Infamous America - HOLLYWOOD MURDER Ep. 2 | William Desmond Taylor, Part 2

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

In the weeks after the murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor, detectives methodically investigate a long list of suspects. They – and the press – uncover scandalous information. Careers are ruined, but no one is arrested. The case languishes for decades until another Hollywood director believes he solves the mystery. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Hit “JOIN” on the Infamous America YouTube homepage.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4V_wVD7N1gEB045t7-V0w/featured For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. To purchase an ad on this show please reach out: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The scandal that would ignite and evolve after the discovery of William Desmond Taylor's body wasn't the only murder mystery scandal in Hollywood in the early part of 1922. In September, 1921, four months before Taylor was murdered, a woman named Virginia Rap, though she added an E to the end of her last name and pronounced it Rapay, went to a party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. She died four days later, and one of her friends, friends accused one of the hosts of the party of rape and murder. That host was Roscoe Arbuckle, who was more commonly known as Fatty Arbuckle. He was one of the top stars in the

movie business and one of the kings of comedy, along with Charlie Chaplin. In 1920, Fattie Arbuckle signed a contract with the famous Players Lasky Corporation, the same company that employed William Desmond Taylor as a director for $1 million per year. That was an extraordinary sum at the time, and proof of his popularity with the audience, and it would be the equivalent of nearly $15 million today. It was further proof of the astounding amount of money that could be made in the relatively new industry, and the contract that shocked the world happened four years earlier. In 1916, Charlie Chaplin signed a deal with the Mutual Film Company

that paid him an annual salary of 670,000, thousand dollars per year. That's nearly $19 million per year in today's money, and it made him the highest paid entertainer in the world. The first full-length feature film to be completely produced in California had only happened two years earlier in 1914, but the earnings for the biggest stars in the movie business were already incredible. Faddy Arbuckle was acquitted two months after William Desmond Taylor was killed, but the scandal ruined his career. The case was strange and sordid and full of holes and inconsistencies. In early 1922, Faddy Arbuckle was in limbo between trials.

And if he and Charlie Chaplin were considered the kings of comedy, then the queen of comedy was Mabel Normand. She had co-starred with both men in several films. And on February 2nd, 1922, she was in the bedroom of William Desmond Taylor, going through his closets and drawers, while his dead body lay on his living room floor. When the police arrived at Taylor's bungalow on South Ovarado Street that morning,

they found a well-known Hollywood actress in Taylor's bedroom, two unknown men in Taylor's living room, and Taylor's butler in the kitchen, calmly doing dishes. The two men in the living room turned out to be executives with the famous player's Lasky movie studio. One was sitting at Taylor's large, hand-carved mahogany desk, opening drawers, reading through files, and then passing some along to the other man. The other man was crouched in front of the fireplace and burning the

documents that were passed to him by the guy at the desk. Much like the police in San Francisco during the early stages of the fatty Arbuckle case, the police in Hollywood had a confusing crime scene on their hands and a tangled backstory to unravel. From BlackBarrel Media, this is infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling two murder mystery stories from the Golden Era of Hollywood, the case of director William Desmond Taylor, and the notorious Black Dahlia case. This is episode two, William Desmond Taylor, part two of two, secrets, lies, and theories. Henry Peavy was William Desmond Taylor's butler. He arrived at Taylor's bungalow at 7.30 on the morning of February 2nd, 1922, to begin the day's work. He immediately noticed

something strange. The lights were still on in Taylor's home. Taylor was a famous and popular movie director, and like many people of his stature, he stayed up late and woke up late. The lights were never on at 7.30 a.m. because he was never up at 7.30 a.m. When Henry opened the door, he found Taylor's body lying peacefully on the living room floor. Taylor was still dressed in a suit and tie, and his hair was still perfectly quaffed. There were no outward signs of violence or a struggle. Taylor was clearly dead,

but he looked like he had simply laid down on his floor, fallen asleep, and never woken up. Henry believed his employer had died of natural causes, so he didn't panic and he didn't call the police right away. Instead, though it couldn't be proved, he must have called the movie studio where Taylor worked, famous players Lasky. That must have been how two executives were in Taylor's home before the police arrived, and either Henry or the studio called Mabel Norman.

