Happy Birthday to legendary silent film actress Mary Pickford.
Here is a screen cap from Pickford’s final silent film, ‘My Best Girl.’ My great aunt Avonne Taylor (left) had the honor of playing Charles “Buddy” Rogers’ (center) debutante fiancee, Millicent; in this scene he’s just revealed the truth of his identity to Pickford, who then demurely introduces herself to Avonne’s Millicent.
The film can be seen in it’s entirety on either YouTube or DVD.
Above — AVONNE TAYLOR, beauty’s daughter, hails from Cleveland, O. ‘Tis two years since she shook its dust and signed up here with “Flo.”
New York Tribune, June 19, 1921
A Valentine from cartoonist Wesley Morse to Ziegfeld Girl Avonne Taylor, 1922-23(?). Notice the pencilled in “Sorry I missed you” and the quickly sketched self-caricature of Morse with a smoke formed question mark hovering over his head. The 80 illustrated letters Morse penned for Taylor are the only surviving document of their long-ago affair.
Boardwalk Empire - Snapshot of Ziegfeld Girl Avonne Taylor and friends enjoying the popular rolling chair pastime in Atlantic City, 6/18/21.
Written on verso: “This is Max, Blanche and I - She is the little girl I pal around - rather we four - including her sweetheart. She is a dandy girl and the only worth-while one I have met in N.Y. Don’t we all look well?”
Just got off the phone with my dear friend Nils Hanson, administrator of The Ziegfeld Club, and he reports his bio on Lillian Lorraine has finally hit shelves! It’s a book he’s labored over for years and was never sure it would actually see print. He has a special relationship to the subject because his mother served as Lorraine’s personal assistant near the end of her life. Nils was able to interview his mother on tape before she died and has woven that material throughout the book. The story of one of Ziegfeld’s most enigmatic stars is about to be revealed. Nils will be doing an NYC book signing in November at The National Arts Club, I’ll post details closer to the date.
Wesley Morse, Pencil, pen and ink and gouache on personalized stationery, 7.25 x 10.75in.
• How It Seemed To Talk With You Today — Wednesday Night, 1922-23(?)
• To Late (sic) — Thursday Night, 1922-23(?)
Although the majority of the drawings in the The Taylor-Morse Collection are stand-alone gags, there are three sets of two-panel sequential pages. This is a splendid example, with Morse cleverly utilizing the tossed life preserver as a unifying visual and story element. Also, there is a poignant undertone, a sense of longing and loss, present through much of his illustrated correspondence with Avonne.
A Preston Duncan portrait of Avonne Taylor, c. 1927, Hollywood. - from her personal collection.
A Convergence Of Two Girly Art Gods!
FILM FUN magazine, 1924, cover by Enoch Bolles, interior art by Wesley Morse, featuring actress Mae Murray and screen vamp Nita Naldi.
Upon Ziegfeld Girl Avonne Taylor’s death in 1992, the drawings that make up The Taylor-Morse Collection were discovered among personal scrapbooks packed away in a Palm Springs, California storage facility. Taylor’s family uncovered an intimate series of 80 drawings by famed Tijuana Bible and Bazooka Joe cartoonist Wesley Morse done specifically of, and for, Taylor, in 1922-23, each on his personal stationery. These images had remained unseen for 70 years.
Wesley Morse images © 2007 Talley Morse
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