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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 31 -- July 1995 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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Douglas and Faith MacLean
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Wallace Smith: February 27, 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; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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Douglas and Faith MacLean
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Douglas and Faith MacLean were close neighbors of William Desmond
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Taylor. They both heard the shot that killed him, and Faith MacLean probably
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saw the killer as he was departing. A few years earlier, Taylor had directed
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Douglas MacLean in two films starring Mary Pickford. Douglas MacLean was a
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prominent comedian throughout the 1920's; he is regarded by Hollywood
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historian Kevin Brownlow as a "forgotten master of screen comedy." The
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following press items give some background on Douglas MacLean's career and
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his relationship with his wife. [1]
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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May 1922
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Grace Kingsley
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PICTURE-PLAY MAGAZINE
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Romances of Famous Film Folk
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"We're married, but we've never been introduced!"
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"No, he just sort of picked me up!"
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But let me stop this shocking business right here.
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In the first place, Mrs. Douglas MacLean is very pretty, very girlish,
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very chic, and can say things like that last remark. In the second place, he
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is the son of a Baptist clergyman, is Douglas MacLean and contrary to the old
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saw about clergymen's sons, he's the most blameless and correct individual
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imaginable; while she is the daughter of Grant Fremont Cole, for many years
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speaker of the New York State Assembly, and the two live right up to the best
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traditions of their families.
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Not that the MacLeans go in at all for society, though with their
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connections they might easily do so. But Douglas is much too busy with his
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work as a Thomas H. Ince star, and Mrs. MacLean had so much of society life
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when she was a girl that she grew heartily weary of it.
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That, in fact, was how she came to meet Douglas MacLean, for, tiring of
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pink teas, Faith Cole decided she would attend dramatic school, just to kill
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time.
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Just about that time, Doug MacLean, who was engaged in the bond business
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in Philadelphia, took a vacation, and went to New York, whence he expected to
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sail to Europe with a friend. But the friend's father died, and the trip was
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given up.
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While he was in New York, MacLean met Daniel Frohman, who encouraged him
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to go on the stage. At the end of his first season, John Emerson--then a
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stage director--suggested that he go to Sargent's Dramatic School, and that,
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you see was the hand of fate, or Cupid, if you prefer.
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"There's nothing about our romance in that!" urged Mrs. MacLean, when we
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had gone that far, as we were chatting one night out on the terrace of the
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MacLeans' pretty Hollywood home. She looked very piquant as she said it,
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with the light from the Japanese lantern falling on her face.
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"Ah, I'm just heightening the suspense!" smiled her husband. "Besides,
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I never knew you through junior year, you know. When senior year came, I
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decided to go back--I wanted to find out whether Alma and Olive Tell were
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coming back, so I went over to the school. And there in the elevator I saw
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Faith! She looked very pretty that day. I remember the dress she had on.
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But she never even noticed me."
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"After that my sweet husband would be standing out on the corner smoking
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a cigarette, and finally--"put in his wife.
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"Oh, you are away ahead of the story," interrupted Doug. "So I went up
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to the office floor, where the students were waiting to see some of the
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professors, and pretty soon along the hall came Faith. I looked at her and
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she looked at me. Then I went and said to Frank Morgan, 'Who is that girl?'
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He answered, 'That's Miss Cole. Haven't you met her? She is going to be in
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our class.' She went out just then, so I didn't have a chance to meet her.
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'Foiled again!' I said to myself.
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"I had met about everybody else, but nobody every introduced me to Miss
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Cole. But finally we were cast in a play together. So you see I made love
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to her without ever being introduced to her."
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"Sort of picked me up, as it were," suggested Mrs. MacLean, with a
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twinkle.
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"The day of the first rehearsal Faith smiled and said, 'Good morning!'"
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Doug went on. "I acknowledged her greeting with aclarity, and told her, 'I
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am cast to play opposite you!' Faith merely said, 'Are you?' She didn't
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seem a bit excited over the news. Then the stage director came over and
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called us to rehearse. So I found myself making impassioned speeches to a
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lady I had not been introduced to! I read them out of a book, too, which
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made it all the worse. The production went on, and we were very good in it,
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I know that, especially the love scenes! Eh, Faith? Then we did 'Hedda
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Gabler' together. We got to kidding at rehearsals. I'd say, 'Pistols,
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Hedda?' as if I were inquiring, 'Ice cream, Hedda?' So they wouldn't put us
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in plays together any more. Rotten luck, we thought it was!"
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At a special matinee MacLean appeared in "The Island of Broken Hearts,"
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all dressed up in green tights, and Maude Adams who was in the professional
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audience sent for him to play a role in "The Legend of Leonora," which she
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was then casting.
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The romance between Douglas MacLean and Faith Cole went merrily on.
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"We started out for 'life study' as they called it at school," said Mrs.
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MacLean. "But we studied each other principally, I guess. We went together
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three months, and then he proposed."
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Mrs. MacLean smiled in the soft darkness. One caught a gleam of it by
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the light of the match Doug lit to light his cigarette, along with the look
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they gave each other. A very real love mating this, founded on
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understanding, congeniality, character, and fineness of soul. So far the
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winds of adversity have touched them lightly, so there's been no severe test.
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One is glad of this, that their life has been smooth sailing. Their darkest
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hours were during several long months in California, when Mrs. MacLean was an
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invalid.
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"I was taking her home from the theater one night and I proposed in a
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taxicab. I told the driver to drive us around in the park for a while. I
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had been rehearsing proposals to myself for days, but I never said a thing
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when the time came that I had intended saying! I even had planned things to
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say if I was refused. But I wasn't.
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"The first time I ever kissed Faith? On the stage! We were so glad we
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had that scene? At any rate I was, and Faith has admitted since that she
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was, too.
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"Our parents didn't object greatly, though Father Cole did think it his
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duty to make a mild remonstrance. But we won him over.
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"I was playing in Maude Adams' company, and Faith insisted on being
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married on a Wednesday--said it was her lucky day. The trouble with
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Wednesday for me was that, besides rehearsal and evening performance, I also
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had a matinee. But I was finished at the end of the first act, so to please
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Faith I consented. We went out to her home on Long Island, where my father
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married us, and her father gave her away, and then I had to hurry back for my
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evening performance. I had a busy day that day! We kept our marriage from
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the company, but one of the boys that evening kept singing at me, 'Good-by,
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boys, I'm ready to be married!' And Miss Adams would smile in an odd little
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way every time we met. I didn't know why. We had been married very quietly
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so that the papers wouldn't get the story, but they did get it somehow, and
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Faith telephoned me that evening right after the show, 'Have you seen the
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afternoon papers? They've got the most awful picture of me!' That seemed to
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be the only thing that was troubling her--that her picture wasn't good! The
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fact that the papers said, 'Miss Faith Cole marries and actor,' and that was
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all they did say about me, didn't worry her in the least!"
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The MacLeans went to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at the end of the run of
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the Maude Adams play, where Doug went into stock at thirty-five dollars a
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week.
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"My salary was to have been thirty dollars," said Doug. "It was Wallace
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Worsley who was managing the house who signed me. I went to him and said, 'I
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don't think thirty dollars is enough.' 'How much do you want?' he asked.
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'Well,' I said belligerently, 'I think it ought to be thirty-five dollars!'
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So thirty-five dollars it was. Faith and I lived in a little cottage, and we
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were really awfully happy. Then we went down to New York, things broke
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better for me, and we had an apartment."
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Douglas became interested in pictures after he had made a trip to the
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Coast for Morosco, where he played in stock in Los Angeles. He became Mary
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Pickford's leading man, and also played with the American Company in Santa
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Barbara. His services were more and more sought, until finally, some three
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years ago, he became an Ince star.
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"Was Mrs. MacLean the only girl you were ever engaged to?" I asked
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impertinently, I suppose.
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"No, I wasn't!" Mrs. MacLean answered right up.
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"Oh, pshaw! I never really was engaged to Marjorie!" Douglas insisted.
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"Well, you wrote poetry to her! I found it!"
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"Well, didn't I write poetry to you, too?"
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Whereupon of course there was simply no stopping him. He read us some
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of the scraps he had preserved. And truth compels me to admit they were
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really very clever, those verses. Now he writes his wife a bit of verse on
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every anniversary of their wedding.
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"It's only once a year, so I can stand it!" She laughed.
