extremely rigid
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and for some reason he again failed to pass.
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While he was away at the army school, his father got wind of his
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romance. It infuriated him beyond words and he made a resolve to break it up.
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His first step was to visit the girl and her family and to forbid her to see
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Taylor again. The second step was to go to see his son at Sandhurst.
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But before he could get to the recruiting school, Taylor, disconsolate,
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dejected, returned to Mallow with the news that he had failed to pass the
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examination. With his father already in a surly mood his homecoming was
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unfortunate. Maj. Tanner met him with a scowl, and mocked him for his
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weakness.
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"You are dishonorable in love," he railed, "a disgrace to your family
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and all that, but you aren't man enough to get into His Majesty's service.
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You couldn't be a man--and yet you are a Deane-Tanner!"
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The insinuation stung Taylor. He could see, from the attitude of his
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family, that he was in disgrace among them. Even his mother's demeanor had
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changed, and he felt that he was merely being tolerated.
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He determined to seek consolation in his sweetheart and went to the
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village to see her. When he got there, however, he found that her family had
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moved and left no whereabouts--and he later learned that this was an act of
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his father's, for Maj. Tanner had paid them to move to another village many
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miles distant.
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His spirit broken, his honor as a man impugned, Taylor returned to his
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home. Maj. Tanner was still irreconcilable and hinted that it would be
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better, perhaps, if William were to take up his abode for a time in London--
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out of sight of his mother and sisters.
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It was impossible for Taylor to again live among his former friends with
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a stigma upon him, however. Not that he was necessarily ostracised from his
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family--his father's wish that he live in London was a more or less temporary
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solution of the "problem," rather than an actual banishment of his son--but
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Taylor felt, nevertheless, that it might be well for him to take advantage of
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his father's former offer to send him to the newly-founded colony in America.
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When he left England it was with a resolve never again to return to the
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heart of his family, nor, in fact, would he permit his family to bid him
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adieu at the sailing of his boat from Liverpool.
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Other sons of British families were en route to America with him. Two of
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the chaps and Taylor formed a friendly triumvirate, each bearing in mind a
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certain formula of ideals relative to what he would do in Kansas.
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The idea of being a farmer--of tilling his own soil--from the first was
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somewhat odious to Taylor. He had been reared a gentleman, and, while a
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democrat in spirit, the prospect of manual labor as a means of livelihood did
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not appeal strongly to him.
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One of his shipboard acquaintances intended seeking his fortune in New
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York, being of the opinion that America's streets were paved with dollars,
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easy for the picking. He urged Taylor to enter into a land-selling venture
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with him.
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"When I first came to America," the late director once told me, "I fully
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believed that everywhere we would see Indians, baseball players and multi-
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millionaires. It was, therefore, a shock to me when I first discovered New
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York to be as busy a place as London--also when I realized that an English
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pound bought far less articles than at home."
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|
In New York he lived in a small boarding house that housed a group of
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actors. Gradually he came to know them.
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"We used to eat at the same table," he said, "where everyone had to
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reach and struggle for food. If anybody were late to meals he stood little
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chance of getting anything to eat. It was a case of the survival of the
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fittest and I soon got so that I could grab equally as well as my table
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companions."
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|
All because of a plate of potatoes he "fell in" with the actors. The
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manager of the troupe had come in late to dinner one evening, and when he sat
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at the table he found that all he could get to eat would be dessert. In his
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calm, courteous manner Taylor offered the man part of his own dinner,
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consisting largely of potatoes. The man accepted and a friendship sprung up,
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and Taylor was invited to the theatre to watch the company from the wings.
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One evening he was visiting, when it was discovered that the stage
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"heavy" had been taken ill. No one in the company could fill his part. Taylor
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had, it happened, been reading the play only the night before. When
|
|
consternation reigned among the players, when it seemed as if the evening's
|
|
performance were ruined, he offered his services. They were accepted and he
|
|
went on that evening. Part of the time he was prompted from the wings--but he
|
|
managed to get through the performance creditably, with the result that the
|
|
show's manager offered him a permanent berth with the company, which was
|
|
scheduled to go on tour through the provinces.
|
|
This offer, however, he did not accept, for he was offered a salary so
|
|
small that, even in the late '90's, it was impossible as a living wage. It
|
|
was indeed fortunate for Taylor that he did not undertake the engagement, for
|
|
the company failed hopelessly the fourth day out and its members came
|
|
sneaking back into New York to seek other and perhaps more lucrative work.
|
|
Instead, Taylor started for Kansas. When he got there he was hopelessly
|
|
disappointed in the Englishmen's colony at Harper. The town itself was small
|
|
and unattractive. A number of the remittance men--all well-born and well-
|
|
bred, but incapable of actually supporting themselves by their own efforts--
|
|
were living in comparative poverty. All were discouraged and longed to get
|
|
back to Britain, but Taylor did not permit this fully to discourage him.
|
|
His acreage, bought for him by his father, was unimproved. He ordered
|
|
lumber and started the work of building himself a house.. When he had
|
|
finished this he set about planting a small kitchen garden. Many nights he
|
|
went to bed with blistered hands and aching, tired muscles--but after several
|
|
weeks, the garden was finally planted and Taylor settled down to note its
|
|
growth.
|
|
The extensive knowledge that he had of literature, of art, of culture in
|
|
general, stood him in good stead. He found that he could augment his
|
|
allowance from home by making speeches and delivering lectures, and finally
|
|
he began to enjoy the society of the Harperites, meager as it was.
|
|
Just as he was on the verge of harvesting his first season's crop,
|
|
however, something happened which came as a decided set-back. He had already
|
|
arranged for the disposal of the greater portion of his garden produce and
|
|
would shortly make a delivery. Came a drought, however, and he was forced to
|
|
sit by--together with other unfortunate farmers--and watch his produce
|
|
shrivel and dry, but he took the matter philosophically and started in once
|
|
again to replant his acreage. Other Englishmen, his neighbors, were becoming
|
|
discouraged. Several returned to their native hearths. Others drifted away
|
|
and were not heard of again.
|
|
Perhaps, in his heart, Taylor wished that he, likewise, could leave
|
|
Harper never to return, but his bank account was small and he determined not
|
|
to write home for more money. He was sowing his crop and waiting to harvest
|
|
it, not knowing whether or not his slender finances would pull him through
|
|
until the harvest time. It looked as if they would not, and he was commencing
|
|
to worry.
|
|
His entire life has been marked, it seems, by the hand of Fate. Whenever
|
|
he did not apparently know where to turn for help it would invariably come.
|
|
And when he needed it most during those dreary days in Kansas, it was on his
|
|
way to him.
|
|
But again it was the stage, and although he did not realize the fact, he
|
|
was destined again to return to the boards, for, in the Fanny Davenport
|
|
company there was a vacant berth which his talents fitted Taylor to fill.
|
|
|
|
Part III
|
|
|
|
Ranch life in Kansas--eighteen months of it in an Englishmen's
|
|
remittance colony--however alluring to native-born sons of the soil,
|
|
singularly failed to appeal to the more sophisticated sensibilities of
|
|
William D. Taylor.
|
|
He was not anxious to play again in theatricals, yet there was that
|
|
inherent histrionic instinct in him that made life away from the footlights
|
|
miserable for him. Perhaps it was the lack of adventure, of romance, that the
|
|
prosaic farm-life in Kansas afforded, but...
