Two books have been written about the unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor. The first by director King Vidor's biographer, Sidney Kirkpatrick, in 1986, theorizes that Mary's jealous mother, Charlotte Shelby, committed the murder and used much of Mary's money to pay off various attorneys. A second book by Robert Giroux suggests that Taylor was killed by a hit man hired by a drug kingpin (Taylor was known for trying to drive drug dealers out of Hollywood).
Was groomed to be "the next Mary Pickford.".