***************************************************************************** * T A Y L O R O L O G Y * * A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor * * * * Issue 18 -- June 1994 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu * * TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed * ***************************************************************************** CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE: Adela Rogers St. Johns: Eulogy, Apology, Psychology, Mythology ***************************************************************************** What is TAYLOROLOGY? TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life; (b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor murder on Hollywood and the nation. Primary emphasis will be given toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it for accuracy. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Adela Rogers St. Johns was in a unique position to comment on the Taylor case. Although she was in New York at the time of the murder, her home was in Hollywood. As the western editor of PHOTOPLAY she was very familiar with life in the movie colony, the facts and the rumors. In addition she had been good friends with Mabel Normand for almost a decade prior to the murder. Over the years, St. Johns wrote several times about the Taylor murder and about the personalities close to it. Some of her earlier commentary was contradicted by her later writings. Which was the truth? ***************************************************************************** Eulogy Immediately after Taylor was killed she was interviewed by a New York newspaper, and then wrote an article eulogizing Taylor. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 4, 1922 NEW YORK HERALD ...Another report brought forward in motion picture circles here was that the director and Miss Normand had feared trouble of some sort and that they had made plans secretly to have a wedding to head it off. Miss Adla St. John [sic], writer on motion picture topics, who has just returned from a trip to the coast, said she had not heard of such premonitions. "Mr. Taylor was one of the quietest and best liked men in the motion picture colony," she said. "His death came as a sudden shock to me, as it did to all his friends here. I don't know of his having had an enemy. Every player was delighted every time he heard he was going to be under Mr. Taylor's direction." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 5, 1922 Adela Rogers St. Johns BOSTON ADVERTISER February 13, 1922 LOS ANGELES EXAMINER (New York)--One of the last people I said good-bye to when I left Hollywood a month ago was William D. Taylor. Now--Bill Taylor is dead, foully murdered, cut down in the prime of a manhood that was a rock of all of us. And it isn't very easy to write about him. There are so many, many things that I remember about him. So many kind, fine, big things. So much that was worth while, that was inspirational and clean. If they had to shoot a director, there are a lot we could have spared rather well. Neither his friends--and I have the honor to count myself in that list-- nor the motion picture industry could spare William D. Taylor. As a general rule, I don't hold much of a brief for men. I'm not particularly keen about being a woman, and I certainly wouldn't want to be an angel. But a man--heaven deliver us! But William D. Taylor was the sort of man that revived your faith in the sex. For three years it has been my business, as Western editor of a motion picture magazine, to know as much as possible about what was going on in the film capital. I spend my days around the studios, gathering news and overhearing scandal--when there is any. I flatter myself that my earlier training as a reporter has helped me to keep pretty close tabs on what goes on in Hollywood. In these three years, in which I have known Mr. Taylor pretty well, I have never heard one thing said against him, one breath of criticism, one whispered scandal circulating about the studio lots. And that is saying a good deal of a place where we have nothing to talk about but each other. Why, everybody adored him. Betty Compson dropped into my house to say good-by two evenings before I left. She was more radiant than usual, because Mr. Taylor was going to direct her next picture. Every star on the Lasky lot, man and woman, wanted to work with him. He wasn't a genius. I don't believe he knew the meaning of the word temperament. But he was so steady, so consistent, so sure in his judgments, that he couldn't turn out a bad piece of work. Did you ever see him? Tall, bronzed, erect, a captain in the Canadian [sic] army, with all the dignity of bearing of a soldier. His hair was just beginning to gray, his eyes were the quiet, calm blue-grey that always gives you a comfortable feeling. A fine-looking man. I can't tell you whether or not Mabel Normand and William D. Taylor were engaged. I don't know. As a matter of fact, I don't think they knew. I have seen them together, I have been with them together, and I do know that a great affection and friendship existed between them. It is my own belief, based entirely on what I saw and on what I know of Mabel, that eventually they might have married. It was the sort of affection that leads to marriage. That's why I feel a great sorrow when I think of this tragedy. Mabel Normand and I have been friends for twelve years. And the keynote that I have found in Mabel's character in all those years is loyalty. It's a fetish, a religion with her. You may not see her for six months, but if you need her it's as though only six hours had elapsed. What that child is suffering under this thing no one will ever know. I am too far away from the scene of the crime to have any settled theory of it. But of the theories that I have heard voiced, and that have been wired me by my friends in Hollywood, I can tell you a little, and I can tell you what I think of them. Personally, I believe William Taylor was the victim of a shooting that had nothing to do with himself or with any act of his. That does happen quite often, you know. It might even happen to a motion picture director. Either this valet of his--Sands--with whom he had quarreled, drank a lot of bootleg whisky and in a frenzy went gunning for the man against whom he thought he had a grudge, or else some inexperienced burglar, knowing that a movie director lived in that house and figuring, of course, that all motion picture directors are rich, broke in to steal, lost his head, shot and ran. Los Angeles has had a great many holdups lately, most of them done by boys. And any crime expert will tell you that it is your boy on his first job who commits murders. Oldtimers generally don't carry a loaded gun. Then there is the jealousy theory--that possibly some one jealous of Mabel watched her visit to the Taylor bungalow, saw her leave, and in a red rage shot down the man with whom she had spent an hour or two. That doesn't hold water for a very simple reason. Mabel isn't like that. Mabel is a coquette, a flirt, the kind of a girl that men get crazy about. But- -Mabel always ends them too quickly for damage. If she goes to a dance and some nice boy gets a desperate crush on her, Mabel has a lovely time kidding him. When he calls up the next day and her secretary says, "Mr. So-and-So is on the phone," Mabel says, "I don't know him. Tell him I've gone to Europe." In all the years of her picture work Mabel's name has been coupled with only two men before Taylor's--and both those men are big characters, highly respected and above suspicion. As to some ghost from Taylor's past--maybe. I'm not idiot enough to vouch for any man's past. But isn't it strange that William Taylor should have anything in his past that would cause a terrible murder--William Taylor, the fine, clean gentleman that we all knew and loved so well? How dare they parallel the shooting of Taylor with the Elwell murder? What single justification is there for putting the character of a man like Taylor, against whom not one single concrete thing can be brought, with a man whose reputation was as notorious as that of Elwell? How dare they begin immediately the old and always unproven stories of wild "hop" orgies, of alleged night life in Hollywood that will be "searched and raked over." It is an injustice that makes the blood of everyone who knew the man absolutely boil. William D. Taylor, president of the Motion Picture Directors' Association, stood for everything that was clean and fine on the screen. He had a breadth of vision and a businesslike understanding of what the screen needed. We are going to feel his loss keenly. Those of us who loved and revered him have lost a friend, a man who always thought of others, who had a splendid dignity and strength to which a lot of us went in trouble. I can see room for only one emotion--sorrow. I can feel only on thing in my heart--grief for the loss of my friend, horror at this dastardly cutting down of a man who should have lived. That is all I can see for any one to feel. Some day somebody is going to write for you the truth about Hollywood. Some day some one is going to tell you the things you ought to know--the bad things about the small group of people who do wrong, but the truth about the great body who live decently, cleanly, and normally and who have to suffer silently the sweeping, and as I say, always unproven denunciations of Hollywood. In the meantime, a gentleman has died. As to who shot William D. Taylor from behind, I am terribly in the dark. But his I am sure of--when the truth comes out, as it will, there will be nothing in it to reflect in any way upon the good name of one of the finest men I have ever known. Nor upon the good name of the girl who loved him--Mabel Normand. ***************************************************************************** Apology Her eulogy of Taylor was followed by a several articles defending the reputation of Hollywood, which was being severely attacked in many newspapers. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 17, 1922 Adela Rogers St. Johns LOS ANGELES EXAMINER February 20, 1922 BOSTON ADVERTISER (Chicago)--What in the world is this all about--this Hollywood stuff? I have lived in Hollywood for a long time. I graduated from Hollywood High School more years ago than I like to remember. I've only been away a month. But I certainly don't recognize the old home place from some of the lurid and picturesque descriptions I've been reading lately. I frankly admit going to a lot of Hollywood parties--a lot of them. I admit knowing a lot of motion picture stars. First of all, it happens to be my business. Second, I like 'em and I'm not nearly such a terrible person as I ought to be to travel with this riproaring, hop-shooting, snow- sniffing, immoral gang I read about. My goodness, I wonder where they keep it? I spend eleven months of the year out there. And I give you my personal word of honor that I've never seen anybody sticking hypodermic needles in their tummies yet. I want to describe to you the best I can some of the "wild parties" I've sat in on out there. Last Christmas night the Wallace Reids had open house for their friends. Mrs. Reid, who used to be Dorothy Davenport, and I have been pals for some ten years and if any church or league of any kind can show me a finer woman or a better wife and mother than Dot I'll donate a couple of cut glass bath robes. Well to get to the party. In the first place, I admit there were a few bottles around that broke the Volstead act. Why, we were so desperately vicious we even had wine punch. There were eight or ten disabled soldiers from the Arrowhead Hospital for whom Wally had sent his car. I remember Jeanie MacPherson and her mother were there. Little Bill Reid's Christmas tree was about somewhere. I suppose we made a lot of noise. Everybody danced and I do remember one girl who had on a black velvet dress and little pink silk bloomers. She did some comedy falls for us--like you see in pictures--and I had a flash or two of pink silk bloomers. You can see much less--or much more--any evening you drop in at the Follies. Later in the evening Wally and Dot and Mr. And Mrs. Bill Desmond and my husband and I got real reckless and played games. We sat down on the floor and everybody took some cards. Then each represented an animal and when anybody matched our cards we had to make a noise like the animal we were supposed to be or else we lost our cards. That may be terribly immoral but some how it seemed all right to me. Another party I went to once was at Viola Dana's. It was given in honor of Winnie Sheehan, vice president of the Fox Company. Yes, they served drinks. How many homes are there outside of Hollywood that serve drinks at a party? How many people who have a small cellar occasionally invite in a few friends and have a glass or two? Is that the sole prerogative of the picture colony? Is it never done the same anywhere else--in Chicago or New York, for example? At this party we had the most fascinating entertainment. Viola had prepared a two-reel feature film with some delicious take-offs on the picture colony, quite harmless hits at our little personal vanities and characteristics. Then Alice Lake and Buster Keaton did a lovely burlesque of the ice scenes from "Way Down East." I never laughed so much in my life. Afterward we danced. Maybe one or two of the boys drank too much. But I just spent a month in New York and I saw several instances of that kind--and they weren't all picture actors, either. Do you know what I did the last time I spent an evening with Mabel Normand? Sat before an open fire and read Stephen Leacock out loud. Yes, and at 10 o'clock we had some hot chocolate. You may disagree with our literary taste and our choice of refreshment, but surely no moral indictment can be brought on those grounds. Somebody published a story not long ago about Mabel making her escort play horse and let her ride around on his back in a public cafe--said it was her favorite indoor sport. Well, I don't know who said it and I don't care. It's a lie. And that's that. I've told her ten million times that her fantastic sense of humor--which, by the way, you are all glad enough to let lighten many dark hours for you--ought to be controlled a little and not lead her into such wild pranks. But, at that, I'll back Mabel Normand as the best read woman in America--and you can bring on your college professors and your high-brows any time you like. My father is a lawyer. From the time I sat in the court room, when my feet wouldn't touch the floor, I've been taught to weigh evidence. Sit down, if you're interested in this thing and weigh the evidence a little bit. I don't mean what people say, but the actual evidence. On what can you base an indictment of Hollywood? Two or three nasty scandals--the Arbuckle case. The Taylor murder. But who shot Bill Taylor? Is there anything yet to convince you that he was killed for any immoral reason or that he was killed in any way as a result of his connection with pictures? Suppose Mary Miles Minter was in love with him. She's an unmarried girl and her mother keeps pretty close tab on the family wage-earner. Bill Taylor was a big, fascinating, strong man. No wonder she fell in love with him. As for Mabel, Mabel will fall in love and men will fall in love with her as long as she lives. But it isn't because she's a screen star, it's because she's the most fascinating, adorable, irresistible small creature that the witches ever brewed. Let's be a little fair. Let's not lose our heads and, above all, our sense of humor. Let's not think continually and all the time about the people who have made false steps. After all, did it ever occur to you that if 1000 people go out for an auto ride on a Sunday afternoon and come back happy and peaceful and contented, their names don't appear next day in headlines? But if one of that thousand gets killed while driving he has eight columns or so of type. That's news. So it is in pictures. People like the Conrad Nagels, the Jack Holts with their three kiddies, the William De Milles with their intellectual, political set, the Douglas MacLeans, the Sam Woods go on forever leading exemplary lives after which any one might model. But you don't hear about them. Don't you see? I'm only putting one side of the case. I do believe the producers should have morality clauses in their contracts. If a bank knows a young man in direct contact with a large sum of money is gambling the bank fires him. If the picture magnate knows a man or woman star leads a notoriously immoral life, he should kick him right off the lot. That's our job now--the job of the industry--to clean things up where they need it. And we admit there are places where it is needed. But in order to do that we need not and cannot admit that Hollywood is a festering sore of perversion and vice. The man who said girls who come who come to Hollywood all must succeed only through immoral relations--I believe he camouflaged by saying sentimental relations--with men probably will wake up some morning soon with his teeth knocked down his throat. May McAvoy's brother might do it--or Lois Wilson's father. Or Florence Vidor's husband. Bob Ellis, who is married to that sweet, wonderful girl, May Allison, might take a crack at him. There are immoral people in Hollywood. It is, after all, an artists' colony. It is filled with temperamental nuts. It is a small gathering of people who know each other very well, indeed. I know there are a few stars who do horrible things. I know Roscoe Arbuckle lost his head under prosperity and lived a life for which he is now getting paid several thousandfold. If it wasn't so funny, I couldn't help resenting this picture they draw of my home village--why it sounds like the Apache district of Paris. If you could see it. Honestly, I think you'd never be the same again if you'd read the press agenting stuff we've had recently. It's a nice, quiet little village. Lots of nights there isn't anything to do after 12 o'clock and everybody goes to bed at home. I have two small kids--a girl and a boy. I haven't the faintest objection in the world to having them brought up in Hollywood. Nor do I admit that every girl who calls herself a motion picture actress is one. Lots of them wouldn't recognize a camera if they saw one. Do you read in headlines that Mary Pickford virtually supports a large orphanage in Los Angeles? Do you have it flung at your face that Tommy Meighan takes care of a great number of crippled children? Are you constantly reminded that stars, after working eight or ten hours at the studio, give more hours and more time to answering every demand of charity; that there is never a day goes by at a big studio that they are not asked for talent to appear for charity, and that they are never refused? Let's be fair and a little more sane about this thing. Let's look at both sides of it. For there really are two sides, you know. Perhaps you don't realize how much concerted action is now taking place among motion picture producers in an effort to guard this great art--this art that gives you so much pleasure--against any further vulnerability along the moral lines. Quietly, and partially awaiting the advent of Mr. Will Hays as director-general of the industry, the big producers of the game are getting together and mapping out moral housecleaning of the studios. They have decided, as I know, that those whose lives are such that they may bring shame and unpleasantness upon the name of the body of people who work in pictures will have to go. I talked with Mabel Normand last night over the long-distance telephone between here and Los Angeles. Her voice haunted me all night. She was crying. Her nurses didn't want her to talk, but she wanted to ask me if I believed she had anything to do with the Taylor murder, if anybody back here believed it? And I told her what I believed, that no one connected her with it, no one believed she had done anything that any connection with the shooting. And I told her that I loved her and for her to take care of herself. Mabel's health is not good. Doctor's verdicts last year were discouraging--and no one can make Mabel take proper care of herself. After all, outside of infinite rumors, constantly changing theories, reports, conjectures, what have we to tie the shooting of William D. Taylor to Hollywood, or any part of Hollywood, or any of its manners and customs? Not a darn thing. And I don't think we ever will have. Nobody can keep a lot of fool girls with blonde curls from falling in love with a man. It happens in offices--often. No one can keep them from writing notes to him, if they haven't been taught that love letters are the most dangerous things in the world to sign except checks. What's that got to do with Hollywood. Doesn't it happen anywhere else? I think so. