A Cast of Killers (6 page)

Runnymeade, so the story unfolded, had been set up as a retreat for young Englishmen who had failed to live up to the standards set by their families. Though William got along well with the other residents, he didn’t fit the mold. While the others went into the next town and raised havoc in the saloon, William kept to himself, reading heavily, drawing, writing, and spending time in the company of one or two carefully chosen friends. He left Runnymeade after a year and a half, when money from home dried up.

According to Giroux’s notes, William’s father demanded nothing short of a ten-year term defending his country when his son returned to Ireland. Perhaps there was some kind of showdown, perhaps not; neither Vidor nor Giroux knew. In one account, William took the physical but failed for poor eyesight. Regardless of how poor his eyes might be, this apparently didn’t prevent him from joining the British Army years later.

Vidor and Giroux could only read between the lines. William may have found the idea of following in his father’s footsteps distasteful, and decided it was easier to fake an eye exam than to face his father’s wrath. But whatever happened, William soon disappeared from home a second time, and would never live with his extended again.

Back in America he roamed the railroad yards in Kansas City, wrote for a magazine in Leavenworth, sold crude sketches in Milwaukee, shot craps in Chicago, and finally, through connections he had made in London years before, landed a job in the theatre in New York.

There was little doubt that women on and off the stage were attracted to him. He was tall and good-looking, with a finely proportioned body and gentle eyes—the perfect accompaniment for a popular feminine star—and Fanny Davenport, the famous Broadway star, hired him to join her theatrical company.

Neither Vidor nor Giroux had found any detailed information about the relationship between Tanner and Davenport. All they knew was that Davenport died in 1898, the troupe disbanded, and Tanner left for an uncertain future on the road in stock companies in Boston, Seattle, and Chicago. On the road, money became tight. Then Tanner heard of a gold strike in Alaska. A retired miner from the Klondike told reporters in 1922 of spending several days in a small mountain cabin with Bill Tanner, days during which Tanner had told him of a great love that had ended in a bitter affair and lasting sorrow. Could he have been talking about Fanny Davenport?

In another account, from the president of Balboa Studios, Tanner had said that he had gone to prison in England for three years to protect a woman’s honor. Neither Vidor nor Giroux had found any official records to substantiate either of these claims. As with the later accounts concerning his murder, there were literally dozens of conflicting stories, all of which agreed only on Tanner’s return to the New York stage in 1901, when he met Ethel May Harrison, a member of the famous Floradora Sextette.

Ethel was a vivacious beauty who acted, sang, and played the piano. There was no question that she appreciated the handsome, cultured, well-spoken Irishman. But Tanner, who had entree to theatrical circles all over the city, could have chosen any of dozens of stage beauties.

“Why Ethel May Harrison?” Vidor asked.

Giroux had some ideas. Tanner was now thirty-four years old, and virtually penniless. He knew firsthand that on the stage he couldn’t make the kind of money he wanted. And while the Floradora Sextette was famous, its individual members, and their families, were not—except Ethel. Ethel’s father, a wealthy stockbroker, was in a position to help get Tanner set up in business, and at the same time eager to see his daughter off the stage. So Tanner married Ethel May Harrison in 1901 at the Little Church Around the Corner, and became the new vice-president and part owner of the English Antique Shop at 246 Fifth Avenue, at a salary of nearly thirty thousand dollars a year. Ethel gave up the stage.

As Vidor knew, Tanner and Ethel May settled in Larchmont. Tanner grew a mustache, bought and sold lovely furniture, played golf, and was generous to everyone he knew. In 1903 a daughter was born to the couple, whom they named Ethel Daisy Deane Tanner. For seven years Tanner was the dutiful husband; then abnormalities in his behavior began to bother Ethel. William had begun to drink. He acted restless at night, and took an intense interest in psychology and neurosis, often shutting himself up for hours to read. He was also alleged to have been in serious financial debt.

At about noon on October 23, 1908, Tanner told associates in the antiques shop that he was going to the races and would not return that day. Friends saw Tanner at the track. He was drinking quite heavily, as he had during the previous week, and was accompanied by a notorious spendthrift, “Fudge” Alexander. Tanner didn’t return home that night.

