***************************************************************************** * T A Y L O R O L O G Y * * A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor * * * * Issue 12 -- December 1993 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu * * All reprinted material is in the public domain * ***************************************************************************** CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE: Time-Life's "Unsolved Crimes"--Bravo! Did a Canadian Army Veteran Kill Taylor? Charlotte Shelby's Last Two Interviews (1937) Interview with Mary Miles Minter (1937) Wallace Smith: February 10, 1922 "The Truth About Hollywood": Part 1 [A brief tour of 1922 Hollywood] ***************************************************************************** What is TAYLOROLOGY? TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life; (b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor murder on Hollywood and the nation. Primary emphasis will be given toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it for accuracy. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Time-Life's "Unsolved Crimes"--Bravo! Time-Life Books has recently published the "Unsolved Crimes" volume (ISBN 0-7835-0012-2) in their True Crime series, and it includes a 40-page chapter on the Taylor murder. This is unquestionably the best short recap of the Taylor case yet published! It attempts to touch all the bases, briefly explore all major theories, and present the pertinent facts in a lively and well-written manner. It essentially skims the cream from the books by Kirkpatrick, Giroux, and Long. There is a handful of minor errors--the most glaring is the picture of Mary Miles Minter on p. 140 mis-identified as Margaret Fillmore. But when compared to the typical error-laden recaps published elsewhere in years past (see "Hollywood Mysteries--Shredded" in TAYLOROLOGY 11), this recap looks like a shining jewel, and establishes an excellent standard by which future short recaps of the Taylor case should be judged. If you are interested in reading about the Taylor case for the first time, "Unsolved Crimes" is the perfect place to start; if you are a seasoned Taylor case buff, you will still want this volume for your library even though it contains no new revelations. Kudos to Time-Life for this one! As would be expected from Time-Life, the chapter includes a lot of photographs--a nice selection of 30 images. Still, the recap would have been improved if several other visual items had been included (none of the following were in the Giroux or Kirkpatrick books, either): 1. Photograph of Faith MacLean in Alvarado Court. She was possibly the only one to see Taylor's killer, and was sitting on her sofa knitting a sweater when the shot was fired. A photograph published in the May 1992 issue of Picture-Play shows Faith and Douglas MacLean sitting outside on the bench in Alvarado Court--just a few yards from Taylor's front door. In the photograph she is knitting the very same sweater. Time-Life did not include any pictures of Faith MacLean in "Unsolved Crimes." 2. The photograph of Mary Miles Minter which she had given to Taylor with her inscription: "For William Desmond Taylor--Artist, Gentleman, Man. Sincere good wishes. Mary Miles Minter. -1920-". That photograph is one of the more stunningly beautiful photos of Minter ever taken, and would have been a nice complement to the photograph of Taylor that was inscribed to Minter, which Time-Life did print. 3. The diagram of the murder scene published in a Los Angeles newspaper on the same day the body was found. 4. The photograph of Taylor directing Winifred Kingston and Dustin Farnum in "Davy Crockett" published in a 1916 issue of Film Fun. Time-Life only printed one picture of Taylor directing a film, a photograph showing Taylor from behind. 5. One of the code love letters written by Minter and found among Taylor's effects. 6. "A Cubistaylor Picture." Several editorial cartoonists used the Taylor murder as inspiration for their drawings. One of the best cartoons on this subject was printed in the Pittsburgh Sun on February 11, 1922. An attempt will be made to soon place scanned images of all six of the above items on an Internet gopher server. Details will appear in the next issue of TAYLOROLOGY. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Did a Canadian Army Veteran Kill Taylor? The facts of William Desmond Taylor's military service are as follows: He enlisted as a private in the British Army and arrived at Camp Fort Edward, Nova Scotia, Canada, in August 1918. He was assigned to the 5th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. Because of his leadership experience he was rapidly promoted and was a sergeant major in two months. His unit sailed for England and was assigned to Hounslow Barracks in November 1918. At that point he was commissioned Lieutenant and transferred to the Expeditionary Force Canteen, Royal Army Service Corps, stationed at Dunkirk. He was second in command under Maj. Meghar. He was released from active duty around the beginning of May 1919, and was a Captain in the British Reserves. The rumors of a revengeful Canadian veteran stem from several press reports: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 17, 1922 SANTA ANA REGISTER The man who may have murdered William D. Taylor, motion picture director, in Los Angeles, the night of February 1, was "given a lift" in the automobile of a prominent Tustin rancher late in the afternoon of Monday January 30. The given name of the man who was then assisted was "Spike." This startling information came to light here late this afternoon when the rancher in question, who declined to allow his name to be used in connection with the case, but whose name is known to The Register, gave full details of what occurred when he gave "Spike" and a companion a ride in his automobile, from Tustin in the Santa Fe tracks, Santa Ana. Spike was the taller of the two men. During a conversation while the rancher and the two men were en route to Santa Ana, the subject of soldiers came up, as Spike was dressed in army trousers, wrap, leggings and army shoes. The rancher mentioned Captain N. M. Holderman, stating that the latter had just received a new decoration. This set Spike to enveighing bitterly against captains in general. Then spike declared there was "one --- --- --- in Southern California" that he was "going to get" if he could find him. The shorter of the two men then asked Spike: "You mean Bill?" The rancher did not recall Spike's answer to this question, but it is assured that the reply was in the affirmative. Later, when Spike continued to talk along similar lines, the short man cautioned Spike: "For ---'s sake shut up." As the two men were about to leave the rancher's automobile at the Santa Fe crossing on First Street, an old-fashioned Colt's revolver dropped into the mud from beneath Spike's trousers belt. The rancher, startled, inquired of Spike what he intended to do with the revolver. Spike replied that they "figured that they might be held up." As the rancher was about to drive on, Spike called to him to wait, in order that he might clean the revolver. The mud was carefully cleaned from the weapon and the rancher went on his way, noticing that the two men walked up the tracks in the direction of the railroad station. The rancher noticed that the barrel of the revolver had been sawed off. The sight was missing. The gun was either .32 or .38 caliber. The rancher also recalled that the two men made minute inquiries of him regarding train and stage service from Santa Ana to San Diego. The two men were thereupon asked the reason for the questions, to which they answered that "they were just getting lined up." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 28, 1922 SAN FRANCISCO CALL-POST Investigation of the Taylor murder mystery shifted again to San Francisco today when search was started by detectives from the office of District Attorney Matthew Brady for a Canadian army veteran who is said to have made the statement here in January that he was "going to Hollywood to get revenge or satisfaction on Taylor." While the identity of the Taylor in question was not given as William Desmond Taylor, slain moving picture director, the Canadian trooper said that the man he was after "had been his superior officer in the army and had been responsible for his being courtmartialed in France and punished by being lashed to the wheel of a gun two hours during the morning and afternoon for ninety days." The chance remark of the former Canadian soldier was made to another British army veteran, now a resident of San Francisco, a week before the moving picture director was mysteriously slain, and when the man appeared in this city a few days ago with a sum of money much larger than he had a month ago the San Franciscan recalled the remark of his acquaintance that he was going to "get Taylor," and made known the fact to District Attorney Brady, who is withholding the identity of his informant. District Attorney Brady listened with close attention to the narrative told by the former soldier, now working as a house painter in San Francisco, and declared that the report was worthy of a thorough investigation. He immediately dispatched detectives to find the author of the threatening remarks and check up on his actions for the last month. The Canadian Veteran told his San Francisco friend a few days ago that he was preparing to leave for Australia. In telling Brady about the incident the San Francisco veteran of the royal forces said that he met the Canadian January 25 and that in the course of a talk about their experiences in the British forces, each told how he had been courtmartialed for infractions of the military rules. Forcefully expressing himself on his punishment, the Canadian is said to have remarked: "I'm going to Hollywood and get Taylor. It will cost him something, or I'll get satisfaction in some other way." The San Franciscan told Brady that he met the man on the street two days ago and he displayed a roll of currency containing $50 bills. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * March 18, 1922 LOS ANGELES EXAMINER A letter was received from a former army officer in London, England, who wrote that one day after the Armistice was signed he was dining with Captain Taylor in a London hotel. As a stranger in the uniform of the Canadian army crossed the dining hall Taylor suddenly remarked: "There goes a man who is going to get me if it takes a thousand years to do it." Taylor then went on to explain that the man was a sergeant in his company whom he had reported and had courtmartialed for the theft of army property. A description of the man was contained in the letter. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * In addition to those press reports, Taylor's army diary reportedly does make a brief mention of the courtmartial. No details or names are given. [1] However, Taylor served in the British (not Canadian) Army. So what it all boils down to is the question: Would Canadian soldiers have been under Taylor's jurisdiction, either in the Royal Fusiliers or the Royal Army Service Corps? Or did the British and Canadian armies keep their units strictly separated, even when the British units were in Canada? Certainly the courtmartial records for both units must still exist somewhere, and combing them for those few months should give us the names and details of any such courtmartials. One reason why the revengeful Canadian veteran theory has considerable appeal is because it was reported that in the days and hours before Taylor's murder, a man had been asking around, trying to find out where Taylor lived. Most of the "usual suspects" (Sands, Shelby, etc.) already knew where Taylor lived, or else they could have found out through discreet means. But an out- of-town Canadian veteran would have had no choice but to ask strangers. ***************************************************************************** Charlotte Shelby's Last Two Interviews (1937) Over the years Charlotte Shelby, the mother of Mary Miles Minter, has remained a prime suspect in the Taylor murder. She owned a gun similar to the kind that killed Taylor and had threatened Taylor's life if he did not stay away from Mary. Throughout her lifetime she gave very few interviews in which she was willing to discuss the murder. The following are the last two such interviews known to exit. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * June 11, 1937 A. M. Rochen LOS ANGELES EXAMINER Mrs. Charlotte Shelby knows she is under investigation in the William Desmond Taylor murder case and welcomes the opportunity to face the issue. Neither defiant nor cowed, she came forward yesterday to demand immediate action by the authorities, at any cost. Weary of years of gossip and innuendo, she thinks the time has come to bring before the proper tribunals every one who has any knowledge of or connection with the 15-year-old slaying of the famous motion picture director. And, if in the interests of justice she must suffer temporarily the inconvenience of questioning and investigation, she is willing to assume the role so every vital fact may be developed, and all the "froth and fables" with which it had become surrounded in the last decade and a half may forever be brushed away. This is what she said yesterday in a remarkable interview with The Examiner, given in the presence of her attorney, Clyde F. Murphy, here in Los Angeles. Seven years ago, speaking to this reporter, Mrs. Shelby made similar demands, but under somewhat different circumstances. [2] Since then many things transpired in her life. The fortunes of her daughters, Mary Miles Minter and Margaret Shelby Fillmore, had been all but swept away by theft and litigation. Civil suits by the dozen have come and passed. These suits involved disputes in her own family, and then, last month, came the dramatic appearance before the grand jury of her own daughter, Margaret, whose testimony laid the foundation for the present revival of the celebrated murder case. "First of all," said Mrs. Shelby yesterday, "I want every one to know that I bear no malice toward anyone or resent anything my daughter Margaret or anyone else may have told the grand jury. "Margaret is my daughter, and her welfare and future is the important thing. "I feel that the truth, like murder, will out. I know that charges made must be proven and that only through investigation and search can facts, long forgotten or covered up, be reconstructed and made useful in an inquiry of this sort. "Therefore I say: If the authorities want to consider me a suspect in this case, I am willing--if that will help once and for all to verify or disprove the rumors and tips and ideas that have been cluttering up this case from the very start. "I am prepared, and will await the outcome of the grand jury investigation with interest, but without the slightest fear," she said. And then, for the first time, Mrs. Shelby gave her views on Mary Miles Minter's love for William Desmond Taylor. "This romantic attachment of Mr. Taylor for Mary was something I learned only after Mr. Taylor was killed. It was all news to me. So far as we were concerned, we were glad to see Mary go with Mr. Taylor. He was such a gentleman and we felt Mary was well chaperoned when out with him to dinner or the theater," she said calmly. "You see," she continued, "I would have no motive. "Neither was I in love with Mr. Taylor. To me he was just one of Mary's directors--a fine gentleman, and that's all." Q. "Were you ever in Taylor's house?" A. "Yes, once," she replied. Mary was late in coming home. She had a new car. The family worried, Mrs. Shelby said, so she, Charlotte Whitney, the secretary, and Chauncey Eaton, the chauffeur, drove to Taylor's house. Taylor's telephone was not in the book and that was the only way to reach him. "Mr. Taylor came to the door. I told him of my anxiety for Mary. He called the assistant director--I think it was Frank Connor, and asked him if he had seen Mary. Then he said, 'Mary should not go away like this,' and I went home. Mrs. Whitney remained in the car, as did Chauncey. "The rest of all this stuff they are talking about now is silly," Mrs. Shelby went on. "I was home on the night of the murder--with Carl Stockdale. We played cards from 7 till 9. It was Carl Stockdale who called me the next morning to tell me Mr. Taylor was dead. Q. "Did you ever own a gun, Mrs. Shelby?" "There was only one gun in the Shelby family," she said. "That was given me by a man in Santa Barbara. "Bullets were taken out of this gun, but that was two years before the murder. One night, after being scolded, Mary went to my room and locked herself in. We heard a shot. The door was locked. Chauncey and a night watchman broke it down and there, on the floor was Mary. When we saw she was not hurt, my mother, Mrs. Julia Miles, said to Chauncey: 'Take the bullets out of that gun and give them to me.' "She took the gun and I never saw it or the bullets again." Miss Minter, some days ago, told The Examiner a similar version of the firing of the gun. She said she was fumbling with the gun when it was discharged. [3] All the other allegations now being made by witnesses, Mrs. Shelby said, are baseless--and most of them are "also silly." "Why didn't they look into all those things at the time of the murder?" she demanded. "If the authorities had followed the real important clews, instead of chasing after persons whose names had Hollywood glamour, the case probably would have been solved long ago and all of us spared this perpetual annoyance." Mrs. Shelby then expressed regret that Stockdale, the veteran Hollywood actor, has been mentioned in the case. "Poor Carl, such a faithful friend and such a gentle soul," Mrs. Shelby sighed. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * June 12, 1937 LOS ANGELES NEWS Mrs. Charlotte Shelby, mother of Mary Miles Minter, told the whole story yesterday of the mysterious bullet for which Junior G-men of the district attorney's office were seeking by means of a fluoroscope in the William Desmond Taylor murder investigation. [4] While the district attorney's clue-seekers turned the fluoroscope on the walls of a former home of Mrs. Shelby, the latter admitted the missing bullet had been fired from her pearl-handled revolver and that the remaining bullets in the gun had been handed to Chauncey Eaton, her former chauffeur. Mrs. Shelby said the missing bullet, believed to have lodged in a closet wall, was fired by Miss Minter two years before the murder, apparently as a joke. A .38 caliber bullet was found on a rafter in the basement of Mrs. Shelby's former home by investigators several weeks ago, according to the district attorney's office. Eaton said he placed the remaining bullets from Mrs. Shelby's gun there after the shooting at the closet wall by Miss Minter. The bullet did not lodge in the ceiling, as the investigators assume, Mrs. Shelby declared. "It penetrated the door jam of the closet and lodged in the back wall of the closet. The bullet hole in the wooden door jam was plainly visible for a time afterwards. I really don't remember whatever was done about it--whether a new paneling was put on or not," Mrs. Shelby said. "When we rushed into the room," Mrs. Shelby said, "Mary was lying on a rug on the floor with her hand over her face. She removed her hand, looked at us, and said, 'ha-ha'." Witnesses to the scene, Mrs. Shelby said, were Mrs. Charlotte Whitney, her former secretary, Eaton, her chauffeur, and Mrs. Mary Miles, her mother, now dead. [5] "My mother demanded the gun, saying, 'There'll be no more of this gun- play around this house'," Mrs. Shelby continued. "She took the gun and handed it to Eaton, telling him to unload it. Eaton emptied five remaining shells from the little pearl-handled gun into his hand and handed the gun back to my mother. I don't know what mother did with it after that." Mrs. Shelby "pooh-pooed" a recent declaration of a witness of knowledge of threats made against Taylor's life. "One night in June, two years before the murder," the mother continued, "Mary had not come home at a late hour. She was driving a new car, and I was worried about her. Charlotte Whitney and I decided we should look for her. Eaton knew where Taylor lived, and I ordered him to drive out there. That was the only time I was ever in Mr. Taylor's bungalow. I merely asked him if he knew the whereabouts of my daughter. He replied that he did not, and we left." A report made to the district attorney's office by Albert E. Harris, former taxi driver, that he drove Miss Minter, weeping and hysterical, and an actor from the Ambassador Hotel to Miss Minter's home the afternoon of the Taylor Taylor was shot, and overheard scraps of conversation, was branded as "silly, and ridiculous" by Mrs. Shelby. "Mary was on location at the beach that day, her work requiring her to dive into the ocean all day. She had caught a bad cold, and returned from work late in the afternoon, just in time for dinner. She certainly was not galivanting around from the Ambassador to her home in a taxicab," Mrs. Shelby said. A narcotic smuggler, Mrs. Shelby said she believes, killed Taylor. "I believe he was slain by someone who has never been under investigation, but who wanted to remove Taylor from the path of narcotic smugglers. Mrs. Shelby said she knew that Taylor was safeguarding a prominent film actress from attempts of underworld characters to lead the actress into the drug habit. [6] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Several of Shelby's statements in the above two interviews appear to be false: 1. Shelby stated "This romantic attachment of Mr. Taylor for Mary was something I learned only after Mr. Taylor was killed. It was all news to me. So far as we were concerned, we were glad to see Mary go with Mr. Taylor." On the contrary, there are several reliable sources--including Mary's own statement--which clearly show that during 1920/1921 Shelby knew about the Taylor/Minter romance, and she was strongly opposed to it. 2. Shelby says her gun was given to her by a man in Santa Barbara, but he (Harry Harris) denied giving it to her. It appears the gun was given to her in 1920 by Frank Brown, a night watchman, while the family was living in the mansion on Fremont. 3. Shelby says the last time she saw the gun was on the day of Mary's "fake suicide scene" which took place in 1920 while the family was living on Fremont. But the chauffeur, Chauncey Eaton, stated that Shelby unloaded the gun and gave the bullets to him several months after the murder--when Shelby was living at Casa de Marguerita on New Hampshire--and that he placed the bullets on a rafter in the basement at that time. Since a bullet was indeed located on the Casa de Marguerita rafter, it indicates that Shelby was lying about never having seen the gun again after living on Fremont. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Interview with Mary Miles Minter (1937) May 6, 1937 LOS ANGELES HERALD-EXPRESS ...Miss Minter discussed the new development and the Taylor case history in detail. [7] "I'll be glad to tell them all I know," she said. It'll be something like this: "There is nothing in the diaries I would not be willing to show the world, if I thought it would help in the case. Most of them were written long before the murder--by a girl going to school and working. Can you imagine there is anything there that would help? Don't you think I would have turned everything over to the police if it could have done the least possible good?" As she used the word "murder" to refer to the death of her loved one, Miss Minter's voice broke. "I was sitting on the sofa in my home--my sister was there, and she knows I was there that night that--that--" She was unable to finish the sentence. She referred to the night of Feb. 1, 1922, when Taylor was shot to death in his swank apartment. "My dear precious grandmother, Julia Branch Miles, and our cook, Belle Simpson, was with us that evening, I remember," Miss Minter continued. We knew nothing about it until the next day. Those next days were almost a blank for me. "And mother knew nothing of it. My mother likes to talk for a long time on the telephone and that night she made several calls and talked to people for hours. My sister knew that, too." Miss Minter told how she came back to her home last night after dining out, to find Capt. Jesse Winn, district attorney investigator, there. "He said he'd been there since 5 o'clock," Miss Minter said. "My maid was frightened to death. He had searched the entire house. "I helped him in the search--he was nice about it, although I made a mistake and called him 'Detective Winn' instead of 'Captain.' "I wanted him to take everything he wanted, but he took only the diaries. Then he gave me the subpoena. I asked him: 'Is this another attempt to involve me or my family?' but all he said was: 'Just be down there in the morning.' "I'll be there, and I'll tell all I known again--but I'm afraid its just another scare case that won't amount to a hill of beans." Miss Minter said she believed the present re-opening of the case was due to an "upheaval" by her sister. "Margaret has been bitter against our mother, as you know," the actress said. "They, as well, as I have been involved in litigation of some kind for years. "Margaret wanted to be an actress and yet I took the limelight. "It's all come out in court, anyway, and as you remember in one case Mother had Margaret kept out of court by calling a doctor for her. "I'm afraid this is just an upheaval." Asked if she had any theory of her own as to who shot her fiance, Miss Minter shook her head sadly. "What do you think I've thought about these 15 years? If I had any theory I would have taken it to the police at once. I've wracked and wracked my brains--I can't think of an enemy in the world that Mr. Taylor might have had." Miss Minter was asked about the possibility of Edward Sands, Taylor's valet, who was charged with the murder but who was never apprehended, being involved in the crime. "Sands?--No. He was just a fat, jolly cockney. He couldn't have done it. I just wish I knew where he was so I could tell him to come out and clear himself." ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Wallace Smith: February 10, 1922 The following is another sample of Wallace Smith's sensationalized reporting, published 10 days after the murder. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 10, 1922 Wallace Smith CHICAGO AMERICAN One of filmland's best known producers of pictures, also known for a notorious affair conducted with an actress named in the mystery of William Desmond Taylor's slaying, was sought by detectives today to account for his movements on the night the eccentric director was murdered. [8] Ever since Taylor's death, it became known, this producer has instructed his secretary to inform callers he was too ill to be seen. This instruction also held good for the police, who accepted it. Such seems to be the reluctance of the Los Angeles police to investigate too sharply any incident that might annoy the Hollywood moving picture colony. It was declared that Prosecutor Thomas Lee Woolwine, who had taken the investigation out of the hands of the police, was ready to demand the appearance of the famous producer. In fact, it was stated the prosecutor had motored to the studio where the producer was said to be in seclusion. The affair of the producer and the actress was one of the scandals of Hollywood. These dispatches recently referred to the history of the "romance," the first fights between the two and their final separation, which led the actress to the fatal slavery of drugs. Recently the affair was revived. All Hollywood buzzed with gossip as it learned the actress had returned to the direction of this producer in the films -- and it was rumored, in life. [9] Then came rumors of the actress' affair with Taylor, the producer, his affection rekindled, was known to be jealous. It was stated the actress had endeavored to break off her association with the director and that a final quarrel between them occurred last New Year's eve. [10] Later, it was stated, the slain director refused to abandon his latest light o'love and this, it was said resulted in a bitter enmity between him and the producer. It was theorized today, the producer resolved to win back the whole love of the actress, confronted Taylor, demanded he drop out of the young woman's life and finally killed him. The district attorney, while waiting to assemble the story of the director, began a hunt for a secret safety deposit box said to have been maintained by Taylor. In it he hoped to find some clew to the mysterious slaying. Earlier in the day the district attorney had given three film actresses known from Broadway to the narrowest main street that ever supported a split- reel nickelodeon, the chance to come before him and tell what they knew of Taylor's strange life and his weird death. The three actresses were: Mabel Normand, once reported engaged to wed Taylor, who was a visitor at his home a matter of minutes before the assassin wiped out Taylor's life. She was to be asked of her visit, her long companionship with Taylor, the statement of his valet that she and Taylor were to marry "and have a little baby," an alleged quarrel with the director and the letters she wrote to the man of mystery. Mary Miles Minter, who was Taylor's confidante -- except in regard to his deserted wife and daughter -- and who was to be questioned regarding the "I love you -- I love you" note written on her stationery and found in Taylor's home with a dainty handkerchief bearing the initials "M.M.M." Edna Purviance, leading woman for Charles Chaplin and neighbor of Taylor in Alvarado St. She visited the Taylor home at midnight the day of the slaying and saw the lights burning in his study, but could not gain an answer to a ring at the bell. [11] It was reported that Claire Windsor, another actress whose name had been linked with Chaplin's as well as with Taylor's, and Neva Gerber, once engaged to marry Taylor, also might be called by the prosecutor. The stories of the actresses were waited as District Attorney Thomas Lee Woolwine created a sensation by taking charge in person of the investigation of Taylor's death, which appears to have been badly bungled by the police. As he drove forward in his inquiry, it was reported that a special grand jury would be demanded by the authorities to batter down the wall of silence which has been built to protect the wilder set of Hollywood -- and behind which the slayer of Taylor has escaped. Whether or not the three film stars would appear was a question that seemed to rest between them and their managers. Miss Normand, who had been reportedly sufficiently recovered from the shock of Taylor's death to resume her studio work, was reported to have had a relapse shortly after it was known that the prosecutor desired to speak with her. At the home of Miss Minter it was stated that the young star still suffered from the nervous jar occasioned by Taylor's death, a jar which she confided to friends brought to her face an expression never seen there before -- "frozen horror," she called it. It was learned that Miss Minter had already been questioned by the district attorney for two hours last Tuesday evening. The Lasky beauty, it was stated, had admitted her great affection for the slain director. This interview, however, was considered quite unsatisfactory and the star was to be given an opportunity to talk again. That she was the first to be questioned was considered of deep significance because it had been rumored from the first that, whatever her feeling toward the director, he had shrined her in his heart as the one woman in the world. There was a new significance given the letters of Miss Normand, too, when it was reported that she had informed certain officials that she had gone to the home of Taylor on Wednesday to demand that he return the letters she had written him. "Not that they meant anything to any one but us," declared Miss Normand, "but I feared that they might fall into other hands and be misconstrued." According to one version of her alleged demand for the letters Taylor told Miss Normand that he had mailed the packet of letters to her home. It was on this assurance that she left his Alvarado St. home a short time before the hour upon which the police have agreed the murder occurred. It has been remarkable from the time Taylor's body was found that those who seemed closest to the tragedy were not closely questioned by the police. Certainly this sensational case, a crime that has aroused the entire country, has not been conducted with anything resembling even the rudiments of police work. There have been sinister rumors of attempts to smother all inquiry into the crime -- even reports that money has changed hands. It seems incredible that even the millions of dollars that are tied up in the movies would be used in such a manner to protect the pampered darlings of the pictures. Yet the police at the time the prosecutor took hold of the investigation seemed to be exactly where they were at the time the crime was discovered. A little more bewildered, if anything. Personages of the films, apparently because of their might in front of the camera, were not disturbed, despite the fact that every circumstance indicated they would be able to shed light on the crime. Just two calls were made on Miss Normand, it was learned. She refused to pay any attention to the first. At the second, after keeping the detectives waiting in their high-laced hiking boots and mackinaw jackets, she issued a formal statement. Prosecutor Woolwine declared his intention of taking a stenographic signed statement from each witness called to his office. His work began yesterday and went on until close to midnight. In that time he interviewed, among others, Henry Peavey, Taylor's houseman; Mrs. Douglas MacLean, actor's wife and neighbor of Taylor's; Douglas MacLean; Christine Jewett, nurse in the MacLean household; Harry Fellows, assistant director to Taylor; Howard Fellows, Taylor's chauffeur; an unnamed male witness said to be the sweetheart of a movie player and Arthur Hoyt, film actor. The chief information reported to have been distilled from this questioning was that Edward F. Sands, former valet and secretary to Taylor, was not the man seen by Mrs. MacLean at Taylor's door immediately after the shot was heard. But the new investigation brought about the discovery of a new witness, a Los Angeles policeman named Thomas Long, who told Prosecutor Woolwine that on the night of the murder he had seen a man skulking behind a telephone pole in the vicinity of Taylor's home. "He ran when I came up, said the policeman, "and he disappeared in the dark before I could reach the spot. I noticed near the telephone pole where he had been hiding the stubs of two cigarettes. They were gold tipped and a brand I never heard of before. When I read how Taylor always smoked that kind and that some were stolen from his house, I thought that this man might have had something to do with it. Another report was that an earlier woman visitor had preceded Mabel Normand to Taylor's study. The prosecutor was especially interested in discovering why the name of this woman -- said to have been another movie star of the first magnitude -- had been concealed. The federal agents called into the case, who already have compiled quite a secret history of Hollywood's hidden life, were said to be on the trail of a new woman in the case. Incidentally they still pursued the twisting path of the drug peddlers in the private studio life of the moving picture colony, despite the protests of the movie magnates. The latest chapter they opened concerns one of the strangest "triangles" that ever was introduced in Hollywood domestic geometry. It has for its chief character a famed foreign actress, known almost as widely for her eccentricity of dress as for her extremely emotional acting. [12] The other two were an actor and actress recently divorced. He has recently won great fame in a celebrated picture, his graduation from his former role as a dancing partner. [13] The foreign actress took a great fancy to the young woman. Always known for her friendship for girls, she seemed especially fond of this one. So much so that she invited her to live at her home. The invitation was accepted and the foreign star lavishly furnished a room to be occupied by the other. This was before the marriage of the recent divorcee. He came in from location one evening and called on