Mabel normand

Tomorrow night, following the closing performance of Mabel Normand’s “Molly O“ at the Mission, the star will give a dinner party for the attaches of the theater where the Mack Sennett comedy triumph has scored the remarkable run of six consecutive weeks. It is estimated that the total attendance during this time has been in excess of one hundred thousand.

* from Long Beach Daily Telegram, February 2, 1922

FILM PRODUCER ASSASSINATED¹⁶⁵

Lasky Director is Found With Bullet in Back

Shot down while writing at a desk by a mysterious assassin, William Desmond Taylor, well known motion picture producer and director, was found dead today in his bungalow in the Westlake District. Death was caused by a bullet wound in the back, just below the left shoulder, according to police.

Taylor, who was 50 years old and wealthy, apparently was killed between 9 and 10 o’clock last night. The body was found today by a colored servant when he reported for duty at the house.

Police detectives who first reached the scene reported that death was from natural causes and it was not until nearly an hour later when an undertaker was removing the body that the bullet wound was found.

Additional officers immediately were dispatched to the house and a comprehensive investigation was begun. The bullet wound caused an internal hemorrhage and Taylor accidentally died a few minutes after being attacked.

Detectives questioned neighbors, who stated they heard what apparently was the report of the revolver shortly after 9 p.m. but at that time believed it was caused by an automobile.

The police immediately began search for Edward F. Sands, former secretary of Taylor. Robbery was not the motive for the murder it was announced, as officers found $73 in the pocket of the slain man, as well as a large amount of jewelry in the house.

Taylor’s revolver was found in a drawer of the dresser in his bedroom on the second floor of the pretentious house. It had not been discharged and none of his personal effects had been disturbed.

The officers reported they are confident that revenge was the motive of the mysterious slayer.

The police records state that when Taylor went to England a year ago on a business and pleasure trip he left Sands, then his secretary, in charge of his personal affairs and when he returned he reported to Detective Sergeants Herman Cline and E. R. Cato that Sands had robbed him of money, jewelry, clothing and a valuable automobile.

A felony warrant was issued for Sands and the police say he never was found.

A second robbery at the Taylor residence was attributed to Sands by the police.

Among the witnesses questioned by the police during the morning were Mabel Normand, Edna Purviance and Douglas MacLean, prominent film stars.

Miss Normand admitted having visited Taylor’s bungalow in the early evening yesterday to discuss a new production and that he had escorted her to her automobile at the curb shortly before 9 p.m. Taylor was to telephone to her later in the evening. Miss Normand said he did not do so.

Miss Purviance, who lives in a house adjoining Taylor’s bungalow, returned home about midnight and saw a light burning in Taylor’s study.

MacLean and his wife, who live in the same district, stated they heard the shot fired after 9 o’clock. They thought at the time it might be an automobile exhaust. They described a strange man whom they saw in the street.

Miss Normand told detectives that while she was talking with Taylor early last evening concerning a new picture production the robberies of the Taylor home were mentioned.

“He told me he feared Sands and that he had a premonition of something wrong,” Miss Normand was quoted as telling officers.

Charles Maigne, an actor, said he was riding with Taylor last Monday and that he warned Taylor to guard against his former employee.

In the first robbery, while Taylor was in Europe, the house was completely ransacked. All the director’s clothing was taken and his automobile was found later in a damaged condition.

The money entrusted to Sands, the valet secretary, by the motion picture director for the payment of current bills had been spent for other purposes, the bills being paid with forged checks, it was charged.

Accounts had been opened in Taylor’s name at several Los Angeles department stores and large quantities of goods ordered. Lingerie and women’s garments were predominant which created the supposition that the valet was led to his embezzlements by a sweetheart.

Many checks had been forged, the large check book filled with forged signatures, some of them spoiled, was found by Taylor. He placed this matter in the hands of the police.

A few weeks ago the Alvarado street house was again broken into under mysterious circumstances. The back door was literally wrecked in gaining entrance. Nothing was taken by the burglars except jewelry and a stock of gold tipped cigarettes of an exclusive brand. The marauders leisurely devoured food they found in the tea box, but did not touch a bottle of champagne there in their ransacking. They walked about with dusty shoes on the bed upstairs. This was reported to the police.

