WEBVTT - Wicked Words - William J. Mann: Tinseltown 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:05.519 This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.040 This is one of those cases that will always interest people. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.320 You want to be able to keep looking for new 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.400 clues and new windows into these stories. 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.280 I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:35.240 in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.640 true crime podcast Tenfold War Wicked and the co host 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.600 of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.639 around the world interviewing people for the show, and they 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.040 are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:51.760 crime stories, and now we want to tell you those 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.360 stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold War 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.400 Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make, 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.080 good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:08.880 behind the stories. I love nineteen twenties Hollywood. It was 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.960 full of glitz, glamour, controversy, and murder. William Mann's wonderful 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.000 book Tinseltown, Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.240 Hollywood details the story of the mysterious unsolved murder of 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:27.360 film director William Desmond Taylor. Did man solve Taylor's murder 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:33.559 one hundred years later. Maybe, so this is nineteen twenty 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:38.200 two Los Angeles set the scene for me, crime, politics, mobsters, 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.920 what's happening between the Christian right and Hollywood at the 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:47.120 time period. Everybody is side eyeing everyone else. It's very 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:48.080 tension filled. 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.280 Yeah, you know, in nineteen twenty to nineteen twenty two, 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.840 this was the critical period in the development of the 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.200 Hollywood studio system. So the movies were still only about 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.360 ten years old, and yet they had become suddenly in 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:07.840 the past decade, this huge money making enterprise. And everyone involved, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.240 all of the big weeks in the movie industry, the 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:15.919 studio directors, the producers, the directors, the actors. They had 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.079 all come from nothing. They were immigrants who had come 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.280 here without any you know, without any money in their pockets. 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.240 They had been chauffeurs and showgirls, and suddenly they were 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.760 making more money than they ever dreamed of. So it 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.240 seemed as if the good times would never end. And 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:36.240 then these scandals began to happen. And this was a 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.680 period of time where suddenly the stakes were so high 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:44.520 and everybody understood that because the right wing had been 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.520 complaining about movies since their inception, saying that they were 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.799 destroying the morals of the youth. They were giving a 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:56.200 wrong impression about what marriage and family meant. You know, 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.639 in these early movies, women had a tremendous amount of agency, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.880 and women were making movies and they were directing movies. 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.639 And this was a period of time where there was 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:09.679 a lot of social change going on in the world 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.960 and it made people nervous. After the war, After World 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.880 War One, which was about the time the movies really 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:20.200 took off as a big business, there was this clash 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:25.440 in the country between traditional ways, religious ways, and a 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:30.200 more secular understanding of the world. You know, Fitzgerald's comment was, 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.040 you know, after the war, a generation found all gods 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.560 were dead and faiths and man shaken. So there was 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.040 a whole new world out there. This was a period 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.320 of time two also where women get the right to vote. 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.000 Society was changing and it made a lot of people nervous, 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.400 and the movies were reflecting that change. So we saw 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.160 a lot of attempts to censor movies, to get movie 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.920 houses closed. In some cases, people who had brought about 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.320 prohibition now turn their attention to the movie houses. So 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:06.280 there was a considerable amount of tension around this suddenly big, huge, 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.200 important moneymaker industry, and it was going to spill over 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.360 into the larger culture as well. 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:17.880 Where does William Desmond Taylor fit into this whole picture 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:19.200 in nineteen twenty two. 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.240 Well, by nineteen twenty two, William Desmond Taylor, who had 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.560 started out as an actor, was one of the most 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.240 important men in the business. He was a director for 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.679 Famous Players Alaski, which was at the biggest movie studio 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.479 in Hollywood and indeed the world. Within a few years 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.520 it would become Paramount. So we understand that this is 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.200 an organization that's still going, you know, that has been 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.560 powerful for a very long time. And he was tapped 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.640 by Adolph Sukor, who was the head of Paramount and 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:55.000 the founder of Paramount, to in sense, be the defender 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.200 of the industry. He was the one who was always 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:03.000 sent out to speak against sense, against criticism, saying that 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:09.120 you know, if we show destitution or vice in the films, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.279 it's not an attempt to sensationalize, but to show the 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.919 problems of society. So you know, they took a grand 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.400 tone to justify their money making movies about sex. But 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:25.040 Taylor was the perfect person to do that. He was articulate, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.120 he had a very cultured Irish rogue, he was handsome, 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.920 he was tall, and there was no scandal around his name. 