Her presence was the most mysterious circumstance when the police were finally called. But when the first officers arrived, they had a priority that was higher than understanding Mabel's relationship with Taylor. They needed to know if Taylor's death was natural or murder. The four people in the home all agreed that Taylor died of natural causes. They all said he had well-known stomach problems, and they said a doctor had already come and gone. The doctor, apparently, diagnosed the cause of death as a stomach hemorrhage, which was convenient. The officers obviously wanted to talk to the doctor, but the four people in the house claimed they didn't know his name or how to.

to contact him. With all the suspicious activity happening in the home, and now the revelation of a mysterious and unknown doctor, the officers weren't so quick to believe Taylor died of natural causes. They performed a simple action. They turned over Taylor's body and discovered a bullet hole in his back. This was now a murder case, and the home was now a crime scene, and the four people at the crime scene were now suspects or witnesses or both. The first officers on the scene called in the detectives, and the detectives immediately began a high-profile Hollywood murder investigation. They quickly ruled out robbery as a motive.

Taylor's wallet was still in his breast pocket with $78 in it, the equivalent of well over $1,000 today. A two-carat diamond ring was still on his finger, and his gold pocket watch was still in his pocket. So if it wasn't robbery, then it was probably personal. The detectives began simultaneous interviews inside the house and outside. First up was Henry Peavy, Taylor's butler. The Hollywood cliche that the butler did it was already well established.

But the police quickly determined that Henry did not do it, and he was cleared as a suspect. Next up was Mabel Norman. Detective soon learned that she was a frequent guest at the home and Taylor's closest friend, which was probably why Henry called her if he did. There's no formal record that establishes the sequence of events immediately after Henry Peavy discovered Taylor's body, so it's all just deductive reasoning. Mabel Norman and William Desmond Taylor were close friends, and maybe more. She had been linked to Taylor romantically by way of the Hollywood Gossip Mill,

but it's more likely that they were just very close friends and confidants. But even if they were just friends, that didn't explain why she was ransacking his bedroom when the police arrived. It would later be revealed that Mabel Normand had a secret that would come back to haunt her, a secret that might explain her actions that morning. But for now, the detectives moved on to the studio executives. The two men were easily ruled out as suspects. They had been at home with their wives the previous night,

and their alibis were airtight. But like Mabel, their alibis didn't explain their actions on the morning of February 2nd. While the detectives worked to understand why a famous actress and two studio executives were destroying potential evidence in the case of the executives and possibly removing evidence in the case of Mabel Normand, they received their first clue about the murder itself. The clue came from Taylor's next door neighbor, a woman named Faith Cole. She said she had heard what sounded like a car backfiring,

sometime between 7.45 and 8 p.m. the previous evening. She said she happened to look out her window afterwards and saw a figure dressed in black leaving Taylor's home. But whoever it was didn't seem to be in any kind of rush. After casually walking down the steps, the person abruptly turned around, opened the door and stuck his or her head back in as if to say something to someone inside. Then the person left again, walked down the footpath, and disappeared into the night. It was a chilly winter evening, and the neighbor described the person as wearing a long black coat with a collar pulled up around the neck and tightened with a scarf. The person also wore a black hat with a wide brim that was pulled down over the eyes

so that she, the neighbor, Faith Cole, couldn't really see the face. Faith assumed at first that the person was a man, but the person was small in stature and walked in such a way that Mrs. Cole thought it might have been a woman disguised as a man. And with that clue in hand, the detectives turned their suspicions back to Mabel Normand. Norman was thought to have been the last person to see Taylor alive. She had definitely been at Taylor's house the previous night. But neighbors, including Faith Cole, saw Mabel leaving Taylor's home at about 7 p.m.

At least 45 minutes before Mrs. Cole heard the noise that she thought was a car backfiring. It was now clear that the sound was a gunshot. 45 minutes earlier, Mabel was seen waving goodbye and blowing kisses from the back. of her limousine, while William, still very much alive, stood on the porch, waving and blowing kisses back to her. That was all fine and well, and it probably cleared Mabel as a suspect. It seemed unlikely that she had somehow been able to return to Taylor's home in different clothes and kill him just 45 minutes later. But it didn't explain why she had apparently rushed back to Taylor's home when she heard he was dead and was searching his bedroom.