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So whoever the mysterious Marjorie was, and whatever her charms, one
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thing is certain, that everything was off between her and Douglas forever
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after he met Faith Cole.
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"Do you talk your stories over with your wife?" I asked.
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"Whenever she'll let me," answered her husband.
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It seems Mrs. MacLean prefers her home keeping to advising her husband,
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and right now one of the most interesting topics you can introduce in talk
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with her is the new home she is planning to build. Her husband is letting
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her have her own way about it, too, except that he insists on a billiard and
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smoking room.
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And they lived happily ever after for seven years--which leads up to the
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present moment of writing.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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September 1926
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Douglas MacLean
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PHOTOPLAY
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Trouping with Maude Adams
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To reminisce of Maude Adams is to conjure up the picture of the most
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gentle lady I have every known.
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Beloved--almost worshipped--by those who know her, she holds a unique
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place in the history of the stage. Insofar as I know, she is without an
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enemy and she has never failed to win the love and respect of even the most
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casual acquaintances.
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It was a medieval sword that really led to my first meeting with Miss
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Adams--a meeting which resulted in my initial stage engagement.
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I was a student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. At the
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conclusion of my senior term, my class, following a custom as old as the
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Academy, prepared to present its graduating play. We chose "The Isle of
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Dreams" and I was cast for the youthful lover of this colorful romance.
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The prospect of facing a theater full of people for the first time clad
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in the doublet and hose of the play's period and wearing the wig and sword
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which the role demanded was an alarming one. Since I couldn't change the
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costume, I decided to familiarize myself with it as much as possible.
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Everyone in the cast thought I was crazy when I appeared at the first
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rehearsal clad in full costume--including the sword. But I wore every item
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of the costume at every rehearsal. The inevitable happened; I ceased to be
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self-conscious about my exposed legs. And best of all, I learned to handle
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that confounded sword so that it never once tripped me, never got in the way
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when I sat down and never banged into the knees of the other players.
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The Academy's productions are always well attended by the theatrical
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profession and there were dozens of stage notables in the audience when the
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curtain rose on our "Isle of Dreams." Maude Adams was one of this group,
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although with the modesty which has always been one of her outstanding
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characteristics, she remained almost unrecognized even in a theater crowded
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with people who knew her.
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So I was totally unprepared for the message which I received after the
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final curtain fell. It was from Miss Adams' manager and conveyed an
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invitation to meet her following her own professional appearance that
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evening.
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It is difficult to describe a first meeting with Maude Adams without
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sounding mawkish or foolishly sentimental. But that same rare quality that
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never failed to bring a roar of assenting response to her Peter Pan query,
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"Do you believe in fairies?" always worked its charm in personal meetings.
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In two minutes after I had been introduced by her manager I was her devoted
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slave.
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Miss Adams explained at that first meeting that she was planning to go
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on tour in the near future in "The Legend of Leonore" and that she wanted to
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use a one act play called "Rosaline," written for her by Sir James M. Barrie,
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as a curtain raiser. There was a part in "Rosalind" that she thought I might
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play. Before I left that night it was agreed that I should have a chance at
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it and also play a minor role in "The Legend."
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Rehearsals of "Rosalind" began before the completion of Miss Adams'
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metropolitan engagement. There were only three characters in this charming
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little play of Barrie's; Miss Adams, in the role of an actress who
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masquerades as her own mother, an elder housekeeper and my role of the boy
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who loved the actress.
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It was in rehearsing "Rosalind" that I really learned to appreciate the
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true gentleness that is Maude Adams'. She gave unstintingly of her own
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invaluable experience and advice. And she insisted that we--the character
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actress and I--should have every bit of credit--every chance for applause--
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that our roles afford us.
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When we started on a tour that carried us through most of the Eastern
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states I discovered another significant and typical fact; almost every member
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of the company had been one or more seasons with Miss Adams and many of them
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had refused more lucrative or important roles in order to remain with her!
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There was one veteran who was playing his eighteenth consecutive season with
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her and there were many who could boast of five or more years in Miss Adams'
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company.
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As the tour progressed I learned to understand why these people served
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with such devotion. It was because they loved Miss Adams and she loved them.
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From call boy to leading man, they worshipped her and worshipping they give
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unstintingly of their best.
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Much has been said and written about Miss Adams' avoidance of the
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professional spotlight of publicity. There is a legend that she was never
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interviewed by the press and it is certain that she sought to remain always
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in the background outside the theater.
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I have heard people who did not know her hazard the guess that this
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modesty was assumed for professional reasons; that it made her "different"
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from the other stars of the theatrical world and thereby attracted more
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attention than hundreds of newspaper interviews and acres of advertising
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space might have done.
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That it did attract attention is true. But the motives which animate
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Miss Adams today to stay out of the public eye are the same that governed her
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in her active days in the theater. An innate shyness and a very genuine
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modesty were and are the real reasons as anyone who knows her will testify.
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It was this sensitiveness that used to prompt her to dress in the utmost
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simplicity, wear an heavy veil when traveling and remain discreetly in the
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background whenever possible. The only times that I ever knew her to
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relinquish her incognito were when some of her beloved company needed her
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assistance--then the Maude Adams that never failed to change enemies into
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friends stepped into the breach. The result was invariably the same--the
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gentle lady swept all opposition before her; overcoming that which made all
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of us who knew her labor for her, love her and revere her.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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October 1926
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Faith MacLean
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PHOTOPLAY
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His Best Performance
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I am afraid I spoiled what would have been one of the most romantic
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proposals in history. You see Douglas and I were romantic youngsters when it
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happened.
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Our flare for romance had led us both to the American Academy of
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Dramatic Arts. That is where we met and fell in love.
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We both knew we were in love, but Douglas did not actually ask me to be
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his wife until he had completed his first season as a professional, playing a
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lover opposite Maude Adams.
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I think he planned to propose according to all of the best rules of the
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theater. But when he started I broke up the show by saying "Yes!" and
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falling on his neck before he had half finished. At that, I will always
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insist that it was his most perfect dramatic performance.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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August 1920
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Gene North
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PHOTOPLAY
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Divorce a la Film
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He had just been divorced when I saw him.
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The decree had been final only a few minutes.
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For such a comic young fellow, he seemed actually upset about it. But
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then, I suppose these guys that get paid eighty-two dollars a minute to be
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funny can't afford to spread their comedy 'round promiscuously.
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"Feel pretty bad about it?" I asked.
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Douglas MacLean looked at me with that quick turn of the head the public
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has come to know since such classics as "Twenty-three and One-half Hours
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Leave," "Mary's Ankle" and "Let's Be Fashionable."
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"D'yu know," he said solemnly, "I do. I've never been divorced before
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and I simply can't understand how some people make a habit of it the way they
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do. The sensation is unpleasant--decidedly unpleasant. I feel like a
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codfish ball that has been thrown into the deep ocean--may belong there but
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doesn't feel quite natural."
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"How long had you been together?"
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"Oh, a long time, a long time," he said pensively, "Six whole pictures.
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She was--a fine little woman. I haven't a thing in the world to say against
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her. You couldn't ask for a better girl in lots of ways. She was a good
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partner, that girl. We hit it off fine, had lots in common, always weathered
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the storms of drama successfully, were the right size and didn't enjoy
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fighting more than once a week.
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"And now--" He shook his head sadly.
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"Now--but life is like that, isn't it? Just when you get accustomed to
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meatless days, they raise the price of potatoes to $30 a quart, an where are
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you?"
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He gazed meditatively into space, reflective chewing a lettuce leaf
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which must have belonged to the spearmint family because it didn't seem to
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evaporate properly.
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But seriously, Douglas MacLean did see the world through blue glasses
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that day. Thomas H. Ince had just informed him that his co-starring
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partnership with pretty Doris May had come to an end. The pictures for
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Paramount Artcraft, which the two were engaged to make, and been completed
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and the Powers That Be (who have the papers locked in the safe, you know) had
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decreed that henceforth they should be separated.
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And Douglas MacLean, who has probably done more to establish comedy of
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the stunt-less, slap-stick-less variety than any other one man, is to be an
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independent star. The second year option that Paramount held on his services
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has been exercised and he is at present deep in his first starring vehicle,
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"The Yanacona Yillies." (I know. I felt exactly that way about it. I may
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be wrong. But after I'd had it repeated three times and spelled twice, I was
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afraid they'd make me walk home so I shut up.)
