Looking for Mabel Normand

        WHO WAS MARGARET GIBSON_         

                           BY                         

                     MARILYN SLATER                   

   Margaret (Gibby) Gibson's career started as part of 

   her family's business as both of her parents had 

   worked on the stage. Her father was a musician by the 

   name of Ellsbarry J. Gibson, born and raised in Iowa from

   Scotch-Irish stock. Her mother's maiden name was Cellia 

   Ella Fisher, born in Jamesport, Mo in her youth Gibby’s 

   mother was noted for her beauty, her voice was described

  as like the “gentle coming of dawn”.  Gibby was born 

  September 14, 1894, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  

  Colorado Springs was a town where every saloon had 

entertainment for the cowhands and miners coming into town. 

Gibby was thoroughly western in breeding and spirit getting her education on 

the fly, she was an outdoors person. She was of course, a splendid equestrian

and comfortable roughing it. 

By the age of 12 years old, she became the support of her mother.  Her 

mother's father sang, and her mother's mother danced. For two years, she 

appeared on the Patages Vaudeville Circuit. By 1909, she became part of 

The Theodore Lorch Stock Company. By the age of 15, Gibby had played over

100 different parts on the stage before turning her interest to the silent 

screen in 1912 where before long, she was playing leading roles.  Western 

films were an excellent fit. 

In the Fall of 1914, Gibby was working for Vitagraph at their Santa Monica 

Studio.  Moving Picture World wrote of Gibby celebrating her 19th birthday 

with a reception at her own bungalow on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Her 

guests were people she worked with.  It was written that this was the first 

home that she has had.  As a child, her homes were hotels and theatrical 

boardinghouses but after 3 years of working for Vitagraph, she had a home of 

her own, which she had paid for herself.

          "She was like a kid with a new toy.  In the midst of her 

           merriment she tried to sing "Home, Sweet, Home," but it 

           was too much for her.  She wept like a child, but from 

           pure joy.  And her many guests united in claiming it 

           was the most beautiful compliment any home ever received, 

           for the little Vitagraph star, who had never known a home 

           in all her life, welcomed her friends into her own home” 

Another story in the Fall was found in the Movie Pictorial, Gibby is 

described as the youngest leading lady at the Vitagraph Stock Company. Her 

personal talisman were gold-pieces (to quote from the article, Gibby said: 

    “sometimes gold-pieces seem to be more human than human beings, 

     because sometimes mortals are not worth a cent, and the gold 

     coins are always worth a great deal--full face value.”)

Like other pretty women in the films business Gibby receives letters from 

men that had fallen in love with her.  She is said, to have ‘ridden 

through all this empty flatter with as much sound sense as a businessman 

would have’.  Even fellow actors were not immured to her charms; Charles 

Thompson was arrested for stealing jewelry as gifts for her.

                                                  May 15, 1914 VARIETY  

               Infatuated Actor in Jail

        Los Angeles, May 13.--Charles Thompson, 

        an actor, aged 25, is in jail here charged 

        with the theft of $150 worth of jewelry, 

        belonging to his landlady.  The baubles 

        were presented by Thompson to Miss Margaret 

        Gibson, leading woman of the Vitagraph 

        Company, with whom Thompson is said to be 

        infatuated.

This was a great time for her, she was going were she could dance the 

tango, she had been taking lessons that summer, she was seem at Los 

Angeles hotels and at the beach resort dance pavilions, she was young 

and pretty and welling to partner in the tango.  She won 1st prize in 

the Ocean Park Bathing Girls Parade in 1914. Life was good.

                                         September 1914 MOTION PICTURE

          Margaret Gibson Wins First Prize

       for Having the Prettiest Bathing Suit

       The first prize carried with it the honor of

       being the handsomest girl with the niftiest 

       suit, $50 and a beautiful silver and gold 

       loving cup.  Of course, this little champion 

       of the screen had to carry off first prize, 

       and she did it well, too.  Eddie Dillon, of 

       Mutual fame, and W. H. Clune, the Southern 

       California movie magnate were two of the judges

       and they decided right away that Miss Gibson 

       was the winner of first prize…

In 1914 Gibby and the actor William Desmond Taylor worked in 4 films 

together, ‘The Kiss’, ‘The Love of Tokiwa’, ‘The Riders of Petersham’ 

and ‘A Little Madonna’. She co-stared with Charles Ray in ‘The Coward’

1915), during the Triangle formation; she became an actress at the 

Thomas Ince Film Company.