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.240 He was seen as upstanding. The industry leaned on him, 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.279 depended on him to defend the industry and as well 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.599 as he made very successful movies Tom Sawyer a series 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.120 of films with Mary Miles Minter, so he was riding 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:48.440 high in nineteen twenty two. 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.719 My second book, American Sherlock, features that forensic scientist who 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.360 did not work on this case, but he was the 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.279 central character of the Fatty Arbuckle case. And for people 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.640 who don't know, and Fatty Arbuckle in nineteen twenty one 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.240 is an actor who's caught in a scandal because a 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.120 woman who was an actress went to one of his 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.400 parties at the Saint Francis Hotel and ends up dying 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.560 and he goes on trial for manslaughter. But really the 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:20.360 characters come out in that trial, right. You've got showgirls 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.800 who are flipping their stories around, You've got people who 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:29.039 really are framed as leezy Hollywood types. Does William Desmond 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.279 Taylor fit into that world? Is he hanging out with 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.800 all the showgirls. What's his reputation like in Hollywood? 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.839 Oh, he couldn't be farther away from that world. Okay, 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.800 he liked our buckle. He did like our buckle. They 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.640 had a great deal of respect for each other. But 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.520 Taylor was known as a guy who went home after 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.760 shooting the pictures and read books until the early evening 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.680 and went to bed early. He was not somebody who 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.440 was a part of that world. His best friend was 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.400 Mabel Normand, who was a part of that world. Occasionally 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.039 Mabel would drag him out to the Coconut grove to 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.720 go dancing. But for the most part he was seen 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:12.400 as very proper, very distinguished. You know, he had his cellar, 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.840 you know his prohibition, but he did have his cellar 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.640 was filled with bootleg liquor. But he wasn't known as 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.760 a party person. He would not have been at a 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:22.920 party like that. 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.440 So no real active social life, love life, at least 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:27.760 in that. 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.840 Way, well not publicly. Taylor did have his secrets, and 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:33.640 I like to say one of the things that makes 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.800 this story so interesting is that the subcurrent to it 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.880 is that that everybody had secrets, and those secrets would 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.240 either kill you or save You, and Taylor came to 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.600 Hollywood with some pretty big secrets. He had abandoned his 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.600 wife and daughter. He had been working in retail in 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:56.280 New York City and was bored, bored with his life, unhappy, 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.640 so he joined a traveling acting company and a band 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.240 in his family and had done so for about five 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.600 years now living on his own, and now he's in 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.680 Hollywood having made it big, and still hadn't reached out 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.800 to his wife and daughter. So he had this secret 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.320 he was carrying around. And part of the reason that 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.840 I believed that he left his wife and also that 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.080 he kept a very low profile in Hollywood, is I 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.600 believe he was gay. He was almost certainly having a 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:28.800 relationship with his set decorator, George Hopkins. Hopkins later wrote 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.719 about this in some clarity and some detail in his 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:37.560 unpublished memoir, and that would explain why Taylor wasn't down 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.000 there partying with the rest of them. But he kind of, 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.079 you know, stayed at home with some close friends, and 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.720 that too, was a secret that he guarded very carefully. 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.760 He was one of the most profitable film directors in 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.199 Hollywood at the time, the only other one at Paramount 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.640 who was more successful than he was, was Cecil B 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:57.040 de Mill. 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.760 So tell me about the scene where we are located 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.000 when all of this happens in Los Angeles on February first, 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:06.199 nineteen twenty two. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.240 Taylor lived in a bungalow complex on Alvarado Court, which 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.800 is right off of Alvarado Street. It was a courtyard 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.800 with several other actors. Edna Purvyance lived there. She was, 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.839 of course Charlie Chaplin's leading lady. Douglas McLain, who was 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:26.080 a very popular actor also at Famous Players Laski lived there. 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.560 So it was a group of movie people technicians who 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.559 also lived there. It was very genteel. There wasn't a 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.040 lot of parties. It was at that time. It was 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.760 a very upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles, and he would 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.760 entertain a few friends occasionally, Mabel Norman often. In fact, 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:44.679 she was there the night he died. She was the 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.080 last person to see him alive. But mostly, as I said, 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.480 he would be found home sitting there reading books until 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:52.160 late at night. 