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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 32 -- August 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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Interviews with Mary Miles Minter: The Taylor Years
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Wallace Smith: February 28, 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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Mini-Review: THE CHRONICLE OF THE CINEMA is a mammoth volume which obviously
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took a great deal of effort to prepare, but its paragraph on the Taylor case
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is laughably error-filled. If all other articles in the book were as shabbily
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researched, the volume would be worthless. It's too bad that the book will
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probably be used as a major reference work, and thus will do a great deal to
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perpetuate some foolish old myths of the Taylor case.
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Interviews with Mary Miles Minter: The Taylor Years
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From the time he first directed her in 1919 until his murder in 1922,
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William Desmond Taylor was the primary object of Mary Miles Minter's romantic
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affection, although she never discussed her love for him in the many
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interviews she gave prior to his death. The following interviews provide
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interesting glimpses of Mary Miles Minter, her relationship with her family,
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her caged-bird existence, and her thoughts on various subjects. Her love for
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Taylor is an unspoken undercurrent running throughout.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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October 14, 1919
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LOS ANGELES EXPRESS
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Mary Miles Minter Must Not Think of Sweethearts, New Pact Reads
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Mary Miles Minter must not think of sweethearts and marriage during the
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next few years. She has signed a contract to that effect. She must think
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only of her art, must not make public appearances and must not entertain
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extensively in her home.
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These are the announcements made by the little star upon her arrival in
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Los Angeles to begin production on her new pictures for the Realart Pictures
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corporation, of which Adolph Zukor, well known film magnate, is the
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president.
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"But there is little danger that I will think seriously of sweethearts
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and marriage," Miss Minter said today as she began preparations to start
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"shooting" at the Morosco studios. "I am not yet 18 years old--so why worry
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about sweethearts? As to marriage--well, for the time being I am wedded to
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my art."
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Miss Minter was accompanied to Los Angeles by her mother, Mrs. Shelby,
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and her director, William Desmond Taylor.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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October 22, 1919
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Henry Dougherty
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LOS ANGELES EXPRESS
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[from an interview with Mary Miles Minter]...I went over to the
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Alexandria hotel yesterday afternoon and talked with Miss Minter, and here's
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how she feels about it:
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"To me it all seems just like a beautiful dream come true.
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"For more than five years I have worked and played and planned--and
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sometimes cried--for the day when I could put my ideals on the screen.
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"My contract with Realart makes this possible. I am to make 20
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pictures. I want to remain in the background, but from the shadows I will
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tell Mary Miles Minter what to do. I do not want to be known as a fluffy-
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ruffles girl, or a doll face or anything of that kind. I want to work and
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to study and read life and know life, and to mirror that life on the screen
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so that it will not only entertain, but will suggest a lesson, or cause some
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one else to think of things that are wholesome and human and worth-while."
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Miss Minter is a girl of moods. She admits it. She also believes in
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the all-absorbing topic of love, but declares that the deepest affection
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that has ever entered her heart is for her mother and her art. She likes
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flowers--and certainly many of her friends know it--for her suite at the
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Alexandria is a bower of roses.
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"I do not like to be pointed out on the street," she said. "I prefer
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to go my way, unmolested, like other American girls. There is nothing I
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like better in life than to sit in a big, cosy room with a glowing fire and
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a wonderful book to read and to listen to the victrola. Funny sort of life,
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isn't it? Well, I like it, anyhow."
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Miss Minter today started production at the Morosco studios on "Judy of
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Rogue's Harbor."...
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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November 9, 1919
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Grace Kingsley
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LOS ANGELES TIMES
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Just offhand, I should describe Mary as a sort of super-subdeb, if you
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know what I mean; a wonderfully interesting young lady who shows a curious
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combination on the one hand of quick wit, good sense, brilliant powers of
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observation, an impressive and really keen interest in all deep questions of
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the day, a faculty of going right to the heart of a subject, and on the
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other hand, a love of life and humanity and a girlish naivete that are
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thoroughly delightful and disarming.
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I got my first really illuminating glimpse of Mary in her dressing room
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at the Morosco studio the other day, with her flaxen hair and her deep blue
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eyes that sparkle and dance at some bit of humor of her own or yours, making
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a ravishingly lovely picture against the white-and-blue taffeta draperies.
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Most pretty girls of Mary's age and profession cultivate a sort of
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suave and hypnotic charm. Mary doesn't. She's as direct and sincere and
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straight-from-the-shoulder as a geometrical proposition. And so lovely, let
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me add, that she can get away with it.
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Lunch was about to be sent in.
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"You are now going to see," laughed Mary, "one whom you may have heard
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spoken of as alabaster and soft-scented snow fallen to the level of eating
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wieners! I always have miles of them when mother isn't around! Now that
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sounds like something I ought to say, doesn't it? But, oh, if I told you a
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lot of things I think about, the world simply wouldn't believe me! So
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what's the use?" she exclaimed, with the air of a misunderstood princess.
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"As what?" I asked.
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"Well, things about the economic unrest and subjects like that." She
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was very serious. And I'm not going to tell you her views, because maybe
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you wouldn't agree with her, and next time you saw her on the screen, you'd
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say, "Oh, that girl believes so and so!"
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There's another subject she's much interested in and that's the wave of
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spiritualism which is sweeping over the country.
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"But spiritualism is for the chosen few," remarked Mary sagely. Then
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she smiled that roguish smile of hers, "but we all think we're the chosen
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few, don't we?"
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"Are you Irish?" I asked suddenly.
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"Just enough Irish to make me love 'em and want to spank 'em good!"
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retorted Mary. "Seems to me people like to dig up every drop of every other
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kind of blood except American that they have. Of course 'digging up drops
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of blood' is a mixed metaphor, isn't it. Really I'm American through and
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through. But I remember dimly my father, who was part Irish. He had big
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blue eyes and black wavy hair and I always remember him smiling at me."
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All her short life of seventeen years, Mary has been a sort of
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hermitress and she is more so now than ever.
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"I'd give anything to know a lot of girls of my own age and do the
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things they do," she said. "Do you know I never learned to play hop-scotch
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until I was twelve years old? When I had a little vacation from my work in
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New York, and the children taught me out on the sidewalk. I never really
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did learn how to play. I was always working," Mary sighed.
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"I'm just caught in the golden web of fate," she went on pensively.
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Now doesn't that sound subdebby?
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I asked her if she minded if I asked her something and she said no. So
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I asked her if she had had any love affairs.
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"Oh," she said quite frankly, "a lot of childish affairs, nothing
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deep--yet. But she said it in a tone of conviction, as if she felt a really
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deep case setting in with unusual severity.
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"But if ever I have a big love affair ending unhappily, of course, I
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shall feel awful if I don't die of a broken heart. It would seem indelicate
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not to, now wouldn't it?"
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Speaking of love one goes naturally onto the subject of homes. Miss
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Minter and her mother have taken the Helen Matthewson residence in Fremont
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Place, and are to move into it before Thanksgiving.
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"What are you looking forward to most in your new home?" I asked.
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"Well," said Miss Minter, "Of course I'm looking forward to the big
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library and to trying to make up my mind about some deep questions, but next
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to that I'm looking forward to my big four-post bedstead, with the blue
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canopy over the top and steps leading up to it, into which I shall sink
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every night about 9:30 o'clock after a hard day's work."
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"Are you going to have any pets?"
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"Well, dogs always get killed, and I don't care for monkeys or lizards
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or toads, so I think I'll have birds. No, not an aviary. I'll just let 'em
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sit around wherever they want to."
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"Do you like talking birds?"
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"Well, it depends on what they talk about!"
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Asked concerning her future and success, Miss Minter answered, making a
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very neat little epigram, I thought: "Well, nobody ought to think of
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himself as reaching the pinnacle of success alone, because if he does that,
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he'll meet himself coming back.
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"It just can't be done," she went on: "you've got to think of your
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success as carrying people along with you, helping wherever you can, and
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always trying to inspire."
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Miss Minter is thoroughly democratic and loves studying people. That
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she comes into contact with few makes her interest all the keener. "And I
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just love people," she said, "especially"--and this is very sub-debby,
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indeed, isn't it?--"the people who are doing the great work of the world in
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the background."