When detectives arrived at her mansion to formally question her, Mabel was inconsolable, or at least she was turning in a very convincing performance. When pressed about her impromptu scavenger hunt in Taylor's bedroom, Mabel told detectives she was merely trying to retrieve some personal items she had left behind, which, if discovered, might be misinterpreted by the press. Her reputation as America's favorite funny girl would be destroyed if any tawdry details of a secret love affair or even the hint of one came out.

That made sense to detectives, and because they were able to verify that Mabel had gone out to dinner with her friends after leaving Taylor's home that evening, she was officially ruled out as a suspect. She still had a secret, and she had deflected the police and the press, at least for now. With that, all four people at Taylor's home were cleared as murder suspects. And while the police hunted for a man or woman in black, they started to dig deeper into the personal and professional life of William Desmond Taylor. If they didn't have an immediate suspect, maybe they could find a motive for murder that would lead to a suspect. Helpfully, and that's sarcastic, the big wigs at Famous Players Lasky contacted the big wigs at LAPD. Hollywood Studios

wielded enormous power in the city government, and they were known to pay off members of law enforcement, city officials, and local politicians when necessary. This may have been one of those necessary times. Now, they used the same explanation as Mabel Norman, and probably with a little extra incentive of a cash bonus. The studio bosses explained to the investigators that there was nothing nefarious going on at Taylor's house. The two executives who were in the victim's home, were a producer and the head of publicity. They were trying to protect their reputation, and now the legacy, of their deceased colleague, by destroying any compromising items that may have been in Taylor's possession. The bosses admitted that the late director

had a reputation for being a bit of a lethario, and may have been romantically involved with many different women, some of them famous. It was a delicate situation, and the studio wanted to keep things hush-hush. If the press were to catch wind of any revealing photographs of well-known actresses in Taylor's home, it would destroy his reputation as a creative visionary, as well as the reputations of the actresses, some of whom were undoubtedly under contract at famous players Lasky. And if such a scandal materialized, it would, of course, reflect poorly on the studio. The studio executives denied having any information about the murder. But given the studio's inability to produce the mysterious doctor who had allegedly pronounced

Taylor dead of natural causes, their claim was a tough cell. So, the bosses needed to work a deal with the LAPD. It appeared that the movie studio received special treatment from the police. The LAPD Brass gave an order to the detectives on the Taylor murder case to keep quiet and slow the investigation down a little. The studio had shared some additional concerns with the LAPD beyond the possible possession of indecent photographs. They were worried that Taylor might also have been in possession of some passionate love letters written by one of his romantic interests. She was an actress who was under contract at Famous Players Lasky,

and she had been romantically linked to Taylor, and she was 30 years younger than he was. And there was something else that he might have been in possession of, which would have been considered highly indecent at the time. Ladies lingerie. But not just any lingerie. This was very expensive lingerie, monogrammed in gold thread with initials that would not be difficult for the press to figure out. It's probably impossible to know whether or not the studio knew about all this potentially scandalous information

before the two executives arrived on the morning Taylor's body was discovered. But if they didn't, they would have found it that morning, because the police found it too. During the detective's initial search of Taylor's home, they found a hand. full of racy love letters written to Taylor. The letters were signed with the name Mary. The detectives also found lingerie that was monogrammed with the initials M M M. The letters, plus the lingerie, pointed to one person, Mary Miles Minter. She was a blonde beauty who was just 19 years old at the time of the murder.

And like Taylor, she was under contract at Famous Players Laskey. Naturally, detectives wanted to talk to Mary Miles Minter. The case was starting to look like a potential crime of passion. Maybe Mary had suspected her lover was also carrying on a romantic relationship with Mabel Normand. So Mary went to Taylor's house that night to try to catch them in the act. Maybe Mary waited until Mabel left, then disguised as a man, snuck into Taylor's house, and murdered him out of jealousy. It was a story as old as time if it was true. But before detectives could talk to Mary, they had to get past Mary's mother, Charlotte Shelby.