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.360 And is that where all of the starts is that night? 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.720 Yes, what actually happened? There's lots of speculation, but I 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.040 should probably say what we know and what we know 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.840 is is that on the morning of February second, it 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.480 was a very cold morning, and unusually cold morning. There 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:12.360 was frost on the grass. And Henry Peavee, who had 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.400 mentioned as Taylor's valet, he arrived as usual at seven 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.360 point thirty to start work, and he noticed as he 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.560 was coming up the path that the lights were still 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.320 on because the sun was just rising, so he could 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.199 see that all the lights in the house were still on, 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.240 which was very unusual. And then as he got closer, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.280 he saw that the door was ajar it was not 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.400 pulled tight, which immediately set off alarms in PV's mind, 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.440 and when he opened the door, he saw Taylor stretched 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.520 out on the living room floor, clearly dead. Peev, who 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.800 was could be a bit excitable, began to scream and 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.400 run through the courtyard and waking everybody up, and the 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.600 neighbors came over and went inside determined that the Taylor 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.199 was dead, and at this point everyone thought he died 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.200 of natural causes because there was no sign of foul play. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.200 He was just laying there fully dressed, and they felt, well, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:03.920 he must have had a heart attack or some other 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.080 kind of seizure, and they said, well, we need to 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.480 call the cops. And Peeve, who had by this point 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.640 had kind of gotten his senses, he said, oh no, 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.320 mister Taylor always said that if anything ever happened, you 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.240 don't call the cops, you call the studio. And because 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.680 of what we were talking about earlier, the stakes that 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.480 were so high for the studios, even if somebody died 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.760 of natural causes, before you let the press in, you 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.640 had to make sure there was nothing in there in 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.640 their belongings that I might embarrass the studio. So overcomes 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.040 George Hopkins, who was most likely Taylor's companion romantic companion, 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:41.920 and other people from the studio, and they went through 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.760 Taylor's bungalow and carried off boxes and check books and 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.480 diaries and everything they could find. So by that point 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.440 it was okay to let the coroner in. And the 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.640 coroner comes in and says, well, it looks like natural causes, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.200 but you know, we should turn the body over. And 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.800 the studio director, who was there, a man named Charles Ititen, 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:02.920 said no, no, no, we don't need to turn a 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.760 body over. Let's just get him to the morgue. And 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.840 the coroner insisted, and they turned him over and sure 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.320 enough he was lying in a pool of blood and 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.120 there was a bullet lodged in his neck. So now 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.800 it's it's murder. And by this time the reporters are 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.600 all outside, you know. And it's so interesting when I 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.440 researched this period, unlike today, the reporters had access to 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.040 crime scenes. They just walked in, you know, and they 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.440 went through things on their own, and the police and 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.320 everyone expected that. So there were reporters in there when 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.480 the blood was found, and so containing this was no 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:38.439 longer possible. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.880 Are they finding upon investigation that there are signs of 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.320 a break in? Do they think immediately this is some 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:46.320 sort of home invasion. 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:48.960 No, there's no sign of a break in. The back 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.720 door is still locked from the inside. So whoever came 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.960 in came in through the front door, which was unlocked, 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.480 and there was the place was not in shambles. The 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:03.080 only thing that seemed out of place was there was 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.960 a chair that was kind of a thwart tailor's leg. 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.160 But other than that, the room was neat. He had 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.880 his wristwatch, he had had some he had a ring 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.120 that was not stolen. However, he did have a roll 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:18.320 of cash was probably about five hundred dollars or more 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.240 and that was gone. But if the killer was there 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.240 to rob him, police immediately said, you know, well then 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.240 why not take the ring, when I take the wristwatch? 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:29.480 Why not go through the desks because there were other 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.480 valuables there. So robbery even from the start was not 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:34.360 seen as a motive. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.680 Are they dusting for fingerprints because we know that that 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.640 was available, I know from Fatty Arbuckle that was very 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:42.040 available in that time period. 