True Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Part VII

Murder of Desmond Taylor

William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner; 26 April 1872 – 1 February 1922) was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Hollywood motion picture colony of the 1910s and early 1920s, Taylor directed fifty-nine silent films between 1914 and 1922 and acted in twenty-seven between 1913 and 1915.

Taylor's murder on 1 February 1922, along with other Hollywood scandals such as the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, led to a frenzy of sensationalist and often fabricated newspaper reports. The murder remains an official cold case.

Early life

William Cunningham Deane-Tanner was born into the Anglo-Irish gentry on 26 April 1872, at Evington House, Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland, one of five children of a retired British Army officer, Major Thomas Kearns Deane-Tanner of the Carlow Rifles, 8th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps, and his wife, Jane O'Brien. Taylor's siblings were Denis Gage Deane-Tanner, Ellen "Nell" Deane-Tanner Faudel-Phillips, Lizzie "Daisy" Deane-Tanner, and Oswald Kearns Deane-Tanner. One of his uncles was Charles Kearns Deane Tanner, the Irish Parliamentary Party Member of Parliament for Mid Cork.

From 1885 to 1887, Taylor attended Marlborough College in England. In 1891, he left Ireland for a dude ranch near Runnymede, Kansas. There, Taylor became reacquainted with acting (his first experience being at school) and eventually moved to New York City.

While in New York, Taylor courted Ethel May Hamilton, an actress who had appeared in the stage musical Florodora under the name Ethel May Harrison. Hamilton's father was a broker and an investor in the English antiques store on Fifth Avenue, the Antique Shoppe, which eventually employed Taylor. The couple married in an Episcopal ceremony on 7 December 1901 at the Little Church around the Corner, and had a daughter, Ethel Daisy, in 1902 or 1903.

Taylor and his family were well-known in New York society and were members of several clubs. He was also a heavy drinker, possibly suffered from depression and was known to carry on affairs with women. Taylor suddenly disappeared on 23 October 1908, deserting his wife and daughter. After his disappearance, friends said he had previously suffered "mental lapses", and his family thought initially he had wandered off during an episode of amnesia. Taylor's wife obtained a state decree of divorce in 1912.

Little is known of the years immediately following Taylor's disappearance. He traveled through Canada, Alaska, and the northwestern U.S., mining gold and working with various acting troupes. Eventually, he switched from acting to producing. By the time he arrived in San Francisco, California around 1912, he had changed his name to William Desmond Taylor; in San Francisco, some New York acquaintances met him and provided him with some money to re-establish himself in Los Angeles.

Hollywood

Taylor's initial film acting was in 1913 for the New York Motion Picture Company, releasing under the brands of Bronco and Kay-Bee. His earliest known screen appearance was in The Counterfeiter. He then acted for Vitagraph Studios, including four appearances opposite Margaret "Gibby" Gibson, and Balboa Amusement Producing Company. At Balboa, Taylor met actress Neva Gerber with whom he became engaged until 1919. Gerber later recalled, "He was the soul of honor, a man of personal culture, education, and refinement. I have never known a finer or better man."

Taylor began directing films in 1914, beginning with The Judge's Wife for Balboa. After leaving Balboa he directed two films at Favorite Players Film Co. and then American Film Manufacturing Company, where he directed most of the 30-episode serial The Diamond from the Sky. In October 1915 he joined Pallas Pictures. A year later Pallas became a subsidiary of Famous Players–Lasky. Except for a month working at Fox Film Corporation in 1917, all of Taylor's subsequent films were directed for Famous Players–Lasky or its subsidiary companies.