A week later Mr. Taylor’s colored servant found the butt of a gold tipped cigarette on the front doorstep one morning.

“Pardon me, Mr. Taylor, but have you bought more of these cigarettes,” he asked?

“No,” said the director, and examined the butt. It was the butt of one of the stolen stock. One of the burglars had returned for some inexplicable reason and enjoyed a midnight smoke on the doorstep of his victim.

It was following the second robbery that a mystery letter marked from Sacramento was received by Taylor. This letter was signed “Alias Jimmy V.”¹⁶⁶ It read as follows:

Dear Mr. Taylor, So sorry to inconvenience you, even temporarily. Also observe the lesson of the forced sale of assets. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. (Signed) “Alias Jimmy V.”

Two pawn tickets were enclosed in the letter. Taylor told his friend that he recognized the handwriting on the letter.

Police detectives today sought to recover the pawn tickets from among Taylor’s belongings and began a search for the man whom the film director had told his friend was the writer of the mysterious “Jimmy V.” letters.

Officers last night were concentrating their efforts on locating a mysterious desperado who is sought as the slayer of William Desmond Taylor, one of the best known directors in the motion picture world, who was found murdered at his bungalow home of 404-B South Alvarado street yesterday morning.

The officers were diligently following the trail of the mysterious man after they learned that several times the strange nocturnal visitor had been driven away by Taylor at the point of a gun.

But two weeks ago, the investigators said Taylor found this man trying to gain entrance to the bungalow by means of a bedroom window. The window was half open and Taylor is said to have driven him away.

Many times the murdered director is said to have heard unusual noises about the house and upon investigation found the unwelcome visitor prowling about the building or premises, but each time Taylor flourished a gun and drove him away.

And then again, the police say in trying to weave a chain of incriminating evidence about the hunted man, Taylor received telephone calls which brought forth no response when he answered. It is believed the calls came from this person who was ascertaining if any one was at home at the bungalow.

It was within half an hour after Mabel Normand, famous screen actress, and Taylor had a chat early Wednesday evening that he was killed, the police believe.

They are also trying to run down clews which they say have found and which indicate that jealousy or revenge was the motive. They are inclined to believe that the former is the possible solution of the death.

That a man committed the crime is based upon information furnished by Mrs. Douglas MacLean, wife of the film star, who lives next door to the Taylor home, and by her maid. They say they saw a mysterious man at the Taylor home before and after the murder.

A .38 caliber steel-nose bullet caused Taylor’s death. This was determined and the bullet found when Autopsy Surgeon Wagner performed a post mortem on the body early last night.

The bullet had penetrated the back beneath the left shoulder blade, pierced the heart and then took a right upward course into the neck, where it lodged.

While three theories are being considered by the police, certain material clews developed late yesterday lead them to believe that behind the tragedy is the shadow of a woman.

The partly told story of Taylor’s murder is this:

At 6:45 Wednesday night he ate dinner in his little bungalow court home. He was alone. His servant was the only other person in the house. Shortly after 7 o’clock, Miss Mabel Normand, famous screen star, and whose engagement to the slain man had been generally rumored for many months but, denied by her, went to the Taylor home.

She remained, according to her story to the police, until about 7:45 o’clock. She had called for the purpose of obtaining a book that Taylor desired her to read.

When she left, Taylor escorted her to her automobile, waiting at the entrance to the bungalow court.

When Taylor departed from the house with Miss Normand he left the door open.

What happened?

The servant, Henry Peavey, a negro who has been with Taylor for about six months, said Miss Normand and Taylor were together in the living room when he left to go to his own home about 7:20 o’clock.

Yesterday morning, as was his custom, he arrived to prepare breakfast at 7:30 o’clock.

He had a key to the front door and opened it. He started to go in and then noticed Taylor lying on his back with his feet near the door. The servant did not enter. When Taylor failed to answer his alarmed cries he rushed to the home of a neighbor and called the police.