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The other day there was a little Mexican youngster, the child of one of
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the studio workers, on the set where Miss Minter was working. The child had
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been placed for safekeeping in an old wheelbarrow. He simply wouldn't
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smile, because his dad couldn't leave his work to move him about, so Miss
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Minter picked up the wheelbarrow and pushed it, with the result the baby
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soon was crowing delightfully.
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"And I read somewhere you have found a home for stray dogs and cats?"
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I asked. Miss Minter talked reluctantly about that, but finally admitted
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she had endowed one in the East and that she was going to establish such a
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home out here as soon as she is settled. Right now she's nursing a wounded
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wildcat that was used in "Judy of Rogue's Harbor."
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But she loves helping people, and here's one I heard from somebody
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else, which she will be surprised to read about here. There was a returned
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soldier whom she knew, who is now suffering from tuberculosis. He asked her
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help, with the result she has found a comfortable home for him, and he is on
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the way to recovery.
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"I love revealing people to themselves," said the star, her blue eyes
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sparking with enthusiasm, "and showing them how to help themselves. I had a
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maid once who was very stupid, but I saw it was just because she had never
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had sufficient responsibility thrust upon her. So I made her attend to all
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my small business affairs and look after the children about the studio.
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Also I got her to reading. She was soon studying at night, and now she's in
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college. Oh, it was a pleasure to do that."
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Miss Minter expresses herself as very happy in her new surroundings,
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with William D. Taylor, her director, just the most wonderful director in
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the world.
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"Do you know what he did when he came back from war, which service, by
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the way, her performed entirely voluntarily.? Well, though he had no
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contract with Lasky, and though he was offered by another company just three
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times what he had been getting with Lasky, he returned to the firm because
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he had said he would! That's what I call being a fine gentleman."
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Miss Minter is always very enthusiastic and warm in her friendships.
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For instance, Mrs. Charlotte Whitney, her secretary, is expecting the
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arrival of the stork almost any day now, and Miss Minter has been preparing
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all sorts of wonderful things for the new baby.
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"We'll have a perfectly wonderful Christmas in the new house," said
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Miss Minter, "for my grandmother, Charlotte Shelby, you know, is coming out
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from New York, and then there will Charlotte Whitney and her baby, and oh,
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how wonderful it is to welcome a little soul into this world of life, of
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sorrow and joy, of weeping over algebra lessons and laughing over having a
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new automobile or other bauble!"
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Which last does sound delightfully sub-debby, now, doesn't it?
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You fall to speculating, naturally, talking to Mary Miles Minter, of
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what Miss Mary would be in other walks of life; and you decide she's the
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sort of person, who, if she were a society girl, would lead all the charity
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activities, have all the beaus, be the best dancer, and yet would also read
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Browning, the Literary Digest and the front page of the internal news.
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In short, Mary Miles Minter is a wonderful little all-'round girl.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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November 11, 1919
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Ray Frohman
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LOS ANGELES HERALD
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...Millions of picturegoers know, like and admire the Mary Miles Minter
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of the screen as a sweet, pretty little girl with an abundance of blonde
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curls, a picture actress slightly bigger than a faint recollection, a little
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queen with delicate features and "endearing young charms."
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Few know the intense, level-headed, appreciative, ambitious REAL-reel-
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star-to-be it was my privilege to question as to her past, present and
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future.
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Not even other picture stars know her, for she has been dubbed, she
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tells me, "the hermit girl of the screen," and says she "doesn't know them."
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It was in Mary's own limousine, with her chauffeur-with-a-life-job,
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Jack Filtzer, on the bridge, that I was whirled to meet the young Realart
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star "on location."
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En route I enjoyed the delightful company of her young mother, Mrs.
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Charlotte Shelby, who has hair like Mary's, only a trifling shade darker.
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I was also in the clutches of Harry L. ("Buck") Massie, her special
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publicity director, a reformed circus advance agent, as earnest as Mary.
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J'approche.
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'Tis on the Lasky ranch, the "old Universal ranch," amid woodsy
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country, with muddy roads, saplings, a young brook, Los Angeles sunshine,
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faery hills in the background, "'n' ev'rything."
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We pass a big circle of men, looking like a bunch of gypsies gathered
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about their campfire. They are "the Bosheviki" in Mary's current picture.
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With the bright sunshine playing in its rival, her hair, Mary Miles
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Minter is in action in "exteriors," under the artistic direction of a keen-
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looking gentleman of distinguished appearance, William Desmond Taylor. And
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that stringy-haired girl with watery blue eyes whom Mary is clutching is
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breezy Fritzie Ridgeway, playing "a character without a character."
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In a lull between "close-ups," Mary Miles Minter greets me with a shy
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little smile.
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A pretty maid with blue eyes, features of static beauty, and a quiet
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composure of countenance betokening that she has lived much during her
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seventeen and a half years--that's Mary. A refined looking little LADY,
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whose subdued tone of voice, reserve, and cultured manner makes it no news
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at all when she tells me she was born in the South.
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She looks like your--anybody's--"best girl."
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She is wearing a little old fashioned frock of violet that, with fluffy
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lace at the collar and sleeves, above the elbow, and fluffy ruffles at the
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southern exposure.
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I note that she is kind and democratic toward her servants--a sign of
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true gentility.
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And she talks quietly, with restraint.
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In a detached way she bestows blame and praise, where either seems due,
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upon her spoken stage achievements.
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Depreciatingly she mentions her past screen accomplishments.
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Ecstatically she gushes about the "nest of darlings" she is now in,
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"from Adolph Zukor," who thought of Mary and then conceived Realart, "down
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to 'Daddy' Byce," pooh-bah of the studio.
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And oh-so-seriously, she discourses upon the big things of life which
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she holds dear: Domestic ideals which are real to her, freedom from
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commercialism and her dawning future--what "Buck" Massie would call "the
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ripening of her matured artistry," but what Mary calls "giving the public my
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best, now that I have served my apprenticeship; for the public has given me
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its best."
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Her name in private life is Juliet Shelby, but she said;
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"All my family believe that I AM Mary Mary Miles Minter. It was the
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real name of my first cousin, who died as a child. We were about the same
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age, and I looked, acted and talked the way she did, and had the same likes
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and dislikes.
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"When did I get my first 'job' on the stage? It wasn't a 'job.' It
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was an accident. It was when I was not quite five, with the late Nat
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Goodwin on the original production of 'Cameo Kirby.' It was a dismal
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failure, which Dustin Farnum later played with great success. Maude Fealy
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was in the company.
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"I was a tiny little girl, 'Toinette, I remember my first line."
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There was joy in Mary's voice as she chanted this:
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"'Sister Adele, Sister Adele, catch me--I'm tuming!'
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"I rushed gleefully downstairs crying that, and they caught me, and I
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enjoyed it.
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"I was born in Shreveport, La. My mother was a southern girl, tied
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down by the bonds of the South: 'You can't do this' and 'You can't do
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that.' She longed with all her soul to go on the stage, but she had two
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babies, Margaret and me.
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"Mother really did understudy Billie Burke in 'Love Watches' in New
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York at the Lyceum theater in 1906, and played the part of the sister in it.
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She looked like Billie. While mother was on the stage I sat on the table
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one night in that wonderful green room.
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"Charles Frohman walked in.
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"'Hello child,' he said. 'Whose child are you?'
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"'My mothers,' I replied, faintly annoyed at being called 'child.' No
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one had ever called me that, and I was four and a half.
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"'Who is your mother?'
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"'Tarlotte."
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"My mother, Charlotte Shelby--he thought she was 18, and didn't know
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she had any children--walked in from the stage.
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"'When are you going to put these children on the stage?' he asked.
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"'Stage? My children on the stage? Heaven forbid!' mother replied.
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'My children must be educated and reared as I was.'
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"Children were being engaged then at Wallack's theater for 'Cameo
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Kirby.' Not announcing it to mother, my grandmother determined to take
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Margaret, all dressed up in a big blue serge, all fluffy ruffles, down
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there. But when she came out of the house I was playing in the street.
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I was 'filthy dirty!' Yet I insisted and so there was nothing to do but
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take me along.
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"There were millions, simply millions of kids in a great room--with
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toes out, sashes, bows and things, their mammas poking them to sit up
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straight.
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"Grandmother found a chair in a corner, took Margaret on her lap and
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told me to crouch down in the corner and not show myself. I was a
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'disgrace,' 'a pig.'
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"My dress was filthy, and I still had my ball. All the kids had
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'snipped' at me when I came in.
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"There was a beautiful little girl there who looked like a French doll.
