A Cast of Killers, by Kirkpatrick, Sidney D.
Inventory #: 00333
Price: $20.00

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A Cast of Killers, by Kirkpatrick, Sidney D.. Dutton: New York, 1986. Edition: First Edition stated.. ISBN: 0525243909. Hardcover, 301 pages. Quarter bound in white cloth over black paper-covered boards; silver lettering on spine; facsimile author's signature in silver on cover. Sixteen pages of B&W photographs.

Condition: Book: Near Fine. Spine ends bumped, but otherwise a tight, clean copy. Jacket: Very Good. Rumpled with several depressions on back and near upper spine end, however the paper is not actually broken, chipped or torn.

Contents: From the jacket:

On February 1, 1922, the distinguished silent-film director William Desmond Taylor was shot to death in his Los Angeles bungalow by an unknown assailant. . . .

In 1967, more than forty years after Taylor's death, the great King Vidor, whose directing credit include NORTHWEST PASSAGE, THE FOUNTAINHEAD, DUEL IN THE SON, and WAR AND PEACE, determined to solve the mystery, which had haunted him throughout his career, in order to make a film about it. Through his intimate knowledge of both the studios and the stars, he succeeded, where dozens of professional detectives had failed, in discovering the identity of the murderer. But because his findings were so explosive, he decided he could never go public and locked his evidence away.

After Vidor's death in 1982, Sidney Kirkpatrick, Vidor's authorized biographer, gained access to the evidence and reconstructed the amazing story of Taylor's murder and Vidor's investigation. Wit ha cast of suspects that includes the actress Mabel Normand, a reputed drug addict; the beautiful ingénue, Mary Miles Minter; Mary's domineering mother, Charlotte Shelby; Taylor's homosexual houseman; and Taylor's secretary, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Taylor's mysteriously elusive brother, this true crime story has all the elements of a classic murder mystery. Covered up for more than half a century, the full story can now be told in all its riveting, shocking detail.