the young woman. It was a Hollywood formal call. with plenty of liquor for both. While the alcohol still was working it struck them that it might be an innovation to get married. They did so. Next day the foreign star heard about it, after the young man had gone back to work on location. The young bride came to take possession. "You did not think I could be jealous, eh?" said the great foreign star. "Look!" She led the young woman to the lavishly furnished room. Then, as the other stood there spellbound, the foreign actress began wrecking the place. She tore down pictures and ripped up rugs. She slashed open cushions and tore the bedclothes to ribbons. She gouged the tinted walls and hurled pottery though the window. "Now go, ingrate," she hurled at the young woman. She left -- and has not returned. The divorce was a sensation. The friendship of the young bride and the foreign actress was not mentioned in the divorce proceedings. Nor were the escapades of the young bride with other women whose friendship formed part of Hollywood's daily gossip. Strangely enough, on a recent eastern trip, the young actor -- then getting divorced -- and the foreign actress traveled in the same car. [14] It may not be ethical but this correspondent asks indulgence to make a correction of his reports through these dispatches. Two or three days ago he recounted the adventure of a prominent actress who, during a fight with her favorite director, was struck over the head with a beer bottle. [15] This was hotly denied today by a friend of the director, who grieved that such an impression be made public. He admitted the secret love affair conducted by the star and her director, as well as his affair with another woman that provoked the assault. "But it wasn't a beer bottle." explained this champion. "He hit her with a shoe." There have been many denials about the Hollywood revelations. Public officials have been prevailed upon to utter statements defending Hollywood. Movie magnates have upheld the cavortings of their golden pets. Generally these denials are every bit as convincing as that which substituted the boot for the beer bottle. Since the entrance of the federal agents into the investigation these denials have been especially directed at the stories of the operations of the dope ring in Hollywood and the weakness of several of the country's leading stars for drugs. In reply to these might be taken the statement of one of Los Angeles' leading physicians. It is typical of the views of several physicians interviewed on the subject. Their names, of course, may not be revealed. "Don't make any mistake about the dope ring," declared the physician. "The dope peddlers deliver the stuff to the homes of the actors and actresses as the grocer or butcher delivers goods at the homes of other people. "What is more, they take orders over the telephone just like any market. That is what makes it so easy for these spoiled children of the films to find their way to the downward path and why it is so difficult for them to win their way back again. "It is the business of the drug peddlers to hold their own customers and get new ones. And they are business men. "There is one case of a woman named in the Taylor case. It is pitiful. She is a gay personality and she has made a game fight to redeem herself. [16] "She began to use morphine and go to these dope parties after she had broken with her director. They tell me she really loved him. And he seemed very fond of her at one time. They split finally when he took up a young girl she was trying to help out in the pictures. "It seemed to harden her. Finally her health broke. Friends took her to a hospital and she went through the torture that a drug victim must go through in the effort to break the habit. She seemed to have been cured. "But always 'way back in her brain was the craving. And what with the loss of the man she loved her brilliant success on the screen seemed empty to her. She grew moody and depressed. There came a day when she could stand it no longer. And on the same day a friend offered her a 'shot.' She took it, and she has been going downward ever since. "I don't think she will ever try to cure herself again and it can be only a year or so before she will be through with the pictures forever. "It is amazing and shocking to see some of these young women whose looks mean everything to them -- their very life -- taking to the drugs that will rob them of every vestige of beauty within a few months. "There was one of these screen stars in here the other day, begging me to do something to save her. She is just coming into her full power as a star and already every trace of the drug fiend is apparent in her. [17] "Her mother was with her and she wept as she pleaded with me to save her daughter. I could not handle the case. I sent her to another surgeon. He told me that the girl seemed willing enough to take the cure. "But even while he had her in the hospital she was visited by friends who brought her the forbidden 'dope.' That is another way the dope ring works. It has its agents even among the actors and actresses who are quick to take advantage of an opportunity. The activities of the dope ring also were said to interest the British royal secret service, which, according to Maj. Thomas A. Osborne, British consul at Los Angeles, has undertaken to solve the mystery of Taylor's slaying. The police have not abandoned the theory that Taylor was killed by a blackmailer and they have renewed their search for "Dapper Dan" Collins, a New York gunman, wanted for murder in the East. Collins, it became known, had been in Hollywood a few days before Taylor's slaying. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** In the aftermath of the Taylor murder, many newspaper articles were written purporting to reveal the truth about Hollywood. Some, like the sensational writings of Wallace Smith, Edward Doherty and Richard Burritt, focused on lurid rumors--reporting every sensational whisper as fact. Other stories, penned by the screen writers and press agents, attempted to whitewash the truth about Hollywood. The New York Herald sent one of their experienced investigative reporters to Hollywood to investigate and write the balanced truth, as he found it. His five-part series, "The Truth About Hollywood," published in the New York Herald between March 12 and April 9, 1922, gave an insightful look into the background of 1922 Hollywood. It provides essentially no information about the murder itself, but it does give information about life in the Hollywood movie colonly, the world in which Taylor lived. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * March 12, 1922 Thoreau Cronyn NEW YORK HERALD The Truth About Hollywood Two unfortunate incidents of a tragic nature have directed public attention to Hollywood--a colony which, because of these happenings, has become so widely discussed that it needs no identification. Roscoe Arbuckle, a comedian of the screen, who has made millions laugh, was host at a party, and one of his guests, a young woman of the screen, died. Arbuckle and his ill-fated guest were from, and of, Hollywood. A popular photoplay director, one of the most gifted of them all, was murdered under circumstances that aroused public interest--an interest always excited by the mysterious and the unexplainable. Taylor, the director, was a leading worker in Hollywood, and about him fluttered a bevy of our most attractive feminine celebrities of the screen. All of them his neighbors or frequent visitors to the Hollywood community. What kind of place is this Hollywood? It has been said widely that the license of Babylon is as the Blue Laws in comparison to the customary wickedness of the settlement of screen favorites. Those who live in Hollywood, frightened by the sudden glare of public attention upon their doings, say their beloved colony is but an average suburb, more beautiful and gayer, perhaps. than others, but just as orderly. And from Hollywood itself the public has turned its examining impulse upon the "movie folk" themselves. What manner of folk are they? Primitive and bad? Or humane and good? These are questions worthy of answer. And the answer may be worth while only if given dispassionately after careful, exhaustive examination into all the aspects of Hollywood--its secrets as well as its propaganda; its people as well as its activities; its customs as well as its laws. It is an old saying, "there can be no smoke without a fire." So much smoke has spread from Hollywood during the last four months, surely there must be some fire. But is it a conflagration--or a blaze? Is it fanned from within, as gossip says, or from without, as the people of the films declare? On this page is presented today the first of a series of articles resulting from careful, painstaking investigation by The New York Herald-- investigation conducted in Hollywood itself. Here is the evidence for and against Hollywood; and the evidence for and against its players in the great comedy-drama that otherwise is called "the movie world." PART 1 [Brief Tour of 1922 Hollywood] Every pilgrim with a movie education feels the moment he steps off the