Henry Peavey
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Henry Peavey (March 3, 1882 [1] – December 27, 1931) was the illiterate[2] African American cook and valet of Hollywood silent film director William Desmond Taylor for six months. His prior history before working for Taylor included employment by Mrs. Christy Cabanne.[3] A day or two before Taylor's murder, Peavey had been arrested for "social vagrancy" and charged with being "lewd and dissolute".[4] On the day following Taylor's murder on February 1, 1922, Taylor was scheduled to appear in court on Peavey's behalf.
It was Peavy who discovered Taylor's body at 7:30 on the morning of February 2, 1922. He was repeatedly questioned by police and reporters for possible leads, but was of little help. Some Hearst reporters suspected that Peavey was withholding information, so they kidnapped him a few weeks after the crime and attempted to scare him into a confession.[5]
In a 1930 interview, Peavey expressed the (widely unsupported) opinion that Mabel Normand had been the person who killed Taylor.[6]
A few months after the Taylor murder, Peavey left Los Angeles and went to San Francisco. He was admitted to the Napa State Hospital with general paresis in 1930 and died in 1931. [7] [8]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Henry Peavey in the World War I draft living in San Francisco.
- ^ "Meet Henry Peavey", Los Angeles Record (February 13, 1922), reprinted in Taylorology 86.
- ^ "Meet Henry Peavey", Los Angeles Record (February 13, 1922), reprinted in Taylorology 86.
- ^ "Valet in Court on Vagrancy Charge", Los Angeles Record (February 3, 1922), reprinted in Taylorology 60.
- ^ Los Angeles Times (February 22, 1922), reprinted in Taylorology 6. For the perspective of one of the kidnappers, see Florabel Muir, Headline Happy (Holt, 1950), pp. 100-102.
- ^ Los Angeles Record (January 7, 1930). This is examined much further in "Why Taylor's Servant Thought Mabel Normand was the Killer", Taylorology 10.
- ^ 'Los Angeles Times (May 11, 1937).
- ^ "Taylor Valet Hunt Opens. Fitts Aide Desires to Question Peavey on New Developments.", Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1937. Retrieved on 2007-07-21. "Search for Henry Peavey, former Negro valet for William Desmond Taylor, was instituted by the District Attorney's office yesterday as the reopened investigation into the murder of the once famous motion-picture director took on added intensity."