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I thought she WAS a French doll. I begged grandmother to let me go kiss
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her.
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"Her mother looked at me and said:
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"'Oh, those little waifs--how do they let them in? AND IT WANTS TO
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TOUCH MY DAUGHTER!"
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"Arnold Daly, who was playing there in 'The Irishman,' came in, made up
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as 'The Irishman'--big red nose--green eyes. I gazed at him fascinated.
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All the kids curtseyed, their mammas telling them, 'Now look at the
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gentleman, dearie--be nice.'
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"'O-oh, Grandma, look at his funny nose!' I screamed, sitting on my
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haunches hidden behind that chair in the corner.
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"'Come here, little one--I'd like to talk to you,' said Mr. Daly.
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"Grandmother, mortified, almost wept.
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"Proudly I stepped forth, and looked him up and down, from his funny
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feet to his funny head.
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"'Come this way, little girl,' he said.
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"Grandmother was in agony.
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"'May I play with these?' I asked, looking at his make-up table from a
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high chair in his dressing room. I didn't know what grease paint was, but I
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was fond of color. I smeared paint over my hands and face.
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"'What do you like to play?' he asked me.
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"'Hide and Go Seek, Pussy in a Corner, Ring Around the Rosey.'
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"'What have you DONE, played on the stage?' he asked, annoyed.
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"'The child seems intelligent, but she can't bell me what she's
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played,' he told Grandmother. 'She answers "Pussy in a Corner".'
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"'My child on the stage?' gasped grandmother. 'Oh no--Margaret is
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talented--not Juliet.'
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"'Why not?' asked Mr. Daly. 'She's ENGAGED.'
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"It was a pure freak. The family did not intend it. Mother didn't
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know it until a week before I played. She was horrified.
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"Salary? Fifty dollars a week, and in two months it was $55! I still
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have the first $50 bill I earned.
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"I never realized I was acting--it never occurred to me to play a part.
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"From then on I was on the stage, winter and summer--except for a 'lay-
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|
off' of one or two months at the outside.
|
|
"I have never sought a contract.
|
|
"Except for playing with Robert Hilliard in 'A Fool There Was' until my
|
|
own engagement started, I originated all the parts I played during my 10
|
|
years on the stage.
|
|
"Between the ages of 5 and 14 I played with every star of importance on
|
|
the American stage except John Drew, including Mrs. Fiske, Leo Ditrichstein,
|
|
Maude Adams, Ethel Barrymore, Bertha Kalich and Ellen Terry, who came over
|
|
one season.
|
|
"My next engagement was at $85 a week with Madame Kalich in 'What It
|
|
Means to a Woman.'
|
|
"In 1910-11 with Dustin and William Farnum, I played the title part in
|
|
'The Littlest Rebel,' first in vaudeville, then on the stage. We opened in
|
|
Chicago--when I was 8, but was supposed to be 16, according to the law. I
|
|
received $100 a week."
|
|
She played "The Littlest Rebel" for four years.
|
|
Her last stage appearance was in a child part in 1914-15, in an all-
|
|
star production, at the Forty-eighth Street theater, New York, of "The Woman
|
|
of Today," with Rita Jolivet, Frank Mills, Alice John and Joseph Kilgore--
|
|
"another triumphant failure."
|
|
Her first picture appearance, with Mary playing her last child part in
|
|
pictures came almost accidentally, despite her mother's demurring.
|
|
Gustave Frohman wanted a child to play the fairy in "The Fairy and the
|
|
Waif," the first production of the Frohman Amusement Co.--with Director
|
|
George Irving, all the ex-legitimate actors, producer, and even cameraman
|
|
absolutely green!
|
|
Daniel Frohman, friend and advisor of Mary, brought Gustave and his
|
|
wife to tea at her house.
|
|
"I wanted to get into a studio and see it," says Mary. "I thought the
|
|
actors got behind the screen to act! When Gustave Frohman took me to a
|
|
studio, I was fascinated!
|
|
"'I've got to play the picture--I want to--I love it!' I cried.
|
|
"I was THE child actress of the day, got the largest salary, played the
|
|
biggest parts, had things my own way. Percy Helton, THE boy actor of the
|
|
time, who played original parts with David Warfield and other Belasco stars,
|
|
was 'the waif.'
|
|
"How did it go? It's still going! Percy saw it in France, where he
|
|
was decorated by Gen. Pershing!
|
|
"It was a fine story, was produced beautifully and the director had a
|
|
spark of genius. I was the only bad thing--I don't see why I didn't ruin
|
|
it!"
|
|
From $150 a week, her first picture salary, Miss Minter advanced until
|
|
now, she says, she is to receive $1,300,000 and a percentage for making her
|
|
present series of 20 pictures "on her own" for Realart, in from two and a
|
|
half to three and a half years. The first is "Anne of Green Gables," the
|
|
second "Judy of Rogues' Harbor."
|
|
"I haven't made any big pictures--I don't consider that I've made ANY
|
|
pictures!" declaims Mary, earnestly. "All my long stage engagements were in
|
|
heavy dramatic plays with renowned, artistic stars. THEY have GIVEN
|
|
something, PRODUCED something! I don't consider that my playing in a few
|
|
pictures makes ME a star!"
|
|
So, public, since you should "hitch your wagon to the star," why not to
|
|
this wonderfully earnest one, who says that she regards it as her "sacred
|
|
trust to give the public my very best"?
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
December 16, 1919
|
|
Henry Dougherty
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXPRESS
|
|
[from an interview with Mary Miles Minter]...She realizes the
|
|
tremendous future that is being planned for her--but she is not alarmed
|
|
about it. She knows that within the next three years more than $1,300,000
|
|
will be paid to her by the Realart corporation. But that does not keep her
|
|
from dreaming her girlish dreams, from reading her favorite books and from
|
|
curling up in a comfortable chair in front of a big log fire in her
|
|
magnificent home on Fremont place.
|
|
It is not true that her contract forbids her from becoming engaged to
|
|
be married before it expires, but she avows that her art is her only love,
|
|
and that if she should receive any love letters within the next three years
|
|
she will not read them. I considered this one of the biggest features of my
|
|
"scoop." Imagine a young girl refusing to read love letters!
|
|
"Why, I would just love for somebody to write me the loveliest love
|
|
letter--but I would not read it. So there!" she said.
|
|
And she is very sincere in this. Discussing further she said:
|
|
"I want to make pictures that will leave wholesome memories on my
|
|
audiences. I want my plays to mirror real life and to tell little stories
|
|
that will bring happiness to all who see them.
|
|
"I want this happiness to be blended with tears, for happiness that has
|
|
a grain of sadness in it is the happiness that comes from the heart and
|
|
returns to the heart."...
|
|
Having seen Miss Minter in her home and having talked with her as the
|
|
log fire threw weird shadows about the room, her mood was reminiscent of
|
|
days gone by and a sudden realization of "dreams come true."
|
|
"I do not want to dominate my pictures," she said. "I want them to be
|
|
stories that will make people better after having seen them mirrored on the
|
|
screen, and I want my part to be only a part in those filmplays.
|
|
"Whether I ever attain that popularity which some think I will attain,
|
|
is for the future to decide. Be that as it may, I shall never lose my love
|
|
for my home and my mother--and more than that I cannot say."...