Some time between 7:45 o’clock and 7:55 o’clock the night before, Taylor had been shot.

Here are the theories on which police detectives are concentrating their efforts. Taylor was shot by 

1. A woman he had scorned or whom he had enraged.

2. A discarded suitor of some woman with whom he had been friendly.

3. A burglar who was surprised by Taylor when he returned to the house after escorting Miss Normand to her car.

Among the clews being followed by the police is one furnished by employees at the Morosco Theater, who stated that several weeks ago a man inquired for Taylor’s address and by his insistence and strange actions aroused their suspicions. The officers are trying to locate this individual, who would not take “no” for an answer to his questions as to where the director resided.

A former secretary whom Taylor had caused to be arrested for forgery and who is said to have threatened his life, is being sought for information he may be able to give bearing on the case.

Taylor is known to have been friendly with many women. He is said to have been a man of charming personality and of considerable magnetism. Outside of one particular prominent woman he was not known, say police, to have been particularly interested in any one.

It is possible, say police, that some man, enamored of any one of the women with whom Taylor might have been on friendly terms, could have become enraged, waited his opportunity at the Taylor home, and then killed Taylor from ambush.

Every possible angle of Taylor’s private life is now being investigated by the detectives in connection with the first two theories.

That the second will prove to be correct the officers believe. This belief is based on what Mrs. Douglas MacLean, wife of a motion picture director, residing in the house next to that of Taylor, saw.

At 7:10, according to Mrs. MacLean’s maid, Mr. and Mrs. MacLean sat down to dinner. While the second course was being served the maid claims to have heard footsteps of a man in a rear alley running between the two houses.¹⁶⁷ She commented upon it to her employers, but thought nothing of it until she heard of the murder yesterday morning.

At 7:50 o’clock, six minutes after Miss Normand left with Taylor to go to her machine, Mrs. MacLean heard a shot and went to her door.

A man was just leaving the Taylor home.

He was not Sands, the valet. Mrs. MacLean is sure of this, she says. She knew Sands.

When she saw the man he was just stepping through the door. He turned half-way around, glanced back through the door and then pulled it shut.

He saw her, she says, as she stood watching him, but did not show any alarm. She closed her door just as he started away from the Taylor home.

He walked, she declared, not out to Alvarado street to the main entrance, but disappeared through the alley leading between Taylor’s house and hers.

The mysterious visitor was large of stature, wore dark rough clothing and had a muffler and cap on. She could not see his face.

This man, the police believe, is the murderer.

They believe it was he whom the MacLean’s maid heard as she was serving dinner. It is probable, they think, that he was acquainted with Taylor’s habits.

Friends say that Taylor left the door open when he left his home for a few minutes.

The mysterious visitor is believed to have secreted himself around the corner of the house and watched until Taylor came out with Miss Normand. As the two walked toward the film star’s car, the assassin probably hurried into the house through the door left open by his victim.

When Taylor was found his body was lying with the head toward the east wall, directly in front of a writing desk. The feet were near the door the legs outstretched. He was on his back.

It is the police theory that when he returned to the house after bidding Miss Normand good night he sat down at the desk to work. An open check book was lying on the desk, a pen nearby, when the murder was discovered.

The murderer, waiting behind a pillar in the room, stepped out when he believed Taylor to be settled in the chair and fired.

The bullet entered below the left shoulder blade and penetrated the heart.

Taylor died instantly, pitched forward and in falling upset the chair. The chair was found lying across his legs when the body was discovered. Intimate friends say that it was the one used by Taylor at his desk.

The murderer is then believed to have hurried to the door, glanced back just as Mrs. MacLean discovered him and then fled through the alley.

When Peavey, the servant, saw the body of his dead master, as he opened the front door yesterday morning, screaming into the bungalow court yard, Mrs. Verne Dumas, who heard his cries, called the police.

Detectives who responded made a casual examination, but did not turn the body over until Coroner Nance reached the scene.¹⁶⁸ The first report issued from the headquarters was that Taylor had died of natural of causes.