Gibby left Vitagraph the only company she had worked for in April 

of 1915 to work for Richard Stanton at New York Motion Picture 

Company on 'The Sea Ghost'. Gibby was then found in September of 

1915 working for Centaur Features for David Horsley, where she had 

signed a two-year contract where she appeared in 'The Protest' and 

'Could a Man Do More' with Crane Wilbur. She also appeared in 'The 

Soul Cycle'. During that period, a moral attack on the film studios 

elicited the following defensive statement from Miss Margaret (Gibby) 

Gibson:

 "To me, it is outrageous, to read of this 

very rabid attack on the motion picture people.  

I have invariable been treated with the utmost 

courtesy and consideration by the male members 

of my profession.  We are a very busy class 

of people, and to us, art is art!  We really 

have not time to make anything less of it.

"It is people who find that time hangs heavily

on their hands who get into mischief.  Certainly 

that could not apply to motion picture people, 

and I desire to register a vigorous protest by 

the hardest working class of people I know, the 

moving picture people, to the slur cast upon their 

womenfolk!"...

Gibby was an expert equestrian and motorist. She had a stable built 

to accommodate her ‘silky black’ horse named Dan and also a special 

garage for her little, green car. She called them her two pets and 

didn’t know which she loved most; Gibby said in February of 1916, 

"Don is splendid for a ride in the early mornings before work for 

the day has begun.  The little green motor is at its best in the 

evenings, when it can travel miles and miles through the 

flower-scented air, and leave the memory of worries behind.” 

In 1913, it looked like Gibby was on the way 

up in her career. The critics in 1916 who had 

watched the work of this young star since she 

became a member of the Horsley studios were 

unanimous in their verdict that her career had 

but begun.

When Gibby’s contract was completed, she signed 

with Christie Comedy Company to be featured in a 

series of 2-reel comedies. 

But sadly, by 1917 Gibby was arrested for vagrancy, this was a euphemism

for prostitution and she was also accused of dealing opium.  The large 

and very public trial took place and although she was acquitted; she 

changed her screen name to Patricia Palmer.  

Gibby used the name Patricia Palmer in the 1919 “Rowdy Ann” with Fay 

Tincher, Eddie Barry, Harry Depp and Katherine Lewis. Gibby dropped out 

of Christie's for several months returned in November of 1920 to make 

more Christie Comedies. In 1921, she was working for Lasky and was working 

in Long Beach at the Ranger Production using the name Patricia Palmer as 

of August 1922. She continued to work in films; in 1927, she appeared in 

“King of Kings” in a small role.

Gibby used nine different names that I have found Patricia Palmer, Patsy 

Palmer, Margaret Gibson, Margie Gibson, Marguerite Gibson, Helen Gibson, 

Ella Margaret Lewis, Ella Margaret Arce, Pat Lewis. The records at IMDb 

show that she appeared in over 140 movies between 1913 and 1929. 

She was working for Paramount/Lasky in 1921, while her old co-star William 

Desmond Taylor was now a director.  In February 1922, when he was killed he 

was in pre-production on his next feature.  Gibby continued to work during 

the aftermath of the murder. She was never questioned nor was her name 

part of any stories about the killing. 

Again, Gibby was arrested on November 2, 1923 this time on federal felony 

charges regarding a violation of Mann Act dealing with prostitution. It

seems she had tried to blackmail a couple of her customers. Two men she 

was connected with had pleaded guilty, the charges against her were later 

dropped but both the names of Margaret Gibson and Patricia Palmer were used 

in the newspaper stories. She continued to work in films until sound films 

seemed to end her film career in 1929.

I was unable to find any information about Gibby between 1929 and 1935, she 

didn’t seem to make the transition to sound movies and she had changed her 

name a number of times so is a little hard to track.  It is known that she 

went to Singapore in 1935 and married Elbert Lewis.  Elbert worked in 

the Oil business as an auditor for Shell Oil.  In a personal letter from 

Elbert dated February 8, 1942, he writes of the morning of Gibby’s arrival 

in Singapore…”when I pushed all the boats out of the harbor so your ship 

could come in…” This would lead me to believe they knew each other before 

she came to Singapore in 1935.  In other letters, the couple wrote of 

retiring to either South Africa or Australia.  Because of the work Elbert 

did, they traveled extensively in the Indian Ocean area.