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
June 1920
|
|
Frances Denton
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
The Lonely Princess
|
|
|
|
...Mary Miles Minter had been working hard. She probably works harder
|
|
than any young girl of her age in the world. She is, perhaps, one of the
|
|
most envied children in this or any other country. And she is the
|
|
loneliest.
|
|
I saw her one day--one miserable day. It was the middle of the week,
|
|
and Mary, just returned from a tedious location trip, had been working for
|
|
three nights to catch up on interiors. I had, I was told, arrived at the
|
|
wrong moment; Mary was busy on the floor, and Mary's mother and grandmother
|
|
were away. Mary was all alone. So I watched her work a while.
|
|
I think Mary is much more than the ingenue many people think she is.
|
|
Her life has always been mapped out for her; the sunny-haired child has
|
|
always taken dictation. And she has managed, somehow, to keep within
|
|
herself a separate shell, which holds her own little individuality, her
|
|
distinct personality--a personality few know about, a whimsicality few
|
|
suspect, a depth which would surprise you. Mary Miles Minter is subtle.
|
|
...She had a white house on upper Fifth Avenue while she was working in
|
|
New York. She had attendants, personal and domestic, galore. She had a
|
|
million-dollar contract, which brought her the blue car, and the jewels, and
|
|
the dresses. Yet, none of these were really hers. Her mother signed her
|
|
contract, and holds it. Her mother draws her salary. She has no car of her
|
|
own.
|
|
...If you would take an inventory, she would find how few people in the
|
|
profession,--pictures--know her. They have heard about her; she is a
|
|
subject for speculation. Prejudiced against her beforehand, the young women
|
|
of that somewhat exclusive "younger set" of the film world pass her up.
|
|
Mary is super-sensitive. She would never set out to win anyone's regard if
|
|
she thought that they mightn't like her. She does not share the activities
|
|
and the gayeties of the Hollywood colony; she keeps to herself and earns the
|
|
reputation, only half-just, of being "particular" and "a little snob." She
|
|
isn't. But she knows they say that, and the knowledge hurts her.
|
|
Within her is the spark that means success. She could be happier
|
|
perhaps in some other profession. It is quite within the realm of
|
|
possibility that she might marry before she is thirty, and settle down to
|
|
raise babies. She loves babies. She was intensely interested in making
|
|
baby-clothes for her namesake, Juliet Whitney, wee daughter of her
|
|
secretary, Mrs. Charlotte Whitney. Mary is a domestic little soul; she
|
|
actually loves to sew and does make very nice things--for other girls'
|
|
babies.
|
|
...The world in general, particularly the professional world,
|
|
unconsciously cherishes resentment against Mary Miles Minter. Her success
|
|
has seemed to come to her; she has risen so easily. She has never gone
|
|
through a period of theatrical idleness; her services, once she was
|
|
established, have always been more or less in demand. And she has always
|
|
been guarded, cherished, protected. But don't think that she has not
|
|
struggled--through her "struggles" may have been mental. It has been harder
|
|
for her, surrounded and protected always by a good and devoted mother and
|
|
family, to keep her own viewpoint, her own individuality, than it would have
|
|
been had she starved to success. She has a fine mind; she has her own ideas-
|
|
-not for the world; she has protected her personality even as her mother
|
|
protected her material being.
|
|
...She may never be great; but when I sit and talk to her I feel that
|
|
there is in her the indomitable quality which makes for greatness. Such a
|
|
tiny little girl--and such a fund of knowledge, of common-sense! Fluffy
|
|
ingenue she is not; that she acts the part now does not mean that she will
|
|
always act it...
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 26, 1921, 1921
|
|
Edna Michaels
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
[from an interview with Mary Miles Minter] "Of course, I like New
|
|
York. I love it! It's the most thrilling place!" These words came
|
|
tumbling over each other from out the mouth of a beautiful little blonde-
|
|
haired girl, who sat primly erect on the edge of a most comfortable looking
|
|
sofa in her suite at the Biltmore Hotel. It was the first time I had seen
|
|
Mary since her arrival in New York (she had been here about a week then),
|
|
and I wanted to learn about her impressions and to pass them along to a
|
|
curious public.
|
|
"Do you know what I like best in this big city?" asked Mary in her
|
|
delightfully unusual voice (unusual because, for a girl who has been on the
|
|
stage and screen for so long a time she has not the faintest trace of an
|
|
affected English accent). "The theatres! In the short time I've been here,
|
|
I've seen almost everything worth while. During one week I went to a
|
|
matinee every blessed day and again at night. And I'm still going."
|
|
In answer to what she likes best, the young star answered: "I think I
|
|
liked Barrie's 'Mary Rose' best. It was so charming. But then, I liked
|
|
'Sally' and 'The Tavern' and 'Bab' and a number of others. I didn't like
|
|
the Follies. Everybody expected me to be wild about it, but I wasn't. The
|
|
color pictures were simply wonderful, but that's all I could see. The rest,
|
|
well, it was too much." Switching away from the subject of the theatre, she
|
|
continued:
|
|
"I love colors. I can get as much pleasure out of looking at something
|
|
with a rich blue or orange color as art. Colors give me an aesthetic
|
|
thrill. A picture, a vase, or a piece of material with its predominating
|
|
color a rich one, is to me the most beautiful thing in the world. And I
|
|
love to look at pretty girls--that's another thing!"
|
|
Mary is very fond of her books and of people. I remember her telling
|
|
me one night when she had an appointment for dinner, the theatre and supper,
|
|
that she would really much rather stay at home and read. She adores her
|
|
books--and they are good ones. Many people would be tempted to call Mary a
|
|
high-brow--she knows so much. She has read so much that she is a veritable
|
|
storehouse of information on all sorts of subjects. She has remarkable
|
|
intelligence, has Mary, but you have to know her well before you find this
|
|
out. When you first meet her, she talks very little, and acts almost self-
|
|
conscious. But she insists she's not self-conscious; she's just studying
|
|
people.
|
|
"When I was a very little girl, I had to do a great deal of traveling,"
|
|
she said. "I was then acting on the stage and I traveled from town to town.
|
|
Often I would get tired of reading, and then I would study the people in the
|
|
car. Sometimes I'd study their feet and wonder what their faces looked
|
|
like, and always I would wonder exactly what and who they were. And that
|
|
game of studying people has stuck to me. I never tire of it. I like people
|
|
and I try to make them like me."
|
|
Mary certainly leads a hectic life in New York. When not at the
|
|
theatre, she is at some tea given in her honor (there is one almost every
|
|
day), and then there are dinners and parties for her, and shopping and
|
|
photographers and interviews. With it all, Mary is as sweet as she can be.
|
|
She never is cross or disagreeable.
|
|
Mary's mother, Mrs. Shelby, who accompanies Mary wherever she goes, and
|
|
who doesn't look like her mother at all, but like a grown-up sister, said to
|
|
me one day:
|
|
"You know this is something unusual for Mary. At home she is in bed
|
|
'most every night at ten o'clock. If she stays up until midnight once in a
|
|
while, she thinks she is having an exciting time. But she has been working
|
|
so hard that I thought she ought to have a little leeway. We haven't been
|
|
to bed a single night since our arrival, before three or four or even five
|
|
o'clock in the morning. But there's only about one more week of it and then
|
|
when we get back to the coast, it means hard work and a ten o'clock bed
|
|
hour. I don't think we've seen a morning in New York. We sleep all
|
|
morning, naturally, after being out all night."
|
|
Mary has purchased a lot of new clothes while here, many of which she
|
|
will wear in her forthcoming Realart picture. Her last picture, "The Little
|
|
Clown," by Avery Hopwood is scheduled for early release, and she is very
|
|
enthusiastic about it.
|
|
Mary likes New York--she is having an awfully good time--but she'll be
|
|
glad to get back to Hollywood and work.
|
|
Mary Miles Minter had changed. I noticed that. When I saw her here
|
|
last year, she was a quiet little girl--almost timid--with long, golden
|
|
curls and simple, little frocks. The girl I was now facing had her bright
|
|
golden curls piled high on her head, wore a smart, little, French frock and
|
|
as she talked, I realized that she seemed older. She had seen and gained
|
|
impressions of things about which she knew nothing last year. Besides,
|
|
there is a great deal of difference between a girl of seventeen and one of
|
|
eighteen. At seventeen one is a mere child; at eighteen she is a debutante.
|
|
Oh, there's a world of difference!
|
|
But Mary, as a debutante, still possesses a great many qualities of the
|
|
child of seventeen. She still consults her mother about everything she does
|
|
and is just as sweet and prim as she was when a year younger. There she sat
|
|
on the couch, as she must have been taught to sit when a child of five: both
|
|
feet on the floor, body erect, and her hands folded in her lap. But, after
|
|
about half an hour, she glanced about, and seeing every other female in the
|
|
room with legs crossed, she apologized--and crossed her own! The debutante
|
|
had won.
|
|
That was my first visit to Mary--but not my last, during her stay in
|
|
New York. I teaed, dined, shopped and matineed with her, and in that time I
|
|
had an opportunity of learning about the real Mary and what she thought of
|
|
New York.
|
|
Just a sweet, unaffected and unspoiled young woman is this gifted child
|
|
of the screen, Mary Miles Minter.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
May 22, 1921
|
|
Florence Lawrence
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
|
|
Screen Beauty to Wed if She Gets Right Man
|
|
|
|
Mary Miles Minter--spinster.
|
|
That's the way the name would read in those old-fashioned legal
|
|
documents we hear about.
|
|
Mary has been one of the most courted girls in filmdom--and the least
|
|
married.
|
|
"But, just the same, I live in hopes of finding the Not Impossible He,"
|
|
laughed the star, "and when I do, nothing--career, money or anything else--
|
|
shall be allowed to put any handicaps in my bridal path.
|
|
"The idea that matrimony and a career are incompatible is all nonsense.
|
|
If I were married, I'd have my domestic affairs running on such smooth
|
|
wheels there would never be a hitch. I'd have my menus made out for a week
|
|
in advance--and I'd always know where there were good servants in reserve,
|
|
in case any one in my household got recalcitrant.
|
|
"Why should anyone think that a 'star' more than anyone else, cannot be
|
|
happily married? It's all nonsense! Why, I found out the other day what
|
|
that word 'star' means--and it's almost nothing at all. I asked Mr. Eyton,
|
|
our studio manager, just what standing I would have in a court of law--law
|
|
being the nearest thing to the truth we can find in this conventional world.
|
|
And he told me. Maybe it will be a shock to some of my fellow actors, but
|
|
it delighted me.
|
|
"'Your standing would be that of a factory employee, with me as your
|
|
superintendent,' said he.
|
|
"Isn't that wonderful," gurgled the pretty blond Mary. "You know," she
|
|
added, "I'm not very old, but I've been on the stage and screen fifteen
|
|
years, and I've played with all the big stars there are, nearly, and I've
|
|
always thought there was something mysterious about this 'star' business
|
|
that I didn't understand. Now I know with it is. So if we're just 'factory
|
|
hands,' why shouldn't we have the same normal life they live? And aren't
|
|
husbands part of the every-day existence?"
|
|
Mary made a big confession just here, when she dropped her voice and
|
|
whispered: "In all my life, though, I've only had about four proposals that
|
|
really counted. Of course," she added, "every girl gets a lot from men who
|
|
are ineligible for one reason or another, but I just couldn't make up my
|
|
mind to marry any of the four.
|
|
"My ideal husband?" she continued, in answer to the query. "Well, I
|
|
don't know the color of his eyes, or his hair. Those don't matter. I think
|
|
he must be big--he should have a good sense of humor and a love for clean,
|
|
wholesome things. I would like a man who impressed me with the comforting
|
|
quality of his love. He should like the out-of-doors and, above all, he
|
|
should agree with me in the search for whole truths--I can't stand half
|
|
truths about anything in life. He should be like trees, and water, and wind-
|
|
-like white clouds in a blue sky--like brown woodwork and crimson cushions
|
|
and fireplaces. And his very presence should be wholesome, like a draught
|
|
of cool, fresh water on a warm day."
|
|
Some ideal, isn't it?
|
|
"Most of all," added the actress, "he should be some one I could be
|
|
proud of for my children. I'd hate to give them a father that I couldn't
|
|
teach them to love and respect with an honest and conscientious belief in
|
|
his right to such consideration. I have a profound regard for children, and
|
|
'elders,' to command deference from the young, should earn it by more than a
|
|
mere accumulation of years."
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
August 1921
|
|
Truth Astor
|
|
MOTION PICTURE CLASSIC
|
|
Forget-Me-Not
|
|
|
|
The three years just past have changed Mary Miles Minter. Of course,
|
|
one would have expected that. They have taken some of the childish
|
|
roundness from her cheeks and left a suggestion of the woman in her face and
|
|
figure. I noticed this as she descended the steps leading from her dressing
|
|
room. but I also noticed that her gaze was clear and candid, her handshake
|
|
firm as it used to be.
|
|
She has not grown "up-stage." I had heard several people say that of
|
|
her, and for the first few minutes I watched closely for any suggestion of
|
|
self-satisfaction. I didn't find it. What I did find was an intense spirit
|
|
of rebellion against sham and pretense, a longing for reality so great that
|
|
it has inspired her with disgust for even the ordinary, meaningless shams
|
|
that belong to the every-day life of an actress.
|
|
In other words, Mary Miles Minter is finding herself.
|
|
"I'm making pictures because, by making them, I can make money," she
|
|
said. "I ought not to say this, but it is the truth. I hate all this talk
|
|
about art! 'My art!' 'My art!' Always 'My art!'
|
|
She is at the age when a young girl is most uncertain of herself, and
|
|
so longs for sincerity in all about her. It is because her inherent
|
|
artistry is so great that she is going thru this period of restlessness and
|
|
discontent with the world.
|
|
She is not making moving pictures just for the money there is in them.
|
|
If she were, she would be perfectly happy, for she is making more money in
|
|
one day than the President of the United States makes in a week.
|
|
She came downstairs wearing an evening dress with short puff sleeves of
|
|
tulle and bouffant hips, gathered with garlands of little pink silk roses.
|
|
It was twelve (noon) and her make-up hid her natural coloring--a pink-
|
|
and-white so lovely that no picture can ever do full justice to her beauty.
|
|
Her hair is yellow and lustrous, her eyes are a deep, clear blue, the bluest
|
|
blue I have ever seen. Both color and expression of her eyes carry the
|
|
message--"forget-me-not." You would notice that her handshake gives
|
|
evidence of vitality. It is gentle and firm, but not clinging. She looks
|
|
to be about five feet tall.
|
|
Her mother, Mrs. Shelby, had joined me a moment before, and was with me
|
|
at the foot of the stairs waiting for her.
|
|
"I'm so sorry that we can't go home to lunch," said Mrs. Shelby,
|
|
herself youthful, pretty, modish, "but Mary never has time. Can't we go
|
|
home today, dear?" as Mary appeared at the top of the stairs.
|
|
"I'm afraid not," came the answer. "It wouldn't be fair. I must be on
|
|
the set by one o'clock." But it was arranged that we should go, after all.
|
|
Mrs. Shelby 'phoned ahead and luncheon was ready to be served on our
|
|
arrival.
|
|
It is a beautiful house on Fremont Place, which Mary Miles Minter is at
|
|
present making her home. It is white, palatial, approached by a broad
|
|
driveway and guarded by two stone lions.
|
|
"But I think we'll build," said Mary, "something more homelike."
|
|
Mary Pickford used to live there. On this day Mary Miles Minter wore
|
|
her hair in golden curls and I was reminded vividly of something Mary
|
|
Pickford had said two years before. We had been talking about someone said
|
|
to resemble her.
|
|
"There's only one person I know of who I think looks like me," said
|
|
Mary Pickford, "and she is Mary Miles Minter. She's younger, of course, but
|
|
I think she looks like me."
|
|
The door was opened for us by a butler and we went directly upstairs.
|
|
Her bedroom is the same Miss Pickford used--a beautiful room overlooking
|
|
Fremont Place. Rugs and draperies are a soft, dull blue. Both of her
|
|
automobiles are painted blue, and this color also predominates the house.
|
|
Only in the dining-room the furniture is dark and imposing--of
|
|
teakwood, heavily carved. But the breakfast-room, next to it, makes up in
|
|
dainty brightness for the stateliness of the other.
|
|
She loves to read. This is not "press stuff." It is absolutely
|
|
genuine. She discusses books with the loving enthusiasm one might use in
|
|
speaking of friends.
|
|
Among the books she treasures most is one written by the young son of
|
|
Richard Mansfield and given to her by him not long before his tragic death
|
|
in France.
|
|
"He was only seventeen when he wrote that," she said--"a boy's protest
|
|
against hypocrisy."
|
|
She likes somber, serious things, like the poems of Edgar Allan Poe and
|
|
the Rubaiyat, but she also likes humor mixed with sentiment, as, for
|
|
instance, "Anne of Green Gables," which she herself suggested for the
|
|
screen.
|
|
She goes out less than the average girl of her age, and then always
|
|
attended by her mother or her grandmother. With the exception of one glass
|
|
of champagne on her eighteenth birthday, she has yet to taste her first
|
|
drink of intoxicating liquor, and she has never smoked a cigarette. She is
|
|
studying music and French. By studying between scenes and evenings at home,
|
|
she has managed to graduate from high school. She expects to gain a college
|
|
diploma in the same way.
|
|
On her dresser lay a little silver dish, a prize won in a dancing
|
|
contest.
|
|
"It is the first prize of any sort I ever won in my life!"