Charlotte had the reputation of the classic stage mother, overbearing, overprotective, and interested in benefiting from her daughter's success as much as possible. At first, Charlotte refused to let detectives speak to her daughter. But after being threatened with a subpoena, she relented. When they talked, Mary and her mother claimed that Mary and Taylor were just work colleagues. Yes, she loved him, but he was a father figure. There was nothing romantic going on. Unfortunately, even if there had been a romance, the letters and lingerie didn't prove that Mary

killed William Desmond Taylor. The scandalous material might, however, point to a different suspect. Despite the desires and efforts of the studio bosses, the news of Taylor's murder roared through Hollywood like a fire, and it was the newspaper men who uncovered the unflattering details of Taylor's past. In the days and weeks following the murder, as the crime remained unsolved, the press were in a feeding frenzy. They dug into Taylor's past and soon discovered that William Desmond Taylor

was really William Cunningham Dean Tanner, and he was Irish by birth, not English, that we had deep English ancestry. They discovered that William had abandoned a wife and child in New York more than a decade before his murder. Taylor's image as a, quote, gentleman director was tarnishing quickly. The Taylor murder remained front-page news nationwide for weeks. The Hollywood rumor mill worked overtime, which was bad news for Mary Miles Minter. The press learned that her letters and lingerie were found in Taylor's house, and they somehow got a hold of the actual letters and reprinted the juiciest parts.

Mary continued to claim that Taylor was only her friend and mentor, but the lingerie and the letters told a different story. Her reputation was ruined, and famous players Lasky dropped her million-dollar contract. The studio had found a silver lining in Taylor's murder. It was the perfect time to get rid of an actress whose box office appeal was already fading, even as she was only 19 years old. The only good news for Mary was that she was cleared as a suspect.

But reputations were falling like dominoes, and there was one more in line. Mabel Norman's reputation was destroyed too. The newspapers happily reported the speculation that Mabel was a cocaine addict. supposedly William had been trying to help her kick her addiction and would often take her cocaine away and hide it. And if all that was true, then it helped a theory as to why she was ransacking William's bedroom. She was looking for her drugs. Careers were getting ruined quickly and easily, but the cops were running out of suspects. Next, they turned to Mary's mother, Charlotte Shelby. Mary didn't kill Taylor, but it seemed clear that she was having an illicit relationship with

them. If the relationship had become public, it would have killed Mary's career almost before it started. Maybe Charlotte thought the best way to handle it was to kill the man whom she viewed as responsible. She was at the top of the list, though as yet there was no proof. Then another name popped up as a potential suspect, William Sands, Taylor's former showbler. fur. While Taylor had been away on a European vacation, Sands had forged thousands of dollars in checks, stolen Taylor's car, and then disappeared. There was growing suspicion that Sands may have been trying to blackmail Taylor with information that would ruin him, but Taylor refused to cooperate. Had Sands murdered Taylor in frustration? Unfortunately, investigators learned about Sands too late.

Six weeks after the murder of William Desmond Taylor, William Sands committed suicide. And that in itself could be telling, what if Sands killed Taylor and then couldn't live with what he'd done? It was possible, but there was no way to know. Sands didn't leave behind anything that could help detectives on the Taylor case. Then, suddenly, there was another unexpected plot twist. Rumors had begun circulating about the nature of the incriminating evidence that William Sands might have been using to blackmail William Desmond Taylor. The same rumors said that that was the information that the studio executives were trying to find and destroy in Taylor's house. The incriminating information was that Taylor was gay, and like most gay men at the time, deeply closeted. The studio

So executives weren't trying to destroy evidence of affairs with actresses, they were trying to destroy evidence of affairs with men. And at the same time, they were planting evidence of affairs with women, the lingerie and the love letters from Mary Minter. And to go further, with Taylor and Sands dead, there was no way to stop the speculation that the two men had been involved with each other. The scandal was becoming bigger and crazier than anyone could have imagined. the end, the gay affair and blackmail angle was probably the least likely. Police were able to

posthumously clear William Sands because he was living in Florida at the time of the murder. And so, of the list of known and potential suspects, that left just one person who had not been officially cleared, Charlotte Shelby. Strangely enough, it was a former contemporary of Taylor's, a director named King Vidor, who, decades later, believed he finally solved the mystery. King Vidor directed 77 films in his career, and he's probably best known for the epic 1956 film War and Peace. After that, Vidor became one of Hollywood's heavy hitters. When he decided he was going to make a film about William Desmond Taylor's murder, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. It was In 1967, 45 years since Taylor's murder, and the case was still unsolved. Vidor was a young,