|
|
Fanny Davenport, the famous American actress of more than a decade ago,
|
|
was on tour with her repertoire company. Perchance she ventured into the
|
|
mists of Harper, the small town of which Taylor and his English associates
|
|
were residents. Her advent there was like a light in the clearing, for first-
|
|
class theatrical attractions were almost unknown in the Middle West a few
|
|
years ago.
|
|
And Taylor was enthralled. On her first night appearance he viewed her
|
|
from a first-row seat as she played "La Tosca." Even though her stage scenery
|
|
was somewhat worn by time and travel; even though Taylor could clearly see
|
|
the makeup on the actors' faces; even though he knew that, in reality, the
|
|
play was merely a play--he felt himself gripped by a strange, unconquerable
|
|
longing--the same desire to express himself that he had felt a few months
|
|
before when he stood in the wings and asked Sir Charles Hawtrey for a chance
|
|
to play on the stage.
|
|
After the performance a reception was held in Miss Davenport's honor,
|
|
and Taylor, being one of Harper's more prominent citizens, was, of course,
|
|
invited. He met the lovely star face-to-face and talked with her. And, of
|
|
course, expressed his appreciation of her performance.
|
|
"It was terrible!" she replied, looking a bit troubled. "We've just lost
|
|
one of our actors and, as you know, it's hard to find another out here in
|
|
Kansas."
|
|
Taylor was electrified. Again, the hand of Fate! Here was a chance for
|
|
him, perhaps, to get back into theatricals.
|
|
Yet, could he openly defy his father's wishes? Could he rightfully re-
|
|
enter a profession upon which his entire family looked with such utter
|
|
condemnation?
|
|
For the moment he kept turning the question over and over in his mind.
|
|
He was perplexed--because he wanted to ask Miss Davenport to give him a
|
|
trial. Precisely what he did.
|
|
"I felt at the time," he told some Los Angeles friends shortly before
|
|
his death, "that Fate decreed I should re-enter the show business. I knew my
|
|
family would be displeased--but, after all, was I not separated from them by
|
|
an ocean and several thousand miles? And hadn't they wished for that
|
|
separation?"
|
|
It was this process of reasoning that prompted him to apply to Miss
|
|
Davenport in the hopes of filling the missing actor's place.
|
|
"Can you play Mario in my 'Tosca'?" she inquired sweetly, and added,
|
|
"I believe you can. I believe you could do anything you really wanted to do!"
|
|
"Thanks," he answered. He was too dumbfounded to say more.
|
|
The star then wrote something on a card and handed it to him. This would
|
|
assure him of her sincerity. And would he kindly come to rehearsal the next
|
|
morning? For it would be necessary for him to play that night in "Gismonda."
|
|
When he arrived, more or less excited, at the theatre, he found that
|
|
Fanny Davenport herself had attended to the matter of his stage costumes.
|
|
However, Taylor's predecessor was a man of medium stature, portly and
|
|
altogether in physical contradistinction to him, for Taylor was tall, robust
|
|
and inclined to be thin.
|
|
And the "Gismonda" costumes, originally tailored to the lines of their
|
|
former wearer, reached not quite to his knees! The farther the rehearsal
|
|
progressed, the more ridiculous Taylor looked in his skin-tight wardrobe.
|
|
Something would have to be done--and yet Taylor would have to take the entire
|
|
time for the remainder of the day to study his role even though it was not a
|
|
vastly important one.
|
|
Their sojourn in America, in a portion of the country where conveniences
|
|
were considered as luxuries, had taught a number of the English residents of
|
|
Harper to perform innumerable useful tasks that formerly would have seemed
|
|
ambiguous. One of Taylor's friends, in addition to farming, had learned the
|
|
art of tailoring as an avocation. It was to him that Taylor went--and while
|
|
the man lengthened here, padded there, and shortened another portion of the
|
|
costumes, Taylor studied his part for the night's performance. Half the time
|
|
he was standing, modeling, for his costume fitting while, at the same time
|
|
his script in hand, he learned his lines and cues.
|
|
When other members of the company, tired by travel, became discouraged,
|
|
Taylor invariably cheered them or sympathized with them. When the character
|
|
woman had trouble with her husband--a stage hand with the company--and
|
|
threatened to divorce him, it was Taylor who played the role of mediator and
|
|
got the couple to settle their differences.
|
|
But at the same time, there were various instances of levity experienced
|
|
as well as of gravity. For instance, in a small Pacific Coast town where the
|
|
company were presenting "Fedora," "Cheopatra" and "Joan of Arc" in one-night
|
|
succession, three hotel associates of Taylor's invited him to sit in with
|
|
them on a card game. They had hardly commenced to play, the money pot had
|
|
hardly commenced to boil, when a visitor rapped on the door.
|
|
The person proved to be a middle-aged, nervous woman whose appearance
|
|
was disheveled.
|
|
"I came," she faltered, "to borrow your drinking-water glass."
|
|
"Certainly!" said Taylor, postponing the game for a moment to get it for
|
|
her.
|
|
A few moments later she rapped again and was admitted. She wanted more
|
|
water. A third and a fourth time she came and went, and finally knocked a
|
|
fifth time. By this time the men's curiosity was thoroughly aroused.
|
|
"What," inquired Taylor, "did you want all those glassfuls of water
|
|
for?"
|
|
For a moment she seemed reluctant to tell.
|
|
"Well, you see, I'm living up on the fourth floor where we ain't got no
|
|
water, and bein' as my lace curtains took fire, I thought I'd just borry you
|
|
gentleman's water glass to put it out with."
|
|
The tour was a long one, from one end of the continent to the other.
|
|
Taylor's acting experiences were always progressive and he became a popular
|
|
favorite with both his audiences and his public. In the theatre he was a
|
|
diplomat and a statesman. Outside of it, however, he indulged in none of the
|
|
customary pastimes of the average traveling actor, but, instead, he occupied
|
|
himself with a serious study of books and art.
|
|
While in Portland, Oregon, he heard a group of men discussing the newly-
|
|
opened Alaskan gold fields. Here was a new type of adventure! New worlds to
|
|
conquer! New riches! And, after all, romance! The men, it seemed were making
|
|
up an expedition into the Klondike. Taylor watched their preparations,
|
|
listened to their conversations--heard them tell of wonderful, ice-covered
|
|
bonanzas--and longed to be with them. One of the men offered him a berth, but
|
|
his theatrical contract withheld him.
|
|
In Boston Taylor closed his engagement with the Davenport company,
|
|
having been with the organization some three years. He was offered an
|
|
engagement with a stock company in Chicago, and started for there. But,
|
|
however, his finances were low, and when he arrived in St. Paul in company
|
|
with a man who was desirous of opening a lunch counter, he accepted the
|
|
proposition and stepped into a new character.
|
|
The restaurant venture proved a bugbear. Just at a time when it
|
|
commenced to be a paying proposition, his partner decamped with the profits
|
|
and, again, he was thrown out of funds. His spirit now seemed almost broken,
|
|
and St. Paul, to him, was a nightmare. Whereupon he departed from the twin
|
|
city and arrived, practically penniless, in Chicago.
|
|
A friend there noted his plight, but this man, too, was in straits.