|
|
You would notice, perhaps, that she resembles Mary Pickford in her
|
|
earnestness and enthusiasm, as well as in her appearance. She is not
|
|
imitative, because, again like Mary Pickford, she has too much personality
|
|
of her own. And she is impatient of ingenue roles. The younger Mary is so
|
|
very young that she longs to be grown-up on the screen. She longs for an
|
|
opportunity to try the artistry she feels inwardly certain that she has
|
|
acquired. Mary Miles Minter, like Mary Pickford, has been working since she
|
|
was five years old.
|
|
"My first appearance was in 'Cameo Kirby,' with Nat Goodwin and Maude
|
|
Fealy," she said, "and I've been working steadily ever since. Except for a
|
|
few days when I was sick, I haven't had a single vacation."
|
|
She also appeared with Mrs. Fiske, Bertha Kalich, Robert Hilliard and
|
|
Emily Stevens.
|
|
But her greatest stage success was made in "The Littlest Rebel," with
|
|
William and Dustin Farnum. And as a New York paper described her as "... a
|
|
ragged, straight-haired, woman-faced little one." This was November 22,
|
|
1911! It was during the run of "The Littlest Rebel," and when she was nine
|
|
years old that she became Mary Miles Minter.
|
|
"Before that, I had been using my own name of Juliet Shelby. And then,
|
|
one day we were notified that, as I wasn't sixteen years old, I would have
|
|
to leave the show. Something had to be done, so mother thought of padding
|
|
me up and using the name and birth certificate of a cousin who died when she
|
|
was a baby. So Juliet Shelby left the show and Mary Miles Minter, her
|
|
cousin, joined it. We were scared for a while, but we got by with it all
|
|
right, and I've been Mary Miles Minter ever since."
|
|
Her own name is practically forgotten, even by members of her family.
|
|
By this time luncheon was almost over. We had enjoyed a delicious
|
|
roast, spiced sweet potatoes, peas, hot rolls and fruit, and, with her call
|
|
changed to half-past one, the little star still had plenty of time to reach
|
|
her set.
|
|
"I don't believe that people outside the profession have the least idea
|
|
how hard we have to work," she said. "This is the first luncheon I've had
|
|
at home for a long time, and I never go anywhere. I've been working without
|
|
a vacation since I was little more than a baby!"
|
|
Since joining Realart, Mary Miles Minter has made "Anne of Green
|
|
Gables," "Judy of Rogues' Harbor," "Sweet Lavender," "A Cumberland Romance,"
|
|
"All Saints' Eve" and "The Little Clown," which was being filmed at the time
|
|
I saw her. She began with the "American" in Santa Barbara.
|
|
Back at the studio, we played "Poor Pussy"--this was, of course,
|
|
between scenes, when the electricians were adjusting the lights--with Avery
|
|
Hopwood's hat playing the name role.
|
|
It's a great game! Everyone sits around in a circle, with the hat in
|
|
the center of it. The hat is supposed to be a dead cat, and the idea is
|
|
that you're holding a wake over it. No one is supposed to laugh.
|
|
The first to laugh were the only actors in the crowd--Mary Miles Minter
|
|
and Jack Mulhall, her sweetheart (in the picture). Her director, Tom
|
|
Heffron, grinned once, but there were extenuating circumstances.
|
|
She was full of life and fun all the afternoon. Alternately, a little
|
|
girl and a young woman, but always charming--that's Mary Miles Minter.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
May 25, 1921
|
|
Billie Blenton
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
A Regular Fellow Off For Europe
|
|
|
|
"There are two things I never am. I am never bored, and I am never
|
|
amused. I am very much interested in everything and everybody. And I do
|
|
pity people who have not a sense of humor."
|
|
Mary Miles Minter, herself, tendered this most vivid description of
|
|
herself as she sat on the lounge in the living room of her Hotel Biltmore
|
|
suite, thirty hours before she sailed for her European vacation.
|
|
The previous day, Mary had been presented to the motion picture press
|
|
via a luncheon tendered by the Realart company. I was struck at that time
|
|
by her poise and ability to play the hostess with such consummate ease.
|
|
Putting everybody at home; making herself one of us. It is not given to
|
|
every nineteen year old girl to so conduct herself. Not even one who has
|
|
been the darling of the public since she was a wee youngster.
|
|
This was my first glimpse of Mary in the flesh. Then the appointment
|
|
to see her alone...
|
|
And there Mary sat on the lounge, blue eyes every much a-sparkle, soft
|
|
silken blonde hair framing her head in a kind of light.
|
|
"I hate clothes," she almost gritted. "And I have to keep tight hold
|
|
of my temper when I am advised to wear my hair down my back in curls, and
|
|
frocks in keeping with this form of hair dressing. Of course, I will not do
|
|
any such thing. I expect to continue to wear clothes neither too old nor
|
|
too young for me. I am not a child. I don't intend dressing as one.
|
|
Furthermore, I don't intend wearing my hair down my back. It's up, and it's
|
|
going to stay."
|
|
"How come you hate clothes?" I quizzed.
|
|
"They take so much time to get. I always seem to purchase them at the
|
|
last minute, anyway. Look at me now, after a morning of it. Then, too, I
|
|
think it a needless waste of time to devote so much thought to things
|
|
physical and when you love clothes that is exactly what you do. It is
|
|
really accentuating the ego more than if you take things as they come and
|
|
don't dash into a modiste's place very free moment you have.
|
|
"What do you suppose I do usually when I have some time between
|
|
pictures?" she flashed.
|
|
I shook my head helplessly.
|
|
"I go do a dentist to see if my teeth are free from cavities. Then,
|
|
having done what I deem my duty to myself, I play. I love horseback riding.
|
|
Do you ride?"
|
|
I had unhappy visions; therefore I shook my head.
|
|
"It's great sport. It gives one a chance to get out into the open, to
|
|
see nature. I love nature. I love to get away, now and then, from people,
|
|
and just dream alone. Open country is the place to do it."
|
|
...Mary has read extensively. It does seem that the trite expression:
|
|
"The more you have to do, the more you can do," takes on a glowing
|
|
significance in this instance. You would suspect that Mary, with her
|
|
kaleidoscopic moods, was a lover of poetry. She is. You would suspect that
|
|
one who loves Shelly, Keats and Byron leans toward conventionality's enemy,
|
|
unconventionality. You are right.
|
|
Not that Mary flies in the face of public opinion. She doesn't. It's
|
|
simply calling a spade a spade and letting it go at that.
|
|
"The trouble with most people who are so frightfully stilted in their
|
|
views, is that they have no sense of humor," she remarked. "I do so pity
|
|
these people. Think of the black glasses with which they look at
|
|
everything. They don't see any redeeming features about deeds that are
|
|
beyond their ken. I've bumped into those kinds. The only redeeming
|
|
features about these people is learning their reactions. These reactions
|
|
usually border on the fanatic. Imagine such narrow-mindedness in the
|
|
twentieth century."
|
|
"As a star," I propounded, "you scintillate off the screen as well as
|
|
on."
|
|
"I am not a star," she quite calmly retorted. "I don't believe there
|
|
is any such thing. At all events, I am not in the star category."
|
|
"Then what," I considered, "just what are you?"
|
|
She gazed at me askance and rested her chin on a slim finger. "I act
|
|
in motion pictures."
|
|
"It's a good thing I have a sense of humor," warningly, "else I would
|
|
certainly feel called upon to take you to task for that reply."
|
|
"Indeed?" mischievously. "Well, now that you mention it, it's a good
|
|
thing I have a sense of humor, else I would probably feel called upon to
|
|
tamper with this beautiful cruel weapon at an unsafe distance."
|
|
She gained her feet lightly, disappearing into an adjoining room, only
|
|
to make her appearance again, with a beautiful dagger which she clutched by
|
|
its stunning jade handle. Her face was grim, foreboding. I commenced to
|
|
quail.
|
|
"Now, Mary, you know," tremulously.
|
|
"What do you think of it," a flash of white teeth and a cheery smile
|
|
ran the grimness away. "See this?" she pointed to several dark, suggestive
|
|
stains. It was as though the scene changed completely, giving way to a
|
|
typical Chinese one of long, long ago, wherein there was murder on foot,
|
|
and...
|
|
"These stains," Mary was explaining, "are blood." I shivered. A thing
|
|
that is fascinating in its beautiful cruelty always makes me shiver.
