Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-08-15
HOPED To WE'D
VIM. TAYLOR
Mary Miles Minter Tells OF
Associations With Slain
Film Director

LOS ANGELES, Cal, Aug. Is
Mary Miles Minter, motion picture
actress, was not formally engaged to
marry William Desmond Taylor,
film director, who was shot to death
In his apartments here February
1, 1922, but hoped some day they
might marry, according to her signed
story published in the Los Angeles
Times today.
I'VE were never engaged in the
sense hat he had asked me to marry
him and l had promised" the story
stated. 81 had always hoped that
some time we would be married. I
had planned in my own mind-never
with MI. Taylor-that as soon as I
had made enough money SO that
mother and sister could be assured
of a comfortable income for the rest
of their lives, that perhaps we would
be married. But we were not en-
Gagged in the sense of wearing a ring,
or of telling ones friends of an in
tention to marry or of telling my
mother. Marrying Mr.. Taylor was
just my dream-a dream which,
voiced to him, always met with the
answer that it was impossible"
In her story Miss Minter also told
| of differences which have arisen be-
tween her and her mother, Mrs.
Charlotte Shelby, over an accounting
of the actress earnings which, she
asserted, must be settled by at
torneys or the courts"
II shall not see mother again."
| she affirmed.
Mrs. Shelby is reported conva-
lescing from a recent major opera
ton.
Miss Minter's story told of how
Taylor put his arm around her dur-
ing a motor ride on her seventeenth
birthday; of how she grew to adj
mire him; of an alleged affront she
said her mother offered the director;
how the girl apologized, only to
hear Taylor tell her that her
mother was right" how he was the
first perso INTO call her Miss Minter'. +,
which impressed her, as ub to that
time she had been generally consid-
cred a little girl, and everybody had
called her Mary of how he finally
told her not to write or phone him;
| how she suffered when she heard he
was i'll; how while in Europe, she
learned of his war record, which
made her proud because he had
never mentioned it to her; and how
finally, a few weeks before he was
hlllCdy III CdlASu al LILO oPoL lAAACAA1
late at night.
He told her she should not have
gone there, she stated, and she re-
piled she had gone to tell him good
bye ana thrust into his hand a note
reading:
Dear William Desmond Taylor:-
This is good bye. L want you to
know that 1 will always love your,
Mary"
Then, her story goes on HE put
his arms about me and kissed me.
L love you, Mary, better than any
thing in this world, better than
IGod.'" she declared he said.
THAT was the last time I ever saw
him alone" she went on. Her story
proceeds to the morning her mother
told her Taylor had been murdered.
"Where were you last night?" she
asked.
81 was here, of course I said,
hardly realizing what she was say
Ing"
Then Miss Minter dressed. Her
mother asked where she was going.
ITO him, of course"
81 shall not let you"
IT am going to him if I have to
throttle you to get past" Miss Minter
stated she told her mother, and the
latter stepped aside. But she ar
rived at Taylor's. apartments too late
the body had been removed to an
undertaker's establishment. So she
called, on Miss Normand, who said
she knew nothing of the Staying, X
cept what she had been told, the
narrative added.
"The next day I went to the un-
dertaker's rooms, and the undertake
er let me in all alone with him." she
wrote. II pulled back the sheet and
looked at him, but he was not the
same. His skin was waxen. I leaned
down and put my arms about him,
my cheek to his. His face was cold,
SO cold, but not as cold like ice.
"tDo you love me, Desmond?' I
said.
HE answered me, I could hear his
voice:
81 love you Mary, 1 shall love you
always he whispered.
II kissed him and put a red rose
in his hand from some l had brought
with me. The door opened. The
undertaken was there. l went away"