MARY MILES MINTER

'Mary Miles Minter' (April 1, 1902 - August 4, 1984) was a popular U.S. film actress in silent films.

Contents

Early life and rise to stardom

Scandal

Later life

Film legacy

External links

References

Early life and rise to stardom

Born 'Juliet Reilly' in Shreveport, Louisiana, Minter was the daughter of Broadway actress Charlotte Shelby. Shelby pushed both her daughters towards stage careers. At the age of 5 she was brought along on an audition for her older sister Margaret only because no baby sitter was available. She was noticed by the director and given her first part. After this she was rarely unemployed, widely noted for both her talent and visual appeal. To avoid child labour laws in Chicago while her daughter was appearing in a play, Shelby obtained the birth certificate of a cousin and changed Juliet's name to Mary Miles Minter. She made her first feature film in 1915 and her career grew steadily.
Minter specialised in playing demure and innocent young girls. With her photogenic "registration", even features, "periwinkle blue eyes" and curly hair she emulated and later rivalled Mary Pickford.
Her first film for director William Desmond Taylor was ''Anne of Green Gables'' in 1919. The picture was well-received and Taylor actively promoted Minter as a star of great potential. A romantic relationship developed between them which she later described as "a beautiful white flame." However, according to Minter (who had grown up without a father), Taylor had reservations from the outset and later curtailed the romance, citing the 30 year difference in their ages.^[1]

Scandal

In 1922 Taylor was murdered in his home. In a 1970 interview, during which she described Taylor as her "mate," Minter recalled how she broke down and sobbed when she was allowed to view (and touch) the director's body in a morgue.
The ensuing scandal, coming in the wake of the Roscoe Arbuckle murder trial, was the subject of widespread media speculation and embellishment. Newspapers reported that coded love letters written by 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 sensationalistic newspaper revelations of the twenty-year-old film star's association with a forty-nine-year-old murdered director caused rolling scandals.
There were several suspects (including her mother Charolotte 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". ^[2] In 1999 it was reported that actress Ella Margaret Gibson made a credible confession to the murder while dying of a heart attack in 1964 (and may have confessed to an acquaintance at least once before).

Later life

Following Taylor's death Minter made four more films for Paramount. Her last film, ''Trail of the Lonesome Pine'', was released in 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. In 1925 she sued her mother for an accounting of the money Shelby had received for her during her screen career.^[3] The case was settled out of court, with the settlement being signed by Minter and Shelby at the American Consul in Paris, France, on January 24, 1927.^[4]
Minter commented she was content to live without her Hollywood career. She reconciled fully with her mother and proclaimed her love for Taylor throughout her long life. Minter had invested in Los Angeles real estate and seems to have lived in relative comfort and prosperity, although she was later the victim of several robberies during the 1970s and early 80s. Police described her as a frail old woman, and people were often shocked to learn she had once been a famous movie star. She died in 1984 from a stroke in Santa Monica, California.
For her contributions to the motion picture industry Mary Miles Minter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1724 Vine Street.

Film legacy

By 1999, all prints of her film ''Anne of Green Gables'' were believed to have been lost. A print of her 1919 film, ''The Ghost of Rosy Taylor'' surfaced in New Zealand in the 1990s. This film depicted her as an orphaned French girl buffeted from job to job and escaping from a workhouse prison. Other known surviving films include ''The Eyes of Julia Deep'' (1918) and ''Nurse Marjorie'' (1920, directed by William Desmond Taylor).

External links

★ Mary Miles Minter

★ Classic Images: Mary Miles Minter

★ Minter and the William Desmond Taylor murder

★ Transcript of Minter's interview with the LAPD 5 days after Taylor's body was found.

★

★ 1970 audio interview

★ Pictures of Mary Miles Minter

References

1. ''Statement of Mary Miles Minter'' (LAPD) 7 Feb 1922 (retrieved 28 Aug 2007)[1]
2. ''Los Angeles Examiner'' (February 3, 1937), reprinted in Taylorology 74.[2]
3. 'Mother is Sued by Miss Minter', ''Los Angeles Times'' (January 30, 1925).
4. ''Los Angeles Examiner'' (May 29, 1936). The settlement was entered into evidence in a 1936 lawsuit against an investment firm.