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.320 They certainly did. They certainly did. But you know, as 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.240 I mentioned, by this point, by the time the cops 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.400 actually did that, there were so many fingerprints across that 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.920 There were the neighbor's fingerprints, there were the reporter's fingerprints, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.520 there were the cops fingerprints. It turned out to be useless. 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.440 So is there a reaction from George Hopkins, who you 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.640 believe was his partner in some way, or at least 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:12.120 a romantic partner. Is there an emotional reaction or anything 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:13.600 public happening? 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:15.800 I wish we knew, I mean, because that's one of 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.120 the great stories that you have to wonder about. In 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:21.800 his memoir he did write how difficult it was for 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.080 him to stand there and look down at this body 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.560 of this man that he had loved, and not to 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:28.720 be able to acknowledge it, not to be able to say, 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:33.000 this man wasn't just my boss. Mabel Norman, however, who 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:37.080 was Taylor's good friend and clearly knew about George, she did. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:41.480 At the funeral, George was sitting alone and Mabel did 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.480 a gesture for him to come sit with her. So 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.320 I think, you know, just those little bit details you 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.080 begin to say perhaps there was some understanding what he 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:51.000 might have been going through. 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.480 So at this point, the studio has to admit that 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.920 this is a murder, and they have no suspects, and 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.640 there's no sign of a break in. It doesn't look random. 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.240 The easy things to get which any robber would know 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.520 what to do or have been left on the table 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.360 except for some money. And the police say we have 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:13.680 to investigate this. What is the dynamic between the police 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.600 and their investigation and Zucker and these people who are 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:19.880 the power players in Hollywood who have a lot to 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:20.600 lose by this. 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.680 Oh yeah, they have a tremendous amount to lose. At 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.480 the very day that Taylor's murder is announced on the 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:31.360 front page of the Los Angeles papers, it's sharing headlines 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.880 with the Arbuckle case, which the jury is just you know, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.080 deadlocked for the second time. So at this point you 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.680 see it in Zuker's action. Zuker's on a train. He's 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.480 a peace based in New York. He's on a train 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.200 out to Los Angeles. Almost immediately, this is crisis mode. 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.680 This is really immediately the reformers, people like the Lord's 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.640 Day Alliance, they're jumping all over saying, look, we need to, 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.160 we need we need to you know, censor these this place. 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.320 And they're finding allies with the federal government because the 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.200 federal government had already been looking to regulate the new 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:11.120 movies as violating antitrust laws. Paramount lows were buying up the theaters, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:15.800 and there were calls for regulation and government regulation of 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.120 the movie industry. And so they find allies with the 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.840 right wing religious and civics groups saying, yeah, let's regulate 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.520 them for that, but also for their morality. So this 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.120 is a moment where people like it Old Zukor and 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.680 the others realized that all of this fortune that they 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.840 had built up might come crashing down. So there's a 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.320 lot of pressure from the studios on the police not 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.960 to pursue this. Sometimes the police cooperate, other times they don't. 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.000 I mean, the police in the tailor case sometimes get 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.240 a bad wrap. I think they did the best they could, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.760 but the studio had gotten in there and taken away 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.120 anything that might have given them a true lead on 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:55.040 who might have done this. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.160 So they start to investigate, and I think, you know, 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.040 even police in the nineteen twenties would start to think, Okay, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.280 well we need to start with his inner circle, right, 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.040 and they start investigating. Who do they start with? Are 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.080 we starting with Mabel? Is that who we go with 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.080 his closest friend besides George? 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.480 Yes? Absolutely, Mabel is the first suspect. She was there 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.040 the night before investigators started asking around. There had been 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.639 a quarrel between Mabel and Taylor that several people had witnessed, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.680 So why was she there that night? Henry Peavey had 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.360 seen them quarreling before he left that for the night, 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.800 so when he left, he had seen Mabel and Taylor quarreling, 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.399 so he was very suspicious of Mabel. However, Mabel was 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.200 quickly determined not to be a suspect. They did check 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.920 her out. They searched her apartment. They found that her 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.040 gun didn't match the bullet that had killed Taylor, but 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.280 she remained, you know, a person of interest for other reasons. 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.960 She had you know, everyone knew that she had recently 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.560 gotten sober, she had gone to rehab, Taylor had helped 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.439 pay for it for her, She had kicked the drug habit. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:03.280 You know, she had this pretty elaborate drug land connection 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.440 that had infiltrated this movie studios, and Taylor had been 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.720 working actually with the US attorney to ferret them out, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.639 to try to find these drug dealers and to get 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.080 them out in the studio. So there was some thought 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.800 within the LAPD that maybe, in fact, one of Mabel's 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.280 drug contacts had killed Taylor as a sort of revenge 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:27.639 or something. So Mabel, even though she was very quickly 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.119 eliminated as a suspect, remained in the shadow of the 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.200 investigation really for the next several years. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.800 Did they look at this and think based on interactions 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.719 with gangsters, you know, knowing what they know about the 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.880 level of professional hitman, did they think that this looked 0:18:59.920 --> 0:19:02.919 like a professional hit or a crime of passion? How 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:04.520 are they categorizing this murder? 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.119 Do you know some of the speculation was being done 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.720 by the hearst newspapers. Of course, this is what we think, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.879 did it? You know, the police right from the beginning 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:18.919 did not feel this was a mob hit because it 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.560 didn't bury into the signs of that. It did seem 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.359 like a crime of passion. Even the trajectory of the 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.080 bullet through Taylor's body was interesting because it was fired 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:34.680 into his lower right side and it traveled up through 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.520 his body and got lodged in his neck, right behind 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.959 his ear. So this is a very unusual trajectory for 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.960 a bullet to go through a body. How would that 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.639 have happened if it was, you know, a mob hit, 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.239 which usually is pretty straightforward. It did seem like a 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:54.160 crime of passion. Interestingly, all of the women in Taylor's life, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.080 Mabel is most frequent meeting, Lady Mary, Miles, Minter, were 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.919 all about five foot two, So you know, it's conceivable 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.080 to someone embracing Taylor, who was much shorter than he 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.520 was he was six feet putting a gun in his side. 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.439 That gun might have gone up to his neck. So 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.200 it was pretty early unseen as most likely a crime 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:14.760 of passion. 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.560 What is the caliber of gun? What kind of weapon 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.119 are we talking about? Is this a lady's handgun that 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:21.960 can be concealed very easily. 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.359 No, it was a thirty eight, an old model thirty eight, 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.879 which is actually I think a significant detail has helped 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.840 me when I came up with some possible solutions that 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.720 it was an old model thirty eight and the bullets 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:42.480 were soft nosed, and there was the ammunition was also old. 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.360 It was not like the current the most current ammunition 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.800 at the time. I'm not a gun expert, but I 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.480 know that the police said, is there aren't a lot 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:52.200 of these guns around? Is what they said. 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.520 Is it associated with the military or the police, or 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.520 would this be somebody's father who had it years ago? 0:20:58.760 --> 0:20:59.800 And it was taken out of. 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.880 The It was used in the Spanish American War. 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.560 So they have looked at Mabel and said she's got 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.159 some connections to the underworld, but we're going to let 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:12.800 it go for now. Who was the next person they 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:13.480 focus on. 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.560 The next one was Taylor's former valet, but a man 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.359 by the name of Edward Sands. He had preceded Henry 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.440 Peavey in the position, and Sans was a very good 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.560 suspect and I think he still is a good suspect. 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.560 He was working under an assumed name. He was using 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.320 a fake Cockney accent. He was actually from Ohio. 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.480 Wait, what right? Why did he do that? He just 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.440 thought he'd get a job more easily if he's sounded English. 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.200 Yeah, like yeah, valets are supposed to be English. 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.400 I guess there you go. 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.320 Well, he was always changing his name, always going around 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.840 the country getting different jobs because he was always being fired, 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:51.679 or when he was in the military he was in 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.920 World War One, he was always being court martialed. So 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:58.840 he had a lot of aliases throughout his career. And 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.639 when he Taylor's employee, was while Taylor was away actually 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:05.920 in New York making up with his wife and daughter. 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.000 During that time, Sans took Taylor's car, smashed it up, 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.840 drank all his liquor, and then stole jewelry and some clothing. 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:19.359 So Sand seemed like a really good suspect, especially because 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:21.840 it seemed as if in Taylor's last month he was 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:26.080 being blackmailed. And Sand seemed like a good suspect because 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:31.480 he actually knew that Taylor was not his employer's real 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.600 last name. His real last name was Tanner. He was 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:38.040 known as William Dean Tanner. Sans had discovered this, and 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:42.040