As soon as it became known that the director had been murdered Detective Captain David Adams assigned every available officer to the case. Officials from the public administrator’s office were sent to the house and took charge of the dead man’s personal effects. Thousands of dollars worth of jewels were found in his bedroom.

A half completed income tax blank lying on the desk showed his annual income to be $37,000.

Coroner Nance ordered the body sent to the undertaking parlors of Ivy Overholtzer on South Flower street and detectives then began the work of running down the murderer.

According to Peavey, the servant, his murdered master had no enemies that he knew of nor had he had any difficulty with any guest that had visited the house while he was present.

When he left for the night Wednesday, Taylor seemed to be in high spirits and was conversing in an animated manner with Miss Normand. Police are convinced that the servant can throw no light on the mystery.

Miss Normand told Detective Sergeants Wallace and Ziegler that she had gone to two jewelry stores downtown before she went to Taylor’s home. They were closed and after buying some peanuts from a vendor at Seventh street and Broadway and a copy of the Police Gazette she hurried to Taylor’s home.

Her story and that of her chauffeur, William Davis, coincide, Miss Normand claims that she left the Taylor home about 7:45 o’clock, and that he director walked with her to the machine, leaving, as was his custom, the door open behind him.

When they reached the car, she says, her chauffeur had been reading the magazine. He hastily threw it aside and Taylor saw it. The couple had been discussing literature and he chided her good naturedly about reading that type of magazine.

She says that after she left Taylor at the curbing she immediately returned to her home. While in Taylor’s home she had discussed with Taylor a certain charge made against his negro servant involving social vagrancy.

Miss Normand was informed by motion picture friends of the tragedy soon after the body was discovered. She refused to receive callers outside of headquarters officers and close intimate friends.

To further the theory that Taylor was killed by some one other than his former valet, police point to a story told by a guest in the Dumas home, near by, who claims that on last Monday night early he saw two men go up to the door of the Taylor home, try the door with a key and then walk away. One of these men is believed to have been the murderer.

Several others in the block beside Mr. and Mrs. MacLean claim to have heard the fatal shot. E. C. Jessurum, owner of the court, who was ill in bed, heard it and called it to the attention of his wife, who was reading to him. Not hearing a second shot, they thought nothing of the interruption.

One of the first visitors at the Taylor home after police detectives had taken charge was Mary Miles Minter, mutual friend of Miss Normand and the murdered man.

Friends had informed her of the tragedy. Accompanied by her mother,¹⁶⁹ she hurried to the Taylor home, but was met at the door by Detective Sergeant Hermann Cline, who briefly told her what had happened. She became hysterical and it was several minutes before she could talk coherently.

She said that Taylor had directed her in three pictures and that she considered him an intimate friend. She knew of no enemies that might have sought his death, she said.

“Why, he was a wonderful,” she added, “and every one that knew him loved him.” This sentiment was voiced, too, by her mother. Miss Minter said that the last time she saw Taylor was Wednesday afternoon that “he felt that something was going to happen to him.”

They laughed the subject away, though, and apparently Taylor forgot it. He told the same thing to other persons -- friends in the motion picture colony, but all ridiculed the idea.

The house in which Taylor was found is lavishly furnished. The lower floor consists of a living room, dining room and kitchen. Upstairs, with the stairway leading from the dining room, are two bedrooms. One of these rooms was used by Taylor to sleep in. The other was reserved as a guest chamber.

Photographs, all of them affectionately autographed, of famous stars, whom Taylor had directed are the most conspicuous decorations in the living room. These include one of Mary Pickford, who describes Taylor as “the most patient man I ever knew.”

A search of the house by detectives and the deputy police administrator revealed a large quantity of expensive bonded liquors. This was taken charge of together with his other personal effects.

Late yesterday afternoon Detective Captain Adams assigned Detectives Sergeants Hermann Cline, Murphy and Winn to the case.

The detectives, after interviewing Miss Normand’s chauffeur, admitted that the case is one of the most baffling that has confronted the Los Angeles department for many years.