|
|
Together they secured a position canvassing in country towns--selling one of
|
|
those pneumatic "household necessities" that every housewife wants. The
|
|
Chicago agent was a kindly soul and gave them four dollars advance.
|
|
It happened that both Taylor and his companion were good gamblers. Not
|
|
that that time-honored profession had been anything more to Taylor hitherto
|
|
than a mere pastime. Yet, however, its ancient mesmerism has helped many a
|
|
man out of the gravest debt.
|
|
And so, with their four dollars in their pockets, Taylor and his friend
|
|
went into one of Chicago's Loop gambling halls. A crap game was in progress
|
|
and both entered themselves and their money. When the stakes were counted it
|
|
was discovered that each had won considerable--enough to buy them the
|
|
necessities they both needed. Again the hand of Fate!
|
|
Both Taylor and his friend had pawned their overcoats. It was bitter
|
|
cold, an incentive for the men to awaken the pawnbrokers. This they did, and
|
|
with overcoats again on their backs, they set out to feed themselves.
|
|
Just as he was not destined to be a farmer, Taylor found that canvassing
|
|
small towns for "household necessities" was not his forte.
|
|
He had been born with a bent for sketching and drawing, and, before in
|
|
his life, he had made crayon portraits of his friends. It occurred to him to
|
|
try to capitalize on this talent, when he found that it was impossible for
|
|
him to locate successfully with a theatrical company in Chicago.
|
|
He rented a studio, bought a few dollars' worth of drawing material and
|
|
started out to make his fortune. One of his ordinary drawings cost him forty-
|
|
five cents to produce. On its completion, he would set out to sell it. Some
|
|
days he made large sums of money, and, inside of two months, he had made
|
|
enough to go to Milwaukee and there to become the owner of an art store.
|
|
In Milwaukee the dapper, continental-looking young man soon became a
|
|
town personality, for he dressed like a Beau Brummel and had all the
|
|
mannerisms of a European courtier. But the art business in Milwaukee was not
|
|
good, and he left once again for New York to open his shop on fashionable
|
|
Fifth Avenue.
|
|
There was one song which expresses Taylor's philosophy, and as follows,
|
|
it is one which he customarily sang whenever he felt particularly ebullient.
|
|
During his days in the New York art colony he sang it often, for his sojourn
|
|
in Gotham was a happy one. It reads:
|
|
|
|
Oh, my name is Pat O'Leary,
|
|
From a spot called Tipperary;
|
|
The heart of all the girls I am a thorn in.
|
|
But before the break of morn,
|
|
Faith 'tis they will be all forlorn.
|
|
For I am off for Philadelphia in the morning.
|
|
|
|
CHORUS
|
|
With me bundle on me shoulder,
|
|
Faith there's no man could be boulder.
|
|
For I am leaving dear old Ireland, without warning;
|
|
For I have lately took the notion,
|
|
For to cross the briny ocean.
|
|
And I'm off for Philadelphia in the morning.
|
|
|
|
There's a girl called Kate Malone,
|
|
Whom I hope to call my own,
|
|
And to see one little cabin place adorning;
|
|
But me heart is sad and weary,
|
|
How can she be "Mrs." Leary,
|
|
If I start for Philadelphia in the morning.
|
|
|
|
CHORUS
|
|
|
|
When they tould me I should lave the place,
|
|
I tried to have a cheerful face.
|
|
For to show me hearts deep sorrow I was scorning.
|
|
But the tears will surely blind me
|
|
For the friends I lave behind me,
|
|
When I start for Philadelphia in the morning.
|
|
|
|
CHORUS
|
|
|
|
For though me bundle's on me shoulder,
|
|
And though no one could be boulder,
|
|
I am leaving now the spot that I was born in.
|
|
Yet some day I'll take the notion
|
|
To come back across the ocean
|
|
To me home in dear old Ireland, in the morning.
|
|
--Words and music by Robert Martin.
|
|
|
|
His art shop netted him sufficient royalties for him to indulge in
|
|
society and sportsmanship. He became a member of the yacht club at Larchmont,
|
|
and his week-ends would be spent there and on cruises. A number of New York's
|
|
wealthiest men were there, and, at one time, a party, including Taylor,
|
|
planned a cruise around the world.
|
|
Once, F. Augustus Heinze, the copper magnate, hurried into the club
|
|
announcing that he had bought a new ocean-going yacht, and inviting various
|
|
of his friends, among them Taylor, to accompany him on a cruise to the
|
|
Mediterranean. His invitation was accepted, and his guests began making
|
|
plans, but, at the last minute, Mr. Heinze was informed by his chief steward
|
|
that the vessel's bunkers would hold only coal enough for a trip of 300
|
|
miles! This was an experience that Taylor would traditionally recite--and in
|
|
several instances he applied it to film personages whom he was directing,
|
|
when they would affect the so-called actorial "temperament."
|
|
It was while he was a prominent luminary in the New York art and sport
|
|
circles that he became acquainted with the girl who was later to become his
|
|
wife.
|
|
He had seen her in the original "Floradora" company, met her and wooed
|
|
her. For some reason Taylor and the girl, Miss Ethel May Harrison, chose to
|
|
be married secretly. No one except the bride's mother was to be admitted into
|
|
confidence until they should have sailed on their honeymoon trip to Dublin.
|
|
But the news of the marriage became known, and when its principals were on
|
|
the verge of departing they were surprised by a ceremony.
|
|
His wife was known in New York as a very accomplished young woman who
|
|
had been brilliantly educated by her father before her entrance into
|
|
theatricals. Taylor was handsome, gallant, popular. Hence, the match was one
|
|
of note.
|
|
The couple traveled to some extent, and finally to them was born a
|
|
daughter, Miss Ethel Daisy Deane-Tanner, who now remains as her father's heir
|
|
and is a student in a fashionable young ladies' finishing school on the
|
|
Hudson.
|
|
For some reason, which Taylor carried untold with him to his grave, his
|
|
marriage was not a success. A few months after the birth of his daughter he
|
|
commenced to drink heavily. Business cares seemingly did not trouble him. He
|
|
was entertained lavishly in society and his prominence in art and sport
|
|
circles continued.
|
|
But, however, he became known as a "heavy drinker." It was noted at one
|
|
of the Vanderbilt Cup Races which he attended that he was a bit inebriated.
|
|
For several days thereafter he disappeared and nothing was heard from until
|
|
he telephoned his office from a hotel asking that $600 be sent to him
|
|
immediately.
|
|
For what silent purpose he desired that money, which was at once
|
|
delivered to him, he never divulged. But, having received it, he removed his
|
|
effects from the hotel, gave no further address, and departed.
|
|
A search for him was instituted. Nowhere could he be found--and some of
|
|
his friends suspected foul play. But the fact remained that he had gone, and
|
|
for many months there was no word received from him.
|
|
|
|
IV
|
|
|
|
In a room of a far downtown New York hotel, a worn, anxious man showing
|
|
the aftereffects of intoxication, paced the floor nervously. He would walk to
|
|
the window ever so often and look out. He seemed to be expecting someone.
|
|
A knock on the door...he is nervous, yet cheered. It is a
|
|
messenger...and William D. Taylor, the expectant, seems gladdened.
|
|
The messenger brought him what, a short while before, he had telephoned
|
|
to his office for--six hundred dollars. The money, in greenbacks, he pocketed
|
|
eagerly, and he could hardly wait for the messenger to depart before he took
|
|
his hat and also departed.
