Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann

Author:William J. Mann [Mann, William J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

At last, after more than a week in seclusion, Zukor emerged from the studio. Striding out to the waiting reporters, he announced that he had developed new guidelines for the industry. A “vigilance committee” would safeguard “the good name of its members,” Zukor said. Everyone would be obliged to sign a pledge of good behavior. “I am here to see,” he declared, “that those few who violate the edicts of good conduct and bring discredit and embarrassment to the many are ruled not only against but out of the ranks.”

This, then, was how he justified his own actions. Arbuckle had brought discredit to the many, so he needed to be “ruled out of the ranks.” It didn’t matter whether he was innocent or guilty of the crime at hand. The same with Mary: if her career plummeted now, Zukor reasoned, it was her fault, not his. She deserved whatever she got for being so indiscreet. And what if Mabel Normand were the culprit? As fond of her as Zukor had always been, if she’d been one of his employees, he would have sacrificed her the same way. After all, those tales of drugs had brought embarrassment upon the industry—and they were her doing, not his.

But sometimes, Zukor understood, exceptions did have to be made.

After spending about a week and a half in the film colony, Zukor departed for San Francisco with Sid Grauman to make plans for a gala tenth-anniversary celebration of the release of Queen Elizabeth. But he left Lasky with some final instructions. If they were to ensure that the truth about Taylor’s death never leaked, there was one more thing they would have to do.

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