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 21, 1922 Adela Rogers St. Johns LOS ANGELES EXAMINER Last year when May Allison was going to New York she dropped into my house for lunch the day before she left. "Going to buy a lot of clothes in New York?" I asked. "Good heavens, no. I'm going to get a chance to wear some of those I've got. You never get a chance to show off your good clothes in Hollywood," said the blonde screen star. And that's the sad truth. I've been in New York for just a month. I've been back in Hollywood a couple of days, and it's pretty dull out here, I tell you. After the bright lights of a big city, the curfew life we lead in the famous wicked film colony is a bit difficult to take. But it's a good place to rest up in, anyway. No cabarets. No place to dance nearer than six miles. An occasional party where the piece de resistance of the evening is likely to be the good old game of consequences. Listening to Wally Reid and Wanda Hawley play duets on the saxophone and the piano. Oh, well, I can get the papers and read what some of these writers that I never heard of, never saw in Hollywood, and who probably have never been there, have to say about it. Get a thrill out of that! Hollywood--the prize "bad town" of the West! Why, Hangtown and Bodie in the good old days when shootin' was shootin' sound like a Seventh Day Adventist Sanitarium on Saturday compared with the things you read about Hollywood. Of course I don't know anything about it. I only live and work there. And yet--and yet--just before I came away, Mrs. Wallace Reid cried on my shoulder because she was so bored--sitting home every night in front of the fire with only an occasional dinner at the Hollywood Country Club to brighten her existence. First of all, there's our hotel life, of course. We have a very famous hotel in Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel. A ramshackle old building which has been standing sedately on its corner for years and years and years. But it has housed more famous people than most architectural palaces. It has a nice family dining room where everybody has their own table and knows the waitresses by their first names. On Thursday nights they have dances in the lobby, after rolling up the carpets. I suppose to be in the modern style of Hollywood journalism I should call them "dance orgies", but--I just can't. I haven't a great deal of regard for the truth in literature, but I have some inhibitions. The last Thursday night we drifted up there we found all the nice old ladies from Iowa and Kansas who come out for the winter sitting around in their best black satins, ready for the fray. Anita Stewart was there, shocking every one in the place almost to death by dancing every other dance with her husband, Rudy Cameron. Jack Dillon and his wife were tripping the light fantastic, and their little boy was allowed to stay up into 10 o'clock to watch. Lila Lee had on a frock of apple green that may have been immoral, but looked charming. With her was a good looking young millionaire to whom her engagement is often reported. They did sit out quite a few dances, they did. Mae Busch, startlingly vampish in black velvet, Marguerite de la Motte, May Allison--and we all went over to the drug store on the opposite corner and had an ice cream soda between dances. I tell you, it's a wild and wearing life. Yet there, in the very heart of this place which some parasites of the industry, seeking free advertising at the expense of the hand that fed them at least scrappily for some time say should be abolished, live and work some of the greatest literary geniuses of the age. Here, with alleged vice rampant about them, with wild women and dissolute men shrieking up and down the boulevard, so they tell us, here Gertrude Atherton wrote much of her latest novel. Here Sir Gilbert Parker lived and worked. Somerset Maughm had a little quiet room under the eves where he conceived and executed some of his brilliant comedies. Elinor Glyn completed her last book in her second floor suite. Rita Welman, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Rupert Hughes--all have lived in the Hollywood Hotel. I have visited most of them there, seen them hard at work. Must we forget that sort of thing utterly when we think of Hollywood? I went to a dinner party at Charlie Chaplin's house on the hill not very long ago. It was a real movie dinner party--most all celebrities: Charlie, Sam Goldwyn, Gouverneur Morris, Rupert Hughes and his wife and May Allison and Claire Windsor. Do you know what occupied three hours at the dinner table? I dare say some of our imported scribes would lead you to believe that they carried in the cocaine on the tea tables, that we spent the time in ribald jest and risque tales that would have made Boccacio blush to hear. Well as a matter of fact, Rupert Hughes and Charlie Chaplin launched at once into the most interesting theological discussion I have ever heard--Mr. Hughes, with his immense fund of information and historical statistics; Chaplin with his wonderful intellectual conception and imaginative impressionability. They discussed religion for three hours while we all listened spellbound. If you want to be fair about Hollywood, will you remember all this? While I was in New York I went to Delmonico's for supper after the theater with some friends. Upstairs, in a private banquet room, a group of railroad officials were having a party. There were about twenty of them, and they may have had doughnuts in their pockets, but I don't think so. Anyway, the pockets bulged considerably. During the evening they had a lot of girls-- dancing girls--up there and the noise was certainly indicative of a good, rousing old time. Wine, women and song seemed to be the order of the evening. If anybody pulled a party like that in the Hollywood Hotel or in any cafe in Hollywood the place would be raided, the neighbors would call out the fire department and the whole town would be shocked to death for a week. Polly Frederick is another screen star who gives a lot of parties. Last one she gave I lost $3.75. It was a terrible reckless evening for me. I mean, that's a lot to lose at penny ante poker, isn't it? Polly does like the wild life. After working all day, getting up at 6 in the morning for her ride through the hills, she's just all ready to carouse all night. And she does like a little poker game. For years Mary Pickford has lived the life of a recluse. There was nothing else for her to do. If the film people mingle with others, if they go into society, they can't possibly feel comfortable. I went to a reception one night with Bebe Daniels--it was a wedding reception and the bride was an old friend of ours. We had known her in our schooldays before we became residents of the horrible center of vice, Hollywood. Poor old Bebe. She was stared at, talked about, eyed, talked to in the most insane manner I have ever heard in my life, until at last she grasped my arm and gasped, "For heaven's sake, let's get out of this. I feel like an animal in the Zoo." Yet those were good, kindly, well-behaved folk of the social strata. There is another thing that we face in Hollywood. The hangers-on. And they are not all poor ones, by any means. The worst place in Hollywood last year belonged to the good-fellow husband of a rich woman, whose place offered every inducement possible for the entertainment of guests. Swimming pool, motors, tennis court, servants, costly food and plenty of good liquor were thrown out as bait for the film folk, with whom it was his chief ambition in life to consort. A group of rich young men, attracted by the pretty faces of the film stars, hang about on the fringe of the colony, delighting to mingle on free and friendly terms with the possessors of such famous names and by their actions bringing more censure--and more justified censure--on the industry than any of those who get a pay envelope across the studio counter. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * February 22, 1922 Adela Rogers St. Johns LOS ANGELES EXAMINER My mental picture of Hollywood is getting to the place where I have to sit down and do a lot of remembering to be sure I'm right. When I read about the "wild tribe of Hollywood" now under investigation I begin to sing South Sea Island lullabies and see exotic panoramas of huts in the wilderness, of groups of people living in cellar dives which the sunlight never reaches, of fantastic settings like those I used to see in the old San Francisco Chinatown. And I say to myself: "Hollywood, my Hollywood; can you have been deceiving me all these years? Under that bright and charming exterior that I know so well, in that soul that I've been on such darn good terms with for all these years--are you really a den of iniquity?" Then I positively get the giggles. Why, it'll probably surprise you a lot to know that we actually have homes in Hollywood. Real homes. Where people live, with their kids, and have problems about heating the house, and keeping the lawn watered, and getting a cook that will stay. Florence Vidor, for instance, has a new home that would deceive the most hectic of our smut-seeking sleuths. You'd never dream it was anything but the charmingly kept, tasteful home of a southern lady. Last time I was there Florence and I were sitting in her sitting-room, satisfying our evil passions with some after-luncheon mints. Mammy, the Negro servant whom Florence brought from her home in Texas, had little Suzanne Vidor, Florence's 4-year-old daughter, down in the kitchen with hear, and when she went out to answer the telephone she told Suzanne to watch the coffee. In a minute Suzanne came dashing in and called at the top of her small voice, "Mamma, mamma, come quick. The coffee is frowing up all over the stove." Just tell that one the next time you want to give your friends an example of the risque jokes we tell in Hollywood. I don't think you should visit the Milton Sills home, however. It's pretty trying work, talking with Mr. and Mrs. Sills. Maybe it wouldn't exactly shock you, but it would give you an awful mental kick. They talk about the effect climate has had on the development of different races of the earth and the age of the various astronomical suns as judged by the differences in their color. Of course, Milton used to be a college professor, and that may have saved him from the vile clutches of the Hollywood monster. As to the Charles Rays--I'll hardly be able to convince you about them. The Rays' home is quite the most beautiful place I have been in. They spent more than two years selecting the furniture and the wall drapes and the works of art that fill it. They own some delicious pictures and Mrs. Ray spends about half her time between her voice and piano lessons--pretty swift pace she keeps up, too. Their butler is the best I've ever seen, in or out of the Sunday supplements. Mrs. Ray also is a very fine needle-woman. Really, being in the movies, I don't see how they move in the social set they do out there. They are quite "in" now--Mrs. Ray is on the committee of the Children's Hospital, with all the blue blood of the town. Gets her name in the society column and everything. Of course, when I think of Lois Wilson I have just one desire in the world. To see her face when she reads what kind of a place she really lives in. Only, of course, Lois won't know what it's all about. Last summer Lois' mother and sister went over to Catalina for a few weeks and left Lois and her father alone in their white plaster house in the foothills. Lois and her father did their own cooking and used to be real devilish and toss a coin to see who washed the dishes. I went up one morning to get Lois to go down to the beach and go swimming with me. All over the house--pasted on Lois' dressing mirror, on the lamp shade, on the front door, pinned on the pillow covers--was this legend in bold, black type. "Lois, don't forget to feed the bird." So the worst you can say about Lois is that maybe she hasn't a very good memory. The Jack Holts are another family that--really, all joking aside, I don't believe in any town, anywhere in the country, you'll find another home like the Holts. They have three kiddies, and honestly (I hope they won't see this story) Jack just literally bores you to death telling you about them. I think they must have meant Jack Holt when they told that story about somebody liking to play horse. Because Jack uses the big blue drawing room chiefly as a race course around which he crawls on all fours with Jack Jr.