Estelle Taylor

Was named after her maternal grandmother, Ida (Lauber) Barrett (1858-1946).

Her father, Harry D. Taylor, was born in January 1871 in Delaware.

Her mother, Ida LaBertha Barrett (1874-1965), was born in Easton, Pennsylvania. She married Estelle's father in 1893 and divorced him in 1903. Her third husband was a vaudevillian, Harry J. Boylan.

A former typist, Estelle Taylor married a banker at age 14 and, after leaving him, moved to New York to study dramatic acting. She also modeled for artists and appeared in the chorus of a couple of Broadway shows. In the early 1920s she came to Hollywood and was noted as one of the film state's most beautiful women.

Refused to play the title role in The Queen of Sheba (1921) because of the scantiness of the costumes. The part was then given to Betty Blythe, another Fox star.

She signed a contract with Paramount Pictures on the strength of her performance as Miriam in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923). DeMille, who had already made female stars of relatively unknown starlets (e.g. Gloria Swanson, Bebe Daniels, Agnes Ayres), chose Taylor as his new female star. Unfortunately, for some obscure reason, the roles that had been announced for her in Feet of Clay (1924) and The Golden Bed (1925) were given to other actresses. However, she still had the desire to work for DeMille again. She coveted a part in The Volga Boatman (1926) and was one of the serious candidates for the role of Mary Magdalene in The King of Kings (1927). DeMille and Taylor never worked together again after "The Ten Commandments", but it seems that there were no hard feelings between them, since Taylor visited DeMille on the 30th anniversary of his first film in 1942.

Antonio Moreno was her leading man in two films: Tiger Love (1924) and The Whip Woman (1928). Moreno once said that Taylor was his favorite co-star because she looked Spanish and was a natural actress.

In 1925 she married 1920s heavyweight champion boxer Jack Dempsey.

"Photoplay" included her role in Where East Is East (1929) in its eight Best Performances of the Month (June 1929).

Co-starred in one film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture: Cimarron (1931).

She made a screen test for the role of Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind (1939).

On the night of December 4, 1944, she spent an evening of dinner and drinks with actress Lupe Velez and was the last person to see Lupe before she committed suicide. Taylor was founder and president of the California Pet Owners' Protective League and was widely known for her devotion to pets.

Lived to see the release of The Ten Commandments (1956), the remake of one of her silent films, The Ten Commandments (1923). Julia Faye, Taylor's friend and co-star in the silent version, became the only credited cast member to appear in both films. Taylor passed away a couple of years later, in 1958.

Was cast as Rudolph Valentino's leading lady in a planned film about the life of 16th-century Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini, but Valentino died before the film was made.