|
|
"I wonder if the victims were agnostics?" Mary pondered. "I am,"
|
|
firmly.
|
|
"You're an agnostic," I rapidly returned.
|
|
"Yes."
|
|
"Well, I'm jiggered."
|
|
"You needn't be," Mary smiled. "With me, it is simply having a
|
|
breathing range for religious beliefs."
|
|
"Which reminds me, I have been reading the Bible of late. Jove,
|
|
there's a book for you."
|
|
"It certainly is." She quoted a passage from the Psalms of Solomon.
|
|
"Just imagine any young man saying such a thing today," she gurgled.
|
|
(For fear that censors read this who are not acquainted with the Bible and
|
|
thereupon would start raising the deuce, I omit the passage.)
|
|
At this inauspicious moment, several knocks were at first lightly, then
|
|
heavily, sounded on the door. Mary gave me a comical look. "I have reached
|
|
that stage where the sound of a knock, the ring of a telephone bell, or a
|
|
doorbell, makes me nervous. Since being in New York these few days, I vow I
|
|
haven't had a moment's peace with anyone without having a knock, or a
|
|
telephone or doorbell ring to interrupt, ushering in someone. It's becoming
|
|
something of a strain, when there is no cessation."
|
|
Her face was sweetly pensive in its weariness. She straightened to
|
|
smile as her mother entered the room to tell her she simply had to decide on
|
|
those last two gowns, after which there were two people waiting to see her.
|
|
"Very well," but she could not smother the sigh that trembled into
|
|
utterance.
|
|
Whether or not Mary admits it, she is a star. And a star is confronted
|
|
with problems that are foreign to those in any other profession. There is
|
|
always an endless chain of visitors, an endless chain of dressmakers, an
|
|
endless number of people who storm the door even when it has not been
|
|
opened.
|
|
After all, Mary Miles Minter is just nineteen. She is a girl who has a
|
|
mind far superior to that of the usual girl of nineteen, a student of human
|
|
nature who absorbs and uses what she has learned, but in the end, a regular
|
|
fellow who never says die. Else she probably would have passed away on this
|
|
curtailed but hectic stay in New York before sailing for the other side and
|
|
the vacation she has well earned...
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
July 10, 1921
|
|
Ormsby Burton
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
|
Mary Miles Minter is Interviewed in London
|
|
|
|
London, June 22--Mary Miles Minter has not been idolized in London to
|
|
the extent that Mary Pickford was, but, nevertheless, the papers did not
|
|
allow one to overlook the fact that she was in this city, for interviews
|
|
with her and photographs of her have occupied much space in their pages.
|
|
Some of the things she is credited with saying are rather remarkable.
|
|
According to the Daily News she is not quite happy at not being allowed to
|
|
grow older than 16. Interviewed by a representative of that paper, she
|
|
said:
|
|
"I'm really 19, but I'm still supposed to be nothing but curls and
|
|
laughter. I'm not allowed to have an idea of my own--though I'd love to
|
|
produce films as I think they ought to be produced. I'm tired of barebacked
|
|
women and leering men, and all the exaggerations of the film. I'd like to
|
|
show the young girl as I know her; but I have to be curls and laughter all
|
|
the time. And there's so much that might be expressed on the film--if
|
|
they'd let you grow up!"
|
|
Among the remarks she made to the film correspondent of the Sunday
|
|
Express were the following:
|
|
"I do not care for any praise except that of my mother."
|
|
"Money! What is money compared to the happiness of being able to
|
|
express myself in art.
|
|
"The papers say that I am a great cinema actress. I don't believe it.
|
|
It isn't true."
|
|
The corespondent, commenting upon these views of Miss Minter says:
|
|
"Are they a bluff? Are they part of a lesson drilled into the child by
|
|
a careful mother and a skillful publicity agent, or are they simply the
|
|
outcome of a certain natural precocity? I am inclined to take the latter
|
|
view as they were delivered with an air of convincing solemnity wholly at
|
|
variance with the youthful, golden-haired speaker."
|
|
She told another reporter that she had seen only fifteen pictures in
|
|
her life, that to see herself in a film was "excruciating agony," and that
|
|
it made her cry.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
September 10, 1921
|
|
Billie Blenton
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
It's Good to Be Home
|
|
|
|
Of course you've heard that Mary Miles Minter is engaged. Is it to a
|
|
banker, a picture man, or a fruit dealer?
|
|
We didn't know.
|
|
So we asked Mary, when that exuberant young person returned from an
|
|
eight weeks' or so vacation in England, France and Italy.
|
|
Mary's brow ruffled and her large, expressive blue eyes took on a
|
|
woefully perplexed air.
|
|
"I don't know," seriously. "You see, I don't know either of the three
|
|
unfortunates to whom I am said to be engaged. Which makes it exceedingly
|
|
awkward for me, for them, and for everyone at large.
|
|
"Naturally, being married to a banker would have its good points. The
|
|
same is true of the picture man and the fruit dealer. Especially the fruit
|
|
dealer. That rumor is lovely.
|
|
"But the newsites are wrong again. I'm still whole hearted and fancy
|
|
free. And I am happy indeed to get back to New York, and I'll be happier
|
|
yet when I am at the studio in Los Angeles and begin work on my new
|
|
picture."
|
|
"How was the trip?" no longer able to evade the question.
|
|
"Um. All right," laconically. Mary has a way of being laconic about
|
|
matters that fail to arouse her interest. A mild form of indifference.
|
|
Emphasize indifference, please, for Mary says "I'm never bored; neither am I
|
|
ever amused. I'm too interested in everything to be either."
|
|
However, if the trip in its entirety proved just a trip, there must
|
|
have been flashes of sidelights that swayed the interest of the little
|
|
Realart star to a running speed.
|
|
"How did you like the people?" We were curious how they checked up
|
|
with those she knew over here. Furthermore, a Continental comparison should
|
|
prove enlightening and interesting. Through the pages of literature we
|
|
reach our respective conclusions as to the mode of life, the ideals, and how
|
|
the attitude toward problems of the age are considered by the European.
|
|
Through direct observation, even though it be by proxy, we can broaden this
|
|
literary aspect.
|
|
Mary tended to reticence, insofar as being quoted in print was
|
|
concerned. We couldn't possibly violate her confidence.
|
|
You have heard a great deal, in all likelihood, about the Follies
|
|
Bergere in Paris? It is the great amusement center of midnight revelers and
|
|
the belief of those who know little about it, save by hearsay, is that it is
|
|
conducted for the benefit of the hundreds of Americans who stream into Paris
|
|
to be entertained.
|
|
"That is not so," denied Mary. "The Americans, I would say, are
|
|
outnumbered four to one. The Follies Bergere is for the French. A special
|
|
section is reserved for Americans, and Americans only. The rest of the
|
|
space is occupied by Frenchmen.
|
|
"How did I enjoy the Follies Bergere?" She made a little moue and
|
|
moved her hands restlessly, irritably. "I didn't. Shortly after the review
|
|
had begun I became deathly ill. It was a combination of train nausea and
|
|
sea-sickness. The sight of those half-clad women with nothing graceful or
|
|
attractive about their voluptuous state sickened me. 'I've got to go,'
|
|
I said to the party of friends I was with. 'You've got to get me out of
|
|
here.'
|
|
"'Oh, stay for a little while,' encouraged my escort. 'You'll feel
|
|
better in a minute or two.' So I acquiesced. Instead of feeling better,
|
|
I commenced to feel worse. The entire place was spinning around. Once more
|
|
I turned to my escort. 'I've got to leave this place and I'm going now!'
|
|
We did. Never again for mine."
|
|
Mrs. Shelby, Mary's mother, told us that Mary was the interpreter for
|
|
herself and Margaret, her oldest daughter. "She spoke French fluently and
|
|
with a little semblance of an accent. I don't know what we would have done
|
|
without Mary's French. I didn't know she could speak it so well, but once
|
|
over in France and Italy she was the guardian angel of us all."