train in Los Angeles that he has been cheated. He looks hungrily around for the familiar scenes of his imagination and finds them not. By every right of press agentry and tourist tales he expects to see Charley Chaplin diving between the legs of a small town cop, Douglas Fairbanks doing a headspin and the bathing beauties wiggling their toes in the sand of the neighboring beach, while assorted peons and East Side gunmen sit about in makeup waiting for some one to bellow "Action--camera!" through a megaphone. But he learns that the studios are far from the city, that the street traffic of ever growing Los Angeles is far too serious a thing to be trifled with by pursuit chasers, and that the nearest beach is a dozen miles away. He approaches his hotel with some hope, for he has been led to believe that all the famous stars not actively engaged on the "lot" or on "location"--the pilgrim has desperately mastered the movie lingo so as to feel at home with the Personages when he meets them--are to be seen draped in the lobby, possibly waiting for the gong to announce the beginning of the orgies. But all I could see was a number of pinch backed youths with nothing on their minds but the necessity of getting a good seat in the basement cafeteria into which prohibition has converted the men's grill. In the streets it was to be noted that some of the motion picture theaters were showing films not yet seen in New York. I was told that one of them had recently been advertising a Mary Miles Minter picture with a strip of canvas lettered "I love you--I love you--I love you," this being part of a letter she wrote William Desmond Taylor, the director who was murdered. It occurred to somebody that perhaps this was not very good advertising after all and the strip had been taken down. It was plain that no movie people, recognizable as such, were to be found in the city proper. They may have been there once, but Iowans have crowded them out. It is a stock joke that there are more Iowans in Los Angeles than in Iowa, and I half believe it. The reason for the hegira as given me is that Iowa is the only state in which farmers can lay by enough money to retire and go where they want to go. But it was Hollywood this traveler started out to see, not Los Angeles-- Hollywood, the home of the movies, where some kind of a "colony" lived in a beauteous, palm bowered stockade and, not lingering to remove the grease paint of the studios, plunged into orgies the moment the dinner dishes were cleared away by soft footed, incurious Japanese. I got into a taxicab, noted that the meter registered 30 cents at the start, just as it does in New York, and set forth. Hollywood, it seemed, lay seven miles northwest of the center of Los Angeles. Twenty years ago it had a population of 1,200 persons, living on fine estates separated by lemon and orange orchards. Now it has 70,000. It joined Los Angeles in 1910, and has kept pace with the growth of that astonishing city. On the way I had the taxicab stop in front of the bungalow court where William Desmond Taylor lived. The bungalow court is, I believe, peculiar to southern California. On a plot of ground about the site of that occupied by a large apartment house in New York a parallelogram is laid out and along three sides one or two story houses are erected, the fourth side being the street. The houses are separated from one another by a space of fifteen feet or more. Within the central court which all of them face are planted palms, evergreens and shrubbery over a spread of lawn. They are beautiful and attractive places. The true bungalow is one story high. Taylor's home, a duplicate of all the others on this court, had two stories. He had half the ground floor and half the second floor and another family the other half. Each tenant has his own doorways. It is what is called in the East a two family house. I don't know what rent Taylor paid, but from what I heard of prices elsewhere would guess it was about $125 a month. Taylor was not a "high liver." Well, the trip to Hollywood took us up and down the hills of Los Angeles, through streets lined with date and fan palms and streets with palms on one side and advertising signs on the other, and every so often a monstrous real estate board boasting of the present and piling million on million of population for the future. The reigning sensation in Los Angeles outside the "Taylor case," by the way, was somebody's prediction that the city would have 3,000,000 souls (even the movie people are credited with souls for statistical purposes) by the year 1940, I think it was. With no more digressions we shall now proceed to Hollywood. Past automobile service stations almost as neat and alluring as the bungalow courts, past open spaces and green hillsides and rows of deep shading pepper trees, along one of those justly famous California highways, we rode along and came to the gate of movieland. It wasn't a gate, but a high green wooden fence suddenly appearing behind a file of palms at the left, and mammoth white letters spelling "William Fox Studios." It was like the fence enclosing the fairgrounds in an Eastern county seat, and the letters seemed to rival closely the Colgate sign in Jersey City for size. Above it were to be seen roofs like those of barns and hangars and a silhouetted sierra of timbers and walls, which I later discovered were "sets," the scenery of the movies. The next block proved to be Fox, too, but the fence and the buildings were of stucco. Then more studios, all shouting their name in big letters-- Warner Brothers, Christie Comedies, and others, with blocks of dwellings between. Then a block surrounded by automobiles parked beneath pepper trees and a sign, much smaller than the others I had seen, "Famous Players-Lasky Studios." The object of this expedition was a survey of the whole town of Hollywood, not the studios, so I kept on. In passing, however, I noted with chagrin that not a Rolls-Royce was to be seen in all the automobile show outside the "Lasky lot." Most of the cars were common tumbrils in fact, and badly in need of a wash, and there weren't nearly as many chauffeurs lolling about as I had hoped. Where were all those glorious vehicles with gold inlay and platinum wheels the press agent had pictured? Here was a solecism to be investigated later. A friend who is not in the movies transferred me from a taxicab to his plebian car and guided me through residential parts of Hollywood. I wanted to see the homes of all the big actors, but as that would take several days we compromised on a ride ending at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks, Beverly Hills. While passing studios and now while traversing the boulevards I kept on the lookout for persons identifiable as film celebrities, but saw none. Not a star, not an "extra," not a painted face, not a camera, not a director in knee breeches and puttees or otherwise, not even a group of cowboys or a single cowboy sleeping under a tree or rolling marihuana cigarettes while waiting to be called. All preconceptions wrong. Not a hint or symptom save an occasional studio giving assurance that this is really the Pittsburgh of the motion picture. Nobody hanging around the studios. No one clamoring to get in. Ordinary looking persons walking the streets, and apparently minding their own business. Just a southern California city of the landscaped, well tailored, prosperous looking sort, with a special fineness of situation because it is built along a valley and a slope with a background of hills which Joseph Urban could not improve upon. Kearny and Fremont, Castro and Pico fought over these hills, and later the terrifying bandits, Tiburcio Vasquez and Joaquin Murrieta, held them. Modern Hollywood, one regrets to say, knows little of the romance caressing it from out of the past or of the ghosts that patrol the Pass. Only one of the many persons from whom I sought this information knew that the heights had not always been called Hollywood Hills. He was a clerk in a bookstore. My guide rolled me along a well kept asphalt highway, which I think was Santa Monica boulevard, past houses half hidden by palm trees, peppers, and the pungent eucalyptus. The prevailing color is white or cream, varied with blue and pink, with red or green tiled roofs; the favored material is stucco, which does not seem to crack in that climate as it does in the East. Many of the walks leading to the houses were bordered with geraniums. Rose bushes climb valiantly up wall and trellis, but because of the January freeze California is sadly lacking in roses this year. The same frost that swatted the citrus crop killed the posies. Down at Santa Ana I heard of an outdoor fete in which artificial flowers had to be used. That is the extreme of desolation in the land of sunshine and flowers. We passed Swiss chalets, glorified flat roofed Aztec 'dobes, English cottages, Norman castles, Mesopotamian mosques, all kinds of architecture; also plain redwood California bungalows, each with its vines and shrubbery and maybe half a dozen orange trees, laden with golden bulbs. At the top of a hill to our right stood a great house like a Japanese pagoda, the home