up-and-coming director in 1920 when the murder happened. He knew Taylor personally and admired his work. But Vidor's memories of the details of the case had understandably faded over the years, so he started doing research. Vidor began by pouring through newspaper reports, police reports, witness statements, and police interviews. He personally interviewed any of the key players who were still alive and willing to talk, including the retired detectives who worked on the case. And then, after months of exhaustive research, he unexpectedly scrapped his plans for the film. He was certain he had discovered the identity of the killer. And beyond that, he was certain he knew why the killer was never charged with the crime. But because many of those

involved in the case were still alive, he felt it was too dangerous to make the movie about his theory. He then made the radical decision to take his information to the grave. But King Vidor did leave behind a single breadcrumb. Maybe it was unintentional, or maybe he knew that someday someone might uncover what he had uncovered, and the truth would finally come out. And that's exactly what happened. After King Vidor's death in 1982, at the age of 88, a writer named Sidney Kirkpatrick was preparing to write a biography about the famous director. It was well known that Vidor kept meticulous notes and files pertaining to each year of his life and career, right up to the year he died. When Vidor's family gave Kirkpatrick those files to help with

his research for the biography, Kirkpatrick discovered that one year, In 1967, the year Vidor had spent researching Taylor's murder was missing. Kirkpatrick had a hunch the file was hidden somewhere. After months of searching Vidor's various homes, there was just one last place to look, the guest house of his Beverly Hills mansion. And there, hidden below the floorboards underneath the water heater, was a rusted metal lockbox. Inside was King Vidor's missing file from 1967.

Vidor had interviewed Mary Miles Minter and learned that Mary was, in fact, desperately in love with William Desmond Taylor. She sent him letters and some of her lingerie in an effort to seduce him. But Taylor had apparently made it clear, time and again, that he was too old for her, and they did not have a romantic relationship. But Vidor also believed he uncovered the real reason why they didn't have an affair, because William Desmond Taylor was actually gay. But of course, very few people knew that, including Mary's mother Charlotte. In her eyes, Taylor was putting her daughter's career at risk, and that could have been a motive for murder.

Vidor also discovered that Charlotte owned a 38-caliber pistol, the same caliber pistol that was used to kill Taylor. And it wasn't just any 38-caliber. It was one that used distinctive bullets, just like the bullet found in Taylor's back. According to King Vidor, this was how events played out on the night of February 1, 1922. In the early evening, Charlotte became suspicious

that Mary was trying to sneak off to rendezvous with William, who was likely unaware of an impending visit. According to Mary herself, she was trying to sneak out. To prevent Mary from leaving, Charlotte confined her to her room, but then caught her trying to sneak out of her bedroom window.

Charlotte grabbed her pistol and fired a warning shot into the ceiling to let Mary know she meant business. After her confrontation with Mary, Charlotte disguised herself as a man and paid William a visit. She arrived at William's bungalow shortly after Mabel Normand left to have dinner with her friends. Charlotte confronted William with the gun, just like she had confronted her daughter.

and sometime around 7.45 or 8 o'clock, she fired a single bullet into his back and killed him. Charlotte was spotted by William's neighbor, Faith Cole, but the disguise protected her. A retired LAPD detective who worked on the case told Vidor they all knew Charlotte Shelby committed the murder, and they had enough evidence to arrest her. They just couldn't convince the district attorney to bring charges against her. There was no murder weapon because Charlotte had disposed of it, but they did have two distinctive bullets that could be used for comparison, the one in William Taylor's back and the one in Charlotte Shelby's house. Charlotte didn't have an alibi for the evening Taylor was murdered, but Charlotte had something

that was better than an alibi, thanks to her daughter, who was a successful actress. She had money to pay off the district attorney, and every district attorney that followed. Charlotte Shelby died in 1953 at the age of 79, having never been charged with murder. King Vidor thought he had it figured out in 1967, 45 years after William Desmond Taylor's death. And the moment that clinched it for him was this. It wasn't direct evidence, but it was a good Hollywood ending. At the end of Vidor's interview with Mary Minter, she said, my mother killed everything I ever loved.

Next time on Infamous America, it's the beginning of the story of the most notorious Hollywood murder case of all time, that of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia. That's next week on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once

with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. This series was researched and written by Michael Byrne and myself. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. We're Blackbarrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter.

And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. search for Infamous America podcast. Thanks for listening.