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"Yes, it's hard to lose a good wife, even just a professional one," went
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on MacLean, "and Doris has been a good one. As a film wife, she is par
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excellence. Now it's all ended. Oh, I daresay I shall have other good
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wives. I have had some good ones in the past. But I shall always remember
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Doris."
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There was a note of sadness in his voice. Outside his swiftly moving
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dramas, he looks and acts as little like a comedian as anyone I ever saw.
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(That in a world where everyone in comedy wants to do tragedy and a lot of
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tragedians do a lot of comedy.) He has brown eyes of the kind that lady
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novelists describe as "nice and honest." Minus a little twinkle, they would
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be soulful.
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"You ARE married aren't you, Mr. MacLean?" I asked, since the
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conversation seemed to be running on things matrimonial.
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"Oh, yes," said Mr. MacLean enthusiastically.
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I have been forced to ask that question of a number of men a number of
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times (professionally--professionally). Some answer it flabbily, as if they
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were agreeing with a rich aunt who believed in the 18th Amendment. Some
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answer coldly and haughtily, as though admitting German ancestry. Some
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giggle.
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But MacLean was enthusiastic. Later I met her and discovered why. He'd
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better keep her in California or the Follies will get her, that's all. She's
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non-professional but something of a business woman, I am given to understand.
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Likewise a good sport. One day in the Morosco Theater in Los Angeles,
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where her husband was playing before he went into pictures, some matinee
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girls asked her if she thought Douglas MacLean was married. She said
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sweetly, "Oh, I'm sure he isn't. He looks too young, don't you think?"
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His conversation, however, was like holding forth with Maude Adams, by
|
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proxy. He played with her several seasons and his admiration of the great
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actress amounts only to worship. In a modest sort of way he intimates,
|
|
"everything that I am or ever hope to be as an actor I owe to my experience
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with Maude Adams."
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|
"Oh, how I did want her to make 'Peter Pan' in pictures," he said. "But
|
|
she wouldn't. At first she called them 'those dreadful pictures.' Later,
|
|
when they had become so wonderful, she said to me, 'Ah, Douglas, I cannot.
|
|
Because they say that the camera is very, very unkind to people who are--
|
|
forty and a bittok.' You see, that was a line in a sketch we did, and it
|
|
means forty and just a little bit more.
|
|
"But really, Maude Adams is one of those persons who are ageless--
|
|
without any time on their work."
|
|
MacLean likes comedy and expects to stick to the clean, brilliant sort
|
|
of thing he has been doing. Born in Philadelphia, and a college graduate, he
|
|
came to the screen from a successful stage career, and was a leading man,
|
|
playing opposite Mary Pickford, in "Capt. Kidd, Jr." and "Johanna Enlists"
|
|
before he joined hands with Doris May for Paramount.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
April 3, 1921
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
|
If I let Douglas MacLean come to New York without seeing him I should
|
|
never have dared go home, and face the little girl who lives at my house.
|
|
Furthermore, I should never have dared go back to my home town, Dixon, Ill.--
|
|
which is the Main Street in my life and which served Douglas MacLean as a
|
|
residence when he was a boy in high school.
|
|
In Dixon, when Mr. MacLean's pictures are shown at the Family Theatre,
|
|
the whole town turns out en masse. They are as proud of him as Marion is of
|
|
President Harding. Dixon claims many celebrities, in fact Claire Briggs once
|
|
called for his mail at the Dixon post-office, but none of them are as
|
|
pretentions in their glory as this motion picture actor. Besides, it is such
|
|
a fine thing to be able to say, "Do you like Douglas MacLean in pictures?--
|
|
You know he comes from our home town."
|
|
The little girl who lives at my house spends her summers in Dixon.
|
|
Every few months she asks, "Has Mr. MacLean come to New York." Then I shake
|
|
my head sadly and say, "No."
|
|
"When he does come here, you will ask him about Dixon, won't you?"
|
|
I promised, and partly because no one ever dares forget a promise made
|
|
to her and partly because I wanted to see Thomas H. Ince's discover, I made
|
|
an appointment to see him.
|
|
"Don't forget," she cautioned, "to ask him if he knows the owner of the
|
|
motion picture house, the editor of the evening paper, the druggist, the one
|
|
that makes the best chocolate ice cream in the world."
|
|
Armed with all these high-brown questions, I sallied forth to meet Mr.
|
|
MacLean. The introductions were no more than over when I said:
|
|
"Did you live in Dixon, Ill., at one time?"
|
|
"Dixon?" he said. "I certainly did. I talk so much about it my wife
|
|
always suspects a hidden chapter in my life. What do you know about Dixon?"
|
|
"I could more easily say what I do not know," I replied.
|
|
Douglas MacLean went to the same high school, attended ball games at the
|
|
same field, and cheered for the football team in the same gridiron. Only, to
|
|
be truthful, his days in Main Street came about seven years after I had
|
|
forsaken the village for the city.
|
|
The elder MacLean came to Dixon to preach in the Methodist church.
|
|
O, yes, indeed. Douglas is a minister's son. He said he played the usual
|
|
pranks attributed to ministers' sons, and had the same lively times. He went
|
|
to the Chatauqua at Assembly Park every summer, and while the preachers were
|
|
urging all sinners to reform, he sat on the back seat and whispered and
|
|
giggled, and had to be frequently reprimanded by his parents, who wanted him
|
|
to listen to these uplifting words. All of these confessions had a familiar
|
|
sound--nearly every crowd of Dixon young people have had the same experience.
|
|
Those who have not yet been requested to be silent have missed something in
|
|
their lives.
|
|
We discussed the Methodist parsonage, the location of the Episcopal
|
|
church, the library, the Y.M.C.A., all the people we both know, including the
|
|
Shaws, who edit the Dixon Telegraph, and who always given an official welcome
|
|
to former residents of the town who return to visit the pretty little city on
|
|
Rock River. Mr. MacLean hopes to accept that welcome before he returns to
|
|
California. Mrs. MacLean insists he take her to see the Methodist parsonage,
|
|
where he once lived.
|
|
After we had spent an hour recalling all the familiar spots in our
|
|
erstwhile home town, I suddenly realized we had not spoken a word about
|
|
motion pictures.
|
|
It was Mr. MacLean himself who came to the subject we were expected to
|
|
mention by saying being an actor was not very different from living in a
|
|
minister's household.
|
|
"Both professions take you from town to town," he said, "and you are
|
|
always moving."
|
|
In the beginning Mr. MacLean expected to be a legitimate actor. He
|
|
started out in New York with that expectation. After a brief period on the
|
|
stage he accepted a position with Gail Kane in pictures. Pictures had been
|
|
the last thing in the world he wanted to do. In fact he had ambitions to be
|
|
a second Edwin Booth. Thomas H. Ince put a stop on this beautiful idea by
|
|
choosing Mr. MacLean to be featured in a series of comedies he had in mind.
|
|
The very first picture, "Twenty-three and a Half Hours' Leave," co-starring
|
|
Douglas MacLean and Doris May, was so much better than even the optimistic
|
|
Thomas H. had hoped--young MacLean's future was cemented then and there.
|
|
A little later Doris May went her way and Mr. MacLean was left alone to carry
|
|
out the promise these two young folk had made.
|
|
And now just a moment. Mr. MacLean says this split brought forth many
|
|
ugly rumors. It was said he and Doris could not agree and that there had
|
|
been jealousy and all sorts of unpleasant factors in their partnership.
|
|
"To show you how absurd it is," said Mr. MacLean, "Doris is one of our
|
|
best friends. She is coming on to visit Mrs. MacLean and we are both looking
|
|
forward to showing her New York. She is like a child and she will be so
|
|
enthusiastic over everything. I wired Wallace MacDonald. Miss May's
|
|
fiancee, last night to find out just when she is leaving the Coast."
|
|
We had talked so long on mutual friends and other small town gossip I
|
|
had to leave to attend a meeting of the National Association of Motion
|
|
Pictures and Mr. MacLean had to help his wife select a new frock. Yes, they
|
|
are happily married, and although he says they will soon celebrate their
|
|
seventh anniversary it is difficult to believe he speaks the truth. He looks
|
|
not much older than when he played football with D.H.S.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
July 1921
|
|
Lillian Montayne
|
|
MOTION PICTURE
|
|
Passing Thru
|
|
|
|
"He is sailing at eleven," said the voice on the wire, "so you must see
|
|
him at once, if at all."