-- who's getting close to his third birthday--on his back. William de Mille and his wife, Ann--the daughter, by the way of Single Tax George--live in a big old brown house, all books and a bit shabby inside. Once a week William has a class of devotees who come up there for a lecture on political economy, and Bill's idea of the way to spend all the money he makes in the movies is to conduct private political and advertising campaigns for the legislative movements he believes in. Last year he spent a small fortune advocating one such bill. Oh yes--I mustn't forget this one. Conrad Nagel is an usher in one of the biggest churches on Hollywood boulevard. You can see him there twice on Sunday, wearing a frock coat and a sweet smile. The Nagels have a baby daughter a year and a half old. Of course they can return a terrible indictment against Lila Lee--and Bebe Daniels. Lila lives at home with her mother and sister, Bebe has just bought a big house in the exclusive West Adams district, where she reigns over a bevy of grandmother, mother, aunts and such like. ***************************************************************************** Psychology Adela Rogers St. Johns also wrote a series of short "fiction" stories about Hollywood. As she later stated in her autobiography, THE HONEYCOMB: "...most of them were built on fact and often became fiction only to avoid libel laws...In some instances it was the only way in which you could print the truth." The following short story, "Dolls," was a fictionalized version of the relationship between Mary Miles Minter and her mother, Charlotte Shelby; and of the romance between Minter and Marshall Neilan. Although the incidents are fiction, the characterizations (at least in the first three chapters) are probably extremely accurate. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * July 1923 Adela Rogers St. Johns COSMPOLITAN Dolls Hollywood, in spite of its youth, has its traditions. Among them is the tradition of Mignon Variel's dolls. Also, the kingdom of the silversheet has its anniversaries and its historical dates. Some barbed tongue had once remarked that Mignon's sixteenth birthday might well be called Hollywood's national holiday. Unkind, no doubt, but Hollywood was a little weary of celebrating Mignon's birthday. She had been younger and now she was older than sixteen. But somehow Mignon's birthday had been cleverly surrounded with a halo--as though it were merely symbolic. It had grown to mean sweet sixteen as the Fourth of July means firecrackers. And Hollywood was a little weary, too, of the pictures of Mignon that flooded forth afterwards--of Mignon, with her curls falling in a golden shower, one toe turned in, and the biggest new doll in her arms. As a matter of fact, on the drizzly morning when she sat in the office of Sam Hartfeltz, producer, and toyed with the silken ears of a yappy Pekingese, Mignon Variel was nineteen. But even off the screen she looked the traditional sixteen that clung to her. Younger, perhaps. It wasn't only the tiny feet, in flat-heeled, round-toed slippers. Nor the little fur cap, pulled over the long curls that reached below her waist. Nor the undeveloped curve of her young breast beneath the white crepe frock. One of Hartzeltz's battery of lawyers, sitting opposite her, discovered that there was something lacking in her face that even adolescence brings. And he decided that though it was the face of a child, somehow it wasn't childish. It took him some time to place the look, and then he remembered that he had seen it in the faces of children who are raised in fashionable hotels. Of course. Of course. The skin was so lovely, the white of magnolia blossoms, as though grease paint had protected it from the sting of the wind and the kiss of the sun. The young lawyer thought of the girls he knew, who rollicked on golf courses or tennis courts, until the wild roses peeped through their tanned young cheeks, and he heaved a quick sigh. Of course Mignon Variel had made a great deal of money and won and great deal of fame, but just the same he was glad his own tousle-headed youngsters were just--just kids. There were six people seated about the big, polished mahogany table. Mignon, bored and a little cross. Fidgeting impatiently. Migon's mother. Sam Hartfeltz. Two lawyers. A stenographer. It was perhaps noteworthy that both lawyers were employed by Mr. Hartfeltz. Ma Variel needed no lawyer for contracts. It was, indeed, another tradition in Hollywood that Ma Variel was a match, single-handed, for anyone in the business. Contracts were an old--a very old--story to Ma Variel. Ever since Mignon, at the age of four, in gauzy skirts not more than five inches long and a pair of immense butterfly wings attached to her dimpled baby shoulders, had danced herself into the headline position on a vaudeville bill, Ma Variel--flushed and cold-eyed, emotional but immovable--had signed her name to many an amazing document. For Baby Mignon's service had been in demand. She put down the jeweled lorgnon and laughed indulgently. "Not so bad, Sam," she said purringly. "Not so bad at all. Though 'tis a waste of time, beginning with such stuff as that on me. Marriage and morality clauses for a baby like my Mignon! Seems to me you and I have known each other pretty near long enough to start right down to cases. The child cannot do eight pictures a year. She's still growing and 'tis too great a strain on the delicate strength of her. No, we'll start by striking that out. Six pictures, now, that's not beyond reason." "But--" began Mr. Hartfeltz. "Sammy, what good is it to you to have her overtax herself? The lamb shall have some time to play, so she shall. No one can ever say that Gertrude Variel sacrificed her lambkin for money or for fame. Six pictures a year, Sam. That's plenty." "All right," said Hartfeltz slowly. "I suppose I'll have to agree to that. Though Mignon looks strong as a horse. And the program does need more pictures. Well, then, we'll say six pictures a year--thirty thousand dollars a picture. That's too much, but Mignon's been with us a long time and we want to be fair with her." Ma Variel leaned back in the blue velvet chair and folded her pretty, fat hands in her lap. Her heavy round face under the elegance of her street hat took on a slow, playful smile. "Nobody knows better than I do that you want to be fair, Sam," she said pleasantly. "that's the only reason I don't laugh in your face for saying thirty thousand a picture to Mignon Variel. Four years now Mignon's been making Hart pictures. Naturally, myself, I don't want to see her leave. I've got some sentiment, I hope. Too much, indeed, for my own good." Sam Hartfeltz lighted a cigarette nervously and pushed the box across to Ma Variel, who took one sadly. A little pause, tense and delicate, fell as the smoke wreathed upward. "Oh, mamma, do hurry up!" said Mignon petulantly. "I'm getting so tired." Ma Variel merely glanced at her. "Well," said Sam Hartfeltz, flushing with the embarrassment that usually overpowered him in moments like this. "I guess she won't need to wait any longer now, Gertrude. We're practically through. Six pictures a year for three years. Thirty thousand dollars a picture. I'll have the lawyers here draw it up and you can come in again tomorrow and sign it." "Sammy, I'm surprised at you," said Ma Variel, pleasantly, but a tinge of crimson had begun to grow in the creases of her double chin. "I am. You know I'm only a pore lone woman against all you smart men. But it's like a lioness with her cub, Sammy, when you try to put something across on my baby. I've given up my whole life without one other thought but her, and you know thirty thousand dollars isn't enough." "It's my top figure," said Hartfeltz, with sudden coldness. Ma Variel gathered up her sable cloak and wrapped it about her plump shoulders. "All right, Sam," she said, as coldly. Mignon jumped up and started for the door, her round young figure in its short Persian lamb coat looking very slender and immature beside her mother's over-groomed bulk. As Ma Variel put a steady hand on the door know, Sam spoke again. "Where are you going, Gertrude?" Ma Variel did not turn. "I'm going to see Morris of the United and tell him what a fool I've been, letting sentiment stand in the way of my child's future. I'm going to tell him I'll take the fair, decent proposition he, a perfect stranger, made to me, when my best friends try--" "Come back a minute, Gertrude," said Hartfeltz despondently. "Don't always be going off half-cocked like that." She turned in the doorway, poised like a large and angry seal. "I'm no good at dickering, Sammy," she said. "I wouldn't demean myself to do it. I know what's right and I try to do what's right, that's all." "Well, what'd you think is right?" "Forty thousand a picture for six pictures the first year. Fifty thousand a picture the second year. And sixty the third year. And me to have the last say on stories." "Great guns!" said Hartfeltz. "And at that, for old times' sake, I'm putting it under what Morris offers me." "Come back and sit down," said the man behind the table wearily. "It's too much. It's a hold-up. It's murder. But I suppose I got to do it." For the first time a dark wreath began to blaze in Ma Variel's eyes. The slow flush of crimson crept up to her cheeks. "What do you mean, it's a hold-up?" she said, coming to stand facing him, her fist clenched on the table. "Don't play me for a fool, Sam Hartfeltz. I'm only a poor lone woman with nothing in the world but my child, but I'm no fool. Who carried most of your rotten old program last year? Ask any exhibitor. Why do they take such stuff as you force down their throats from Von Merchen and such dubs as Dorothy Vogel and Elise Devereaux? Because they have to take 'em to get Mignon Variel, that's why. "Don't every exhibitor in the country tell me my Mignon is the whip of the Hart program? And do you think I was traipsing all of the United States in the summer time at my age to amuse myself? I guess not. I've had a hard life, and the way I like to amuse myself is to get off my corsets and my shoes and watch Mignon playing with her dolls. No, I was finding out just what I needed to know. Did you have any other picture clean up like 'The Rose of Avenue A'? Think I don't know it netted three hundred and fifty thousand dollars the first six months? "Who's the only star on your lot hasn't had a flop this year? Mignon Variel. And what's more, don't she give your productions a good name with the church people and the censors, such a dear, sweet, innocent baby as she is? Shy, it's worth every cent you pay her to know you've got one girl isn't going to be named as corespondent in a divorce case or have her nightie found in some man's bedroom about the time you release a million dollar picture of her as Saint Cecilia. Don't kid me, Sammy. What did all the exhibitors in Texas tell me?