16 Silent Film Celebrities & the William Desmond Taylor Case
PikaB asked:
Killed the silent movie director William Desmond Taylor in 1922. Aqu? est? the amount of the 16 celebrities pel? silent film that was mentioned with regard to the case (Mabel Normand, Miles Minter, Carl Stockdale, Douglas MacLean, Edna Purviance, Antonio Moreno, Arthur Hoyt, Margaret Gibson, Mack Sennett, Kathlyn Williams, James Kirkwood, Marshall Neilan, Claire Windsor, fairy Hugh, Gareth Hughes, Mary Neva Gerber).
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Many silent film studios went bankrupt because they refused to switch over to producing movies with sound. They actuially believed people didn’t want to hear movies so they kept pouring their money into silent movies and lost their shirts. Can you imagine that? They actually thought movie goers didn’t want to hear the movies.
whathoney73
1 May 09 at 9:29 am
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I’ve read that a witness who saw the murderer leave Taylor’s house thought that the person looked like a woman dressed as a man. Plus, Gibson’s confessed on one occasion prior to her death-bed confession. She also left the country….so there’s alot to consider. Those must have been some wild times
Tecun85
2 May 09 at 8:43 pm
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I’d give it about a 10% probability. She knew and had worked with Taylor, and she was closely linked with a blackmailer.
PikaB
6 May 09 at 1:46 am
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I had never heard of the Margaret Gibson “confession” before. Any chance she really was the killer?
gablefan01
7 May 09 at 11:41 am
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Great collection! Thanks for sharing!!!
AnythingGoesProd
9 May 09 at 2:25 pm
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The clips are from a variety of video sources. Which specific clip are you referring to?
PikaB
10 May 09 at 2:05 am
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I must say that this is great stuff, especially for a silent film buff, where did you (PikaB) come across it?
Tecun85
12 May 09 at 10:30 am
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I’ll be looking out for you on “To Catch A Predator” I guess.
NYC1927
15 May 09 at 8:39 am
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Throughout history, men have always been called perverts, whether we have sex with younger girls, or not. So you and your Victorian age self righteousness can go and fuck yourselves.
rickymolotov
15 May 09 at 7:01 pm
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Now days grown men who ‘have relations’ with teen girls are called what they are…..Perverts.
NYC1927
16 May 09 at 1:36 am
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Also, I don’t know that Charlie Chaplin disliked Mary Pickford when they both got together to found United Artists. It makes no sense to me. And dating younger girls doesn’t mean a guy is a chauvinist. Just about every guy in history has had a certain amount of taste for flesh younger than his own. It’s called being normal.
rickymolotov
16 May 09 at 5:02 am
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It was not that Chaplin resented being directed by a woman. As he told Mabel Normand once: “You are not qualified to tell me what to do, Mabel…” And he was right. In fact, nobody was qualified to tell him anything. Men, women, or God. He could do it all. Before making films, Charles Chaplin had had extensive vaudevillian experience, and whatever he did in front of the camera was simply a carry over of that previous experience. Mabel Norman didn’t know her place, or who she was dealing with.
rickymolotov
19 May 09 at 12:16 pm
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I think it’s great. Vidor’s book “Cast Of Killers” was updated and all the wrong “facts’ were rectified. Sad tale all around.
bbot64
22 May 09 at 5:38 pm
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Thank you for putting this together. All the bungalows are gone, torn down for a parking lot, if I remember correctly. But Mary Miles Minter’s house is still there and is a home for lost girls or something appropriate like that. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but it was the early 1990s when I visited the neighborhood.
yelloworangered
23 May 09 at 4:44 pm
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I’ve read that Chaplin just couldn’t handle the idea of a woman directing his film. She had much more experience than he did at the time, so it was reasonable. Chaplin was a romantic man, but chauvinistic. He disliked Mary Pickford for being intelligent about business and his wives and girlfriends were all much younger than he was. Lita Grey was really just a child at 15.
yelloworangered
26 May 09 at 11:08 pm
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Was that written in his autobiography?
LexieCasteel
28 May 09 at 12:16 am
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Well researched, nice presentation, and especially a good narrative voice. I happened on this vid on accident, and found myself drawn in. Good job!
xpdnc12
28 May 09 at 9:59 am
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read my new comment on why
bubbajimmy8
31 May 09 at 8:54 am
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she was rude to him from the start
he was bossed around by her and nearly got fired because of her until finding out that the king of comedy also disliked her and then chaplin became the director instead of mable
bubbajimmy8
3 Jun 09 at 12:52 am
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who do you think did it?
JumboShrimp256
3 Jun 09 at 5:06 pm
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why??
tenle
6 Jun 09 at 5:29 pm
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Thank You For Posting;
A confession, death-bed, or other-wise, isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, and must be considered a ‘Trojan horse’, i.e., it contains one puzzle-piece of knowledge of the actual crime/suspect.
Perhaps the actual murderer, a studio employee/owner, had signed-up W. D. Taylor for an insurance policy, as a 3rd person, which was legal at the time, to pay-off opium/cocaine/gambling/studio debts; or murdered as a ‘favour’ to cover same debts.
Cheers!
Valkyrie Ziege Mourne
12Zwolf
9 Jun 09 at 7:05 am
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why?
ceerivera
10 Jun 09 at 1:12 am
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chaplin hated mabel
bubbajimmy8
10 Jun 09 at 3:52 am
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I agree. I have thought that all along.
katnipsoxxx
13 Jun 09 at 10:36 am