Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood (65 page)

theater’s official premiere
: The opening of the Paramount Theatre was described in the
New York Times
, November 14 and November 20, 1926.

“All I can say now”
:
New York Times
, September 6, 1927.

“a heritage of reputation”
:
Film Daily
, September 6, 1927.

“like a beacon”
:
Photoplay
, November 1927.

“A man is great”
:
Film Daily
, September 6, 1927.

“I can’t find words”
:
Film Daily,
September 6, 1927.

“My God, the next thing”
: J. M. Berger, statement, March 11, 1926.

T
AYLOR
M
YSTERY
:
Hartford Times
, March 11, 1926.

“We are making real progress”
:
Los Angeles Express
, March 23, 1926.

“Mr. Taylor was the most”
: Charlotte Shelby, statement, April 9, 1926.

“prominent Los Angeles society woman”
:
Los Angeles Herald
, March 27, 1926.

“I know that he loved me”
: Minter, statement, March 4, 1926.

“willful and corrupt”
:
Los Angeles Times
, November 1, 1928; February 9, 1929.

Margaret did reveal how afraid
: The 1937 testimony of Margaret Shelby, Charlotte Whitney, and Chauncey Eaton was described by Leroy Sanderson in his overview of the Taylor case, reproduced in Long,
Taylor: A Dossier
.

They handed down
:
Los Angeles Examiner
, May 7, 1937.

“I demand a complete”
:
Los Angeles Examiner
, May 11, 1937.

At a little past four
: Ray Long wrote about Mrs. Lewis for Taylorology. He slightly amended his recollections in personal correspondence with me.

she died at 5:20
: Death certificate, Ella Margaret Arce, aka Palmer, aka Lewis, October 24, 1964, Los Angeles County Archives.

named Mrs. Long as her executor
: Ella Margaret Lewis, Last Will and Testament, March 12, 1964, courtesy Ray Long.

“She was frightened”
:
Los Angeles News
, September 13, 1937.

“The image was too cinematic”
: Fussell,
Mabel
.

Other facts debunk the theory
: I am indebted here to Bruce Long’s essay “Did Charlotte Shelby Kill Taylor?” in his
William Desmond Taylor: A Dossier
.

“one pistol in thousands”
:
Los Angeles Examiner
, February 18, 1922.

Madsen fit perfectly
: That is, he fit her original description, of the rough-looking man with the prominent nose who reminded her of a movie burglar. In her original description she did not give an age. That came only later, after detectives prodded her to admit things she didn’t really see.

Elbert E. Lewis
: Born in Michigan, Lewis was living in Los Angeles in both 1920 and 1930, though he traveled a great deal, marrying his first wife in Ohio. Biographical detail from the US Census and World War I registration. His devotion to her is revealed in his letters to her, provided courtesy of Ray Long.

marrying Elbert Lewis
: Consular Reports of Marriage, Singapore, Straits Settlements, February 9, 1935.

sailed back to the United States
: Ella Margaret Lewis arrived on the SS
Chichibu Maru
from Shanghai into Los Angeles on February 28, 1937. Elbert Edgar Lewis arrived on the SS
President Jackson
from Hong Kong into Seattle on October 14, 1937. His death record was located in Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, April 18, 1942. He did not die in a bombing raid, as has been reported. Lewis referred to himself as “Daddy” in a very sentimental letter to Gibby dated February 8, 1942, courtesy of Ray Long.

Don Osborn served out his sentence
: US Census; Leo Maloney file, NYPL; Los Angeles telephone directories; death certificate, May 16, 1950, Los Angeles County Archive.

Rose Putnam moved back
: US Census; index to California death records.

Blackie Madsen got out of the clink
: Washington marriage records, 1865–2004;
El Paso Herald-Post
, December 3, 1935; Ross Garnet Sheridan, death certificate, March 19, 1938, Los Angeles County Archives.

Minter never made another movie
:
Los Angeles Times
, March 23, 1957, August 24, 1965, June 11, 1981;
Hartford Courant
, January 9, 1981; Higham manuscript; Brownlow interview; Don Bachardy, interview with author.

“an apostle of progress”
: For Hays’s legacy, I am indebted to Stephen Vaughn’s perceptive article “The Devil’s Advocate: Will H. Hays and the Campaign to Make Movies Respectable,”
Indiana Magazine of History
101 (June 2005).

“would change only”
: Gomery,
The Hollywood Studio System
.