|
|
For blocks he walked--down through crowded business streets, small by-
|
|
ways where sidewalk peddlers hawked their wares, narrow alleys where
|
|
tenements flanked the sidewalks and children played noisily, dirtily, in the
|
|
streets. At length he reached the waterfront--and it was there, among the
|
|
dross, that he intended to seek solace for the time being from his inner
|
|
woes.
|
|
Taylor was worried. For several days past he had been drinking rather
|
|
heavily. Trouble with his wife, certain of his friends asserted. But this
|
|
pilgrimage of his into the slums was not necessarily a new thing for him,
|
|
for, frequently in those days, he would relieve his mind of its varied cares
|
|
by participating in the life the "other half" of society lives.
|
|
On numerous other occasions--on other pilgrimages--he had thus communed
|
|
with his less fortunate brothers. Throughout his entire life, however, he
|
|
never regarded wayward humanity as beneath notice. Other artists, at other
|
|
times, have communed likewise--and, like him--have returned to their uptown
|
|
habitations mentally refreshed and spiritually enlivened for their contact
|
|
with the other half's suffering.
|
|
There were wharvesmen on the Battery who used to call Taylor "Bill."
|
|
And, in tiny Washington Square, there was even a gin-sotted old woman who
|
|
referred to the handsome art connoisseur as "her son," for he befriended her
|
|
at a moment when a policeman was on the verge of arresting her as a vagrant.
|
|
With the shades of early evening falling, with the lights of boats in
|
|
the river twinkling on the water, Taylor sought refuge in a "joint" wherein
|
|
corned beef and cabbage formed a questionably delectable menu for the lower
|
|
strata of New York's humanity. He was seated at a table eating and drinking;
|
|
various acquaintances, knowing that he would have money to "stand treat,"
|
|
joined him--and a good-natured revelry ensued wherein Taylor was host to as
|
|
varied an aggregation of types as could be possibly found. Some were already
|
|
in their cups, and he was the merry toastmaster, singing his "Pat O'Leary"
|
|
song and getting them to join in the chorus.
|
|
And the party continued until late. He arose to go and paid for his
|
|
"feed," and when he walked out of the establishment two dark-visaged men who
|
|
had been standing by, watching him--men who had not joined in his merry-
|
|
making--followed.
|
|
Up dark streets he picked his way, headed for the more happy section of
|
|
New York that was his home. Around a corner...into an alley...a short
|
|
cut...hurried, muffled steps behind him...a sudden blow...and Taylor fell to
|
|
the sidewalk, stunned...two men going through his pockets.
|
|
Having robbed him of his remaining greenbacks, the thugs picked him up
|
|
and carried him back up the alley, through other alleys--and eventually to a
|
|
wharf where a wind-beaten schooner lay with the muddy waters of the East
|
|
River lapping its sides. They took him into a darkened hole below decks and
|
|
left him to revive--and when he came to, he could hear the pounding of waters
|
|
on wooden ship walls, and could realize that he had been--shanghaied.
|
|
The trip was a long one, months in the making. The ship, a "tramp,"
|
|
sailed at random into many ports on many seas. Africa, the Canary Islands and
|
|
the Mediterranean were included in its itinerary, and Taylor had become used
|
|
to the seaman's hard labor lot to which he had unwittingly fallen.
|
|
At an African port he had an opportunity to leave the ship, but the life
|
|
appealed to him and he stuck to its standards. There were other landings made
|
|
and other seas sailed--and, finally, one day, the weather-scarred "tramp" put
|
|
into the harbor at Portland, Ore.
|
|
With money in his pockets, new life in his body, Taylor set about
|
|
rehabilitating himself according to his precepts of a gentleman. He heard of
|
|
a repertoire company forming to play in Eastern cities, and, by virtue of his
|
|
past experience with Fanny Davenport, was able to qualify as one of its
|
|
actors.
|
|
But, on arriving in Montreal, he found that the fortunes of the company
|
|
were not altogether lucrative. The actors fought among themselves, and
|
|
discord reigned generally.
|
|
A group of men were making plans for a trip into the Klondike, where
|
|
gold offered alluring enticements--sufficient reward for the hardships that
|
|
an Alaskan expedition would surely bring forth.
|
|
But Taylor was used to hardships. In his heart was the continual desire
|
|
for adventure, and he felt that no hardships that he would experience on a
|
|
gold-hunting expedition could in any way compare with those he had rather
|
|
recently undergone as a seaman on the tramp schooner.
|
|
He set out from Montreal via the famous "long route" across Canada.
|
|
Eventually he found himself crossing the Canadian Rockies--and still he and
|
|
his fellow voyagers kept on.
|
|
History tells of the rough-and-tumble assortment of characters that went
|
|
into the Klondike in those boom days. There were the dregs of humanity and
|
|
the dross of civilization gone "north of 53" to seek their fortune, but
|
|
Taylor was undaunted. He had met rough people before in his life; in fact, he
|
|
enjoyed the freshness of their viewpoint, the primitive quality of their
|
|
inherent conventions.
|
|
At first he worked with other prospectors in the ice-clad Alaskan
|
|
fields. Later, however, he found it to his advantage to keep a store for
|
|
miners, and this proved to be a bonanza for him. In Nome he fell ill with
|
|
typhus fever and nearly died, and, weakened, he began to yearn once again for
|
|
his home in the States. With a small fortune in his pockets he returned, and
|
|
finally made his way to Boston, where he was a member of the famous Castle
|
|
Garden theatre company.
|
|
But at that time of his life--when he was merging from youth into the
|
|
fullest of manhood--when he had found his ideals alternately strengthened and
|
|
shaken, shaken and strengthened--he could not control his desire to see the
|
|
land of the midnight sun. Alaska seemed to be in his blood.
|
|
And, beside, he was embittered, made sorrowful by the outcome of his
|
|
marriage, for he learned that his wife had divorced him.
|
|
Again he set out for the frozen north; and again do we find him fighting
|
|
in the eternal struggle of mankind for his stake. The scratching of the earth
|
|
for its gold did not directly appeal to him and, in Dawson, a town that had
|
|
sprung up mushroom-like and comprised only the most basic fundamentals of
|
|
civilization, Taylor soon came to be known as "the man who could play a
|
|
banjo."
|
|
But he had both ability and ambition. Merely playing a banjo--even
|
|
though its metallic tones brought him ready money from the amusement-hungry
|
|
denizens of the north country--failed to satisfy him. The proprietor of a
|
|
small theatre, wherein a company of stock actors labored, unceasingly,
|
|
recognized, in Taylor, a man who could carry on the work successfully.
|
|
He was engaged as producer and stage director. Often he would act--and,
|
|
frequently, he would paint the scenery to suit his requirements.
|
|
None of the old sourdoughs who are now scattered throughout the country,
|
|
living on the wealth they amassed in those days, are impressed by a name so
|
|
imposing as William Desmond Taylor. But they all remember him as "Bill," who
|
|
produced what they considered very high-class plays at "Arizona Charley's"
|
|
popular house. Some recall him as Jimmy Taylor--and, to others, he was known
|
|
as 'Gene.
