Books: Hollywood Gothic (1922-1986) a Cast of Killers

It was 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 2, 1922, when William Desmond Taylor's houseman came to work and discovered the film director's body lying faceup on the floor. When the police arrived an hour later, they found Taylor's Los Angeles bungalow swarming with reporters and souvenir hunters. The press made much of reports that Mabel Normand, the heroine of Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops comedies, was seen rummaging through desk drawers in search of her old love letters. A Paramount executive was sitting in front of the fireplace burning papers. A man claiming to be a doctor examined the corpse and announced that Taylor had died of a stomach hemorrhage. Only an hour later did an official turn the body over to find that he had been shot in the back with a .38 pistol.

The corpse still wore a diamond ring and a platinum watch, but there were many other motives besides robbery. The police discovered a closet filled with women's lingerie, monogrammed or labeled with the names of Taylor's conquests. One pink silk nightgown bore the letters M.M.M., for Mary Miles Minter, then 19 and Paramount's reigning blond. There were also stories of pornographic photos showing Taylor flagrante delicto with other stars.

Both Normand and Minter were regarded as suspects. So was Minter's fiercely protective mother and manager, Charlotte Shelby, who happened to own a .38. So was the houseman, Henry Peavey, who had recently been arrested for soliciting young boys. Or was it some drug dealer angered by Taylor's efforts to get Normand off her cocaine habit? Or one of several lunatics who made false confessions?

Coming shortly after the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, the Taylor murder and its accoutrements of drugs and sex led to the creation of the Hays Office and its puritanical Production Code. For nearly 30 years, Hollywood films were forbidden to show even a married couple making love or to allow the use of words like pregnant or virgin. The careers of Normand and Minter were ruined, but nobody was ever prosecuted for the Taylor murder.

That is only the first mystery in this Chinese box of a thriller. The second, nearly a half-century later, stars King Vidor, veteran director of such epics as Duel in the Sun and War and Peace. Vidor had worked in Hollywood ever since 1915 and had known both Taylor and Minter, but as he entered his 70s, he could no longer find assignments. Teaming up with another oldtime star (and onetime lover) named Colleen Moore, he decided late in 1966 to make a film about the Taylor murder.

Vidor interviewed all the survivors and gained access to secret police files. One of his most surprising discoveries concerned the "evidence" found in Taylor's bungalow: it had been planted there by Paramount. The studio wanted Taylor portrayed as a Casanova to disguise his homosexual private life. Even more surprising was the fact that the police had barely investigated several obvious leads. Working alone, Vidor traced the crime to its source. But he never made the movie, and never made any use of his more than 650 pages of notes and records .