William Desmond Taylor (Fake News: Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon Episode 4)

You Must Remember This

Karina Longworth

Tv & Film

4.7 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2018

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The killing of director William Desmond Taylor was the third in a trifecta of scandals which, over the course of about a year and a half, painted such a sordid a picture of the movie colony as a hotbed of sin that the industry was forced to fundamentally change its way of conducting business. Anger’s telling implies that Taylor’s murder may have been a consequence of the affairs he supposedly conducted simultaneously with several women, including both a starlet and her mother, or related to the fact that Taylor was living under an assumed identity and employing his own brother as his butler. Today we’ll sort out fact from fiction in the Taylor case, and demonstrate how the media frenzy surrounding it had wide-ranging consequences despite the fact that no one was ever arrested for the crime. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Lok antimicom from Vr지는mi
0:28.6	Welcome to another episode of You Must Remember This,
0:33.6	the podcast dedicated to exploring the secret and or forgotten stories of Hollywood's first century.
0:43.6	On your host, Karina Longworth, and this is another installment in our ongoing series, Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon.
0:58.6	The great films of the silent years.
1:02.6	This isn't news, this is totally unfounded gossip.
1:06.6	It's a long way from Hollywood. Criticized for dealing too frightfully with such themes as sex and nudity.
1:13.6	Hollywood Babylon.
1:18.6	Over the next two weeks, we're going to tell two stories which Kenneth Enger intertwines in Hollywood Babylon.
1:28.6	That of pioneering silent film comedian, Mabel Normand, and that of William Desmond Taylor,
1:36.6	whose murder, in 1922, was along with the deaths of all of Thomas and Virginia Rappé,
1:43.6	one of the catalyzing events that earned Hollywood its reputation as a center for sin and led to the establishment of a code of content for Hollywood films and the more careful patrolling of the off-screen behavior of Hollywood stars.
2:02.6	Taylor and Normand were close friends. Though some reports suggest they were engaged, other reports suggest that Taylor was gay,
2:12.6	and Normand always denied that they were romantically involved.
2:17.6	Taylor's murder has never been conclusively solved, but Mabel was from the beginning linked to the scandal because she was apparently the last person other than Taylor's killer to see him alive.
2:34.6	Here are excerpts from how Taylor's tale was told in Hollywood Babylon.
2:43.6	On the night of February 1st, 1922, someone killed William Desmond Taylor in the study of his bungalow court apartment on Alvarado Street in L.A.'s placid West Lake District.
2:55.6	Taylor was chief director of famous players Lasky, a paramount subsidiary.
3:00.6	Paramount, which had its hands full with Arbuckle, could now think its unlucky stars for another scandal.
3:08.6	The body was discovered the following morning by Taylor's Negro man servant Henry Peevy.
3:13.6	Peevy ran, emitting a soprano scream, waking up the other residents of the court, including Edna Proviance, who immediately placed the phone call to Mabel Normand.
3:23.6	Mabel rushed to Taylor's to retrieve a bundle of her correspondence.
	...

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