Olive is an interesting person to read about. She came from a poor background and became a model and a star of Ziegfeld's Follies. She broke into movies and quickly became popular. One of her last films, one of few known to still survive, was The Flapper, a comedy in which she paved the way for the wild and liberated young women in the tradition of Louise Brooks and Clara Bow in the mid and late twenties. Nowadays, most people who know about her mostly study her death, attempting to prove it was suicide or that her Jack Pickford, rumored to be a syphilitic drug addict philanderer, killed her. None of that has been (or honestly can be) proven, and I honestly believe her death was a sad accident. But she lived a very interesting life and had a lot of talent. It's sad she's mostly remembered for her death... if you're reading this blog and you don't know who she is, do yourself a favor and google her.
Another scandal I've found fascinating is the murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor. This case is really interesting because so much about it is uncertainty and conjecture. The case remains unsolved to this day, and almost all the suspects were noted personalities in the movie business at the time. It's widely believed that executives from Paramount Studios did much to cover up the truth behind the murder, to keep further scandals to a minimum as the general public was beginning to think Hollywood was too wild. I would go into more detail, but I don't have my own theory as to who the murderer was. I'm impressionable, so I tend to agree with whichever article I've last read. Hearst would have loved me. For more information, check out Taylorology, an online newspaper compiling contemporary news pieces relating to William Desmond Taylor, stars associated with him and possibly related to his murder or the other high profile scandals of the time.
One figure whose name is linked to Taylor's murder is Mabel Normand, silent film comedienne and frequent costar of Charlie Chaplain and Fatty Arbuckle.
Mabel was the last person (besides the murderer) to see William Desmond Taylor alive, as they were good friends and she had visited with him earlier in the evening and he lent her a book as he often did. She was never seriously considered as a suspect in his murder, but she was devastated by the loss and her career was damaged. She's another person that lived an interesting life, fraught with scandal. But she was one of the most popular comic actresses of the time, and she also wrote and directed movies as well. I've always found her to be interesting and quite beautiful, but her life is also something of a sad story. It's thought that the thing that cemented her friendship with William Desmond Taylor was his desire to help her quit using drugs, and one of the theories is that he was murdered by drug dealers who were disgruntled by him interfering with their business. Interestingly enough, Mabel was also very good friends with Olive and was quite saddened by her sudden death. She bought several pieces of Olive's jewelry and a toilet set from the sale of her estate.
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