In 1940, Gibby returned to the United States for treatment of a bladder 

infection. She had two surgeries at Hollywood Hospital.  The world was at 

war, she was unable to return to her husband, and Elbert could not make his 

way to the States. He was killed in the Japanese’s bombardment of the oil 

facility at Penang, Straits Settlement on March 15, 1942.

Gibby lived on a widow’s pension using the name Pat Lewis in a small house 

in the Hollywood Hills from the 1950s until her death.  She had become a 

Roman Catholic late in her life, living a rather peaceful and quiet life 

with her grey cat named ‘Rajah’ and working in her garden.

On October 21, 1964, Gibby had a heart attack and asked for a priest 

fearing death was near.  A young neighbor reported in 1999, some 35 years 

after Gibby’s death that she had made a deathbed confession of killing 

William Desmond Taylor to him, as the priest had not arrived.  The witness 

recalled Gibby talking about being “nearly caught” and that she had “fled 

the country.”  There is also a story from the same neighbor that while 

watching Ralph Story’s Los Angeles in the 1960s when a program aired about 

the Taylor murder, Gibby had gotten hysterical and said she had killed WDT. 

1921-2

PALMER, Patricia; 

Melrose Hotel, 

120 S. Grand Ave., 

Los Angeles, Calif.

1923-4 

PALMER, Patricia;

2324 Beachwood Dr.

Hollywood, Calif. 

phone: 436-130

Although, Gibby was working at Paramount/Lasky when 

William Desmond Taylor was killed in 1922 making 5 

films, the following years 1923 she appeared in 4 

films and she worked in the film industry until 

1929 she was never became a big Hollywood star.

The books dealing with the unsolved murder included: 

 ___________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

• Giroux, Robert (1990), A Deed of Death,

Knopf, ISBN 0-394-58075-3

• Higham, Charles (2004), Murder in Hollywood

 solving a silent screen mystery, University of Wisconsin

 Press, ISBN 0-299-20360-3 

• Kirkpatrick, Sidney D. A Cast of Killers

(King Vidor's view of the Taylor murder), publisher: Onyx; Reprint edition, 

September 1, 1992, paperback, 336 pages, ISBN 0-451-17418-6. 

• Long, Bruce (1991), William Desmond Taylor: A Dossier,

Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0-8108-2490-6 

• Sennett, Mack (1954), King of Comedy,

Doubleday, ISBN 0-9165-1566-4 

• Brash, S. and J. Cave, ed. (1993), "The Director",

Unsolved Crimes (True Crime Series), Time-Life Books, 

ISBN 0-7835-0012-2 

There is good solid information in all of these books, but of course the 

authors have speculated and have selected the facts that support their 

point of view and some include just plan silly errors.  Bruce Long’s book,

“A Dossier” is listed here but it is his Taylorology, which has become 

the prime source for information regarding the WDT case.

More information found

 _________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

• Taylorology *  Issue 84 -- December 1999     

Editor: Bruce Long    

• Los Angeles Times, Screen Star Faces Judge,

November 3, 1923 page II1

• William Desmond Taylor: The Unsolved  Murder

by Dina-Marie Kulzer 

• Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times,

"Screening Room," April 20, 2000. "...while suffering 

the heart attack that caused her demise, she [Gibson] 

told neighbors that she had shot Taylor." 

• MABEL NORMAND SOURCE BOOK
  by William Thomas Sherman, Seattle WA,  CINEMA BOOKS,Seattle, WA  
  info@cinemabooks.net

• Literateweb.com

• You Tube “The Kiss” (1914)

William Desmond Taylor & Margaret Gibson

• You Tube “12 Silent Film Celebrities”

& the William Desmond Taylor Case 

• You Tube  “Mary Miles Minter Audio Interviews”

• web site on the Taylor case at http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/wdt

• The E! Channel "Mysteries & Scandals"

series to Mabel Normand.

• Raphael F. Long, 1996,

What Did I know and When did I know it?