of Adolph Bernheimer (not of the pictures), a principal show place of Hollywood. My friend was explaining that most of the people of Hollywood are not connected with motion pictures when he broke off to say: "Wally Reid lives there." The house to which he pointed was below the level of our boulevard. We looked down on a roof of red tile and walls of brown stucco. We could not see the swimming pool, but rapidly obtained the impression that Fred Harvey's desert hotels along the Santa Fe are no niftier than the abiding place of this same Wallace Reid. Up the road a little piece is the home of William S. Hart, New England colonial, shingled and white, one of the plainest and most agreeable places we saw. We were told that the appropriate thing for tourists to say when they reach this point on the grand tour is: "Just like Bill, isn't it?" On the other side of the boulevard is the mansion of Pauline Frederick, with an expanse of lawn costing a fortune to maintain in California. The house is of stucco, cream tinted, red tiled, formal looking. The estate of Edward L. Doheny, oil man, penetrates a canyon not far from Miss Frederick's home, but a frieze of eucalyptus hides it from public view. In the same neighborhood Mme. Nazimova has a yellow citadel. Passing out of Hollywood without my knowing it we were in Beverly Hills. Its general tone is like that of the highest priced parts of Great Neck, Long Island, of Upper Mountain avenue, in Montclair, N.J. It is all private residences except the Beverly Hills Hotel, where, I was told, Rupert Hughes and some of the picture stars lived and spent their leisure in riding, golf and contemplation of La Brea fields, the enfolding mountains and the Pacific flashing eight miles away. Charles Ray has a tidy thatched roof, box hedged English cottage in Beverly Hills. Will Rogers is bringing up his three children in a rambling home near by and sticking close to his swimming pool when in California. But every little while he has to leave the pool and go dripping to the front gate to say, "Yes, they live right up that road," to tourists before they have a chance to tell him that they are looking for the place where Doug and Mary live. Homespun Will Rogers, strange to say, has a tremendous house, with an acre or so of pillared porch and no end of formal gardening and all that. The road up the hill to the Fairbanks-Pickford house is nothing to brag of. It is a steep mountain grade, wide enough for only one car, and paved at one time, full of potholes. The tradition is that Mr. Fairbanks had the holes dung in order to discourage trippers. They flock up the hill, roll on the lawn and snapshot everything. One especially numerous flock of them gathered on the lawn one afternoon just after the two stars returned from their honeymoon. They shouted "Speech, speech!" "Good heavens, what shall we do?" said Doug. "Do?" said Mary. "We'll go out and speak to them, of course." So they went out and quelled the multitude with speech and were snapshotted and sent everybody away happy. Back of all these are other estates projecting their flora, like green spearheads, up the lower slopes of the hills. Many of these are owned by well to do Eastern families that have gone to California to live. The same is true of many of the largest homes in Hollywood itself. There is no "movie colony." Here and there a few actors may be found living side by side, some of them, the best of them, in bungalows renting at from $60 to $125 a month, but as a rule they rub elbows with storekeepers, artists, bankers, insurance agents, owners of Los Angeles factories, retired sea captains, health seekers, brokers, bankers--with probably a healthy admixture of pirates and the clergy- -just such people as may be found in any desirable suburb. Many Hollywood people work in Los Angeles and motor back and forth. Even the lowliest have cars in California. Not many of the lowliest live in Hollywood, for it is regarded as "an expensive place," although real estate prices are well below those of comparable towns around New York. The great unheard of, unpress-agented majority who make their living at the picture studios cannot afford a residence in Hollywood. A furnished room in Los Angeles is the home of not a few. A Hollywood acquaintance told me that of all the families on his block, along both sides of the street, his was the only one that had any member working at the studios. This may be an exceptional case, but it is obvious that the movies have not taken possession of all of Hollywood. One well known star, I think it was Guy Bates Post, told me he lived near Pasadena and drove twenty miles to his job every morning and back at night. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce estimates that 30,000 of the town's 70,000 persons are in one or another branch of the film industry. But an old timer said the truth was that while about 30,000 were actually engaged in the industry, not more than one-half of them, if that, lived in Hollywood. Some of the gilt edged performers have habitations accurately described by the real estaters as palatial, others occupy modest houses in rows that, save for the tropical foliage, are about like Flatbush. Charley Chaplin rents a Moorish dwelling of about a dozen rooms on Corotona Heights from a theosophist for $500 a month; J.M. Kerrigan has a while clapboarded one story bungalow; Kathryn MacDonald a severe Dutch colonial cottage; Sessue Hayakawa, the Japanese, a formidable feudal castle; Dustin Farnum a two story chalet; William Desmond a homey colonial; Tom Mix a chalet; Tom Moore an Aztec palace. In Hollywood, as everywhere, each to his own taste. After firing one guide I acquired another and conscientiously did the business district of Hollywood. This is divided into three parts along a mile and a half of Hollywood boulevard. Originally there were three drowsing hamlets, and when the boom came they all spurted together and began to grow toward one another, so that eventually they will be as one and the pleasant interstices now filled with vestigial orange trees will disappear. The brightness and cleanness of the business blocks strike the eye of the visitor from the East. They are not old enough to be anything else, and the town having no factories to speak of, there is nothing to smudge them. The buildings are of one or two story, except one which has five stories, and a skyscraper, now being completed, which has six. They are of stucco, concrete or pressed brick, uniformly white or cream colored. The stores are modern looking and cheering places to go into. Real estate offices are notable for numbers. You learn that twenty years ago orchard land in what is now the costliest part of Hollywood could be had at from $250 to $500 an acre. Sixteen years ago the Hollywood Trust & Security Savings Bank bought one of the best corners on the main street, a plot 105 by 60 feet, for $37,500. It is now appraised at $187,000. Ordinary space along the street is worth $1,500 a front foot. Homes do not come so high. Here are samples: Furnished five room bungalow, hardwood floor, garage, water, adults only, $80 a month; four room bungalow, corner, telephone, disappearing bed, garage, $75; "lovely sunny corner room," $25; two rooms and sun parlor, telephone, $65; unfurnished six room flat, two baths, garage, $90; seven room house, all improvements, $100; for sale, plastered bungalow, Spanish, five rooms, unpaved, $8,000; Spanish home, five rooms, garage, brick chimney, lawn, shrubbery, $5,900; five room stucco bungalow, tiled roof, $7,500; plot 160 by 190, site for home for flats, $12,600; site for court or apartment, 88 by 138, $8,700; restricted lot, $3,000; rentals, furnished, $80, $125, $150; rentals, unfurnished, $55, $65, $75, $90. Though disappointed in Los Angeles and in the vicinity of such motion picture studios as I had seen, I still entertained a hope that an actor or two would be seen behaving roguishly in the marts of Hollywood. It was not to be. There were a few sporty looking automobiles, go-devils with port holes in the hood, but they stood parked and empty in front of banks and grocery stores. I had been told to approach the Hollywood Hotel with caution, as here was the center not only of the weird night life of the "movie colony," but anything was likely to happen to a diffident stranger in the daytime. They told me it was Passion's Playground. It proved to be a three story mission style hospice, screened from the street by the regulation palms, peppers and acacias, and built around a patio rich with tropical vegetation. Several Iowa grandmothers with neatly parted white hair were knitting in alcoves of the big sitting room lobby. Stepping close for an earful of scandal, I heard nothing but a debate as to the relative merits of the Santa Fe and the Union Pacific as a means of migration. Two Japanese bellboys had an air of knowing something, but I got no more out of them than they out of me, which was 25 cents for service. Otherwise the hotel was in a state of siesta, and so it continued to be all the time I was in Hollywood. The new guide suggested Armstrong & Carlton's for luncheon. "You'll see them all there," he