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What did mogul Merv Griffin do before he created Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune? For years he was the tremendously popular host of The Merv Griffin Show, which ran for 24 years. Before that, he'd hosted for Jack Paar on the Tonight Show, and his personality caught the audience's attention. His own show debuted in 1962.
Actually, Jeopardy! also came on the air in 1962. Most people know current host Alex Trebek... but how many of you recall the original host of Jeopardy, Art Fleming? And yes...Fleming's announcer then was the same Don Pardo that announces for Saturday Night Live.
He was found murdered in his own bungalo in Los Angeles in 1922, but the murder of Paramount film director William Desmond Taylor ![]()
remains a mystery today.
And since it is an unsolved homicide in Los Angeles...and it is the Roaring 20s...and it is HOLLYWOOD, baby!... it is a popular field of study. There are books -- notably A Cast of Killers by James Kirkpatrick [Dutton,1986] that give clues and possibilities, but the Los Angeles Police Department has never closed the case.
And there are, seemingly, scores of suspects. Being a director, Taylor had many friends in that early film colony.
One of the most frequently mentioned is Mabel Normand,
a highly popular commediane. Mabel was the last person -- other than the killer -- to see Taylor alive. She'd been chauffered over to pick up a book from him. Taylor was a British expat, and had a formal education; Mabel was a Sennett commedianne, and had not had the benefit of much education. In another book on Taylor's murder, by writer and publisher Robert Giroux, A Deed of Death, the writer reveals the drug world of the era; Mabel was caught up in it. Taylor was fighting it, allied with the police and working inside the studios. Giroux's book emphasises a drug hit on Taylor.
But the most widely-held theory is that he was killed because of a love affair. Mary Miles Minter
was a rising star in the Hollywood scene, and had done several films under Taylor's direction. She was madly in love with him, but, though he showed her some affection, Taylor was more mindful of the years between them. So he did his best to keep their friendship open and above-board; she sent him a handful of pretty idiotic love notes, on gaudy, girlish personal stationary that one could almost see glowing through the envelope. But the real problem was not Mary, who, apparantly, was schoolgirl-sweet, but her mother, from all accounts a mean, vicious, straight-razor-totin' woman. She was determined not to let Mary (who, after all, was the cash-flow in the famiily) get into the clutches of that dirty old Taylor.
That is the primary scenario spelled out in Kirkpatrick's book. "Taylorolgy", as it has become known, is a study all its own. There are Taylor websites, books, newsletters... quite a list.
Always get married early in the morning.
That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day.
-- Mickey Rooney
Becoming bisexual effectively doubles the chances for a date Saturday night.
-- Woody Allen
There is one thing I would break up over,
and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won't stand for that.
--Steve Martin
After making love, I said to my girl,
"Was it good for you, too?" And she said, "I don't think this was good for anybody."
-- Garry Shandling
