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ASK AN AVID Irish film fan (someone who considers they really ‘know their stuff’) and they might put forward, say, Neil Jordan as the Irish film-maker with most credits to his name. Maybe Jim Sheridan. Perhaps John Ford — but he was second generation, so does he really count?
William Desmond Taylor is not a name likely to spring to many lips — despite the fact that he’s by far the most prolific Irish director of all time, completing over sixty movies during the ‘Golden Era’ of film. What’s more, he built up that impressive filmography in just the space of eight years, making the first adaptations of the likes of Tom Sawyer and Anne of Green Gables during his brief career behind the camera in the 1910s and 1920s.
The poster for the 1920 version of Anne of Green Gables
Taylor’s remarkable life is the focus of a festival in his native Carlow this weekend. Alongside talk of his accomplishments, in the course of the event you can expect plenty of chatter and speculation too about the manner of the director’s death: Taylor’s murder in February 1922 was a huge international scandal, dominating the headlines of the time and generating hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles over the next decade or so.
Taylorfest
Marc-Ivan O’Gorman — a filmmaker and Carlow native himself — is the man behind this year’s second annual ‘Taylorfest’. He says that when he first came across the director’s story, he was “stunned” that he had never heard of him before.
“Well he didn’t work in Ireland, so maybe that’s one of the reasons he’s not that known”, O Gorman says, speculating that the director’s work may have been overlooked here as he was part of the diaspora. “But that’s like dismissing James Joyce because he wrote Ulysses abroad.”
“Another reason is that he worked in the silent era, and there hasn’t been so much interest among people in general in that time — that’s changing a bit now, so hopefully there might be more of a renewed interest.”
Christened as “William Deane Tanner”, Taylor was born into a British Army household in 1872 — and sailed for America at the age of just 18. He set up a business and married in New York, before upping sticks (leaving his wife and child behind on the east coast) and departing for Hollywood. By 1912, he had changed his name, and was working full time in the nascent movie industry. Making a living first as an actor (he had also treaded the boards during his time in New York), Taylor soon switched to directing, making his debut with The Awakening in 1914.
Filmmakers worked fast in those days, and over the following eight years (bar a brief stint in the Canadian Army during World War I) Taylor plied his trade in comedies, dramas, romances and westerns; directing major names of the time like Mary Pickford, Wallace Reid and Mary Miles Minter, who became his protégée and starred in Paramount’s 1919 version of Anne of Green Gables.
Taylor was also a three-term president of the Screen Directors Guild and had become Head of Production at Paramount by the time of his death in 1922.
The unsolved mystery…
Found with a gunshot wound to his back at his bungalow in downtown LA, the director’s murder was mired from the start in intrigue: more than a dozen suspects were named by police and the media (including Minter, and Taylor’s former valet Edward Sands) but the mystery has never been solved.
“At this stage it’s very unlikely it will be,” O’Gorman says. “Down through the years there’s been plenty of instances of important documents in the case going missing”.
“The LAPD and the district attorney’s office were notoriously corrupt were very compliant at the time with big business pressuring authorities to cover up potentially damaging cases.
“Mary Miles Minter was a startlet whose career he was guiding. She had a history of having relationships with her directors, so there was conjecture that she was besotted with him, and that she went to his place with a gun and said ‘I’m going to kill myself if you don’t run away with me’ and that the gun went off by accident.
“Sands [the valet] had always seemed a bit unhinged, and Mabel Normand [another actress, the last person to see him alive] was known to be a drug addict. Taylor was quite anti-drugs and had made some public statements against drug dealers at the time, so there’s speculation that elements of the criminal underworld may have been involved.”
This weekend’s festival only touches on matters surrounding the murder however: otherwise, there are film screenings, photo exhibitions and theatre performances celebrating Taylor’s life and career. A bar on Dublin Street has even been turned into a 1920s-era speakeasy and is serving as the event’s HQ.
Future plans
If all goes to plan this year, it’s possible the festival could be expanded and some events held in Dublin in September 2014.
O’Gorman says that people’s interest in Taylor tends to be sparked by the sensational tale of his murder — and that they come along to ‘Taylorfest’ to find out more.
“It’s funny — you tell people what happened, and they disappear off and spend six hours on the internet, coming back with a list of leads and suspects.”
So if you’re not busy for the rest of the day, here is a good place to start.
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An excellent story.
Well, “holy god”! Who would have thought. From the description the film of his untimely passing could have been an oscar nominee in its own right!
I reckon that Jessica Fletcher did it!
Born to English parents in an occupying force in Ireland doesn’t make him Ireland’s most prolific film-maker…
He was the nephew of a Home Rule MP – just because his Dad was British army doesn’t make him not Irish.
Lots of towns in Ireland were army towns as many still are today. All that is changed is who the army owes allegiance to.
Whatever about the political status of the country, huge numbers worked for the Army, RIC and civil service administering British rule. It wasn’t an occupation as we were an internal part of the Union and after all the Union was the union of the Scottish and English crowns with the Irish crown.
There has been an awful lot of rewriting of history done since the emergence of the independent Irish state. Independence was just one political goal spoken about in the 1800′s and early 1900′s. Devolution was much more popular and there was also a significant support for the status quo (one parliament for all the union in Westminster). It is very difficult for people today to accept this as it doesn’t accord with the notion that Irish people were toiling for independence solely for 700 years (which completely throws a firelighter to actual history).
I see nowhere in the article any suggestion his parents were English. It speaks to your own prejudice.
@John. No John that’s where his films come into it! :-)
” It wasn’t an occupation as we were an internal part of the Union and after all the Union was the union of the Scottish and English crowns with the Irish crown.”
Actually Bernard, it was an occupation as we didn’t ask to be “an internal part of the union”, nor was there an actual “Irish crown”.
I suppose you think that Germany never occupied anyone as the they had the invaded countries as part of their Reich.
It would appear you are the one trying to re-write history, or just change it to suit your own ends however illogical or inaccurate.
If he was born in Ireland then he was an Irish citizen.You don’t have to of been born to Irish parents or to be born a catholic to have a right to claim Irish status.
Not prejudice actually, more resentment that we were subjugated for over 800 years by a foreign colonial power…something I’d suggest that I’m entitled to feel resentment over.
One can have resentment over an action without having prejudice against the descendants of the perpetrators of the act. What I’m saying is that one can be an Irish Republican without joining Sinn Féin or the IRA. My own grandfather was in the British army…something I resent, because joining it was forced upon him by poverty resulting from the dispossession of our lands and resources by a colonial power. Don’t be so quick to label people…I have no prejudice against British people.
Taylor’s parents were British by the way, so claiming him as Irish is a bit like claiming Daniel Day Lewis as Irish.
Linda, he wasn’t an Irish citizen. He was a British subject.
And who ever said anything about having to be a Catholic.
As I recall, it was the British establishment who didn’t believe Catholicism should be tolerated or have parity in a British Protestant state. Still is in fact.
Great radio docu-drama on newstalk a while back about his murder
I think this calls for scooby doo or maybe columbo could cast an eye over it.
Intriguing stuff.
Ryan Gosling’s dad?
Its a pity Ireland didn’t stay in the UK. If it had we wouldn’t have to suffer all those years under FG/L rule.
have your say