William Desmond Taylor

Birth Name:

William Cunningham Deane-Tanner

Birth Date:

April 26, 1872

Birth Place:

Evington House, Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland

Death Date:

February 1, 1922

Place of Death:

404 B South Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, California

Age:

Cause of Death:

Murdered - gunshot wounds

Cemetery Name:

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Show Business

Associates:

Roscoe Arbuckle

William Desmond Taylor 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 (yes that is almost 1 film per month). Taylor's murder on February 1, 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.

Who Killed William Desmond Taylor?

The 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor is a notorious unsolved Hollywood cold case with several primary suspects, including (and the percent chance that they did the deed):

Charlotte Shelby: The mother of actress Mary Miles Minter, she was a manipulative stage mother who owned a .38-caliber pistol and disliked Taylor’s relationship with her daughter. (50%)

Mary Miles Minter: silent film actress likely knew who killed William Desmond Taylor in 1922, with historical evidence strongly pointing to her mother, Charlotte Shelby. Minter, infatuated with the director, was a suspect due to love letters found at the scene, but in her later years, she admitted she and her mother were at his home that night. Director King Vidor stated Minter implicitly admitted her mother was the killer. (10%)

Margaret Gibson: silent film actress confessed to murdering director William Desmond Taylor, but it is not definitively known if she was telling the truth or even involved in the 1922 crime. Her “deathbed confession” in 1964 has made her a top suspect in the eyes of some researchers. (75%)

Mabel Normand: a comedic actress and close friend of Taylor who was the last known person to see him alive. (50%)

Others include Edward Sands (former valet who embezzled from Taylor), Henry Peavey (valet who replaced Sands and discovered the body, and Al Weinshank (a hoodlum with connections in the film industry and a victim of the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre). All rated at 5% tops.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

6000 Santa Monica Blvd.

Los Angeles, California, 90038

USA

North America

Map:

Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles, California

Grave Location:

Holly Cathedral Mausoleum, Corridor C-4 North, Crypt 594

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery make an immediate left and drive around the lake to the front of the Cathedral Mausoleum. Walk up the stairs and take the last corridor on your right. Walk 20 feet and look to your right, second row from the bottom for the Hollywood director, actor and unsolved murder victim William Desmond Taylor. He is buried under his birth name with the memorial reading in part “In Memory of William C. Deane-Tanner, Beloved Father of Ethel Deane-Tanner”.

Grave Location GPS

34.088222, -118.316694

Visiting The Grave:

Photos:

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FAQ's

William Desmond Taylor was born on April 26, 1872.

William Desmond Taylor was born in Evington House, Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland.

William Desmond Taylor died on February 1, 1922.

William Desmond Taylor died in 404 B South Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, California.

William Desmond Taylor was 49.

The cause of death was Murdered - gunshot wounds.

William Desmond Taylor's grave is in Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Videos Featuring William Desmond Taylor:

16 Silent Film Celebrities & the William Desmond Taylor Case

Who Killed Hollywood Actor & Director William Desmond Taylor? 100-Year-Old UNSOLVED MURDER!

William Cahill discusses the William Desmond Taylor case

Who Killed William Desmond Taylor? Unsolved Hollywood Scandal

Mary Miles Minter - 1970 Interview Excerpt

An Interview With Mary Miles Minter (After The Scandals)

Hollywood's Original Whodunnit: The Unsolved Murder of William Desmond Taylor?

Hollywood's UNSOLVED Murder - William Desmond Taylor

The Kiss is a 1914 short silent film starring William Desmond Taylor and Margaret Gibson

Watch YouTube video titled 100 Years Later, We Finally Know What Happened To William Desmond Taylor...

William Desmond Taylor