The following day he telephoned the cashier at his shop and had cash taken to his hotel room, which was the last his associates ever saw of him. Tanner had pulled another disappearing act, only this time the reasons were a great deal more difficult to pin down.

As both Vidor and Giroux knew, Tanner’s next four years were spent on the road as a timekeeper for the Yukon Gold Company in Alaska; a night clerk at the Inter Ocean Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming; a prospector in Colorado and Alaska. He arrived in San Francisco penniless, wracked by flu. Back on the stage, he drew rave reviews from Geraldine Farrar, the great opera singer, and Thomas Ince, the powerful studio producer. Hollywood was the next natural step. The new film frontier, like the Alaskan Klondike, offered a challenge. He could not only put his acting skills to work, but rake in the kind of dollars others made panning for gold.

A great many journalists and writers said that this very challenge had made him leave his wife and family. Giroux wasn’t convinced. Nor was Vidor.

The least credible theory held Tanner to be in a state of frenzy and temporary memory loss brought on by excessive drinking and intense business pressure. But, as Giroux pointed out, though Tanner drank, he had no record of alcoholic tendencies, drunken binges, or mental disorders. Quite likely, this theory was generated by his wife—her way of saying her husband must have been crazy to leave a lovely woman like herself and young child.

Another theory promulgated by the press assumed that Tanner had left his wife for another woman. This theory was based upon an eyewitness account claiming that Tanner was often seen in the homes of beautiful women and, years later, recognized by a hotel clerk in an Adirondack honeymoon lodge where he was said to have spent a weekend in the arms of a blonde.

The fact that Tanner was seen with various women in New York was easily explained, Giroux pointed out. The majority of his customers at the antiques shop were either interior decorators or the wives of wealthy men making purchases for their new homes and apartments. Part of Tanner’s duties as a salesman had been to see to all their needs, even if it meant sitting in a quiet restaurant discussing trends in decorating, or making house calls in the homes of prospective clients.

The claim that Tanner was seen in the arms of another woman was not as easily dismissed. Giroux, however, pointed out the coincidence of this “eyewitness” account occurring at the same time that his wife was seeking a divorce. Adultery was the only ground for divorce in New York State, and as Vidor knew from his own experiences in divorce court, a few dollars paid to the right hotel clerk could provide the kind of testimony that Ethel Tanner needed. The man she intended to marry, L. C. Robbins, the owner of Delmonico’s, had the money. According to this theory, Tanner’s partner went “unnamed” because she didn’t exist, except to furnish grounds for a divorce. Tanner wasn’t about to come forward and say otherwise.

A third theory became prevalent at the time of Tanner’s murder—that a mysterious killer, revenging some wrong committed by Tanner in Ireland (perhaps the “bitter love” suggested by the Klondike miner), had followed Tanner to New York. Tanner had become aware of the killer’s presence and left town immediately, changing his name to Taylor to try to cover his tracks. The killer had continued his search, discovered him in Hollywood, and completed his mission.

As interesting as Vidor and Giroux found the latter theory, it still would not explain why Tanner chose such a high-profile career as an actor, director, and eventually president of the Motion Picture Directors Association. If Tanner were really a hunted man, he could have virtually disappeared into any of a hundred professions.

“I think he was just disillusioned with his marriage, his job, and the life he had cut out for himself in Larchmont,” Giroux said. “Tanner struck off on his own to seek adventure and freedom, as he had done years before in Alaska. He hadn’t acted on the spur of the moment, but had coolly planned his escape in advance.”

As enticing as this theory sounded, Vidor said he thought there was more to it. He cited the example of Ethel Tanner’s discovery in a Broadway theater that Tanner had become a Hollywood actor. She gasped, not because she suddenly realized that Tanner was alive but because he had become a celebrity. Her reaction was not one of bitterness or vindictiveness but rather of curiosity. Later, she permitted her daughter to strike up a correspondence with her former husband and expressed happiness at the thought that someday Daisy would visit Tanner in California. Ethel was a wealthy and important woman by that time from her second marriage and had no apparent desire for Taylor’s money or status as a celebrity. Vidor wanted to know what kind of man could inspire such enduring affection and loyalty in a woman he had deserted.

