A Deed of Death: The Story of the Unsolved Murder of Hollywood Director William Desmond Taylor

GIROUX, Robert

ISBN 10: 0394580753 / ISBN 13: 9780394580753

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1990

About this Item

First edition. Fine in fine dustwrapper. Nicely Inscribed by Giroux in the year of publication: "To Arthur & Rose in long friendship & with admiration. Bob. May 17, 1990. Laid in is a photocopy of letters to the New York Times Book Review refuting the mediocre review the book received there, with a note from Giroux expressing satisfaction with those opinions.

Seller Inventory # 387260

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Deed of Death: The Story of the Unsolved Murder of Hollywood Director William Desmond Taylor
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York
• Publication Date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0394580753
• ISBN 13: 9780394580753
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

An analysis of the 1922 unsolved murder of film director William Desmond Taylor focuses on the two actresses in Taylor's life--ingenue Mary Miles Minter and Mabel Normand, a star and a drug addict

Reviews

Well-born but disinherited Anglo-Irish actor and one-time Yukon prospector, William Desmond Taylor was a prominent Paramount movie director at the time of his unsolved murder in 1922. Suspects included his secretary Edward Sands, a thief and forger; Henry Peavey, his homosexual black cook; and two flamboyant screen stars: drug-addicted Mabel Normand, whom he loved; and 20-year-old Mary Miles Minter, who yearned to be his mistress. In a meticulous probe that reads like a detective thriller, editor-publisher Giroux ( The Book Known as Q ) makes a strong case that the murderer was a contract killer. He shows that Normand had incurred the wrath of dope peddlers, as did Taylor when he attempted to help her break her addiction. Brimming with details of Hollywood's silent era and its rampant post-WW I drug culture, this procedural offers glimpses of Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Sam Goldwyn, Mack Sennett, Fatty Arbuckle. Illustrations.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The unsolved murder of movie director William Desmond Taylor has attracted amateur sleuths for years, including director King Vidor, whose findings were revealed in Sidney D. Kirkpatrick's best-selling A Cast of Killers ( LJ 7/86). Strangely enough, Farrar, Straus & Giroux publisher Giroux doesn't mention A Cast of Killers in this book on the case, although he obviously disagrees with its conclusion (that a starlet's mother killed Taylor) and its negative portrait of Taylor. While Giroux fails to provide readers with a solution to the crime, movie buffs will nevertheless appreciate his additional background history on the case and his admirable downplay of the scandals of the silent film era. --Susan Caputo, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.