--my baby's the biggest drawing card they've ever had, that's what. Nobody else is so beautiful and young and such an actress--that's what they told me. And exhibitors only see through the box office window, I guess I know that. And you've got the nerve, after all the money she's made for you--" Tears were streaming down her cheeks now. "Instantly Mignon was at her side, arms about the shoulders heaving in their tight frock. "Mama, don't!" she pleaded. "Oh, mamma please don't cry! You're a hateful old thing," she flung at the dark, troubled man. "You made my mamma cry, after all we've done for you, too. I don't want to work for you any more. I can work any place. I'm going to have my own company, that's what I'm going to have." Ma Variel's sobbing stopped abruptly. "Don't talk like that, Mignon," she said. "That's no way for a little girl to talk. Well, Sammy?" "It's all right," said Hartfeltz. "Only--that story thing. Honestly, Gertrude, you got to leave the stories up to the scenario department. I had more trouble last year than Congress, trying to fix up rows between you and the scenario department. More fuss it was than all the rest of the studio to run put together. Please now, don't start that all over again. I tell you, I give you a bonus this year if you let the scenario department pick out the stories for Mignon." With a small square of colored lawn, Ma Variel wiped the tears from her cheeks. When her dignity and calm were restored, she said impressively: "Your whole company hasn't got money enough to pay me such a bonus. Who found 'Sweet Violets' and 'Springtime,' I want to know! Me, or your scenario department? Who got 'Nurse Adeline,' eh? Me. When they want to put her in stories any grown-up star could do." Sam Hartfeltz pulled himself up by his boot straps for his next remark. "But Gertrude," he said, "Mignon ain't so young as she was. She's getting a little bit heavy around the hips that she should play little girls any more. I don't ask she should do sex stuff. But you know the critics ain't so gentle in saying she should stop being so childish all the time. Nice, clean stories, yes. But Mignon is going on twenty now. She can't play with dolls all her life." For the first time Mignon's self-satisfied little face broke into sudden interest. "Oh yes. I'm awfully tired of playing little girls. I'm nearly twenty and I'd like to do grown-up parts." Sammy Hartfeltz was not a brave man. He was only a very good showman with a strange gift of knowing the mind of the public. He had made a vast fortune, but the shy delicacy and self-consciousness of his downtrodden youth still clung to him. But even had he been a brave man, a very brave man, he must have quailed before the fury that flamed into Ma Variel's face. The crimson had gone purple. Her temples pulsed with it. She screamed at him, and Mignon shrank back against the door, her young face suddenly old and wizened, like a child's at the sight of a lash it has felt across its tender body. "Don't you go putting ideas like that into my child's mind! There's time enough in the years ahead for her to grow up. She's only a baby yet. A little baby. Why, she doesn't look a day older than she did when she played 'The Flower Girl' in London and the King and Queen gave her a decoration. "That's the way the public wants her. That's the way I'm going to keep her, and don't you forget it. At home, don't she still play with her dolls? Don't you dare talk to me about how she should grow up. And putting in marriage and morality clauses!" "She might get married sometime," said Hartfeltz desperately. "And for morality, what can you tell? You think everybody else is a fool, Gertrude. What about Jack Garford, eh?" The purple faded to gray, to white. "You've got the nerve to throw that up to me now. It wasn't terrible enough that a degenerate dog of an actor tried to compromise my baby, just for blackmail because he heard I'd stored away a little money, but you've got to throw it up to me now. The saints help me!" "All right," said Sam Hartfeltz, "all right. You draw up the contract and bring it down here tomorrow and I'll sign it." II Mignon had never noticed Mickey O'Toole at all until the morning that she caught him, in the wide corridors of the dressing room building, giving an imitation of her usual morning entrance on to the set. He was, to her, merely another leading man. And she hated all leading men. Of course, Mignon had no business in the dressing room building. She had her own elaborate bungalow. But she had been up to the wardrobe to get her costume for the new sequence and she had mistaken the turn. It was a very good imitation. Mickey had a genius for that sort of thing. Hollywood rated him as one of her prize entertainers. Aside from that, he was a handsome youngster, with dark red hair that photographed black, a quizzical mouth and inquisitive, impudent eyes. Daring was written in the very poise of his head. As Mignon came round the corner, he was holding a large audience utterly convulsed as he enacted the scene which took place each morning when Mignon arrived on the set for work. He needed only one actor--himself--to present the case complete. Mignon herself, with the dogs, Ma Variel, carrying a doll under her arm. The frantic, overloaded maid. The uniformed chauffeur, carrying a hamper of flowers. The fussy, efficient secretary. With the merest intonation, expression, gesture, he put before them the entourage, in all its absurdity and self-importance. Then Depew, the director--toadying suavely and diplomatically. The whispering chorus of script holders and musicians and actors and publicity men and writers, all breathing a murmured, awe-struck welcome. Their bowing, smirking, "Good morning, little lady" or "How's our sweet little star today?" and "You're as fresh as a rosebud, Miss Variel." Very well done. The very essence of biting, devastating, brutal caricature. Mignon's heart stopped beating. Fear, anger, a sickening nausea she could not understand. It was his imitation of herself that drove her back into the cold shadow of the stone walls, stunned into silence. That stolid hauteur. That obnoxious self-satisfaction. That simpering, nasty-nice egotism. Horrible. Horrible. Her brain, that had never operated outside a set groove, like a chipmunk on treadmill, began to beat frantically at her temples, her forehead. These were people. People like herself. Mickey O'Toole, whom she had despised--he had opinions about her. They all had thoughts about her! Independent thoughts. Like flashing pictures trickled into her brain. Like the small darting pains that follow a second after the bullet. Her isolation. The giggles of the other girls. The way the publicity department had to be clubbed into working for her. Her lights always missing and the sullen expression on the faces of the electricians when they were discovered on some other set. Her friendlessness. Other girls, arm in arm. Lunching in each other's dressing rooms. Oh, they made fun of her! Of her and her dolls. She had told mamma that. She had. She had begged not to have her picture taken with her dolls any more. How she hated dolls! What could she do? Mamma--mamma--mamma-- Her thoughts would go no further. Mamma had always thought for her, decided for her. Protected her. Why, she had actually believed the whole studio adored her greatness from afar. Ma Variel lacked many things. But courage she had. And her only child discovered in that moment that some of it had been bequeathed to her. Mignon sucked in her lower lip and walked deliberately around the corner into the wide corridor where Mickey O'Toole played to his audience. In the checked gingham rompers and the short socks, with her curls falling about her and a big rag doll tucked under her arm, she did look absurdly like a child. Only a slight thickening of the tissues of her whole body and a lack of perfect suppleness, which only an artist might have noted, betrayed her. "How dare you?" she cried violently, and was furious that her voice failed her. "Oh, how dare you make fun of me, you--you horrid--" Mickey O'Toole's eyes narrowed. It was not a fortunate beginning. The O'Tooles were rather apt to dare. "Good morning, Miss Variel," he said, a new grin leaped into his eyes, with sheer joy that such a situation should develop for his amusement. "I didn't intend that you should be part of my audience for this little impromptu performance. 'Tis hardly worthy of your attention. Give me time, and I'll try to give you something a bit more--artistic." "I shall tell Mr. Hartfeltz about your impertinence at once, and you'll be dismissed and never work on this lot again," said Mignon, her eyes hot and her lips cold. "Can you imagine that!" said Mickey O'Toole. "Well, 'tis a comfort to know I can always go back to digging ditches. But--it'll cost him a pretty penny to turn me out now and remake half a picture. How he will weep over that!" The audience had faded, reluctantly. It was all very well for Mickey. Mickey had no sense anyway. But they knew something of Ma Variel's power and temper. "I suppose you think you were very funny," said Mignon. It was plain now that she was too inexperienced, too untrained, to be a worthy opponent. "But I think you're just hateful--hateful." Partly from anger, partly from sheer terror at the revelation dawning upon her, Mignon sank down, cross-legged, upon the stone floor, buried her head on the rag doll and began to cry. Her curls caught the morning sun and shone like the shimmer of autumn wheat fields. Her clutching fingers closed about the toes of her futile little Mary Janes. "Oh now, don't do that," said Mickey O'Toole, and quite naturally went and sat down on the floor beside her. "I say, don't cry. There isn't anything to cry about, really. Here, stop it! I'd no idea you could cry like that." Mignon raised her head and looked him straight in the eyes. "Why do you hate me so?" she asked. "Why does everybody hate me so? Oh dear. Oh dear." "Bless your heart, you silly little thing," said Mickey O'Toole. "I don't bother to hate you. I just think you make an awful idiot of yourself most of the time." Mignon gasped. "Does