Estelle Taylor

Estelle Taylor
Estelle Taylor in the 1920s
Born	Ida Estelle Taylor (1894-05-20)May 20, 1894 Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.
Died	April 15, 1958(1958-04-15) (aged 63) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Cancer
Resting place	Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Education	Wilmington High School
Occupation	Actress, singer, animal rights activist
Years active	1919–1945
Spouse(s)	Kenneth Malcolm Peacock (married 1911–1925) Jack Dempsey (married 1925–1931) Paul Small (married 1943–1945)

Estelle Taylor (May 20, 1894 – April 15, 1958) was an American actress, singer, and animal rights activist. With "dark-brown, almost black hair and brown eyes," she was regarded as one of the most beautiful stars of silent films of the 1920s.

After her stage debut in 1919, Taylor began appearing in small roles in World and Vitagraph films. She achieved her first notable success with While New York Sleeps (1920), in which she played three different roles, including a "vamp." She was a contract player of Fox Film Corporation and, later, Paramount Pictures, but for the most part of her career she freelanced. She became famous and was commended by critics for her portrayals of historical women in important films: Miriam in The Ten Commandments (1923), Mary, Queen of Scots in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924), and Lucrezia Borgia in Don Juan (1926).

Although she made a successful transition to sound films, she retired from film acting in 1932 and decided to focus entirely on her singing career. She was also active in animal welfare before her death from cancer in 1958.

Taylor was born Ida Estelle Taylor to a Jewish family in Wilmington, Delaware. Her father, Harry D. Taylor (born 1871), was born in Delaware. Her mother, Ida LaBertha Barrett (1874–1965), was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and later worked as a freelance makeup artist. Harry and Ida divorced in 1903, and Ida later married vaudevillian Harry J. Boylan. Estelle's sister, Helen Taylor (1898–1990), was cast in supporting roles in a few silent films of the 1920s.

Taylor was raised by her maternal grandparents, Charles Christopher Barrett and Ida Lauber. Her childhood ambition was to become a stage actress. When she was ten years old she sang the role of "Buttercup" in an amateur performance of H.M.S. Pinafore in Wilmington. She attended high school and college in Wilmington. In 1911, she married bank cashier Kenneth M. Peacock.