William Desmond Taylor

Gods and goddesses strolled the boulevard in those days and rode to the studio in their $20,000 custom-built Rolls Royces.

It was the era of Valentino and Mabel Norman and Wallace Reed, of Barbara Lamar and William Desmond Taylor and William S. Hart.

and the great vamps, Nita Naldi, Paula Negri, and Peter Barrow.

It was the era, too, of Anthony Kendall, matinee idol turned movie king, and his leading lady, Rina Chalfante, who used to be called the golden flame of the silver screen.

The last thing anyone needed was another scandal.

On Alvarado Street, actor and director William Desmond Taylor was on his best behavior.

Almost.

It was the height of Prohibition, and yet there was gin and sweet vermouth in the cupboard, enough to keep the orange blossom gin cocktails flowing.

Peavey took a deep breath.

"I'd like you to put me through to Paramount Studios immediately," he said.

"Tell them that this is the house of William Desmond Taylor calling." In the living room, the doctor was kneeling over the body, pressing his fingers to the neck, to the wrist.

He checked his watch, then placed a hand beneath Taylor's jacket.

I'm your host, Zeth Lundy, writer, showrunner, and good doctor here at Double Elvis.

And today in the Hollywoodland Rap Party, we are talking about Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, William Desmond Taylor, Mabel Normand, and the birth of the Hollywood scandal, which means that later in this episode, I'll be joined by Jake Brennan of Disgraceland to drop some dirty recs for you guys, all about scandalous movies and music.

Plus, I've got your calls, your texts, your emails.

So come on, everybody.

Three trials later, Fatty Arbuckle was acquitted, but his career was ruined.

This may have been the end of the road for Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, the comedian, and his unprecedented career as an entertainer, but it was just the beginning for Hollywood's scandal.

Just the next year, in 1922, the director William Desmond Taylor was found dead, murdered inside his Los Angeles bungalow.

What followed was a media circus of witnesses and suspects and motives and missing evidence and ultimately no answers.

[upbeat music] Now, lest you think Fatty was the last predator of early Hollywood, think again, because these circles were nothing if not run by men with dangerous and abusive tastes, and they had a habit of surrounding themselves with other men and women just like them.

One example of this system of predators protecting predators is brilliantly displayed in the case of William Desmond Taylor, a top director at the famous Players-Lasky and a big man around the Paramount lot.

Taylor had come to Hollywood like all the rest as the 1910s turned to the 1920s.

There, he fit in like a natural, and soon worked his way up to the primary director of, for the Paramount subsidiary, the famous Players-Lasky.

Taylor, it turns out, was another big fan of the casting couch.

When police arrived, they allegedly found the head of Paramount, Adolph Zukor, with a team of people burning letters and cleaning the place up.

Paramount was quickly trying to get ahead of what they knew would be a scandal, but they just were not fast enough, and they just didn't know all of William Desmond Taylor's little hidey-holes.

Police cleared Taylor's house of studio executives and started searching for Taylor's, uh, extracurricular, [laughs] extracurriculars, um, throughout the rest of his home.