Mary Minter

At the age of five, Mary Minter accompanied her sister, Margaret, on an audition because no babysitter was available. She was noticed by the director and given her first part. She began her stage career and was frequently employed afterward, widely noted for both her talent and visual appeal. To avoid child labor laws while the 10-year-old was appearing in a play in Chicago, in 1912, Charlotte Shelby obtained the birth certification of her elder sister’s deceased daughter from Louisiana, and Juliet became Mary Miles Minter. In her screen debut, in which she was billed as Juliet Shelby, she appeared in the 1-reel drama short The Nurse (1912). From there her new stage name was applied and Minter was starred in the role as Viola Drayton, the fairy, in the 5-reel feature length drama The Fairy and the Waif (1915). Mary Minter’s career steadily grew after that. She specialized in playing demure young women. With her photogenic features, blue eyes and curly blonde hair, she emulated and later rivaled Mary Pickford. Her first movie for director William Desmond Taylor was Anne of Green Gables (1919). It was well received, and Taylor actively promoted Minter as a star. According to Minter, a romantic relationship developed between them. However, Minter (who had grown up fatherless) said Taylor had reservations from the outset and later curtailed the romance, citing the 30-year difference in their ages. Other people who knew Taylor and Minter said he never reciprocated her feelings.

On February 1, 1922, Taylor was murdered in his home, a two-story bungalow apartment on Alvarado Street, at the southeast corner of Alvarado and Maryland Street, in the Westlake area of Los Angeles. The ensuing scandal, following the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle scandal of Labor Day weekend 1921, and Arbuckle’s subsequent murder trial, was the subject of widespread media speculation and embellishment. Newspapers reported that coded love letters written by Mary Minter had been found in his bungalow after his death (these were later shown to have been written three years earlier, in 1919). Minter was at the height of her success, having starred in more than 50 films, and newspaper revelations of the 20-year-old star’s association with the 49-year-old murdered director was cause for a sensational scandal. There were several suspects (including her mother, Charlotte Shelby) in the long investigation of Taylor’s murder. In 1937, Minter publicly announced to the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper, “Now I demand that I either be prosecuted for the murder committed fifteen years ago, or exonerated completely. If the District Attorney has any evidence, he should prosecute. If not, then I should be exonerated… Shadows have been cast upon my reputation.” Taylor’s murder was never solved.

In a 1970 interview, during which she described Taylor as her “mate,” Mary Minter recalled going to view Taylor’s body immediately after the murder. In shock, she demanded to be used for a blood transfusion to revive him, not believing he was dead until she touched his body in the morgue: “That deadly cold… convinced me as nothing else could have done. No life can return to this man.” She broke down and sobbed: “They crucified Jesus. Now they’ve crucified… They’ve crucified my mate.” Mary Minter made four more motion pictures for Paramount, with her last being The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1923). When the studio did not renew her contract, she received many other offers but declined them all, saying she had never been happy as an actress. Mary Miles Minter died at age 82 from a stroke in Santa Monica. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered at sea. For her contribution to motion pictures, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1724 Vine Street in Hollywood.