“Rather than lose the public”
:
New York Times
, June 11, 1976.

“never had such a time”
: Gabler,
Empire of Their Own
.

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Abrams, Hiram, 16, 17, 65, 66, 131, 252

firing, 17

Across the Border
, 162–63

Adams, Capt. David, 231, 238

Adorée, Renée, 179

Affairs of Anatol
,
The
, 104–5, 106

Alexandria Hotel, 29

Alias Jimmy Valentine
, 176

Allen, J. Weston, 122

Alvarado Court, 6, 30, 47, 86, 108, 182, 187, 207, 217, 238, 405

Alvarado Street, 82

Ambassador Hotel, 109, 181, 334

American Federation of Labor, 295

American Humane Society, 85

American Legion, 295

Anderson, Maxwell, 387

Anne of Green Gables
, 60

Antitrust regulation, 40, 147–48

Apollo Theater, 154

SS
Aquitania
, 107, 220

Arbuckle, Minta, 297

Arbuckle, Roscoe “Fatty,” 23, 104, 132, 158–59, 294

and Adolph Zukor, 155–57

arrest, 149

banning of films, 156, 279–82

comeback, 276–79

comeback backlash, 333–39

compromise, 338–39

“Fatty and Mabel” comedy shorts, 151

FTC charges, impact on, 158

Gasoline Gus
, 276–79

hearing, 159

marriage, 150

reaction to murder, 206

scandal, blamed on Jews, 169

trial, 166, 221

vaudeville, 296

verdict, 275

verdict reception, 275–76

Zukor letter, 160

Associated Producers, 65, 94

Astor, John Jacob, 12

Astor Hotel, 261

Auntie Mame
, 421

Automatic Vaudeville, 35, 65

Bachardy, Don, 422

Balaban, Barney, 393, 424

Balaban & Katz, 392, 424

Balestier, Beatty, 311

Banksia Place Sanitarium, 331

Barnes, Eleanor, 201

Barnes, Julius, 337

Bartholomew, Frank, 200

Beach, Rex, 121

Beaverbrook, Lord, 39

Benson, Betty, 50

Berger, Marjorie, 268, 396

Berkey, Arista “Writ,” 319–20

Berlin, Irving, 393

Bernhardt, Sarah, 37

Beverly Hilton, 426

Biograph Company, 45

Block-booking, 132, 135, 389

Blue, Monte, 82

Bluhdorn, Charles, 426

Blythe, Betty, 261

Bone, Leon, 356, 409

Boole, Ella, 105

Brady, Alice, 54

Brady, Matthew, 151, 333

Brady, William A., 101, 105, 120, 137, 157, 159

Brew, Julia, 72–73, 267, 386, 401

Brisbane, Arthur, 261

Broun, Heywood, 386

Brown, Frank, 62

Brownlow, Kevin, 423

Brunton Studios, 29, 30, 31

Longacre stage, 31

Bryson, James, 163–64, 184, 283

bad check, 164–65

Buccaneer
,
The
, 387

Bunker Hill neighborhood, 24

Burke, Billie, 54

Burke, Joe, 372, 373

Burns, Edith, 267–68, 360

Busch, Mae, 46

Bushnell, Asa S., 321

Bushnell, John L., 311–12, 317–26, 344, 352–54, 365, 377

family, 322

letters, 366

Cabanne, Christy, 144

Cabanne, Vivien, 144, 257

Cadillac Hotel, 164, 341

Cahill, William, 142

Calnay, James, 270–71, 288

Camille
, 146, 147, 148

Capone, Al, 260

Captain Alvarez
, 130

Carson, Frank, 257–60

Cartier, Mr. and Mrs. Jacques, 107

Casablanca
, 421

Casa Margarita, 307, 400

Cast of Killers
,
A
, 408

Cato, E. R., 142

censorship, xiii, 14–15, 30, 33, 85, 100, 251, 253–54

and antitrust regulation, 40

and Arbuckle, 276–79, 279–82

Ellen O’Grady testimony, 120–22

fight against, 18

the Formula, 392

and Hollywood parties, 327–28

law, 121

power of women on boards and clubs, 68–70

production code, 102

Production Code Administration, 424

unsuccessful, 369

Chamber of Commerce, 295

Chambers, Joseph, 5

Chandler, Harry, 358

Chaplin, Charlie, 6

Chaplin, Sydney, 90

Chapman, Woodlawn, 336

Chase, William Sheafe, 121, 331, 348–49

Cheseboro, Ray L., 52