|
|
"Why is it always our lot," we rebelled, "to be assigned to interview
|
|
stars who are just sailing for a holiday abroad, or just leaving for the
|
|
Coast after a glorious fortnight of entertainment and shopping in New York.
|
|
We must either be Pollyannaishly glad that they have an opportunity to go
|
|
across, while in our heart we're consumed with fierce envy and not glad at
|
|
all, or we must rejoice with them that they are departing for the Coast with
|
|
fat, new contracts and enough gorgeous and expensive clothes to last them
|
|
until they come again. One is quite as aggravating as the other.
|
|
However, if we interviewed Douglas MacLean before eleven, it meant a
|
|
rest from the office that morning, which was something. So we met him at the
|
|
Biltmore, and after two minutes we were strongly FOR him, and firmly
|
|
convinced that whatever he was getting, in any way at all, he had it coming
|
|
to him.
|
|
In the first place, he reminded us of two of our favorite actors:
|
|
Douglas Fairbanks, and George M. Cohan. He has the exuberance and the
|
|
willing smile of Fairbanks; the ready speech, humor and restlessness of
|
|
Cohan. But his personality is his own. One can't imagine him as having
|
|
affaires d'amour or jazzing his nights away. He is the embodiment of a
|
|
popular young university man, a clean-cut athlete, a loyal friend, a devoted
|
|
son, a husband who will be faithful thru the years--of strong character and
|
|
fine achievement in any walk of life, whatsoever.
|
|
Douglas MacLean is the son of a Methodist minister. His early life was
|
|
a nomadic one: two years here, three years there, each one of the family
|
|
being born in a different city. Douglas was educated at the Institute of
|
|
Technology in Chicago, and was not only a fine student but well up in
|
|
athletics.
|
|
It goes without saying that it was a distinct shock to the MacLean
|
|
family when Douglas decided upon a stage career. He cultivated a wonderful
|
|
gift of speech in those days, he says, trying to convince his father that he
|
|
could live just as clean and decent a life in the profession of acting as he
|
|
could selling bonds, which he was then doing in Philadelphia.
|
|
"All right, all right, Douglas," father would say, "you can TALK
|
|
convincingly about it, but you'll have to show us."
|
|
"And I did," he continued. "I was seven years on the stage before I
|
|
went into pictures, and I have never done anything except clean plays--and
|
|
never intend to. Father is actually proud of me now. Am sure he got more
|
|
satisfaction out of my success in 'Twenty-Three and a Half Hours' Leave than
|
|
anyone else did!"
|
|
Mr. MacLean had finished his picture, tentatively titled "Passin' Thru,"
|
|
and had come East on a vacation--the first in four years. It was a series of
|
|
"passing thru," he said. They stopped in Philadelphia to see his parents and
|
|
dozens of MacLean relatives, who treated him like royalty; then upstate New
|
|
York to visit Mrs. MacLean's relatives; then New York and Washington. He had
|
|
an appointment with President Harding, and told me with a boyish grin that he
|
|
was the first movie actor the President had interviewed, and that he had a
|
|
splendid time, even though there was a mistake in the date, which made him
|
|
lose one of his precious days in New York, and kept him and Mrs. MacLean from
|
|
meeting Doris May and showing her her first glimpse of New York as he had
|
|
planned.
|
|
"I can remember when I was a youngster," he said, "that mother, or my
|
|
aunts, or sisters, were always making very elaborate plans about something
|
|
and they always fell thru. It's a regular family trait. But that's just
|
|
life. There wouldn't be half the zest in living if everything came out
|
|
according to schedule."
|
|
Don't imagine that Douglas MacLean was sitting quietly while we talked.
|
|
Far from it. He was all over the place--friends and acquaintances claimed a
|
|
portion of his time--he was paged by an enterprising photographer who wanted
|
|
to take pictures of him then and there. Suddenly he gave a joyful whoop and
|
|
went bounding off in pursuit of a passing small feminine figure and came
|
|
leading her triumphantly back. It was Doris May. She had come to tell him
|
|
that she could not get to the boat to see them off, as she must work in a
|
|
street scene in "Foolish Matrons." And there they were--as we had seen them
|
|
together on the screen many times--Douglas MacLean and Doris May.
|
|
It was quite evident that a warm, wholesome affection exists between
|
|
these two, and it was very lovely to witness it. It entirely routs the
|
|
perverted idea with which some beings are possessed that there cannot be a
|
|
real, sincere friendship between two people of opposite sex. Mr. MacLean has
|
|
been married several years to a woman adored and adoring. And Miss May is
|
|
very much in love with and soon to marry Wallace McDonald--yet the
|
|
comradeship between these two co-workers of other days is very real.
|
|
"Don't wear yourself all out in New York, Doris," he said. "I never was
|
|
so tired in my life. I have had social and business engagements--two or
|
|
three a day. I have seen eighteen shows in less than two weeks. When I get
|
|
on the boat I shall sit down and see if I remember the names of some of them,
|
|
and what they were about."
|
|
"How wonderful to be sailing for Europe," we said--and meant it.
|
|
"I'm not," he grinned. "I'm sailing for California by way of New
|
|
Orleans! We will be five whole days on the boat, and, thank Heaven, there
|
|
will be no place to go and nothing to do but rest. How New Yorkers stand the
|
|
life, and how they ever get any work done, is beyond me.
|
|
"So I'll soon be on the 'Home Stretch,'" he said, "which, by the way, is
|
|
the name of the next picture I'm to make. It's about horse racing, and
|
|
intensely thrilling, I believe."
|
|
Douglas MacLean is a born comedian, and clever enough to make the most
|
|
of it. Those who have worked with him say that he has an almost uncanny
|
|
sense of humor that enables him to take a scene and bring out bits of humor
|
|
that no one else would have thought of. Not only that--he makes the whole
|
|
cast see it and helps them to make the most of their roles. An ideal star!
|
|
And while I was considering the fact that he had not said that he wanted
|
|
to direct a great picture or play Hamlet, he gave a quick look at his watch.
|
|
"The boat leaves for California in seventeen minutes," he said. "Hope I will
|
|
have more time for you next time I'm passing thru."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
March 1922
|
|
Douglas MacLean
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Public Appearances
|
|
|
|
Making public appearances is one of those things like eating drumsticks
|
|
with a fork--in time you get used to it, but you never really like it.
|
|
The object of public appearances, which are made in motion picture
|
|
theaters of course, is to give everybody a brotherly interest in you and your
|
|
welfare, so that they will henceforth mob the theaters at which your pictures
|
|
appear, thereby greatly increasing the shekels in the Box Office. This
|
|
doesn't increase your salary any, but it makes the exhibitors and the
|
|
exchange men and the producers happy and it's very gratifying to make so many
|
|
people happy.
|
|
I have been publicly appearing for many weeks. I have held up the show
|
|
in some hundreds of movie palaces. I have made three round trips across the
|
|
continent in five months and I know every Pullman porter in America by his
|
|
first name and his favorite dice point.
|
|
I hope I am not going to hurt anybody's feelings, either private or
|
|
civic, by disserting a bit about my experiences. It's as natural to write
|
|
about your travels as it is to talk about your troubles. Everybody was very
|
|
good and kind and patient with me and I enjoyed it all so much as far as they
|
|
were concerned--it was myself I didn't enjoy.
|
|
Inside my own studio I have to objection to registering anything from
|
|
the emotions of the gallows to receiving custard pie amidnose. In the Dark
|
|
Ages, before pictures, I have even endeavored so to disport myself upon the
|
|
stage that nobody would thrown anything larger at me than an egg. But all
|
|
this in the "persona dramatis."
|
|
To stand up before hundreds of dear, good, kind, well-intentioned souls
|
|
animated only by perfectly natural curiosity and the ordinary human
|
|
skepticism and suspicion which declares that no man is perfect and wants to
|
|
see its theory upheld; to make speeches to enterprising young business men
|
|
who know more about what I am talking about than I do; to pass through Texas
|
|
shaking hands with the entire Democratic party and wonder how long it'll be
|
|
before they found out that I am a Republican and cast my first vote for
|
|
Grant; to meet all those lovely, local peaches and realize that my stay in
|
|
Utah must be so brief--indeed, there were moments when I wished I had taken
|
|
my dear old grandmother's advice and earned an honest living.