everybody think that?" "Well, I dare say there are lots of people don't think about you at all. But a lot of them think that." "Why?" Mickey looked long into her eyes. They were dumb eyes, but they were very pitiful. Almost like the eyes of a puppy who has been kicked and doesn't know why. "Well," he said at last, "I dare say it's on account of your mother. She's not popular. Maybe it's only because she loves you, but she certainly tramples on everybody. You're not so bad, if you'd only go about your business. You can act. But you're not the most important thing on this planet by a darn sight. To be frank with you, my dear, since we're talking man to man, you're an upstage, conceited, dumb little brat. That's what you are." Mignon was nodding her head, in exact imitation of her biggest French doll. "I-I didn't know," she said. "Think a minute," said Mickey. "What's the good of going around saying your mama doesn't allow you to associate with picture people? Your mother may be a most estimable lady, but she used to be a second-rate dancer on the small time vaudeville and everybody knows it. They'd all forget it quick enough if she didn't act like she was Queen Victoria reincarnated. What's the good of cutting poor little tramps that never had a chance or a break of luck, but who've got more brains and more heart and more honest woman emotion than you'll ever have? What's the use of making it so hard for everybody? *I* don't care, but most leading men that play in a picture with you get sort of tired of having their left hand ear photographed exclusively. And you know, Mignon, you're a big girl now. It's such a lot of apple sauce for you to pretend you think storks bring the babies. It is really. How old are you?" "Sixteen." "Behave, behave! How old are you?" "Most twenty." "Can you imagine that? What's there to be so ashamed of about being twenty that you try to hide it all the time? Oh, what a lot of apple sauce!" Mignon trembled a little. "I guess," she began confusedly, "I guess you don't know what it's like to be--be an infant prodigy. With mamma. Oh, I was treated fine. But--it's sort of a funny way to grow up. It--makes you different from other people. When you've never done anything in your whole life just--because you wanted to--but always for the people watching you. It-- it's funny." She stammered and wiped the tears away with the skirt of the rag doll. "I remember once we were in a town near a park. I ran away to the park and played with the children." Her eyes grew wistful. "They didn't like me either because I didn't know how to play. One little boy pushed me down and cut my lip. But I didn't care. That was the only time I ever played with children. "Mothers are--fine--but I guess it's funny I always thought I'd like a papa. Maybe he'd have carried me on his shoulder and--made me a coaster. You get awful tired of just dolls." She stopped, inarticulate. Ashamed of her speech. Unable to describe or explain any more of the old hurt. But Mickey O'Toole of the Irish imagination looked into her round face and her round, wet eyes and saw all that she could never tell. The endless procession of hotels that were never home. The gushing throngs of admirers. The little dark dressing rooms, on days when the shouts of youngsters rang from every dusty hillside and every wave-washed beach. The glare of the footlights in tired baby eyes. He saw a lonely, puzzled baby, all by herself in the Terrible Land of Grown-ups. He could almost hear the precise flavor of her speech and the horror of her "cute sayings." Robbed of her mud pies. Robbed of her broken window panes and her bruised, mother-kissed knees. Robbed of that sacred privacy of childhood. But oh, most of all, beyond everything else in the world, robbed of her playmates. Of those other children who alone could have answered the incessant cry of her lonely baby heart. Poor little mummer! Like all those other poor little mummers he saw daily about the studios, precocious, too well behaved, unchildlike little creatures, doing their tricks like monkeys on a hand organ. He though of Baby Mignon, flapping her tiny wings like a pink butterfly on a wheel, and then he thought of that gentle Friend who understood better than all others the delicacy of the child soul, and who said, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." And his heart came into his throat. And she had been bound to serve out years in the slavery of this false childhood. She couldn't even grow up. She had been wrapped and pinched into that nightmare of stage childhood, as the feet of Chinese maidens are wrapped and pinched to stunt their growth. Unconsciously he put his arm about her, and quite as unconsciously she relaxed against him. Gently he began to sway back and forth, as though he were rocking a baby to sleep, patting her shoulder with regular, tender pats. "There, there," he said softly. "I understand. Don't you worry." "Mickey," said Mignon Variel softly, "what ought I to do first, do you think?" "Let's throw this away," said Mickey O'Toole. And he tossed the rag doll over the cement wall. III Mignon crept noiselessly up the heavily padded staircase. She was trembling with fright, yet she was warm with exultation. Only a sense of pride for Mickey helped her to bite back a scream as the light flashed on in the upper hallway. Rigid, ominous, Ma Variel stood there. "Where have you been?" Mignon tried to speak; but her lips trembled so that she could not. "Where have you been?" her mother repeated. Neither moved for a long minute. Then the older woman put out a hand. "Come here Mignon." Like a frightened child, Mignon Variel, the greatest of screen ingenues, crept up the few remaining steps. "It's eleven o'clock," said the harsh, choked voice. "Where have you been?" Quite against her will, Mignon began to sob. "I haven't been anywhere," she said. "I haven't done anything I shouldn't. I just went out to dinner with Mickey, that's all, and we danced. We went to the Ambassador. It was all right, mamma." "Why didn't you tell me?" "Because--oh, mamma, you know you wouldn't have let me go alone! I'm--oh, mamma, I love you. But I wanted to go out alone, just once, like other girls. Just once--" "So that's what he's put into your head, is it? This guttersnipe. This shanty-Irish blackguard. This bleary-eyed seducer of babies. You're easy prey, you and your fortune, for such a scheming vampire as him. But he's forgotten-- what is it they call me in Hollywood?--Ma Variel. He's forgotten Ma Variel." Suddenly her face hardened. One hand reached out and clutched at the mass of golden curls, coiled with exquisite beauty on top of the round young head. Bound there with a thin silver ribbon. And this time the girl screamed, aloud, as that ruthless, heavy hand tore down the glistening mop and let the famous curls fall about the shrinking shoulders. "So--putting your hair on top of your head. Your pretty hair that makes you look so young and sweet and different. I've spoiled you, Mignon. I've spoiled you. But you're all I've got in the world, and you'll have to reckon with me if you start this sort of thing. You and this low, common actor you've chosen to disgrace yourself with. Come in here." Mignon fought for self-control as she followed the heavy-moving figure into the big, luxurious bedroom, where a fire burned on the white tile hearth. "Take that dress off and go to bed," said her mother, pouring milk into a tiny electric kettle, "and have your hot milk and be asleep before midnight, like a young girl should." "Please, mamma, I haven't disgraced myself. It's only that I wanted to be like other girls--just once--and have a good time--" "Like other girls, eh? Like these Hollywood trollops? Chasing around with this man and that and getting common and losing their looks and ruining their reputations. You don't know what a girl's up against that does that, my dear. You just stop and think a minute and you'll know how fortunate you've been all these years with a mother to fight every battle for you and stand in front of you and think for you. I've had some hard times, my fine young lady, and if I'm hard now, that's the reason. What do you know about the world? And your Mickey would be a fine one to depend on--" "Oh, mamma, please don't say anything against Mickey! He's been so dear and kind--" Ma Variel towered above her as she slipped trembling between the silken, scented sheets. Towered impressive and terrible. "Kind, has he? I don't doubt it. As he's been kind to every cheap extra girl and low-down female on the lot. Common, that's what he is. A drunkard. A gutter drunkard. Mixed up with all kinds of cheap women. What d'you know about men, you poor, innocent baby? Answer me that. It takes years and hard knocks to teach a woman most of them are rotten. A clowning, simpering, worthless puppy, that's what he is." She held out the glass of hot milk. Mignon took it and raised it to her lips. Part of it spilled on the rare lace of her gown and on the brocaded satin coverlet. With steady hands, Ma Variel wiped the drops away. "But, mamma, everybody likes Mickey." "Everybody? The rifraff and kittle-cattle of Hollywood. Why shouldn't they like him? He's one of 'em. He drinks with them and carouses with them and makes love to them, sure enough. You, that I've kept above all that--is that what you want, Mignon?" "I--no, no. But mamma, that isn't all there is. There's some decent young fun for a girl, isn't there. Not always to be cooped up, nor posing. Nor playing with dolls. I want a little freedom." "Freedom? To do what? Ruin yourself. You listen to me. Ever since the day they gave you to me in the hospital, a little, wizened, ugly brat, squalling with fear and hunger, you've been all I had in the world. I hated your father because he made a fool of me just like this man would make a fool out of you. I hated him because he run off and left you--not because he left me. For twenty years I've fought and thought and forgot I was anything but your mother. For twenty years I haven't had a feeling or a thought outside of you, and I've kept you a sweet, pure child and now--" Both women were sobbing, but the mother went on in an abysmal tide of emotion. "Now you want to leave me. You go off with the first young snip that comes along. You forget everything I've done and sacrificed for you. You deceive me, your mother, for a man you don't know anything about. That you never saw until a month ago. You want to ruin the career I've built up for you and tarnish the good name I've kept for you in this rotten business. You want to give him the money I've schemed and lied and fought for you to earn. My goodness, Mignon, haven't you got everything in the world a girl could want? Don't I give you everything?" Ma Variel, in a tenderness that was cyclonic, swept the trembling child to her breast. As the passion of all the ages lay in her quivering, tear-stained, fear- ridden