Hollywood’s Taylor-made Mystery

As history writer Larry Harnisch reminds us, in The Daily Mirror, it was 90 years ago today that “internationally known film director” William Desmond Taylor was murdered--shot in the back--at his bungalow in the then-fashionable Westlake Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Charges of insanity, crime-scene mismanagement, a supposed cover-up by Paramount Studios (for which Taylor worked), the allegedly lurid involvement of Hollywood starlets, odd behavior by the district attorney, and a dubious confession have all muddied the investigative waters since. Sidney D. Kirkpatrick’s captivating (though oft-denigrated) 1987 book, A Cast of Killers, provides one solution to the killing, but the case remains officially unsolved.

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