|
|
As I take my typewriter in my lap, I seem to hear in the distance the
|
|
raucous and cynical voice of the train announcer singsonging our schedule--
|
|
"All aboard for Birmingham, Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, Beaumont, Houston, Forth
|
|
Worth, San Antonio, El Paso, Kansas City, Hutchinson, Wichita, Chattanooga,
|
|
Knoxville, Nashville, Ashville, Louisville, Cleveland, Detroit, New Orleans,
|
|
Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia and New York."
|
|
My wife says I can say it in my sleep. Well, there are worse things a
|
|
man can say.
|
|
Of course when you are making a tour like that you encounter a lot of
|
|
general phenomena. There were ten thousand people who wanted my autograph
|
|
which I thought was very nice of them. I hope they won't show it to the
|
|
children, because it might lead them astray. It's so much better in later
|
|
life if people can read your handwriting. Not that it would have done me
|
|
much good. My wife doesn't believe in a joint bank account.
|
|
One hundred thousand people wanted autographed photographs. We didn't
|
|
have to pay nearly as much excess baggage going back.
|
|
And ten million wanted to know the best way to get into the movies.
|
|
Some day a clever young criminal lawyer is going to invent a new insanity
|
|
defense for murder and call it dementia movia picturibus. I did my best.
|
|
Now everytime anybody comes to the studio I run and hide the way I used
|
|
to in New York in the days when my only callers were bill collectors. I am
|
|
afraid it is one of those nice, persevering mothers, with daughters who look
|
|
exactly like Mary Pickford, who has come to keep my promise that if she ever
|
|
came to California she must look me up and I'd see what I could do.
|
|
I am not given to rash promises, but you have no idea how difficult it is to
|
|
escape mothers with daughters who look like Mary Pickford without
|
|
incriminating yourself. I live in daily dread that one will appear when my
|
|
wife is around and confronting me with a deadly stare declaim, "Remember your
|
|
promise to my daughter" and I shall look and act like the hero in a bedroom
|
|
farce.
|
|
Then next there were the banquets and the climate. I had always
|
|
understood that Los Angeles had a monopoly on climate as a civic proposition.
|
|
They even kid us about it back east. Well, let me tell you there isn't a
|
|
city I visited where they can't sing you a cantatta about the climate.
|
|
I can't understand why so many people move to Southern California.
|
|
Often it would be at 104 when I got up to speak. Not but what 104 is a
|
|
very nice heat if you like heat, and I do. But of course I'd be pitifully
|
|
nervous because I am not used to making speeches and that would sometimes
|
|
cause me to mop my brow. A fatal error. My audience generally decided I was
|
|
trying to razz their climate. So I learned to begin my little piece
|
|
something like this--
|
|
"I suppose," I'd say, smiling brightly, "I suppose you think I'm warm.
|
|
But I'm not really. I'm merely a little nervous at appearing before this
|
|
select and critical audience. Why, your climate here is perfect, wonderful,
|
|
ideal. And as for heat, don't forget that I came through Yuma on my way
|
|
east. Nothing would ever seem hot after Yuma. That may appear a broad
|
|
statement, but it isn't. Why, in Yuma, we saw a dog chasing a cat down the
|
|
street and they were both walking."
|
|
Usually it went well. If it didn't we all got cooled off.
|
|
One thing was very trying to my sensitive spirit. In every city the
|
|
people were kind enough to welcome me at the station. Sometimes they even
|
|
had out the band and a parade with automobiles with my name on and
|
|
everything. Also my business manager, Bogart Rogers, had about as much
|
|
delicacy as Barnum and Baileys in letting everybody know I was in town. As
|
|
I'd walk along the street about every other person I passed would say, "There
|
|
goes that MacLean now." Strange how the use of such a little word as "that"
|
|
can make you jump. [2]
|
|
Speaking of the heat, in Fort Worth the heat and I clashed for a brief
|
|
round and I must admit that the heat came off best--that is, I actually came
|
|
off but it was the heat that was responsible. We had been breakfasting at
|
|
the hotel--a nice, southern breakfast. For myself, I like a regular
|
|
breakfast--none of this tea and toast, coffee and fruit stuff in mine. I may
|
|
be a movie actor, but I've got the labor point of view on breakfast.
|
|
Thus I had been long over my meal. When I arose I heard a faint, sad
|
|
sound--almost a sob--suggesting of the parting with something dear. It was.
|
|
I had. Looking down, I discovered that I had left upon the chair the seat of
|
|
my trousers. It was an old suit and t'was not the loss of the seat of my
|
|
trousers so much as the manner of its loss that distressed me. I would
|
|
gladly have parted with it under more auspicious circumstances.
|
|
As it was, there was nothing left to do but wrap a newspaper about the
|
|
middle portion of my anatomy, and dash from the dining room, my wife and Mr.
|
|
Rogers forming a sort of rear guard, if I do say so.
|
|
At Hutchinson, too, I was barely saved from disaster.
|
|
They gave me a banquet at Hutchinson. It was the sort of banquet they
|
|
probably thought I was used to, after seeing the kind we use in the movies.
|
|
But I wasn't. The table was arranged in a giant horseshoe, beautifully
|
|
decorated and arranged. My place was at the head. I was as solitary and
|
|
conspicuous as a small boy's missing tooth.
|
|
Beside me sat the mayor of Hutchinson.
|
|
Have you ever eaten, dear readers, when you know that several hundred
|
|
pairs of eyes were fixed on your Adam's apple?
|
|
You try to smile and chew and the same time and probably resemble nothing
|
|
so much as a hyena with a bone.
|
|
It was also mighty tough on the mayor. He had never been a movie star
|
|
and I had never been a mayor. We couldn't find a point of contact. Just
|
|
then, in trying to reach for the bread, smile at a pretty lady down the table
|
|
and swallow a large piece of steak. I upset the salt. I thought it was a
|
|
faux pas. In reality it was an act of providence. The mayor understood me
|
|
to have evinced an interest in salt. He began to talk. It seems that all
|
|
the salt in the world comes from Hutchinson, Kansas. The mayor was one of
|
|
the most interesting, entertaining, and well-informed men I've ever talked
|
|
to. I forgot that I was supposed to be on exhibition and I had the time of
|
|
my life. And so everybody else forgot it and we all had a good time.
|
|
Young Rogers was a great help to me in one way. He's a bright boy and
|
|
he used to be a captain in the British aviation. He moves fast, but his
|
|
methods are effective. I must admit that there were times when I bid fair to
|
|
destroy the reputation of myself, my art and what is more important, my
|
|
director general, Thomas H. Ince. I'd peter out completely. My best
|
|
behavior and my company manners and my personal-appearance-try-to-make-
|
|
everybody-love-you line of action, would seem to desert me completely.
|
|
When Rogers saw I was in trouble, saying the wrong things or not saying
|
|
anything or agreeing to buy Central Park or the city hall, he'd canter up,
|
|
pulling up his cuff as he came. He'd burst in upon us, holding out his wrist
|
|
watch and cry, "Mr. MacLean, do you know what time it is?" I'd drag out my
|
|
Ingersoll and we'd compare them and I'd say breathlessly, "No! It isn't! It
|
|
can't be! Why, we've only got ten minutes. Good-by--you'll excuse us--only
|
|
got ten minutes--" and we'd vanish still talking and I'd have a chance to get
|
|
my breath and my wits and think up a couple of bright things to say.
|
|
While we were in Washington, we climbed the Monument. Climbed up in the
|
|
elevator and down on our legs. We wanted to walk down. We thought it would
|
|
be good exercise. Of course, you may think we got a little scary going up in
|
|
that elevator. It is a long way to go in an elevator, isn't it? You smile
|
|
and whistle and remind yourself that thousands of people have done this same
|
|
thing before and thousands more will do it again and that there aren't many
|
|
corpses apparent. It's so safe.
|
|
Still, we walked down. I was in bed for three days afterwards because I
|
|
couldn't walk anywhere else. When I got up, I visited the Treasury and they
|
|
let me hold $160,000,000 in cash in my hands. I had to go to bed again after
|
|
that. We saw the Capitol with Chic Sale. He told us a lot of things about
|
|
it we'd never heard. I don't expect anybody else ever had either.