face. The passion of motherhood and of fatherhood; of possession and of service; of worship and of jealousy. The passion of a woman to whom a child has been husband and lover and work and reward and religion for many years. A fierceness of possession swept her, that would have taken this child back into her very blood before giving her to another. The blanket of it fell, smothering, on Mignon Variel. The thrill of Mickey's presence vanished. The inspiration of her new self faded. The other cone of that passionate, selfish, material mother-love suffocated her. She sobbed, once or twice. Nodded wearily. And fell into an exhausted sleep of childhood. Her mother sat there, hour after hour, holding her against her breast in ecstasy. IV On a certain day in June when the oranges hung on the velvet trees like colored balls on a Christmas tree and the fields were a mass of yellow mustard bloom, Mickey O'Toole and Mignon Variel went to Santa Ana and were married. For weeks the battle had raged. Hollywood, amazed and amused, had watched with mingled chuckles and thrills. Each step of the drama had been known to the eager colony. They knew, for instance, the exact hour when Ma Variel ordered Mickey from the house and forbade him ever to return. They knew, almost to a word, what took place in Sam Hartfeltz's office when she blacklisted him at the Hart studio, and every other studio where she or Hartfeltz had any influence. But public sympathy was with Mickey. There were a number of people in Hollywood who had old scores against Ma Variel. Mickey didn't lack influential supporters. They knew, too, about the time that Mignon actually climbed out of an upstairs window in the dead of night for a stolen motor ride. And some versions declared that she had left a cleverly conceived dummy in her bed. There were rumors of terrific scenes in the Variel household. There were rumors that Mignon had actually defied her mother on occasion--but not for long. And that in the end Ma Variel had turned Mignon over her knee and spanked her soundly with a hairbrush. Here and there it was said that Ma Variel had stooped to the deepest trickery to compromise and ruin Mickey. The whole staff knew, and nearly burst with excitement, when Red--an adventurous and impertinent prop boy--smuggled notes to Mignon under her mother's very nose. Altogether, Hollywood hadn't had so much fun in a long time. When Mignon arrived at the studio, under guard, and was marched to her dressing bungalow entirely surrounded by watchful eyes, they decided it was almost as good as one of the old time romances, when kings hid haughty princesses within impregnable towers to keep them from the arms of low-born lovers. After all, in her way Mignon was a princess. The wedding was a surprise to no one. Only the details were exciting. And exciting they certainly were. After days of failure, it was understood that Mickey had thought out the plan. Mignon was working on a big county fair set. And, after losing herself among the vast throng of extra people, she had slipped through a side gate into a waiting touring car, and made a wild dash for Santa Ana, where Mickey awaited her. And so Mignon Variel, who earned a quarter of a million dollars a year and whose face was known in every land under the sun, was married by a justice of the peace, in a county courthouse, in a calico dress and a straw hat with a hole in it. And while the sandals hid her toes, they could not hide the bare whiteness of her ankles. She still wore, too, the grease paint of her screen make-up. In two hours she was back on the set. And because there had been another figure mingling with the extras, in a calico dress and a straw hat, Ma Variel hadn't missed her. The secret held for three days. And then it broke with a dull thud in the morning papers. Eight-column headlines, myriad photographs and much elegant description. Fortunately Mickey, who was not sleeping well, awoke in the dawn and read his paper early. So that just as Mignon, dizzy from the shock of that screaming black type, was staring into her mother's eyes across untouched grapefruit, the bridegroom walked in. "Hello, mother," said young Mickey O'Toole with a grin. " 'Tis not the way I would have announced it to you, but you've got Mignon so scared of you there was no other way without frightening her to death." Ma Variel did not look well in negligee and she knew it. If it takes ten generations to make a man look like a gentleman in evening clothes, it takes twenty to make a woman look like a lady in a pink negligee. "Get out of my house," she said briefly. "Quick. And don't every come back or I'll set the dogs on you." "All right, dear," said Mickey. "Come on Mignon. The car's outside." Mignon half rose. "Sit down," said her mother. "You get out of this house and let my daughter alone." "Oh no," said Mickey. "Can't do that. Sorry. She happens to be my wife, you known. And you remember that the jolly old Bible says you should forsake your father and mother and cleave unto your husband. Mignon, come here." His tone was quiet, but for the first time an actual panic seized Ma Variel, for it was as cool and steady and purposeful as it was quiet. Mignon went to his side. "Please, mamma--" she began. "Never mind, dear," said her husband. "You two women have had enough chance at managing this thing. What you actually need is a man in the family. I let you come back once, now I'm going to run it my way. Mother, let me tell you a few things. Mignon is married to me. She's of marrying age and it's legal. And the law is quite squiffy about people trying to separate husbands and wives. It is, really. In fact, they do all sorts of unpleasant things to you in this State if they find it out. "I may not be much good, but I'm a better man than you are. Because I'm willing to concede that Mignon is a woman and a human being with a few rights of her own. Mignon loves you a lot, and there isn't any reason why we shouldn't all live happily together. If we can't--you'll have to get used to living alone." Ma Variel rose and there was a flash of fire in her eyes. "And if you try any rough stuff," said young Mickey O'Toole, "much as I'd hate to do it, I should just naturally be forced to hand you a good stiff wallop on the jaw. Because that's the only kind of language a selfish old Biddy like you understands. There are too darn many mothers like you around Hollywood. "Now Mignon and I are going honeymooning." "If you go," said Ma Variel, "you'll never get a cent of my money. You'll take her in the clothes she's got on." "I'd take her in less than that," said her son-in-law. "Of course when my wife's twenty-one you'll have to make an accounting to her of all the moneys she's earned. She's got a right to that. And don't call me a fortune hunter. Because I know I'm not one and my opinion is the only one I really value. So I'm certainly not going to let Mignon's money interfere in our happiness." The very air quivered. The butler, coming in with hot toast, glanced at the three motionless figures and retreated hastily. "Now, mother"--Mickey smiled engagingly--"now's the time for you to pull that great old classic about not having lost a daughter but gained a son. You've no idea what a lot of help I'm going to be to Mignon. She'll never have to depend just on you for her thinking again." Ma Variel rang a bell. She was panting for breath now. A trim, white-capped maid came down the stairs. "Pack my things," said Ma Variel, her voice cracking like a whip, "and have Agnes pack Miss Mignon's. We're going to Coronado for a few days." "You mean"--Mickey was puzzled but pleasant--"you mean all of us?" "I mean I think you're a filthy little blackmailer, and if you've got this poor, ignorant child in your clutches so she can't get out--I'm going along." "On our honeymoon? Oh, I assure you, mother darling, you'll feel frightfully in the way. Awfully, awfully de trop. Really you will. Ever been on anybody else's honeymoon?" "Shut up," said Ma Variel. "I'm going with my daughter. She's never spent a night away from me since she was born." "I know, dear, and they couldn't have Prohibition either," explained Mickey. "Isn't there an old proverb about there being a first time for everything? Mother, I think you're a great old girl. I respect you as a worthy antagonist. I suspect, moreover, that we have a lot in common. You're going to love me before you get through. But I cannot, I really cannot, take you on my honeymoon. In fact, if I had wanted you on my honeymoon I'd have married you. You'll have a honeymoon of your own yet, don't you stew, ma." It is no exaggeration to say that Ma Variel choked. She made one step forward and Mignon shrank. "You little fool--" she cried. "Easy on," said Mickey, and his eyes were cool and dangerous. "You're speaking to my wife, you know. And a woman." "I'm her mother--" said Gertrude Variel. "I know, dear," said Mickey, "and motherhood is a beautiful thing if you don't abuse it. You can go right on being her mother, but you aren't going to be a war lord any more." "Then go--go both of you. I never want to see you again," said Ma Variel. "Oh, Mignon, my baby--you won't leave me like this? You'll kill me--my baby-- you can't leave your mamma like this--" She had broken. She was pleading now. "Mamma!" Mignon O'Toole held out her arms. But a firm masculine hand circled her wrists. "That's a good way to feel about it," said Mickey quietly. "You just think it all over while we're gone and get your place in the scheme of things worked out in your head. And when we get through having a nice, long, glorious honeymoon--Mignon'll come back to work. And we'll probably see a lot of you then." V Drama gets into the blood. Ma Variel had not intended to be sitting in front of the fire, rocking that biggest doll of Mignon's, when her daughter came back. But she was. And when she saw the golden curls and the dimples and the round young face alive with happiness, her dramatic instinct made her begin to weep and to hold out the doll as she cried: "Oh, Mignon, it's the baby doll you used to love so much. The one you always played with." Mrs. Mickey O'Toole walked straight across the big, empty drawing room to her mother's side. She took the doll in firm, vigorous young hands and with one swift movement brought its china head down against the brick mantel. The tinkle-tinkle on the hearth was like the shattering of a fallen idol. "I don't want any more dolls, mamma," said Mignon O'Toole. "I want a baby. And I'm going to have one." Her mother stood up, swaying. Every vestige of color and expression drained from her face. And then slowly, cunningly, a very little smile began to creep about her set lips. It was the first time she had smiled since, in open battle, she had been vanquished by her son-in-law. "Well," she said at last, and her voice was humble, "you may feel awfully independent and sassy