|
|
But, according to an old miner acquaintance of Taylor's, the carefully-
|
|
groomed, reserved, quiet Englishman harbored a secret sorrow, which, with
|
|
him, was deep and everlasting.
|
|
And it was apparent to his two housemates, a prospector and a poet, both
|
|
of whom had gone north to recoup lost wealth and fortunes. He would work at
|
|
his theatre until late at night and frequently, on arriving home, would be
|
|
steeped in deep thought.
|
|
But he never divulged the reason for that sorrow--and persons who knew
|
|
him could only sense what he was suffering by the deep sighs that
|
|
occasionally made themselves heard, much against his wishes.
|
|
For Taylor's was "a grief that you can't control," to use the phrase of
|
|
a poet.
|
|
The money Taylor made in the north he invested unwisely in the United
|
|
States. Came a letter to him one day telling him that his presence was needed
|
|
in San Francisco. As silently as he had slipped into Alaska, he slipped out
|
|
of it. Perhaps, he kept thinking, he could live quietly in the States on his
|
|
earnings--perhaps...!
|
|
But, as the hand of tragedy has pointed so poignantly in his direction
|
|
all through his life, so does it point again toward him. For, in San
|
|
Francisco, his solicitors informed him that he had lost his savings.
|
|
He was penniless!
|
|
Again there was that heart-rending search for work--something, anything,
|
|
to do to keep food in his mouth and a roof over his head. And yet even though
|
|
his talents were many, he suffered horrible privations for days, for work was
|
|
scarce.
|
|
Finally he met Harry Corson Clarke, the globetrotting actor, who was
|
|
preparing to take his company on tour to the Hawaiian Islands. He offered the
|
|
down-and-out man a chance, once again, to return to the stage, and Taylor
|
|
took it. Nevertheless, his craving for the money-fields of Alaska had not
|
|
been stilled. He told his employer tales of the northern Eldorado--of the
|
|
chances a man had to rehabilitate himself in the graces of his God and his
|
|
fellow men. And further, he would say that he had a claim "up there" that he
|
|
wanted money to work--a claim that would make him fabulously rich if he could
|
|
but get sufficient backing to open it.
|
|
Always with this ambition of getting fabulously rich in mind, he set
|
|
sail for Honolulu with the Clarke aggregation. Rehearsals were in progress
|
|
while the boat journey was being made, and by the time the company reached
|
|
their mid-Pacific destination, the show was ready to go on.
|
|
For a month Taylor acted in the play. And then, one day, he learned that
|
|
carpenters were needed to help build a new theatre which was in course of
|
|
construction.
|
|
Alaska! His dream of getting money to work his claim.
|
|
Once again did his mind revert to these musings. And, to earn more money-
|
|
-or, as he afterward said, to "bring Alaska some months nearer"--he got work
|
|
as a carpenter.
|
|
It was a trying ordeal, this working by day with hammer and saw and
|
|
acting in the theatre at night, but Taylor did it for the remaining two
|
|
months that Clarke played in Honolulu.
|
|
His one thought--his sole ambition--was then to make a success of his
|
|
mining claim in far-off Alaska. But, even though he had worked unceasingly
|
|
for three months, he had worked only for three months, and his earnings were
|
|
insufficiently great to enable him more than to make a start at getting his
|
|
bonanza started.
|
|
He was in San Francisco, again casting about for lucrative employment--
|
|
again beginning to yearn for the ice-fields--and again setting out to conquer
|
|
new worlds. In New York he had been friendly with the family of an actress,
|
|
and Fate would have it that that same family should then have been in San
|
|
Francisco.
|
|
And Taylor--the dapper, polished man who once had been one of the
|
|
leading members of the fashionable Larchmont Yacht Club, who had been known
|
|
in Gotham's art circles as a scholarly beau brummel, who had won and lost a
|
|
small fortune, and who was finally more or less a bit of driftwood on the
|
|
California Coast--set about making the details of his misfortunes wholly
|
|
unknown.
|
|
He gave gay parties for his New York friends. It was a bit of his old
|
|
self that came to light again. Apparently he had forgotten the tragedy that
|
|
seared his heart--the one thing that had induced his previous disappearance
|
|
from New York's society and had kept him from trying to resume his old-time
|
|
social intercourse in his former haunts.
|
|
He was living like a gentleman, at a fashionable hotel, although he
|
|
realized that his savings were dwindling and that each dollar spent kept him
|
|
farther from his mining claim.
|
|
And it began to look as if he would have to start all over again--as if
|
|
he were not, after all, to be able to reap the benefits of his mining
|
|
discovery in the Klondike. His bank-book told him he could not be lying--yet
|
|
there it was before him, its columnar pages proclaiming the fact that he had
|
|
only a few dollars standing between him and utter starvation.
|
|
And, as he looked and pondered--and wondered, perhaps, how the hand of
|
|
Fate would again strike him--he found himself seized once more with that same
|
|
melancholy that, before, had nearly broken his life.
|
|
For he was practically a pauper--and he could not summon courage to
|
|
apprise his friends of the situation. Yet he could not possibly continue his
|
|
gentlemanly existence among them.
|
|
What would he do?
|
|
|
|
Part V
|
|
|
|
Bank books have a peculiar potentiality of blasting people's hopes.
|
|
And it was the question of approaching poverty that again confronted
|
|
William D. Taylor in San Francisco--a few short weeks after he had returned
|
|
from the Hawaiian Islands and was, seemingly, on the road once more to
|
|
prosperity.
|
|
He had been living like a gentleman. Former New York friends of his were
|
|
in the Bay City. He was entertaining them, and being entertained by them,
|
|
lavishly.
|
|
And then one day, the bank book that he prized so highly, warned him of
|
|
impending poverty. He commenced to lapse into that former melancholy state of
|
|
his.
|
|
What, he asked himself, would be the use for him again to try to "make
|
|
his stake?"
|
|
Was not Fate constantly against him? Had not the handwriting on the wall
|
|
invariably made its appearance to him?
|
|
Again he sought solace by communing with the "other half" of humanity.
|
|
This time found him near 'Frisco's famous waterfront. He failed to return to
|
|
his hotel for several days. But, had he returned, he would have found his
|
|
problem solved for him.
|
|
The San Francisco agents of a certain influential mining corporation
|
|
with interests in Alaska had been looking for him. Yet, he could not be
|
|
found.
|
|
Several days elapsed and, finally, early one morning Taylor returned.
|
|
There were lines of care, of worriment, in his face. He seemed to have grown
|
|
suddenly older. The clerk handed him a letter, which he took lackadaisically
|
|
and hardly bothered to read. Nor would he, perhaps, have read it had he not
|
|
been interested by the name of the solicitors' firm in the corner of the
|
|
envelope.
|
|
Its contents were a surprise, and, as he read, his spirits began to
|
|
rise, for the letter informed him that there was a purchaser waiting to buy
|
|
his Alaskan properties.
|
|
The price offered was generous. Once more would Taylor be on comparative
|
|
easy street. Again with money in the bank, with his own self-estimation
|
|
heartily increased by the advent of good fortune, Taylor commenced casting
|
|
about for new lines of progress. For the time being he had no reason to go to
|
|
Alaska. And the thought of his own sorrow in New York precluded his desire to
|
|
go there.
|
|
It was his San Francisco friends who offered the suggestion that he try
|
|
his hand at making moving pictures in Los Angeles.