Sands, the former valet being sought, is said to be in Los Angeles, and several friends of Taylor told police last night that they had seen him. Every officer has been furnished with his description and given orders to arrest him on sight. Police are not yet ready, they say to implicate him in the murder, but he is the one known man who would have a motive for desiring Taylor’s death, and his explanation of where he was on the night of the murder is anxiously awaited by officers.

If he is innocent, they believe, despite felony warrant already issued for him, he will surrender rather than take the chance of being accused of suspicion of murder by remaining in hiding.

Mack Sennett is to immortalize on film the romantic days of early California immediately preceding the Mexican war.

The production now well underway on the Sennett lot, has been titled “Suzanna,” and Mabel Normand selected to portray the title role, under the direction of F. Richard Jones.

Recently, in speaking of “Suzanna,” Sennett was enthusiastic over the possibilities of his latest comedy drama.

“Never have I encountered” he said, “such infinite possibilities for screen adaptation as the romance and adventure -- in fact, the history -- of those early California days. So readily does that period, and the romantic people of the time lend themselves to filming that I am prepared to say now that no Sennett picture yet produced will equal “Suzanna“ when finally it is completed.

“I feel” the producer continued, “that California history deserves a niche in the archives of filmdom the same at it has in the history of the world.

“We have found that, for the most part, those who peopled California from the time of its settlement in 1602 until the time of the Mexican war were the highest type of Spaniards and Mexicans. Naturally, there was a bad element, but it was a very small minority. Those early California Dons ruled not only wisely, but well. They ruled by might true; but they ruled by right, as well. And I want “Suzanna“ to be a fitting monument to their memory.

“My reasons for producing “Suzanna“ are twofold: Material, yes, but primarily to record on celluloid the romance and adventure of a period in California history which I love, which I know is interesting and which I feel has been too long ignored. And I am certain that it will be of vast interest not only to the people of America, but to those of the Old World as well. At any rate, to attain this end, we will spare no expense, no effort, no time.”

Affair of Heart With Tragedy Victim is Denied

By Lannie Haynes Martin

MISS MABEL NORMAND, Mack Sennett film star, who was probably the last friend to see William D. Taylor, the Lasky film director who was shot Wednesday night, alive, told in detail late yesterday afternoon, the time and the incidents of her visit to his home early in the evening, previous to the shooting, and stated that she had no doubt that the person who shot him was the man who had twice robbed him and who had annoyed him with mysterious telephone calls recently.

“There was no affair of the heart whatever between William D. Taylor and myself,” said Miss Normand yesterday afternoon at her beautiful home in West Seventh and Vermont avenue. “His friendship for me was that of an older man for a girl who liked the outdoor sports he liked and who was eager to glean a little enlightenment from the vast storehouse of knowledge which he possessed.

“Mr. Taylor was a man who knew everything. If I wanted to know the meaning of an unusual word I did not have to take the trouble to hunt up a dictionary. I just had my secretary telephone Mr. Taylor. If I wanted to find the name of a painter or sculptor of some rare work of art he was sure to know that, too, and if I were puzzling over some classical or scientific reference in my reading, I only had to ask him to have the entire matter explained, for besides having the education and the instincts of an artist, he was a deep student of science as well.

“I liked to go out with Mr. Taylor because there was a certain protective dignity in his quiet high bred manner that prevented the obtrusive, offensively familiar person who had only seen my face on the screen, from running up and saying, ‘Hello, Mabel!’ and we were the best of pals. I think Mr. Taylor had the finest, highest sense of honor of almost any one I have ever known, and I respected him and admired him more than I can tell. My chief liking for him, however, was because of his wonderful brain and the things he could teach me. I am studying French, and as he spoke French fluently he was of great assistance to me and there was hardly a day that he did not recommend some book to me to read. It was to get a book he had phoned about that I went to his house Wednesday evening about 7 o’clock.

“I had been downtown shopping and was at my bank and phoned home to my housekeeper to know if there had been any calls for me. She said Mr. Taylor had phoned that he had the book I wanted, so I attended to a few errands and had my chauffeur drive me by Mr. Taylor’s home. I sat down for a few minutes, commented on the change he had made in some bookcases. I had not seen the place in a couple of months. We talked a little of books and plays and he asked me to stay for dinner, saying that although he had had his dinner, he wanted me to try a certain kind of rice pudding his cook had made, but I told him that I had phoned home I would be back to dinner and they were expecting me.

