In Popular Culture
- The 1950 film Sunset Boulevard with William Holden and Gloria Swanson featured a fictional, aging silent screen actress named Norma Desmond whose name was taken from Taylor's middle name and Mabel Normand's last name as a way to resonate with the widely publicised scandals of almost thirty years before.
- Gore Vidal's 1990 novel Hollywood features a fictionalised account of the Taylor murder.
- Taylor's murder was depicted in David Merrick's production of the Jerry Herman - Michael Stewart "cult" musical Mack & Mabel which opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre on 6 October 1974 and ran for six previews and 66 regular performances. Directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, the production starred Robert Preston as Mack Sennett and Bernadette Peters as Mabel Normand, with James Mitchell portraying William Desmond Taylor.
Read more about this topic: William Desmond Taylor
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)
“If mass communications blend together harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their common denominator—the commodity form. The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value, counts.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)