|
|
In passing I should like to mention one little incident that happened in
|
|
Birmingham. A young man rang me at my hotel and said, "Mr. MacLean, this is
|
|
Charles Lee Porter. You may have heard of me. I know you're very busy, but
|
|
I thought you might be glad to spare me a few moments of your time. There
|
|
are a number of things I'd like to talk with you about."
|
|
Now a couple of things had happened on this trip that had made me wary
|
|
and shy about claiming even a little quiet for myself. In Atlanta, Rogers
|
|
went ahead to stir up a little popular sentiment. When he got to the hotel
|
|
an unknown and rather casual sort of bird drifted up and in and absent-minded
|
|
way inquired, "You Doug MacLean's press agent?" Rogers admitted he was
|
|
something like that. "That so," said the bird, "When's Doug get in?"
|
|
I presume I will be pardoned for mentioning that occasionally in every
|
|
community one runs up against what are commonly termed nuts--also pests. We
|
|
had been approached by every known variety, from the innocent old lady who
|
|
wanted us to look up her cousin who lived in California to the smooth young
|
|
man who wanted us to buy a diamond necklace. The movie is always fair game,
|
|
you know.
|
|
Consequently, in order that we might have the time and attention to give
|
|
to the worthy and kind admirers who had done so much to make our trip a
|
|
success, we had to discriminate. So Rogers said, "What'd you want to know
|
|
for? May I have your name?" The man said, "Yep. My name's Yates. I'm a
|
|
cousin o' his."
|
|
I hadn't mentioned I had any cousins in Altanta. You know how careless
|
|
you can be about relations. So Rogers gave him a very high grade stare and
|
|
said, "Mr. MacLean is going to be very busy in Atlanta. Good-by."
|
|
Then in Kansas City, a fellow called up on the phone so early in the
|
|
morning I wasn't much more than a moron yet, and his voice sounded like a man
|
|
in Asheville that wanted me to endorse some new kind of depilatory, so I told
|
|
him I was Rogers and MacLean wouldn't be in for a couple of days. Then he
|
|
said, "Well, this is Mr. X. I'm a friend of Mr. Ince's and Mr. Ince wired me
|
|
to look MacLean up and take him around." I fainted.
|
|
But, worse still, in ten minutes Rogers came dashing in and says, "I
|
|
just met Mr. X. in the lobby and when I told him who I was he said 'What kind
|
|
of a damn fool joke is this anyway?' and beat it."
|
|
It took us two days to square that.
|
|
Of course there were a few sad moments on that trip. One little old
|
|
lady in Ashville came to the theater in a wheel chair. She'd been an invalid
|
|
for years but she said she liked my pictures because they were always nice
|
|
and clean and she wanted to see if I was a good, clean boy myself. I felt
|
|
about as big as a fly on Babe Ruth's hand.
|
|
I am whole-heartedly grateful for all the wonderful kindness shown to
|
|
me. I never before thoroughly appreciated America, Americans, American
|
|
hospitality and American humor.
|
|
It can't be beat.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 9, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
"I am still clinging to my original theory of the crime--that the man
|
|
with the cap whom my maid saw loitering in the allyway the night of the
|
|
murder slipped into Mr. Taylor's apartments when he escorted Mabel Normand to
|
|
her motor and shot him immediately after he had returned to his suite and
|
|
closed the door behind him."
|
|
Such was the assertion today of pretty little Mrs. Douglas MacLean, wife
|
|
of the famous screen star, and whose apartment in the court at 400 South
|
|
Alvarado street diagonally faces that of the slain cinema director, William
|
|
Desmond Taylor.
|
|
According to Mrs. MacLean, in the three years Taylor had occupied the
|
|
apartment at 404-B South Alvarado, he had only entertained a few times,
|
|
living on the whole a quiet and secluded existence and visited only by his
|
|
intimate circle of friends.
|
|
"It seemed strange to see them moving Mr. Taylor's belongings today,"
|
|
said Mrs. MacLean. "He was certainly an ideal neighbor in every respect.
|
|
Mr. MacLean and myself used to frequently see men visitors go to his
|
|
apartments and now and again we would hear the familiar voice of some
|
|
celebrated star chatting outside on his steps.
|
|
"But he never gave any wild parties--indeed, he never gave any other
|
|
kind, either, but seemed to enjoy best simple amusements.
|
|
"It seems perfect plausible to me that the murderer could have slipped
|
|
into Mr. Taylor's apartments during those few minutes when we all know he was
|
|
escorting Miss Normand to her waiting motor car. Mr. MacLean any myself
|
|
discovered that it would have been possible for the man whom my maid reported
|
|
as loitering in the alleyway to have kept watch on Mr. Taylor's front doorway
|
|
from where he was standing.
|
|
"My maid declared that the man was unusually still and silent for a
|
|
loiterer. I suppose that I undoubtedly saw the murderer as he left Mr.
|
|
Taylor's apartments that night. But it was dark and I couldn't see his face
|
|
at all.
|
|
"According to my theory the man who killed Mr. Taylor was crouched back
|
|
of the door, by the wall, and so was not discovered until after the door had
|
|
been closed by Mr. Taylor. Then I believe that the man shot almost
|
|
immediately.
|
|
"Mr. MacLean and myself are certain that we heard the shot and Mr.
|
|
Jessurun, the manager, who has the adjoining apartment, also heard the
|
|
report. But you know how little attention one pays to such noises--
|
|
especially when they are not repeated. We supposed it was a motor car and
|
|
let it go at that.
|
|
"But I think that every one in any way affiliated with the motion
|
|
picture industry is determined never to give up the trail until the slayer is
|
|
apprehended."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 12, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
|
|
Douglas MacLean, of 406-B South Alvarado, told one of the most
|
|
interesting stories of all.
|
|
Mrs. MacLean was the one who saw the mystery man leaving the Taylor home
|
|
just after the shot was fired.
|
|
Her description of the man has been given time and again, and both say
|
|
that they have been bothered greatly by detectives and newspaper men,
|
|
repeating over and over the same story.
|
|
"Mrs. MacLean and I had just finished dinner," Mr. MacLean said.
|
|
"The night being rather chilly, I had gone upstairs to the bathroom, to
|
|
get a small electric stove we have there, and bring it downstairs.
|
|
"I heard a report like a shot, but thought it merely an automobile
|
|
backfiring.
|
|
"Mrs. MacLean also heard it. She went to the door and glanced around.
|
|
She saw the man on Taylor's porch. He was standing with the screen door in
|
|
his hand, apparently looking about. He then turned back to the door as if
|
|
speaking farewell, and after doing so left the porch, walking down the walk
|
|
toward Alvarado street. [sic] No, he didn't run, nor did he seem hurried."
|
|
Mrs. MacLean said she did not see the man's face. In fact, it's rather
|
|
hard to distinguish anyone at that distance in the court, because of the
|
|
peculiar lighting system.
|
|
And Mr. MacLean, to demonstrate this fact to the detectives, went from
|
|
his house to the porch of the Taylor home and posed in the same manner as the
|
|
man whom his wife had seen.
|
|
"Mrs. MacLean thought nothing of the incident," he concluded, "and we
|
|
started playing dominoes together, doing so for some time, before retiring."