“He then told his colored boy that I would not be staying for dinner and the boy went out just ahead of us. Mr. Taylor took me to my car and on the floor of the car were a number of magazines, some of them, were rather light and I suppose sensational. Mr. Taylor expressed surprise that I read such things and rather upbraided me for having such low-brow taste. He gave me the book, as I got in the car. It was one of Freud‘s latest, and said I will phone after (a)while and see how you like it. That was the last I ever heard his voice. This morning when Edna Purviance rushed in and said Mr. Taylor was dead I was sure it was all some horrible mistake.

“I came home from Mr. Taylor’s house, had my dinner and was in bed before 9 o’clock. I read a little while and when he did not phone I wondered a little and then thought no more about it and went to sleep.

“Mr. Taylor was so uniformly kind to every one. It seems horrible that he should have met a death of this kind, and with the exception of the man who had been in his employ and who had robbed him, I cannot believe he had an enemy in the world. He had a warrant sworn out for the man, but he had never been apprehended. Yesterday Mr. Taylor told his secretary that he had a strange presentment about this man and wished he had not had the warrant sworn-out.

“I wish there were something I could do to throw some light on this terrible tragedy, but it was mere chance that took me to his door a few hours before it happened and I feel very indignant as do also the members of my household and the managers and directors of my company, that my name should have been unnecessarily connected with the unhappy event. Any one, out of scores of his acquaintances might have called at his house on that particular evening and it seemed a cruel thing to me that I should be questioned about it.

“I have known Mr. Taylor for six or seven years. He had high ideals regarding his work and a far reaching vision that made him have great faith in the wonderful things that the moving picture has yet to do. He not only had an eye for beautiful objects and harmony of composition and arrangement, but he had a soul that appreciated the abstract beauty that these things stood for as symbols. To him loyalty, honor, faith, justice and beauty were realities. They were forces that move the world onward and sculpture out recognized qualities in the human countenance. And it was the clean, wholesome beautiful things of life that he wanted to portray on screen.

“Mr. Taylor was a wonderful conversationalist because he observed everything and everybody with the eye of understanding sympathy. He could tell of his travels in Alaska or his trips through Europe and the stories would not be merely geographical descriptions of countries and customs, but philosophical observations that made all of his experiences a commentary on life.

“I feel proud to have called such a man friend and am sorry that his extreme modesty and diffidence kept many from knowing the depth and brilliance of his true nature. But he was not in the least pedantic or high-browish. He was full of wit and jest and he would tease and twit me about things I did or wore, and sometimes we would have a perfect gab fest, in slang, just like a couple of kids. He was just an all around, sure-enough human being.

“I am just in the middle of a big picture and, of course, I am going right on working, but the sudden news of the tragic death of such a friend as this was naturally a great shock to me and I am all broken up today.”

Besieged by friends, members of her profession and representatives of the press, Miss Normand denied herself to all callers yesterday and remained in the seclusion of her room, a dainty rose and old ivory boudoir whose walls are lined with books of verse, of plays, of fiction, philosophy, science and history. There were books on the dresser, scattered all over gold-mounted toilet articles, big fat books on art sprawling all over a chaise-lounge, and on a little stand by her bed there were some volumes of poetry and psycho-analytical philosophy.

“Yes, I do read a great deal,” confessed Miss Normand, “one has to in order to understand what other people are talking about and most of the books you see here were either given me or suggested by Mr. Taylor. I sometimes wondered how he ever got the time to read all the different kinds, of things he had read.

“Mr. Taylor was a man who would have been a credit to any profession on the face of the earth, because he lived a clean, wholesome, upright, life of kindness and usefulness to his fellow beings. Those of us who believe in our art and our profession and have ideals and ambitions for the attainment of success and for that thing which is valued above great riches, a good name, feel that we have not only lost a personal friend, but that the profession has lost a rare exemplar whose influence will be missed by all.”
* from Los Angeles Record, February 3, 1922