said. This is the great nooning place of Hollywood, although there are several other restaurants and a self-service refectory which spells itself on the sign, "Cafateria." We went to a corner table. Armstrong & Carlton's was full of wavy haired young men and of girls reminiscent of the side streets above Forty-Second Street, New York. But the guide, who is a studio veteran and really knows his crowd, had to confess that this seemed to be an off day. "Let's see," he said. "There's Al Green, Tommy Meighan's director, over in that corner. That gray haired man is Bill Conklin, who plays heavies, but is socially acquainted with the elect of Los Angeles. The lady under the big hat is Alice Terry, who started in the pictures as a Triangle extra and earned a living cutting film between jobs. And that's all, so far as I can see. The rest are tourists, I guess. Anyway, studio people having luncheon are just like other people." With this assurance I left the restaurant to find out more about Hollywood and was pained to learn that it has only one all night restaurant and that a stool and counter affair. The Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador, roadhouses and dance halls along the oceangoing highways, plenty of places of entertainment there are, but of these we shall write about later; they are not in Hollywood, though they have to do with it. There have been sixty-seven studios listed at one time, but closing of a good many of them, due to the financial slump and other causes, has reduced the number to between forty and fifty. Hollywood has more of them than any other district, but those within the fifteen square miles that constitute the Hollywood area are not segregated and those outside of Hollywood are as much as twenty miles apart. There are now twenty-two studios in Hollywood proper, others at Culver City, five miles nearer the ocean; Universal City, several miles beyond Hollywood to the northwest, and elsewhere in the region bordering on Los Angeles and between the Santa Monica mountains and the Pacific. Of the studios I shall write in another article. The purpose here is to give a superficial view of Hollywood, the suburb. Former Californians remember the Hollywood of twenty years ago as a small, "exclusive residential district," populated by a handful of retired Easterners living in handsome homes in the midst of citrus orchards. Its character was about like that, say of Bernardsville, N.J. Los Angeles was a city of little more than 100,000. It had already started to boom when the movies came. G.M. Anderson--Broncho Billy--appeared from somewhere and began shooting "Westerns" requiring no studio. Col. William N. Selig is credited with having built the first studio, at Edendale. Then came the Biograph and others, one at a time. They found in this part of California not only the greatest number of sunlit days and the best actinic light value, but the greatest variety of "locations" to be discovered anywhere. There were prairie, desert, ranches, rocky and sandy beaches, gorges, mountains, snow, gardens, vegetation of every clime, romantic villages, bustling cities, all within a small geographical compass. In the center of all this, Hollywood, conveniently placed between the mountains and the sea, far enough from Los Angeles to be out of the highest rent zone, afforded plenty of vacant space for the erection of studios. At first each producer of pictures had his own independent personnel. For example, each company making wild West films had its own army of cowboys. Each outfit was jealous of the other, and as no producing company can be busy all the time, there was time for dissipation, wrangling, sometimes serious brawls. Since then the cowboy market has been virtually cornered by two women. When a producer needs a ranch crowd, he telephones the women for them. When the cowboy scenes are finished these men are paid off. They return to headquarters and wait for an assignment to some other studio. There is a fascinating story in the handling of the "extra people," the thousands who work in the pictures itinerantly, in mob scenes and the like, but it can only be indicated here. The point is that the character of the "movie industry" is changing just as Hollywood is changing and has changed since the days when the first orange orchards were cut up into bungalow lots. The first studios were makeshifts. Nobody knew how the business and art of the cinema would develop, or whether it would develop at all. Eventually there arose permanent studios of concrete and steel and the industry acquired a feeling of solidity. The rush to Hollywood became a stampede. Rob Wagner, biographer of the movies, estimates that for every star 200 other persons are needed to assist his light in shining before men. The crowd came and it sought homes. Transients, finding themselves settled for long sojourns in California, bought or built houses. The trooper, always a nomad, dreaming of a fixed habitation, found his dream coming true. In California he could literally have his own vine and fig tree. He could be sure to seeking his family every day. There sprung up a feeling of local pride. The actor and his retinue, the director, the scenario writer, the host of others who help to make the pictures came to have a love for Hollywood because it was "their town." Proudly they voted, became bank depositors, went on boards of directors. They even joined the churches, with which some persons will be astonished to learn Hollywood is plentifully supplied. All this makes Hollywood, in its most interesting aspect, a social phenomenon. Hollywood is the gypsy settling down. The recent scandals have endangered the livelihood of these men and women. In defending Hollywood against attack they have acted from mingled motives of self interest, of a belief that the black sheep are few, and of local pride. In another article an attempt will be made to give the facts and to estimate the soundness of the defense. ***************************************************************************** NEXT ISSUE: "The Truth About Hollywood": Part 2 [Drugs, Alcohol and Sexual Morality] Part 3 [What Happens to a New Girl in Hollywood?] Part 4 [Brief Tour of Some Hollywood Studios] ***************************************************************************** NOTES: [1] See "A Cast of Killers" p. 67. [2] That interview was reprinted in TAYLOROLOGY #6. [3] Examination of library microfilm of the Los Angeles Examiner for this period has failed to locate any interview wherein this statement is made by Minter. If anyone has a copy, please forward it to us and it will be reprinted here. Similarly, if anyone knows of any later published interviews given by Charlotte Shelby, please let us know. [4] The District Attorney's office was attempting to locate the bullet which had been fired by Minter in 1920, when the Shelby family was living at 56 Fremont in Los Angeles. If the bullet could be found and shown to have been fired from the same gun as the bullet which killed Taylor, this would have been the physical evidence needed to link Shelby with the killing. [5] Shelby's mother was Julia Branch Miles, not Mary Miles. [6] Obviously a reference to Mabel Normand. [7] This interview was given after her diaries had been subpoenaed. [8] The producer is obviously Mack Sennett, the actress is Mabel Normand. In his autobiography, "King of Comedy," Sennett says he spent the night at producer Thomas Ince's house on the night Taylor was killed. [9] Mabel Normand achieved stardom working for Mack Sennett in 1913-1917, then went to Goldwyn during 1917-1920. She returned to Sennett in 1921 but it is very doubtful that their personal realtionship resumed. [10] Some of the details of that quarrel were related by Taylor's chauffeur. See "William Desmond Taylor: A Dossier," p. 255. [11] The rumor that she had visited the Taylor home at midnight on the day of the slaying, was strongly denied by Edna Purviance, and the rumor appears to be false. [12] This "famed foreign actress" is clearly Alla Nazimova. [13] This "recently divorced" couple is clearly Rudolph Valentino and Jean Acker. He had recently skyrocketed to fame in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and "The Sheik". [14] Smith does not mention that Natacha Rambova, who would become Valentino's next wife, was also in the car. [15] Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand. See Taylorology #8. [16] Again, clearly the reference is to Mabel Normand. [17] If the incident is genuine, it is possibly a reference to Juanita Hansen, who later wrote extensively about her drug addiction in Hollywood. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Back issues of Taylorology are available on the Web at any of the following: http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/ http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Taylorology/ http://www.uno.edu/~drif/arbuckle/Taylorology/ Full text searches of back issues can be done at http://www.etext.org/Zines/ For more information about Taylor, see WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991) *****************************************************************************