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
October 1923
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
The preview nights at "The Writers" in Hollywood are becoming
|
|
increasingly popular. Big new films are shown there for the first time to
|
|
members of the club only. The recent showing of "Going Up," the new Douglas
|
|
MacLean comedy, nearly brought down the roof. A very select and celebrated
|
|
audience came to view it, including Mr. and Mrs. William de Mille, Mr. and
|
|
Mrs. Charles Brabin (Theda Bara), Mabel Normand, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Sir
|
|
Popham Young, Clara Beranger, Josephine Quirk, May Allison, Richard Dix,
|
|
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ray and a number of prominent writers.
|
|
Theda Bara declared as she went out that "we don't think Mr. Chaplin
|
|
ever made so funny a comedy," and William de Mille told his party during the
|
|
film that he considered it the best comedy he had seen on the screen.
|
|
Charles Brabin said: "I haven't laughed so much since the old Weber and
|
|
Field days."
|
|
So it looks as though Douglas would enliven the coming season with that
|
|
rarest and most delightful of screen entertainments--a dramatic comedy.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
December 1923
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Tennis has hit the motion picture colony with a bang. And Florence
|
|
Vidor has just won the silver cup, first prize, in a tennis tournament held
|
|
on Priscilla Dean's courts.
|
|
The entrants for the ladies' singles in this tournament included
|
|
Priscilla Dean, Enid Bennett, Katherine Bennett, May Allison, Florence Vidor
|
|
and Mrs. Douglas MacLean. Among the men who made up the mixed doubles were
|
|
Fred Niblo, Wheeler Oakman, Bob Ellis, Jack McDermot and Douglas MacLean.
|
|
The mixed doubles were won by Florence Vidor and Wheeler Oakman, in a hard
|
|
fought set against Priscilla Dean and Fred Niblo.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
January 1924
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
The football season in the West has done a lot of damage to working days
|
|
for certain stars. Douglas MacLean, whose father is a retired Methodist
|
|
minister and much interested in the welfare of the University of Southern
|
|
California, has toured all over the country following the U.S.C. team on its
|
|
playing schedule. He and Mrs. MacLean drove to Washington to see them play
|
|
the University of Washington and then later came down to Palo Alto for the
|
|
Stanford game, and then drove clear back to San Francisco a few weeks later
|
|
for the California-Stanford classic. Doug is what he himself calls a
|
|
"football nut."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
March 1924
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Niblo entertained with an informal dancing party on
|
|
New Year's Eve and later the guests went to the big house-warming given by
|
|
Tom and Nell Ince. Among the crowd that gathered to see the New Year in at
|
|
the new Ince home were Florence Vidor, Mrs. and Mrs. Douglas MacLean, Wheeler
|
|
Oakman and Priscilla Dean, and Bob Ellis and May Ellison.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
April 1925
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Mr. and Mrs. Douglas MacLean have sailed for Honolulu to spend a few
|
|
weeks of well-earned vacation. Doug has just completed his latest and best
|
|
comedy, "Introduce Me," which caused an absolute riot when it was seen at The
|
|
Writers at a preview the other evening.
|
|
Doug made four pictures under this last contract, and this was the last
|
|
one. When he started out to make these, he had a pretty hard time convincing
|
|
anybody of just how good he was, and just why he ought to be a real star on
|
|
his own.
|
|
Now after the amazing success of his four pictures, "Going Up," "The
|
|
Yankee Consul," Never Say Die," and "Introduce Me," the producers are coming
|
|
to him. In those four pictures, MacLean has put himself up with Lloyd,
|
|
Chaplin and Keaton as one of the great screen comedians.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
August 1925
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
(Letter to the Editor)
|
|
A few days ago I saw Douglas MacLean in "Introduce Me" and it was one of
|
|
the best pictures I ever saw. An enormous bouquet for Douglas MacLean's
|
|
acting. If there were more clean, humorous pictures like "Introduce Me," I'd
|
|
be glad...
|
|
Charlotte Coleman, Bald Knob, W. Va.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
January 1926
|
|
Herbert Howe
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Getting Laughs Out of Sticks
|
|
|
|
"Come on and see the goof playing with sticks!"
|
|
Carpenters and electricians gathered in one wide grin to watch a youth
|
|
solemnly laying sticks on the floor of a studio stage, stepping among them
|
|
with silent murmurs as though muttering incantations.
|
|
The goof was Douglas MacLean...carpenters and electricians are so
|
|
irreverent.
|
|
As a comedian he certainly was funny to them--as funny as a Napoleon in
|
|
a cuckoo hatch.
|
|
"Nuts!" they murmured and walked away.
|
|
Later one of them asked MacLean what he was doing, playing jack-straws?
|
|
"Building a house," he muttered between solemn paces to the count of
|
|
one, two, three.
|
|
"Well, ain't that pretty," said the carpenter, regarding the assemblage
|
|
of sticks that might have been the beginning of a bum bird's nest. "I got a
|
|
kid at home that builds houses outa leaves on the lawn. I'll bring him over
|
|
to play with you."
|
|
Doug nodded and went on in a trace.
|
|
He was laying out a set and visualizing the chuckles.
|
|
Just another one of those cuckoo stars.
|
|
When I happened into his studio study the other day he was hunched over
|
|
an architect's drawing which he had made.
|
|
"Crosses mark where bodies were found?" I presumed, studying the sketch.
|
|
"No," said he, with the gayety of Hamlet. "They mark the laughs."
|
|
"You mean you lay down laughs like linoleum?"
|
|
"No," said he. "More like mosaic. Have to be accurate to the inch."
|
|
"How spontaneous!" I dilated.
|
|
He then proceeded to illumine my darkness by showing how you could miss
|
|
a laugh by walking one step too far between the entrance and the center table
|
|
where the merry maneuver was to be performed.
|
|
I recalled a scene of "The Arab" where Novarro takes a coin from the
|
|
hand of a beggar just after it had been placed there by a Christian gent. It
|
|
was very funny before the camera. But on the screen it seemed to me that
|
|
Novarro was about two steps too far behind the donor to get the maximum of
|
|
the humor.
|
|
"Timing," said Doug. "Laughs are like firecrackers. The fuss must be
|
|
just the right length and they must be thrown just at the right time. You
|
|
have to build sets to key with the action."
|
|
"Simple as trigonometry or fourth dimension," I observed lightly.
|
|
The foregoing preamble explains why Doug MacLean is a great actor. He's
|
|
such a good architect. Or, rather, a builder, for he creates the whole
|
|
structure with the aid of his men.
|
|
MacLean works precisely like Harold Lloyd. Perhaps he follows his plans
|
|
more closely.
|
|
The ordinary procedure in a studio of efficiency is as follows:
|
|
Producer pays fifty thousand dollars for a story.
|
|
He gives it to Joe Ox, the scenario sausage grinder, and tells him to
|
|
grind out a continuity in two weeks.
|
|
In the middle of the first week he finds he needs Joe on another script,
|
|
so the sausage is turned over to Lizzie Muts, who puts it through in three
|
|
days, after her own ideas.
|
|
Meanwhile the sets are being built.
|
|
Lizzie turns the weiner over to the director, who says, "Fine," and
|
|
proceeds to re-write it muttering "terrible!"
|
|
He spends a week or so on his version of the hot dog. Ten to twelve
|
|
weeks on shooting the picture.
|
|
Doug, on the other hand, knows exactly what every ingredient is and
|
|
where it goes before he starts his production.
|
|
He reverses the practical scheme of the efficient studio by spending six
|
|
weeks on the plans and four weeks on the shooting, thus economizing in the
|
|
salaries of players who are not engaged until every phase of the picture has
|
|
been visualized and plotted.
|
|
He has that faculty which constitutes genius in the collaborative scheme
|
|
of the motion picture--the ability to organize a staff and work it
|
|
harmoniously as one man. That's the secret of great motion pictures. It's
|
|
the secret few possess.
|
|
MacLean is not an actor. He's a master builder. I mean that as a
|
|
compliment. He works like an architect, a scientist, a man of sanity.
|
|
Thought rather than action is his mode. His mind holds the image
|
|
complete before he tries to perform it. Result: he is the greatest exponent
|
|
of comedy-drama in the business.
|
|
He differs from Lloyd and Chaplin in that he tells a serious story
|
|
humorously. That is, he keeps within the realm of reality. He's the supreme
|
|
farceur.
|
|
In such independent young intellects is the hope of the motion picture.
|
|
The harmony and enthusiasm of Doug MacLean's studio makes me want to
|
|
delve into the picture industry. A wilder comment I cannot make, for most
|
|
studios send me forth with a feeling of having escaped something worse than
|
|
the lower regions.
|
|
There is no pose to MacLean. He doesn't theorize of life and women and
|
|
art. He talks his own stuff, and talks it so much more intelligently than
|
|
the "commercial" producer and the "genius" star that you don't care a hoot
|
|
for his ideas on other subjects.
|
|
Herein you behold the plausible harmony of art and commerce. It is
|
|
plausible, though it doesn't seem so until you meet with a man of applied
|
|
mentality who is equipped for the medium in which he works.
|
|
The Jew is considered the finest business man in the world.