Chopin, Frédéric, 33

Christian, George B., 134

Christie, Al, 26, 52, 126, 183, 387

Church, Mrs. Norman, 385

Clapham, Leonard, 184, 185, 288, 354, 365, 387

aka Tom London, 387

later life, 420

Cline, Herman, 234

Clune’s Broadway Theater, 84

Coates, Edward, 106

Coconut Grove, 179, 181

Cody, Lew, 387

Cohen, Sydney S., 38, 41, 70, 134, 135, 223, 261, 300

and Ellen O’Grady, 70

FTC testimony, 347, 350

Collins, Dapper Don, 243

Committee on Moving Pictures of the City Federation of Women’s Clubs, 105

Compson, Betty, 32

Connelley, Earl J., 355, 364, 366, 371, 372–74

Connette, Honore, 283–85, 417

extra for Taylor, 284

gun, 284, 285

Connick, H. D. H., 349

Coolidge, Calvin, 368

Cooney, Patrick J., 372

Corona Typewriter Company, 144

Courtell, Juliet, 267

Covarrubias, Miguel, 386

Covered Wagon
,
The
, 370

Coward
,
The
, 26

Cowboy and the Lady
,
The
, 286

Cox, James, 64

Crafts, Wilbur F., 99–101, 120, 160

death, 336

and Fatty Arbuckle, 151–52, 154

production code, 105–6

Crawford-Ivers, Julia, 111, 114, 172, 197, 200, 225, 240

Crowninshield, Frank, 393

Cruise of the Kawa
,
The
(Traprock), 205

Cruze, James, 370

Dallas, Jim, 342, 372

Daniel, Viora, 183, 288

Daniels, Bebe, 32

Daughters of the American Revolution, 295

Davenport, Alice, 327–28

Davis, James, 261

Davis, William, 186, 187, 190

Deane-Tanner, Ada, 111, 221

Deane-Tanner, Denis, 221

Deane-Tanner, Ethel Daisy, 213, 241

Dearborn Independent
, 169

Dedham, Massachusetts, 60

Deed of Death
,
A
, 408

Dell, Ethel M., 187

Dell, Floyd, 196

Delmonico’s restaurant, 36, 65, 101, 236

DeMille, Cecil B., 32, 79, 91, 102, 106, 250

and production code, 104

reaction to murder, 220–21

Desmond, William, 359

Dines, Courtland, 383–84

Dix, Richard, 32

Dixon, Thomas, 173, 222, 235

Dodd, Rev. Neal, 33

Dodge, Pauline, 133, 135

Doherty, Edward, 223, 242, 245, 249–50, 384

Dominguez, Frank, 52, 151, 157–59, 372–74, 418

Dominick & Dominick, 118

Doran, William, 246

Douglas, James C., 51

Duffus, R. L., 20

Dumas, Verne, 195, 197

Durfee, Minta “Mintrattie,” 150

Dwan, Allan, 43, 387

Dyer, Elmer, 309, 354

Eagels, Jeanne, 386

Eangler, Caroline W., 253

East of Eden
, 421

Eaton, Chauncey, 62–63, 82, 400

Eggert, Mrs. Thomas H., 68

Eiseman, Rabbi Aaron, 395

Ellicott, Milton, 31

Emerson, John, 261

Evening Telegraph
, 276

Eyton, Charles, 91–92, 199, 200, 223, 225, 226, 238, 240, 250

handkerchief, 247

release of Minter letters, 245

statement about murder, 206

and Taylor papers, 238–39, 250

Fairbanks, Douglas, 32, 34, 64, 79, 91, 94, 154, 177–78, 262

Famous Players–Lasky, 11, 13, 14, 26, 27

alliance against, 135

antitrust laws, 147–48

and death of Taylor, 199–200, 222–23

drugs, 91–92

and FTC, 134, 147, 149

and Graumann Theaters, 390

papers from Taylor, 225

production code, 102

production move to California, 225

reaction to murder, 206–7

release of Minter letters, 245

stock issue, 39

stock market value, 14, 148, 225, 276, 348

success of, 13

trustification of industry, 133

upswing, 299

Fatty and Mabel Adrift
, 152

Feagan’s jewelry store, 174, 180

Federal Council of Churches of Christ, 295

Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 40, 147–48

action against Famous Players, 134

hearings on Famous Players-Lansky, 347–48, 349–51

hearings on movie industry, 332