|
|
What Mrs. Shelby said about Mary's french reflects light on Mary
|
|
herself. Few people, except her inmost friends, know her as she really is--
|
|
a girl tremendously interested in people and in literature, one who has read
|
|
most extensively and, furthermore, is fully capable of grasping the most
|
|
subtle and elusive of works, one who has emphatic ideas about pictures,
|
|
which tend to make her a little impatient, sometimes, to the type of story
|
|
she brings to the screen. Her personality is difficult to capture in print
|
|
without a deal of time, and unfortunately, where time is fleeting and the
|
|
magazine ready to go to press, it renders it difficult to make a delicate
|
|
etching in words.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
January 21, 1922
|
|
Henry Dougherty
|
|
LOS ANGELES EXPRESS
|
|
Mary Minter and Tommy Dixon Not Engaged to Wed
|
|
|
|
They had just pulled Mary Miles Minter out of a well, and then an hour
|
|
later Wallace Beery tried to choke her to death as Frank Urson yelled for
|
|
more realism.
|
|
When the cold, clammy hands of the villain were released from the little
|
|
star's throat Miss Minter, almost exhausted, sank into a big chair while
|
|
someone threw a warm blanket about her. [1]
|
|
And all this time Thomas Dixon, the blond young man for whom Dame Rumor
|
|
has been ringing wedding bells of late with Miss Minter's name constantly
|
|
mentioned as that of the bride, was a spectator. Mr. Dixon did not go to
|
|
her rescue--but that's another story. He was not cast in this picture, as
|
|
Frank Urson had picked some other man as the person to properly chastise the
|
|
villainous Mr. Beery.
|
|
On the draughty set a huge fire was burning in the huge fireplace, and
|
|
scattered about was the library mentioned in the story. Two or three
|
|
electric contrivances were doing their level best to heat the place, but
|
|
without marked success.
|
|
It didn't seem to be the time and place for one to discourse with Miss
|
|
Minter about wedding bells, romance, love and such things, but the presence
|
|
of Mr. Dixon "gave color to the situation," as they say in the movies, and
|
|
we mustered enough courage to proceed with the interview.
|
|
"It's the first time he has been here in two weeks," Miss Minter said.
|
|
"I would like for the world to know that Mr. Dixon is a very dear friend--
|
|
a charming fellow--a wonderful acquaintance, but he is not my affiance."
|
|
Her big blue eyes seemed to sparkle with determination as she spoke,
|
|
and then into their depths crept a tender softened expression as she
|
|
continued:
|
|
"Marriage is something sacred. Marriage should be discussed with
|
|
reverence and feeling--never flippantly.
|
|
"Love comes from God. Love is a marvelous flame--the very light of
|
|
life--and it, too, should be treated with reverence. It is the most
|
|
beautiful thing that can come into our lives.
|
|
"And when I am engaged to be married--when I love a man well enough to
|
|
go to the altar with him--I will be so proud of him that I will want to
|
|
shout my glad tidings to the world.
|
|
"It will not be necessary for anyone to come snooping around to learn
|
|
if I am engaged to be married. I will seek them out and tell them.
|
|
"I have known Mr. Dixon for five years.
|
|
"I met him in 1917, when I was touring around trying to do my little
|
|
bit in Liberty loan campaigns.
|
|
"Since that time we have been the best of friends. About one year ago
|
|
we became engaged--but it was a conditional engagement. We kept it secret
|
|
for that reason.
|
|
"When Mr. Dixon came to California during the holidays the engagement
|
|
was called off, despite rumors to the contrary. And that's all.
|
|
"I have not seen much of him recently, and it is by the merest
|
|
coincidence that he is visiting in the studio today.
|
|
"I regard him as a friend. But I do not love him. And until I love
|
|
someone, I will never marry.
|
|
"That's the true story of my romance, if romance it has been. To me,
|
|
however, it has just been a dear, sweet friendship, and my real romance is
|
|
yet to come."
|
|
Then Frank Urson came abruptly upon the scene. He said he wanted to see
|
|
Wallace Beery choke Miss Minter again, and he called Carmen Phillips, the well-
|
|
known screen vampire, into the conspiracy.
|
|
The cameras began to click, and the villainous work of eliminating the
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heroine from the story proceeded until the hero rushed in there and sprawled
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Mr. Beery with one well-aimed blow.
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It was quite a strenuous day for the blonde little star, but she emerged
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from it with a joyous smile and a feeling that it was a day's work well done.
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*****************************************************************************
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*****************************************************************************
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Wallace Smith: February 28, 1922
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The following is the last in our series of Wallace Smith's sensationalizing
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dispatches on the Taylor case.
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February 28, 1922
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Wallace Smith
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CHICAGO AMERICAN
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Brawls, the petty squabbles of men burdened with temperament, today led
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detectives on a new search for the slayer of William Desmond Taylor.
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They were turned to the theory that Taylor was shot to death as the
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result of some dispute.
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The theory developed when it gradually became known that the slain
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director, known to his women friends as a man of deep reading and tender
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sentiments and to men as "a man's man," was not always thus regarded by those
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who worked for him.
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As a matter of fact, from the circles in which he moved have come tales
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of many differences with men and women who were not guests at the home in
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Alvarado St. where Taylor was murdered. To them Taylor was known as "hard
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|
boiled." He was often referred to as "Simon Legree," whose one care was
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making a showing before his employers and whose last thought was for the
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|
feelings of those he found working under him.
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|
In his position he was a man of considerable power. It was within his
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|
grip to make or break men and women and their careers.
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|
The first gentle eulogies of his friends have been somewhat outshadowed
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|
lately by the word of those who jumped at Taylor's command.
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|
The new search of the detectives covered a dishearteningly wide range.
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|
They theorized that one of these employees who had not sufficient reputation
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|
to command Taylor's gentle manner, had quarreled with him.
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|
As a result, the theory continued, the employee either had been hampered
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|
in his work or entirely banished from following his career where Taylor's
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|
influence stretched.
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|
Such a man or woman, they declared -- and there were many such -- might
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|
have been driven to desperation and the resolve to kill Taylor in revenge.
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|
At any rate, the new theory invigorated a search that seemed to be
|
|
waiting for officials to make up their minds to bring in for a new
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|
examination the woman suspected of knowing the grim story behind the
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|
spectacular murder. [2]
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|
For some strange reason they continued to hold back, although the story
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|
she told at the "polite interview" first imposed upon her has been found to
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|
be punctured with discrepancies. It was to be remarked, too, that a witness
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|
whose narrative was supposed to corroborate hers had been changed several
|
|
times to dovetail with her sworn statement.
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|
It was to be remarked, as well, that it was just a month ago today that
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|
Taylor was killed. And all officials -- except those who clung to the theory
|
|
that the woman could clear away the fog of mystery -- admitted that they were
|
|
baffled.
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|
The search for the mysterious "Mrs. Walker," to whom the suspected woman
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|
is said to have sent long distance telephone and telegraph messages the night
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|
of the murder, was continued.
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|
Not only in San Francisco was the search continued, but in Los Angeles.
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|
It was reported that "Mrs. Walker" had left a leading hotel in San Francisco
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|
immediately after receiving the messages, which begged for help, and has
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|
since located herself here.
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|
Investigators were refused access to the telegraph company files when
|
|
they attempted to secure the originals of the messages. It was explained
|
|
that a court order would be necessary before such secrets could be divulged.
|
|
And a court order, it was learned, could not be issued until some sort of
|
|
charge had been made against somebody. Such a charge, of course, has not
|
|
been made.
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|
One of the latest of the clues to evaporate was that offered by Walter
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|
F. Underwood, brought back to Los Angeles from Topeka, Kan., to answer an
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|
embezzlement charge. He had told quite a yarn about meeting Edward F. Sands,
|
|
alias Edwin Fitz Strathmore, once Taylor's valet, in Los Angeles the day
|
|
after the murder. Sands, he said, had declared that he was going to flee to
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Mexico.
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|
Underwood also told of wild parties in which Sands entertained women in
|
|
Taylor's home. The authorities, however, decided that Underwood was a
|
|
fabricator of little skill and his story was tossed into the discard.
|
|
The latest rumors locating Sands, sought since the killing, was from
|
|
Flagstaff, Ariz. It, too, announced that Sands was headed for Mexico, and
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|
it, too, was discarded by Los Angeles officials.
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*****************************************************************************
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*****************************************************************************
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NOTES:
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[1] In the aftermath of Taylor's death, the reporters commented on Mary's bad
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cold. It seems probable that the cold was contracted during this incident.
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[2] Again Smith is referring to Mabel Normand.
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*****************************************************************************
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For more information about Taylor, see
|
|
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
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|
Back issues of Taylorology are available via Gopher or FTP at
|
|
ftp.etext org
|
|
in the directory pub/Zines/Taylorology
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|
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