|
|
"They're paying a lot of money," someone said to Taylor. "And the work
|
|
is very easy. We have a friend there who..."
|
|
And thereupon was propounded the story of how a new bonanza lay in the
|
|
manufacture of what were then extremely infantile attempts at entertainment.
|
|
Throughout Taylor's entire life one finds that the pioneering spirit
|
|
actuated many of his movements. Pioneering on a farm in Kansas, at restaurant-
|
|
keeping in Milwaukee, in art-dealing in New York, in prospecting in Alaska.
|
|
And, again, his interest in motion pictures became intrigued.
|
|
A number of actors from the legitimate stage were commencing to change
|
|
their views toward the silent drama, and were entering it. Far-sighted
|
|
persons were beginning to visualize in films a great art rather than a mere
|
|
fancy.
|
|
Thomas H. Ince, for instance, had built a veritable city of motion
|
|
picture "sets" on a stretch of land along the ocean front near Santa Monica,
|
|
Cal. Western Alaska, frontier and out-of-door dramas found their locale in
|
|
the sage-covered hills that surrounded the film village. New recruits, from
|
|
every walk of life, were applying at the Inceville gates for admission to the
|
|
studio--asking for work, for anything that would give them an opportunity to
|
|
make their mark in the great infant industry.
|
|
And, several miles inland, in Los Angeles, studios were being built and
|
|
the landscape about them began to take on an active production atmosphere,
|
|
for activity had commenced to buzz on the canvas-covered stages that were
|
|
springing up like mushrooms.
|
|
And Taylor went, one day, to the old-time Kay-Bee studios, to cast his
|
|
lot with the film folk. He told officials there of his past experience on the
|
|
stage with Fanny Davenport, of his experiences with Harry Corson Clarke. And
|
|
an actor there, while he was talking in the office, recognized him as having
|
|
been a former associate on the stage in New York and augmented his briefly
|
|
related story.
|
|
The result was that Taylor found himself engaged to play before the
|
|
motion picture camera in a picture called "The Iconoclast."
|
|
"Rehearsal at what time?" he inquired--and discovered his remark to be
|
|
met with a glance of blank amazement.
|
|
"Rehearsal--in pictures?" came the reply. "We rehearse first and shoot
|
|
the film afterward, all at once."
|
|
It was a life different from anything to which Taylor had ever been
|
|
accustomed.
|
|
"I used to marvel," he recounted once, not long before his tragic death,
|
|
"at the free and easy air of everyone in the studio. Everything seemed to
|
|
depend on the sun. If it would shine we would have a full day; but, at times
|
|
when Old Sol was contrary, we would sit around the studio swapping yarns
|
|
until he finally decided to make his appearance."
|
|
This, of course, was characteristic only of the early days, for now film
|
|
work is made at all times possible by the use of high-powered lights which
|
|
equals, if not surpasses, natural sunlight. And it is a factor which has made
|
|
picture production a business venture and has created actual working hours at
|
|
a studio.
|
|
Taylor--the man with a colorful background, the cultured gentleman--was,
|
|
from the time of his entrance into pictures, a distinctive figure in them.
|
|
When the sun would keep his company waiting for "shooting time," he would not
|
|
customarily engage in the various varieties of small talk that so many of the
|
|
actors practised, but one would see him studying, reading, or watching some
|
|
phase of the work being done that had seemingly griped his entire attention.
|
|
"The Iconoclast" was finished, and he found himself cast for another
|
|
role. But the powers-that-be at the studio could visualize in him, in his
|
|
experience something more than a mere actor, and offered him the chance to
|
|
direct.
|
|
In those days it was uncommon for a director to be able to act in his
|
|
own plays. Taylor could do it and occasionally did. But it was something that
|
|
he did not entirely care to do.
|
|
"I have wanted either to direct or to act," he often remarked. "But I
|
|
wanted to do one or the other. A combination of work is not a good thing. Too
|
|
many cooks spoil the soup."
|
|
The former American company was setting out to dazzle the eyes of the
|
|
screen world with a stupendous thirty-episode serial, "The Diamond From the
|
|
Sky." It was an epoch, for serials hitherto had been more or less fugitive
|
|
things of disconnected continuity and wild-eyed thrills. Taylor was requested
|
|
to direct it, and for a year was occupied in making it.
|
|
And it was this picture that established him as one of the true artists
|
|
of the film industry. His method of reserve in handling actors, in keeping
|
|
his company in harmony, in getting a dollar's best efforts for a dollar's
|
|
pay, became known to the various Los Angeles producers, and his name, when
|
|
mentioned, was spoken of with that same reverence that characterized it a few
|
|
years hence, when its possessor was a member of high standing in the
|
|
exclusive Larchmont Yacht Club.
|
|
His home, an unpretentious place, well-appointed with regard to Taylor's
|
|
concepts of art, had an atmosphere of color and refinement. Books everywhere,
|
|
and objects of art made the Taylor home a center of culture. There was none
|
|
of the flamboyance evident such as characterized the home of various made
|
|
newly-rich through their motion picture successes, and the persons accustomed
|
|
to gather there represented the more cultured, the more artistic class of
|
|
film devotees.
|
|
To Taylor, his venture into the serial field was an education, and he
|
|
used the play largely as an experimental laboratory to try effects.
|
|
"We had autos going over cliffs," he has said, "people falling from
|
|
balloons, train accidents and all sorts of trained animals from an octopus to
|
|
an elephant."
|
|
When Fox started in producing "The Tale of Two Cities," once more there
|
|
came to Taylor the hankering for greasepaint. He was offered a role in the
|
|
play of which William Farnum was the star, and he took it gladly. And in it
|
|
he was an invaluable aid to the director, for his knowledge of literature and
|
|
of art made many of his suggestions worthy of deepest consideration.
|
|
One of the slain director's chief characteristics was his love for
|
|
children. In "The Tale of Two Cities," for instance, in scenes where numerous
|
|
youngsters would take part, he could be found in ardent conversation with
|
|
them, sharing their joys and sympathizing with them in their sorrows.
|
|
Some months later this very attribute of his proved a valuable business
|
|
asset as well. He had become a director of the Famous Players-Lasky forces--
|
|
had directed Dustin Farnum, George Beban, Kathlyn Williams, Constance
|
|
Talmadge and other stars with aplomb, and finally was asked to create, for
|
|
the screen, versions of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
|
|
An unsympathetic man would not have been able to visualize either of
|
|
Mark Twain's famous boy characters had he not understood their psychology. To
|
|
Jack Pickford fell the role of Tom Sawyer, and Robert Gordon, then an almost
|
|
unknown young actor, was to play Huck Finn.
|
|
Months later had these two actors been available, Taylor's perhaps
|
|
greatest work would not have been accomplished. But, as Fate would have it,
|
|
when he set about making a production of "Huckleberry Finn" for Lasky, there
|
|
was no boy actor obtainable for the title role. And Taylor set about to find
|
|
someone suitable to the role.
|
|
From a number of boys who had reported at the studio he selected Lewis
|
|
Sargent. The chap's very boyishness, his air of unspoiled youth, were what
|
|
interested the director, and although young Sargent knew practically nothing
|
|
about the art of acting, Taylor took him in hand and worked unceasingly with
|
|
him.