As Vidor’s and Giroux’s evening was drawing to an end, the director decided to leave Giroux with a theory he figured Giroux wouldn’t agree with. Vidor had heard rumors, he said, back in the twenties, stories that a New York publisher wouldn’t have heard.

“Tanner was obviously a man torn by inner conflicts,” Vidor said as he finished off the bottle of wine in front of them. “It looks to me like Ethel May knew what it was, and sympathized. Losing Tanner might very well have been a relief. If I didn’t know better—considering the nightgown and loose women—I’d say the problem was his job or his family. Could Taylor’s problem have been a growing awareness of his homosexuality?”

Giroux’s expression suddenly changed as Vidor spoke these words, and Vidor knew he had mentioned the one possibility that Giroux had never considered.

7

I gave Taylor his big break,” Allan Dwan, the film director, said proudly as he munched an apple tart in a small office in a midtown brownstone, a day after Vidor’s meeting with Giroux. “I couldn’t say whether he was a homosexual or not. Didn’t knock up any of the girls on the lot, but then he didn’t molest the electrician, either. Tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have cared either way. He kept the action going, his films on budget, and his hands to himself, which is a lot more than I can say for most of the crowd I had to work with.”

Dwan conveyed these sentiments to Vidor with the eager bravado of a caged animal. Retirement hadn’t softened him one bit. Nor had the cold shoulder that he, like Vidor, had been getting from the studio executives. He was still as self-assured and boisterous as when he himself had held studio reins, and had no doubt that, were he and Vidor reinstated into rightful positions of authority in Hollywood, the young hot-shots now in charge would be out clipping lawns.

He sat in the office off the living room and recalled all the gossip published after William Desmond Taylor’s murder.

“It was patently false,” he said. “Taylor was a gentleman and an artist. He was fair, friendly, and extremely talented—not at all the libertine and dope fiend the papers suggested.”

Dwan also dismissed with a wave of his tart any mystery surrounding Taylor’s name change.

“Everyone did it. I was christened Aloysius Dwan. Mary Pickford was Gladys Smith. It was a matter of setting the right image. And Taylor’s name choice was brilliant. It sounded like someone from an English novel, the kind Hollywood liked making into films. It set him apart from all the aspiring actors arriving by the trainloads from places like Kansas and Nebraska. Taylor was sharp.”

No sooner had Taylor arrived in Hollywood, Dwan said, than he set up headquarters at the Alexandria Hotel, on the corner of Fifth and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles. The Alexandria was the place to see and be seen by everyone who was anyone in the motion picture industry. It was at the Alexandria bar that, over its celebrated free roast beef sandwiches, Taylor first met Mary Pickford’s director, Marshall Neilan; Mary Miles Minter’s director, James Kirkwood; and Dwan himself—all men in positions to help Taylor’s career.

It was on Neilan’s advice that Taylor took every acting job offered him. Most were very small parts in Civil War dramas and Westerns shot at Thomas Ince’s studio, but gradually he earned more substantial roles.

In
The Iconoclast,
Taylor was a heavily mustachioed villain; in
A True Believer,
a clean-shaven soldier; and in
Millions for Defence,
a buffoon—all bread-and-butter roles in pictures Dwan and Vidor remembered only by name.

But they both remembered Taylor’s first starring role in a feature production: as Robert Wainwright, the pistol carrying hero of a rebel brigade in
Captain Alvarez.
The film brought Taylor fame, and helped turn the West Coast branch of Vitagraph Studios, then a three-man operation with rented tents, into a major outfit with its own barns and darkroom.

The role of the rebel leader required a quiet but powerful actor, and director Rollin Sturgeon decided on Taylor immediately. Sturgeon, a Harvard graduate, saw in Taylor an element of class, something not easily found at a studio where problems were still solved with fists and six-shooters.

“Sturgeon,” Dwan said, “introduced Taylor to Mabel Normand. I think both men were a refreshing break for her from all the rough-and-tumble cowboys always turning the Vitagraph set into free-for-alls. I don’t know if Taylor ever slept with her. He wasn’t the kiss-and-tell type. He didn’t even stand in line to peep through the secret holes in the walls of the actresses’ dressing rooms.”