right now, but I expect you'll need your mother quite considerable when it comes to having a baby." "I expect I will, mamma," said Mignon softly. (End) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * In 1940, St. Johns wrote a character sketch of Mary Miles Minter, which included the following: February 25, 1940 Adela Rogers St. Johns AMERICAN WEEKLY Mary Miles Minter: Millions, Murder, Misery--Will They Haunt Her Forever (extract) ...For her first big starring picture, I've forgotten what it was, it never mattered much I guess, the director assigned to her was a man named William Desmond Taylor. After he was murdered, after that morning when Hollywood shrieked with horror over the headlines announcing that his body had been found of the floor of his apartment with a bullet hole in the back, a great deal was said and written about Taylor's charm, his power over women, his career as a Don Juan in Hollywood. I knew Taylor pretty well. Knew him because he was one of the leading directors at the time and it was my business to know him. And knew him because he was very much in love with Mabel Normand, who was one of my best and closest friends. He always seemed to me a poised, rather cold man, and the thing I remember best about him is that his face was lean and deeply tanned and that he had a crooked smile. His eyes, it seems to me, were very brightly blue--at least they were very bright, and it was a little difficult to tell whether he was smiling or only looking at you very intently. It may have been his soldier-of-fortune air that entranced the ladies. Also--for Hollywood was fairly crude in those days and as I have said very young--he had a worldly way with him, a sort of smiling hint that he knew a good deal more about life than most of us, had seen more, suffered and enjoyed more. Women, especially very young ones, like that. Mabel Normand who was the last person except the murderer to see him alive, was fond of him, liked his companionship, but she wasn't in love with him. That much I knew then. When he and Mary Miles Minter first met--about two years, I think, before his ill-fated death--she was still a child and he was close to fifty. He made her first big picture, as I said. The first thing you know, somehow, somewhere, the rumor began to drift about that Mary Miles Minter was in love with Taylor. Later, in a sensational courtroom scene, her sister Margaret testified that Mary had been in love with Jim Kirkwood when he was her leading man [sic] and had gone through a "marriage in the sight of God" with him. Maybe she did. If I were writing the story the way I see it from what I knew of the people, I would say that maybe Mary actually told Margaret that, maybe she dreamed it, maybe she was tired of never having a romance and made it up. I don't know. [1] But at that time nobody in Hollywood ever heard of such a thing and when the first little hints about Taylor and Mary began to be heard we were all knocked silly. Poor little kid. She hadn't ever had any sane romances. She hadn't gone dancing with young juveniles or listened to the love making of gay young scenario writers who usually tried out their love scenes on the pretty stars. Night after night she'd been home with her mother and her sister and her grandmother. Day after day, she came to work at the studio, grave and quiet, hard- working, never having any fun. Thinking it over from this distance, the feeling comes over me that few girls ever lived so abnormal a life as Mary Miles Minter... How she escaped her mother long enough to fall violently in love with Taylor is still a mystery... Whatever it was--an affair, an engagement, or the dream-come-true adoration of a very young girl for an older man--Mary was in love. She saw him every day on the set. Sometimes at night she slipped out of the house and met him for a drive, or a long walk. It was her first love--it was her first companionship with any man--and it went deep. It began to eat her up, to be the paramount thing in her life. So that sometimes she even defied her mother and met him openly. Not often--but a few times. So that even her first romance, its ending already shadowed in tragedy, began under a dark star. Her mother disapproved violently- -there were scenes--tears--threats--all the things that go with such a mother's disapproval. Perhaps Taylor was in love with her. It's difficult to tell. For he was seeing a great deal of Mabel Normand, he was seeking her, calling her, trying to help her. Everybody was always trying to help Mabel... Nothing that I know of can stop people speculating after such a shocking murder, when the police question and seek and follow clues and get nowhere. I was in New York when it happened. I rushed home at once--mostly because I wanted to be with Mabel Normand. Partly because I wanted to write some of the truths that I knew, as a citizen of Hollywood, while some outside reporters dashed in and made a Roman holiday of everyone who had ever spoken to Taylor... ***************************************************************************** Mythology In her later years, Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote more about the Taylor case, and some of her later writing contradicted what she had written earlier. Were the earlier writings a whitewash and the later writings the truth? Or were the earlier writings the truth and the later writings her retelling of history as she felt it should be written? In THE HONEYCOMB, St. Johns states that: *Taylor and Normand "had never spoken a word of love." *Taylor kept an emergency roll of $5,000 cash handy (no such roll was ever discovered after his death) *Faith MacLean was certain that the person she saw leaving Taylor's home on the murder night was Charlotte Shelby, dressed in man's clothing. *St. Johns' husband, Ike St. Johns, had taken an article of "MMM" monogrammed pink chiffon step-ins from the murder scene on the morning the body was found. *Adela St. Johns had heard gossip about the Taylor/Minter "affair" before the murder, and had heard the opinion expressed that Mrs. Shelby should shoot Taylor. In LOVE, LAUGHTER AND TEARS, St. Johns states that: *Normand and Taylor were only friends. *Taylor is characterized as a "rattlesnake" who deserved to be killed because of his predatory relationship with Minter. ***************************************************************************** Analysis Let's list some of St. Johns' contradictions. Early writing: Mabel loved Taylor, Taylor loved Mabel, they might have married some day. Later writing: Mabel and Taylor were only friends, and never a word of love was spoken between them. Early writing: Before the murder, St. Johns had never heard a whisper of scandal or a breath of criticism against Taylor. Later writing: Before the murder, she had several times heard the opinion expressed that Taylor should be killed because of his relationship with Minter. Early writing: Taylor was characterized as one of the finest men she had ever known. Later writing: Taylor was characterized as a rattlesnake who deserved to be killed. Early writing: She had no idea who killed Taylor, or why he was killed, but believed that it had nothing to do with himself or any act of his. Later writing: She was certain that Taylor was killed by Charlotte Shelby because of his relationship with Minter. So what are we to believe; which is truth and which is fiction? Perhaps one clue can be found in what she says about Faith MacLean. In St. Johns' later writing she states that Faith MacLean told her the person leaving Taylor's home immediately after the murder was positively Charlotte Shelby. But when re-questioned by investigators in 1937, Faith MacLean "partially identified" Carl Stockdale as the person she had seen [2] That partial identification may have been related to the fact that she originally stated the person she saw had a prominent nose, and Stockdale's nose was very prominent; when shown a picture of Stockdale she might have said, "Yes, it might have been him--the nose seems similar--but I'm not certain." In any event, Faith MacLean's "partial identification" of Carl Stockdale appears to indicate that Adela Rogers St. Johns was incorrect. How could Faith MacLean partially identify Stockdale if she was positive that Shelby was the person she saw? If St. Johns' later writing was incorrect about the identification of the person seen by Faith MacLean, then other portions of St. Johns' later writing may also be inaccurate. There is sufficient evidence to reasonably conclude that Taylor was in love with Mabel Normand; they were not "only friends". The statements of Peavey and the Fellows brothers, the fact that Taylor was sending flowers to Mabel several times a week and giving her expensive gifts, the fact that he carried her picture with him in a frame inscribed "to my dearest"--all point toward his very strong affection for her. So it appears that the earlier statements by St. Johns were more truthful in this matter. Some of St. Johns' other writing was certainly erroneous; in LOVE, LAUGHTER AND TEARS she reports as fact the apocryphal tale about Mabel Normand walking off a Goldwyn film set and going to Paris; in reality Mabel's first trip to Europe did not take place until 1922, which was long after her Goldwyn contract had ended. She never walked off a film set and went to Europe--her European trips all took place between films. But overall, it is impossible to determine whether some of St. Johns' earlier statements are more accurate than her later statements. The mere existence of the contradictions cast doubt upon St. Johns' truthfulness as a writer, and thus she should not be cited as an authoritative source for any facts of the case. What she wrote is often interesting, but must be regarded as uncertain unless independent verification is available. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** NEXT ISSUE: The Case Against Edward Sands: Who was Sands? Press Items Indicating Sands was the Killer Sands' Sexuality Was Sands the Person Seen by Faith MacLean? Was Robbery an Element of the Murder Motive? ***************************************************************************** NOTES: [1] As the affair between Minter and Kirkwood resulted in an abortion, it certainly was not just a fantasy of Minter's. See WDT: DOSSIER, p. 328. [2] See WDT: DOSSIER, p. 329. ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Back issues of Taylorology are available on the Web at any of the following: http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/ http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Taylorology/ http://www.uno.edu/~drif/arbuckle/Taylorology/ Full text searches of back issues can be done at http://www.etext.org/Zines/ For more information about Taylor, see WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991) *****************************************************************************