The murder that almost murdered the movies

"Famous Players, the Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor," by
Rick Geary, looks at the mysterious 1922 death of Hollywood director
William Desmond Taylor. The book is just out from NBM Publishing.

By Thomas Gladysz
SF Silent Film Examiner

In 1922, a prominent Hollywood director named William Desmond Taylor was killed. It was a sensational crime in its day - comparable in ways to the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and trial of O.J. Simpson in our own time. It was also, as one headline put it, “the murder that almost murdered the movies.”

More than a dozen individuals, including two popular actresses romantically linked to the victim, were named as suspects. The murder and subsequent police investigations received widespread coverage, and many unsavory and even salacious details regarding the victim and suspects were revealed. However, despite all efforts, the murder went unsolved.

Was it a spurned lover, or her mother? Was it a petty criminal? Or an Army acquaintance from days gone by? Was the movie studio involved in a cover-up? And who was the mysterious “doctor” who declared Taylor dead from natural causes – despite a bullet hole in his back? To this day, there seem to be more questions than answers.

The details of the director’s death are recounted, drolly, in Famous Players, the Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor (NBM Publishing), a just published true-crime graphic novel by Rick Geary. The book is part of a new series of illustrated retellings of well known crimes gathered under the equally droll title “A Treasury of 20th Century Murder.”

Unlike earlier books on the subject, Geary’s book doesn’t attempt to solve the murder. Rather, it recounts through its illustrated narrative the basic facts of the case – the who, what, when, and where, but not the why.

Famous Players begins by setting the stage, giving background information on Hollywood and the film industry in its early days. Famous Players then moves quickly to the facts surrounding the murder – the discovery of the director’s body, the events which took place on Taylor’s last day, a brief biography of the director’s pre-Hollywood life (including changed identity and abandoned wife), the suspects, speculation as to why the murder was not solved, and finally, the fate of many of the individuals involved in this real-life tragedy. All of this is related through deftly-rendered black-and-white line drawings.

Geary’s gifts as an artist and story teller are evident in his ability to present the essential facts of the case in a clear and compelling narrative. More than just a summation of the facts, Famous Players is also a page turner.

As the author notes, the fallout from this sensational crime helped change Hollywood. Not long before Taylor’s murder, popular comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of raping and accidentally killing a young actress in San Francisco. Arbuckle’s three trials (he was acquitted each time), the drug-related death of popular actor Wallace Reid, and other scandals involving liquor, sex, and wild behavior led the studios to include morality clauses in contracts – and eventually, to Hollywood self-censorship in the form of the Hays’ Code.

The death of William Desmond Taylor has had a lasting impact. It has also been the subject of four books in the last few decades, including one by the acclaimed film director King Vidor.

No doubt, Geary’s interest in the Taylor murder stems in part from his lifelong interest in both the movies and history. Geary grew up in Wichita, Kansas and is distantly related to the silent film star Louise Brooks.

Earlier this year, Dark Horse Comics published his The Adventures of Blanche. This American gothic-graphic novel relates the story of its proper though plucky heroine and her adventures in the early decades of the 20th century. Geary’s other graphic novels include three adaptations for the “Classics Illustrated” series, as well as the nine-volume “A Treasury of Victorian Murder.” One notable recent volume, The Saga of the Bloody Benders, was excerpted in The Best American Comics of 2008.

Geary began work in comics in 1977, and for thirteen years was a contributor to National Lampoon. His acclaimed comics and illustrations have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Heavy Metal, MAD magazine, Rolling Stone and DC Comics. This prolific artist’s other historically-based graphic novels include the recently published Cravan: Mystery Man of the Twentieth Century (about the Dadaist boxer) and J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography.

No matter what the subject, and no matter whether his illustrated narratives are fiction or non-fiction, this acclaimed artist brings both an attention to historical detail and a fine story-telling ability to his work. That holds true for Famous Players, the Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor.