Margaret Shelby

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Margaret Shelby

Margaret Shelby, born Margaret Reilly, also known as Alma M. Fillmore, (June 16, 1900 – December 21, 1939) was an American stage and motion picture actress, older sister of silent film star Mary Miles Minter and one of many public figures in the William Desmond Taylor murder case and subsequent scandals.

1 Film career
2 Marriages and family scandal
3 Trivia
4 References
5 Filmography
6 External links

[edit] Film career

Her first Broadway appearance was in Grace Livingston Furniss's play The Fibber and In 1916 Shelby and sister Mary Miles Minter acted together for the first time in Director James Kirkwood's picture Faith. Although pretty [1] and noted as having some talent as an actress her film career was mostly limited to supporting roles in some of her sister's films.

[edit] Marriages and family scandal

Scandals following the 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor ended her sister's film career and Margaret subsequently took small bit parts in sundry productions.[2] With the coming of talkies in the late 1920s her career ended. On September 13, 1938 Margaret publicly accused her mother of having killed Taylor over her sister's lengthy romance with the film director. A 1964 death bed confession to the murder by Ella Margaret Gibson was publicized in 1999.

Margaret Shelby was briefly married to Hugh Fillmore, grandson of US President Millard Fillmore. They divorced in 1927. In March 1937 she eloped to Yuma, Arizona with Emmett J. Flynn but this marriage was annulled a month later (April 27, 1937) and Flynn died the following June.[3]

On June 5, 1937 the two sisters filed a lawsuit against their mother Charlotte Shelby, claiming financial mismanagement during their earlier film careers. Shelby and Minter further contended their mother had stolen $48,750 (roughly almost $2 million in 2007 inflation-adjusted terms) from a safety deposit box in a Los Angeles, California bank. A jury awarded them $20,000.

Margaret Shelby reportedly suffered from clinical depression and chronic alcoholism. She died in 1939.

[edit] Trivia

In 1916 Margaret Shelby and her sister Mary Miles Minter established a widely publicized "hotel" for stray dogs on the ample grounds of their Santa Barbara, California home.

[edit] References

Janesville, Wisconsin Daily Gazette, News Notes From Movieland, October 23, 1916, Page 6.
Los Angeles Times, Film Slaying Witness Dies, December 23, 1939, Page 1.