The Murder of William Desmond Taylor w/ William J Mann
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- In early 1922, Hollywood was in damage control. The recent "Fatty" Arbuckle manslaughter and rape case had brought unwanted scandal to the motion picture industry, so when Paramount Pictures director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered in his home on February 1st, the studio tried its best to cover it up. Despite this, the murder case became a national sensation with attention falling on multiple suspects, including a valet who had been blackmailing Taylor, comedy star Mabel Normand and film ingenue Mary Miles Minter.
My guest is William J. Mann, New York Times bestselling author of Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood". He shares details from the book that won the 2015 Edgar Award and offers his own theory on who murdered the famous director.
The author's website: williamjmann.com/
I’ve read Tinseltown twice. Loved it. Well written and well researched. Mr Mann brings those years to life in a vivid way. Well worth the read.
I love this channel. I thought this was a particularly good episode. Thank you.
I've been hoping for this.can't wait to hear it.
Margaret Gibson appeared in 147 movies under 7 different names.
Excellent podcast, I'm been fascinated about WDT murder for years. There were a couple of inaccuracies on the part of the author. First, WDT abandoned wife came from a very wealthy family, so she was provided for economically. This is one of the reasons she didn't search him out. She didn't have any issues with him disappearing from her life.
In terms of Mabel Normand, she was a huge star back then. Charlie Chaplin claimed that everything he knew about comedy, he learned from Mabel. Chaplin actually proposed to Normand, but she was too much in love with Mack Sennett.
Mabel was having a lot of PR problems, she was associated with Fatty Arbuckle due to being friends and having starred with him in so many films. So, she was swept up with him & his drama. Then there was this WDT murder, then shortly after this murder, Mabel goes out drinking with one of her male friends. It turns out this friend is married & after leaving Mabel, he is killed while driving home drunk. The public started turning away from her.
In the year following the WDT murder, star Wallace Reid died from complications of drug abuse. Like many of the athletic stars of that era, he did his own stunts, and he needed morphine from an accident in 1919 & could never break the habit. In 1924 was the mysterious death of Thomas Ince aboard WR Hearst's Yacht, this has never been solved either. The rumor is that Hearst was jealous that his mistress, Marion Davies was having an affair with Chaplin (she was) & that he mistakenly shot Ince thinking he was Chaplin. All in all, Hollywood was in the cross hairs.
Had heard the same, WDT 's first wife came from a wealthy family.
@@mariasandoval3012 Yes, I also believe that she had remarried to another affluent man, so she had moved on. The early years of the 20th Century (1900-1925), very little attention (relatively) is focused on the strength and power of women of that era. In that era women were writers and directors. June Matthis ascended the ladder of influence and by 1925 was the highest paid executive at MGM Studios. She discovered Rudolph Valentino.
@@mtngrl5859 Read "Without Lying Down: Mary Pickford, Frances Marion, and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood," by Cari Beauchamp.
I detest murder. I want to hear.about it. What is wrong with me?
likewise and I ask myself the same question LOL
You are human.
I hope you add more of these to youtube, because i am not an apple fan, never had their junk, and never will have an apple device. Is there another way besides the i store? G-d bless.
So fantastic!!!!
Wasn't there some speculation that Sands was WDT's brother or a relative?
It was speculated in the press, but the police did not take it seriously. Neither did Denis's wife. The photographs bore no resemblance.
Very interesting.
Yes. A new one!
Did Margaret Gibson ever get her independent movie shown?
Read about it in Hollywood Babylon a long time ago. This should be interesting, thanks.
Hollywood Babalon's version is a fairytale.
Now that I've heard this podcast, I will be skipping "Tinseltown." Most people around at the time believed that Charlotte Shelby did it. So did King Vidor, detectives Thad Brown and William Cahill, George Hopkins, Henry Peavy, Adela Rogers St. Johns and others, including Mary Miles Minter. Charlotte Shelby had the motive of believing that if Mary married Taylor, there went her meal ticket. Three successive District Attorneys, Thomas Woolwine, Asa Keyes, and Buron Fitts were paid off by Charlotte Shelby. I think William Mann is getting into the weeds with his focus on wannabe starlet Margaret Gibson and her two henchmen.
None of the initial suspects or persons of interest did it.
The suspect was seen by 6 people on the evening of the shooting and they all described a man in the area and leaving it.
On February 1st, 1922, Floyd Hartley and L.A. Grant were working at the Hartley service station at around 6:00pm when a man who was about 26 or 27, about 165 pounds with dark hair wearing a blue serge suit approached them. He asked them for the address of William Desmond Taylor. They pointed out the address.
Mrs. M.S. Stone was babysitting for her daughter at apartment 412-A Alvarado court [opposite to and down from Taylor’s apartment]. She told reporters that it was after 6:00pm. She was on her way to babysit when she saw a stranger standing on a corner possibly waiting for a streetcar. She became a bit frightened when he failed to board the next car. She waited under a streetlight and crossed the street and watched until he left. She watched him as he turned on Alvarado onto Maryland [walking to the rear of Taylor’s bungalow]. She watched him pause in front of the hotel Alvarado and switch an object from his left hip pocket to his right hand pocket. She went to her daughter’s apartment.
Mabel Normand was visiting Taylor at his apartment.
Henry Peavy [Taylor’s manservant] washes the dishes and leaves at 7:20.
Mabel leaves Taylor’s bungalow at 7:40. Taylor walks her to her car where her chauffeur is waiting. They joke around and she leaves at 7:45.
At around 8:00, Mrs. Stone heard what she thought sounded like a pistol shot. She put her grand-daughter to bed and looked out the window. She saw nothing except a “weird pattern of light and shadows.”
Christine Jewett, a maid who worked for actor Douglas MacLean and his wife Faith, heard a man walking in the alley around 7:15. She said, “I heard his shoes scrape on the pavement. At intervals he would move and stand still.” Christine also heard what sounded like a gunshot at around 8:00.
Faith MacLean [Christine’s employer] also heard the shot. It was assumed that it was a car backfiring. MacLean opened her front door and saw someone emerging from the front door of Taylor's home who, she said, was dressed "like my idea of a motion picture burglar". She recalled the person pausing for a moment before turning and walking back through the door, as if having forgotten something, then re-emerging seconds later, flashing a smile at her before running off and disappearing between the buildings. There has been some confusion to her testimony that I’ll mention later.
E.W. Dascomb, a streetcar conductor and R.S. Woodard, the motorman, said they saw a man board their trolley at Alvarado and Maryland. They remembered him because of the infrequency of the stops they made at that point and also that the trolley car was almost empty. Having no reason to check their watches because the trolley ran on schedule. They estimated that it would have been 7:54 or 8:27 [the killer was supposed to have been last seen at 8:00]. This man was described as 5’10, 165 pounds, about 27 years old and wearing a cap or hat of a light colour and something tan, either his jacket or vest.
@@challengingoldhollywoodmyt2934 Okay, but what was his motive? Why did he do it?