Taylorology

Taylorology #1 (1985)

Taylorology was a fanzine centered on the unsolved 1922 murder of Hollywood silent film director William Desmond Taylor. The editor was Bruce Long, a staff member at Arizona State University.

The first issue was published in 1985, and two more printed issues followed. In April 1993, it switched to monthly electronic publication with Taylorology 4. The first three editions were never republished in their original forms on the Taylorology website. As Long wrote at the beginning of Taylorology 4: "Because the essence of those first three issues can be found in hardcover, there are no present plans to reprint those issues here."^[1] However, scanned copies of the first three issues were later submitted to the Internet Archive. (See "external links" below.)

Monthly postings continued until Taylorology 96 in December, 2000. Since then, two additional issues -- Taylorology 97 (2007) and Taylorology 98 (2009) -- have been added. In addition to published issues, the Taylorology web site^[2] has supplemental material pertaining to the Taylor case.

Contents

Although there was no fixed limitation on the subject matter, the contents of Taylorology generally could be categorized into the following areas:

• Facts and rumors pertaining to the Taylor murder.
• Taylor's life and film career.
• The impact of the Taylor murder on Hollywood and America.
• The life and careers of individuals associated with Taylor or individuals regarded as suspects in the Taylor murder.
• The silent film industry in which Taylor worked.
• Examination of various theories regarding the Taylor murder.
• Reviews of books, magazine articles, and televised documentaries pertaining to the Taylor murder.
• Other Hollywood scandals from the same era as the Taylor murder.

Impact

The quantity of rare contemporary source material contained within Taylorology has given it a scholarly influence far beyond the confines of the William Desmond Taylor case. A few of the books which have cited Taylorology, and the source material it contains, are:

• Daly, Nicholas (2004), Literature, Technology, and Modernity, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-83392-2
• Marez, Curtis (2004), Drug Wars: The Political Economy of Narcotics, University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0-8166-4060-2
• Charlie Keil, Shelley Stamp, ed. (2004), American Cinema's Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-24027-8
• Rickman, Gregg (2001), The Film Comedy Reader, Limelight Editions, ISBN 0-87910-295-0
• Higham, Charles (2004), Murder in Hollywood: Solving a Silent Screen Mystery, University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 0-299-20360-3
• Shapiro, Harry (2004), Shooting Stars: Drugs, Hollywood and the Movies, Serpent's Tail, ISBN 1-85242-651-9
• Hammill, Faye (2007), Women, Celebrity, and Literary Culture Between the Wars, University of Texas Press, ISBN 0-292-71644-3
• Sagert, Kelly Boyer (2009), Flappers: A Guide to an American Subculture, Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-37690-5
• Berebitsky, Julie (2012), Sex and the Office: A History of Gender, Power, and Desire, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-11899-6

Footnotes

1. Taylorology, issue 4
2. http://www.taylorology.com Taylorology web site, http://silent-movies.com/Taylorology Taylorology mirror site

Notes

• "A Story to Die For," Roth, Evan, CyberSurfing Column, Washington Post, January 12, 1995.
• [Taylorology is] "an amazing historical record...a wonderful repository for innumerable interesting silent-era stories." Fleming, E. J. (2007), Wallace Reid: The Life and Death of a Hollywood Idol, McFarland, viii.
• "Taylorology...filled with reproductions of clippings, incisive comments, and cross-references to other sources of information...was a constant source of scholarly entertainment, amusement, and enlightenment." Higham, Charles (2004), Murder in Hollywood: Solving a Silent Screen Mystery, University of Wisconsin Press, 207.
• "The most exhaustive source for the study of this seminal Hollywood moment is the massive web site compiled by Bruce Long, Master of Taylorology, whose hypertext study winds through the labyrinth of news reports and almost infinite sources on any person even remotely touched by the affair." Louvish, Simon (2003), Keystone: the Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett, Faber and Faber, 181.
• "Ties That Bind: Searching for the Motion Picture Directors Association," Mitchell, Lisa, DGA Magazine, November 2001, Taylorology is cited as one of "the few places on earth to find more than passing remarks about the MPDA," retrieved 2008-03-21.
• Recommended site designation on Silent Era's list of notable websites, retrieved 2008-03-21.
• Listed at "The best silent movie links on the web" from Silents are Golden. retrieved 2008-03-21.

External links

• Issues 1, 2, and 3 at the Internet Archive:
  • Issue 1
  • Issue 2
  • Issue 3
• Long explains his fascination with the Taylor case here.