|
|
It happens that Mark Twain created Huck to be a boy of many freckles,
|
|
and these are a facial quality that are difficult to show on the screen. In
|
|
order for Sargent to have his film freckles properly adjusted to his makeup,
|
|
Taylor would daily paint them on the lad's face with an iodine brush, and, so
|
|
that he could readily visualize the true Mark Twain character, Taylor for
|
|
hours would tell his juvenile star stories that would stimulate his youthful
|
|
imagination.
|
|
And, as the result of Taylor's careful training, Lewis Sargent blossomed
|
|
from a natural, untrained boy into a trained, capable actor who readily
|
|
starred in both "Huckleberry Finn" and "The Soul of Youth," and who could
|
|
take his place in the annals of film history as a truly talented portrayer of
|
|
types.
|
|
When Taylor was directing his actors he continually maintained an
|
|
attitude of cultured reserve that could not be broken down. To certain
|
|
boorishly-inclined persons it was a definite barrier between themselves and
|
|
Taylor, the man. To others, however, it signified dignity and capability.
|
|
And, many a time, it prevented actors from showing anger of "temperament," so-
|
|
called, when they were acting in front of the Taylor camera.
|
|
His age, for he was in the early forties during his screen career,
|
|
placed the director in a more or less fatherly attitude toward the younger
|
|
actors who would work with him. Mary Miles Minter regarded him with all the
|
|
love that any young girl customarily shows for a male parent. To Ethel
|
|
Clayton, whom he directed in such productions as "Beyond" and "Wealth," he
|
|
seemed more like an uncle, and one of his most broken-hearted mourners, at
|
|
the time of his death, was Betty Compson, whom he directed in "The Green
|
|
Temptation."
|
|
To the young women he directed he was counselor, sympathizer and sharer
|
|
alike in joys and sorrows. Mabel Normand, for instance, would ask his opinion
|
|
of all her scenarios before she would commence their production, and, on the
|
|
fatal evening of his death, she had gone to his home to receive an armful of
|
|
books that he had selected for her at his bookseller's.
|
|
Men--and bachelors--usually have a set of particular cronies--men
|
|
friends of their own age who receive their confidences and jointly share in
|
|
the varied joys of a middle-aged man's life. Such a group of men there was at
|
|
the Los Angeles Athletic Club, of which Taylor was a member.
|
|
But, even though this coterie could consider themselves as the film
|
|
director's intimate friends, there was none in the crowd who received his
|
|
fullest confidence, particularly in the matter of his erstwhile marriage some
|
|
years ago in New York.
|
|
But these men--all of them in their late thirties and early forties--
|
|
remember the day, during the war, when Taylor entered their midst announcing
|
|
that he had enlisted in the Canadian forces.
|
|
It was the war that offered the supreme test of Taylor's physical and
|
|
moral calibre. He, being well over the age limit, had every claim to
|
|
exemption. Instead, however, he maintained a specified contempt for various
|
|
younger men who were frantically trying to dodge service, and it was, hence,
|
|
not a great surprise to his friends when he announced his enlistment as a
|
|
private.
|
|
But there was one of his associates, a kindly, motherly woman,
|
|
Mrs. Julia Crawford Ivers his scenarist for years, who could offer a
|
|
plausible reason why he should not undertake the hardships of war. Woman-
|
|
like, Mrs. Ivers for months had been ministering to Taylor's stomach trouble,
|
|
from which he had been a sufferer for years. At the studio she had a
|
|
miniature kitchenette installed in her office, and would daily prepare the
|
|
director's lunch for him and give him a menu of viands that he could eat
|
|
digestibly.
|
|
And it was because she feared a return of the stomach affliction that
|
|
she did not want him to go to war, but he went and suffered agonizingly.
|
|
The war--his last great adventure--left its impress upon him. He was
|
|
sufficiently mature to realize the full significance of its heart-crushing
|
|
suffering. Yet he was young enough to be an optimist after it was over. And,
|
|
in the eternal struggle, he had progresses as singularly as he had progressed
|
|
as a private citizen, for while the beginning had seen him as a "buck"
|
|
private with the British Fusileers, the armistice saw him ranked as a
|
|
lieutenant.
|
|
And it was not until after the war that Taylor really accomplished his
|
|
best work on the screen. "The Furnace," "The Witching Hour," "The Soul of
|
|
Youth," stand out as being truly great pictures and proclaim their producer
|
|
as being not merely a man with a megaphone, but as an inspired figure in the
|
|
midst of a great art.
|
|
And it was because the film industry knew Taylor and respected him--
|
|
because they readily epitomized his life and his success--that the mourners
|
|
at his bier were legion. There is no one in the motion picture industry who
|
|
will speak unkindly of his memory, and his name stands respected and beloved
|
|
as that of a gentleman, a friend, a scholar--and a true artist.
|
|
|
|
The End
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
|
|
Wallace Smith: February 21, 1922
|
|
|
|
The following is another of Wallace Smith's sensationalizing dispatches on
|
|
the Taylor case.
|
|
|
|
February 21, 1922
|
|
Wallace Smith
|
|
CHICAGO AMERICAN
|
|
Love scenes of a moving picture director and a famous film star -- the
|
|
real life drama acted by William Desmond Taylor and his last love in
|
|
screenland -- today became a vital sensation in the hunt for Taylor's
|
|
mysterious assassin, a hunt that may end with the arrest of the actress.
|
|
They were love scenes as done by experts away from the screen -- by the
|
|
man who had directed from Mary Pickford down in similar scenes of the screen
|
|
and by the woman who has acted a hundred such incidents under the eye of the
|
|
camera.
|
|
They may not have been quite up to the screen article, but, recited by
|
|
the man who witnessed them, they made a background fitting the theory of
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Undersheriff Eugene Biscailuz that this actress was the one who killed
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Taylor.
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Taylor's love scenes in life were narrated today by Henry Peavey,
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Taylor's houseman, whose charge that this same actress murdered his employer
|
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-- told in these dispatches yesterday -- did seismographic things to this
|
|
section of the continent.
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|
Not that it jarred some of the officials, who seem to show a strange
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|
indifference to developments in the case. Because of Henry Peavey's position
|
|
in life they chose to disregard what he said, despite the fact that he knows
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|
more than any living person -- save one -- of what had been going on in the
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|
Alvarado St. home.
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|
But even those disinterested ones were forced to take notice today when
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|
Peavey again put aside his crochet work and made startling disclosures of
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|
Taylor's affairs. Among them were the love scenes.
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|
The actress may not be named, but it is known that she was questioned
|
|
by the police. Peavey's story contradicted her own account of her relations
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|
with Taylor and it gives the lie to her statement that, although she visited
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|
Taylor the night of the murder, she had never been there alone before. [3]
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|
"But she was," said Peavey, "she was there just the night before
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|
Mr. Taylor was killed. And just a little before that she was there and she
|
|
took down some of her pictures from the wall and cut them up with a scissors.
