Dear Reader #214

Dear Reader,

My latest translation, the Spanish version of Tula.

Clara Bow’s fifty-third movie was Her Wedding Night, produced between July 24 and August 15, 1930, and released on September 18, 1930. Clara played Norma Martin in a racy comedy about a young woman with a hyperactive love life. 

Once again, Clara was playing a version of herself, and the fan magazines were not impressed. Suddenly, they’d discovered morality and were not happy with Clara’s personal life.

Photoplay climbed into the pulpit with this editorial: “She disregards all laws of convention and hopes to get away with it. She has no regard whatsoever for public opinion. Clara, we are afraid you are on a toboggan!”

Despite the bad press, Her Wedding Night was a great success. Despite the scandals, Clara Bow was still Hollywood’s #1 draw.

A Hollywood Murder

At 7:30 am on Thursday, 2 February 1922, Henry Peavey walked through the affluent neighbourhood of Westlake, Los Angeles towards a bungalow in the Alvarado Court Apartments. His destination was 404-B South Alvarado Street, the home of his master and employer, movie director William Desmond Taylor. Peavey opened the door and screamed – at some point during the previous twelve hours someone had shot Taylor; the movie director was dead.

The murderer had shot Taylor with a .38 calibre pistol. The bullet had entered his body low on the left side, travelled through his lung before reaching his neck. The trajectory of the bullet suggested that the murderer had been either around five feet tall, stooped in a crouched position, laying on the floor, or holding the gun at an unusual angle.

Taylor’s valet, Henry Peavey (pictured below), had a penchant for wearing outlandish clothing and talking in an affected manner. Three days before the murder, Peavey was arrested for “social vagrancy” and charged with being “lewd and dissolute” while ingratiating himself to young men. In 1931, he died in a San Francisco asylum where he had been hospitalized for syphilis-related dementia. One is tempted to ask, why did Taylor employ such a dubious character as his most trusted servant? Hopefully, the answer to that question will present itself as this series of articles unfolds.

The police interviewed Henry Peavey, but never seriously considered him as a suspect. At that stage in Los Angeles a curfew was in place for people of colour, enforced at 8pm, and Peavey was on his way home before the murder was committed.

As the investigation unfolded, Peavey accused actress Mabel Normand of the murder, and I will consider the case against her next time.

*****

Columbo

Season One, Episode Three: “Dead Weight”. Eddie Albert starred as the murderer while Suzanne Pleshette (pictured) featured as an unreliable witness. 

All the episodes in series one, except one, ran for exactly 72 minutes. In series one, the murder was often committed early on, sometimes in the first scene. Later series included a longer build-up to the murder.

Social media https://toot.wales/@HannahHowe

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

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