|
|
But here is an instance where I think a Scotchman has him licked.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
August 1926
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Douglas MacLean has been elected president of the Masquers Club, which
|
|
is a very exclusive Hollywood organization made up of actors, writers and
|
|
directors of unusual talent and ability. It has been called the "Lambs of
|
|
Hollywood" and is noted for its clever entertainments. Doug follows Robert
|
|
Edeson into the president's chair.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
November 1926
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
[from an interview with Douglas MacLean]..."Make your audience feel
|
|
superior to you," continued Doug, dropping the famous grin for a moment as he
|
|
purled forth priceless words of picture wisdom, "but don't let them get
|
|
derisive. Make them feel a bit superior to the characters in the story, but
|
|
don't let them feel superior to the picture. Don't let them know it is a
|
|
picture. Make it a bit of human drama--or humor--that is going on before
|
|
their eyes...I don't try to make my pictures comic. I try to make them
|
|
entertaining."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
January 1929
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Photoplay Reviews the Film Year
|
|
...The comedians have had a tough year. Charlie Chaplin and Harold
|
|
Lloyd maintain their preeminence, but such comic figures as Buster Keaton,
|
|
Harry Langdon and Doug MacLean have passed into eclipse...
|
|
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
Wallace Smith: February 27, 1922
|
|
|
|
The following is another of Wallace Smith's sensationalizing dispatches on
|
|
the Taylor case.
|
|
|
|
February 27, 1922
|
|
Wallace Smith
|
|
CHICAGO AMERICAN
|
|
Somewhere in the tangle of telephone and telegraph wires traveling up
|
|
the coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco may be the echo of a frantic
|
|
woman's voice -- and the solution of the mystery in the murder of William
|
|
Desmond Taylor.
|
|
For that voice, and in a desperate hope that they have hit the right
|
|
trail at last, detectives hunted today after it became known that the woman
|
|
Taylor loved, the last woman he held in his arms and kissed before he was
|
|
killed, not only telephoned on the night of the murder, but had sent three
|
|
telegrams imploring help.
|
|
The detectives directed their search for a mysterious "Mrs. Walker," to
|
|
whom both the long distance call and the telegrams were addressed. Two of
|
|
them, especially assigned by District Attorney Woolwine, picked up the trail
|
|
in San Francisco.
|
|
It was to be remarked that a private detective, employed by friends of
|
|
the woman involved, also had interested himself in the hunt for "Mrs.
|
|
Walker."
|
|
It had been rumored that this detective had been hired not so much to
|
|
uncover evidence, as to cover it up and obscure every trail that might lead
|
|
to the woman.
|
|
Were it not for apparent leniency shown by some officials in Los Angeles
|
|
the private detective would be rather busily engaged covering trails inasmuch
|
|
as every one so far found has headed directly for the door of the woman. [3]
|
|
With the report of the telegrams, as well as the telephone call, it was
|
|
stated that the woman would be called upon for some sort of an explanation.
|
|
Already several discrepancies have been discovered in the story she told at
|
|
the first secret and "polite interview" which passed for an investigation.
|
|
In that story she said that she had spent a quiet evening at home,
|
|
reading. She had expected a telephone call from Taylor, she admitted, but
|
|
when it did not come she did not bother especially. She retired at 9 o'clock
|
|
according to that story.
|
|
Yet at this very time, according to detectives, she was frantically
|
|
telephoning "Mrs. Walker" at a San Francisco hotel.
|
|
"I'm in trouble," she cried over the wire. "I need help."
|
|
The same evening and while she was waiting for the long distance
|
|
connection to be made, she is said to have sent the first telegram. It, too,
|
|
was an appeal for assistance.
|
|
The second telegram was sent the morning Taylor's body was found, but
|
|
before news of the tragic discovery had been made public. The third followed
|
|
within two hours, according to the investigators.
|
|
The detectives, of course, reckoned that the telegram and the telephone
|
|
call must have had their inspiration in the shooting of Taylor. They are
|
|
taken to indicate that the woman knew of the killing before accounts of the
|
|
tragedy were published in the newspapers here.
|
|
It was a secret at the office of Undersheriff Eugene Biscailuz that the
|
|
woman has been under suspicion from the beginning, if not as the murderess,
|
|
then at least as one who could clear away every shred of the mystery and name
|
|
the slayer.
|
|
There is a feeling that she is concealing her information because if the
|
|
facts of her relationship with Taylor and her dealings with the dope peddlers
|
|
were made public, here life as an actress would be snuffed out overnight.
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|
Her connection with the drug ring, and the fact that she was among a
|
|
score known to have been blackmailed by three narcotic pirates, has been
|
|
notorious. In regard to this, too, the detectives claim she lied when she
|
|
was submitted to the "polite interview."
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|
She swore that she had never even touched drugs. As she was making this
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|
vow operatives learned that eight weeks before she had received a wholesale
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|
consignment of heroin.
|
|
The real identity of the shadowy "Mrs. Walker" was a mystery. It was
|
|
known, the San Francisco authorities are reported to have said, that "Mrs.
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|
Walker" had been stopping at one of the leading hotels of that city. It was
|
|
to this hotel that the long-distance call from the Los Angeles woman was
|
|
traced.
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|
The very next day or the day following, the mysterious "Mrs. Walker"
|
|
disappeared from the hotel. The early search failed to reveal where she had
|
|
gone.
|
|
Another alluring and mocking clue in the spectacular slaying was the
|
|
finding of a reddish hued amber hairpin in the bedroom of Taylor's home. Its
|
|
familiar curve seemed to twist itself into a taunting question mark. Surely
|
|
the owner of that hairpin could throw some light into the mysterious shade.
|
|
Perhaps the owner itself was involved in the motive of jealousy which some of
|
|
the investigators still see behind the crime.
|
|
The trail of the dope peddlers still twined through the jungle of the
|
|
theories and speculation. From one of their number, locked up in the county
|
|
jail, one of the sheriff's men secured information confirming the report that
|
|
Taylor was killed because he had thrashed a dope peddler.
|
|
"Taylor was crazy about this woman," said the jailed drug runner. "She
|
|
stood for him, although I don't think she was especially crazy about him.
|
|
"She thought enough of him, though, to lie to him when he heard a report
|
|
that she was going against the dope. She started out using nothing but
|
|
morphine, but now she'll go against anything she can get. Heroin is one of
|
|
the things she has picked up a liking for.
|
|
"Well, she told Taylor that she had been against the dope but that she
|
|
had taken the cure and was off the stuff. We all laughed because we knew she
|
|
was getting it regular.
|
|
"Then one night Taylor called at her house. He got there just as this
|
|
dope peddler was delivering a consignment of the stuff. Taylor grabbed the
|
|
dope and the peddler, too. He gave him a terrible beating and threw him down
|
|
the stairs.
|
|
"Of course, the story got around. We all kidded this peddler plenty.
|
|
He didn't get real sore, though, until a couple of dames started to ride him
|
|
and ask him if he was going to let this fellow get away with that stuff and
|
|
take his character away from him like that. She was worth about $2,000 a
|
|
month to the kid.
|
|
"These women got his goat right because he was stuck on one of them.
|
|
They were sisters. And a fine pair of highbinders they are, too. They're
|
|
the two that left Los Angeles for Bakersfield and points north right after
|
|
the killing.
|
|
"And take it from me, when you get them or get this fellow you'll be
|
|
able to find out who killed Taylor."
|
|
At the Altadena home of Mabel Normand it was stated that the actress,
|
|
who suffered a severe relapse last week, was recovering slowly from a severe
|
|
attack of pneumonia and the shock she suffered at Taylor's death. At the
|
|
Mack Sennett studios it was reported that she expected to return there before
|
|
the end of the week for the completion of the picture, "Susanna," which was
|
|
interrupted in production by the tragedy.
|
|
*****************************************************************************
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|
*****************************************************************************
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|
NOTES:
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|
[1] Some portions of the official statements made by the MacLeans to the
|
|
District Attorney regarding the Taylor murder can be found in KING OF COMEDY.
|
|
Faith MacLean's most detailed statement to reporters can be found in WILLIAM
|
|
DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER.
|
|
[2] Bogart Rogers, the business manager of Douglas MacLean, was Adela Rogers
|
|
St. John's brother.
|
|
[3] Again, Smith is referring to Mabel Normand.
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
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
|
|
ftp.etext.org
|
|
in the directory pub/Zines/Taylorology
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|