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|
And I've seen him take her in his arms and kiss her. He was very much in
|
|
love with her and I've seen nights when he couldn't read but would put down
|
|
his book and just keep looking at her picture and sighing.
|
|
"I know she was at the house the night before because that night I made
|
|
a custard. Mr. Taylor didn't come home for dinner that night and the custard
|
|
stayed there. When he came home I asked was there anything I could do. He
|
|
said no, except to squeeze out some oranges and lemons for cocktails with
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|
gin. Then I went home.
|
|
"Next day the custard pan was empty and the cocktail glasses stood by
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|
the sink. And I saw her the next day and she told me she had eaten most of
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|
the custard. I remember especially because she said it was pudding and it
|
|
wasn't at all -- but custard.
|
|
"Sometime ago I guess they had a quarrel or something. She came in one
|
|
night, tore down two or three of her pictures off the wall and sat down on
|
|
the floor with a scissors and began cutting the pictures into bits.
|
|
Mr. Taylor said something to her and she said she guessed she could cut up
|
|
her own pictures if she wanted and he said he guessed she could, too.
|
|
"But they made up again, I reckon. Because after that I saw him take
|
|
her in his arms and hug her and kiss her. They kissed like that when they
|
|
were in his study, the night before Mr. Taylor was killed. She was kissing
|
|
him as hard as he was kissing her.
|
|
"He sure was in love with her. I'd see him many a night start to smoke
|
|
a cigarette and read a book. After a while he'd put the book down and get
|
|
one of her pictures and prop it up against a jar or something where he could
|
|
see it right handy.
|
|
"Then he'd try to read again. But he couldn't read long. He'd have to
|
|
keep looking at this picture, through the cigarette smoke. It was just like
|
|
you see sometimes in the movies.
|
|
"He was always wondering if there wasn't something she wanted around
|
|
her house. When she was away in the East he had me go to her house and ask
|
|
the maid if there wasn't something he could get for her. That's the way he
|
|
was.
|
|
"And he'd send her telegrams every night when she was away. I don't
|
|
know what was in those telegrams, of course it wouldn't do for me to read
|
|
them. Anyway, I can't read. But it got so that when I'd come in the girl at
|
|
the telegraph office would say, 'Hello, did I have another message from Bill
|
|
to ----?' calling her by her first name.
|
|
"Oh, yes he was in love with her all right. And I am sure she is the
|
|
one who killed him."
|
|
Peavey's story was told on the twenty-first day that has passed since
|
|
the slaying and all of the leaders of the various investigations admit that
|
|
they have been baffled. They do not admit as yet that they have blundered.
|
|
But there seems to have been at least one more blunder since the first
|
|
two hours after the finding of the body, during which it was insisted that
|
|
Taylor had "come to his death of natural causes."
|
|
That was the heavy-handed elimination of Taylor's favorite watch as a
|
|
clew.
|
|
Much had been expected of the watch when it was found that its delicate
|
|
mechanism had been stopped, apparently by some sudden impact. The sheriff's
|
|
theory was that the fall of Taylor's body had stopped the watch. This made
|
|
the time registered by the watch of vital importance, inasmuch as it was
|
|
known that the woman under suspicion had been in Taylor's study at the
|
|
fateful hour mutely spoken by the watch.
|
|
It was seized yesterday by detectives and rushed to a jeweler's shop.
|
|
There an expert -- as these dispatches narrated -- scientifically tested the
|
|
timepiece to find out what had caused it to cease ticking. He was puzzled.
|
|
Finally he asked questions and the detectives went back to Public
|
|
Administrator Bryson.
|
|
"Why, that watch has been handled by twenty men since it was brought
|
|
her," said Bryson. "They wound it and struck it and generally fussed around
|
|
with it."
|
|
The expert shrugged his shoulders. "No wonder I can't tell exactly
|
|
what happened," he said, "it has been handled too much."
|
|
Thus vanished another clue -- as the mysterious nightdress of peach
|
|
color disappeared and the handkerchief initialed "S" and perhaps, the clues
|
|
that the slayer left behind.
|
|
It is even rumored in this city of rumors that certain influences are
|
|
working black magic with such clues.
|
|
It was even reported that a prominent moving picture producer had hired
|
|
a Los Angeles detective to work on the mystery -- not to solve it but to clog
|
|
the trail as much as possible. The detective is said to have admitted that
|
|
he is in the producer's hire. [4]
|
|
Considerable importance was attached to this connection because of the
|
|
fact that the producer in question had conducted a notorious affair with an
|
|
actress whose name has been linked with that of Taylor.
|
|
Although the heart affair was considered at an end some time since, it
|
|
is known that the producer still is interested professionally in the young
|
|
woman involved in the slaying.
|
|
The theory of blackmail, present since the day the body was found,
|
|
seemed strengthened with the finding of a secret bank account said to have
|
|
been maintained by Taylor in New York since the Fall of 1919. The bank was
|
|
said to be the Fifth Ave. branch of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York
|
|
and the sum deposited there was over $7,800.
|
|
The public administrator was informed today that only $18.96 of this
|
|
amount remains to Taylor's credit and there are no canceled checks or any bit
|
|
of writing among Taylor's effects to account for the vast difference. [5]
|
|
Other banks with which he dealt, it has been learned, cashed checks
|
|
frequently for $700 and $800 and one of $4,000.
|
|
According to Taylor's intimates it was unlike him to handle his affairs
|
|
in this slipshod manner. In these mysterious withdrawals the detectives see
|
|
the possibility that Taylor had for years paid large sums to blackmailers who
|
|
knew the secret of his life.
|
|
And, according to one theory. Taylor was killed by this gang when he
|
|
finally made a stand and refused further to bow to their demands for blood
|
|
money.
|
|
Another possibility seemed to have been exploded when the district
|
|
attorney's men released from custody one Daniel McShea, a taxicab driver,
|
|
after questioning him for two hours. McShea was reported missing by a woman
|
|
claiming to be his wife. Unfortunately he chose as the time for his
|
|
disappearance approximately the hour arbitrarily set by the police as the
|
|
hour of the assassination. He was said to have presented a complete alibi
|
|
and to have persuaded the operatives that he knew nothing of the murder.
|
|
In the Altadena foothills, where Mabel Normand, once reported engaged
|
|
to Taylor, is recuperating from the shock of her friend's death, came word
|
|
that her manager hopes she soon will be able to complete the picture
|
|
interrupted by the tragedy.
|
|
Until then the star seems to crave seclusion. Four guards were found
|
|
today pacing the snow powdered estate where Miss Normand is resting. They
|
|
met the visitor long before he reached the range of the house and quite
|
|
firmly informed him that Miss Normand could not be seen.
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
NOTES:
|
|
[1] Some of the major errors: the Deane-Tanner family home was at Carlow, not
|
|
Mallow; in Kansas he was a rancher, not a farmer; he worked as a canvasser
|
|
and in a restaurant prior to joining Fanny Davenport (not afterwards); he was
|
|
never "shanghaied"; he enlisted in the British (not Canadian) army.
|
|
[2] Needless to say, the slang term had a different meaning at this time.
|
|
[3] Peavey is clearly referring to Mabel Normand.
|
|
[4] Charles Jones was reportedly working for Mack Sennett.
|
|
[5] Much ado about nothing. Taylor was making "Anne of Green Gables" in the
|
|
East at this time, which took several months to film. The local bank account
|
|
(hardly a "secret" one) was undoubtedly for the deposit of his paychecks.
|
|
When he returned to Los Angeles he then had the funds transferred to his Los
|
|
Angeles bank, leaving only a small amount in the New York bank to keep the
|
|
account open, in case he should need to use a New York bank again.
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
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
|
|
***************************************************************************** |