Denis Gage Deane-Tanner
Denis Gage Deane-Tanner (born 14 September 1876 - ???) was the brother of William Desmond Taylor and nephew of Charles Kearns Deane Tanner.
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Early life
Denis Gage Deane-Tanner was the fourth of five children born to Jane O'Brien and British Army Major Kearns Deane-Tanner in what is now Carlow, Ireland. Denis was raised at the family home, Straw Hall, until he attended school in England. His uncle was Charles Kearns Deane Tanner, an Irish surgeon and politician.
Tanner was a lieutenant in the King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) of the British Army during the Second Boer War, during which time he was awarded both the King's and Queen's medals for service in what is now South Africa.
Life in the United States
After leaving the military, he traveled to New York, arriving in 1903 and, like his elder brother, went into the antique business. Denis wed Ada Charlton Brennan in 1907; the couple would have three children, daughters Muriel Denise and Alice Eleanor and son Kearns, though Kearns died shortly after birth. Ada and son Kearns are buried with several of her Brennan in laws in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.
Ada who had contracted tuberculosis (presumably from Denis, as he and many of his close and distant relatives had the disease) was periodically treated for the illness throughout her life. Denis was in fact treated for the illness at the Acoaxcet Sanitorium in Westport, Massachusetts and the Ogden Farms Sanitorium in New York during their courtship.
On August 25, 1912 (his daughter Muriel's fourth birthday), after visiting Ada in the Edward Livingston Trudeau Sanitorium in Saranac Lake, New York, where she was receiving tuberculosis treatment, Denis, as his brother did several years before him, disappeared from his family and all known friends and acquaintances. From that day forth, Denis never contacted his wife nor children again. After being abandoned, Ada and her daughters moved to Monrovia, California, where Ada continued to receive tuberculosis treatment. Eventually, Denis' brother, Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor, sent Ada $50 per month so she could support her children.[1]
It is believed that Denis eventually moved to Los Angeles, California and resumed contact with and quietly worked for his brother for a few years. The rumor that the blacksmith in Taylor's 1914 film Captain Alvarez was Denis Deane-Tanner was mentioned in the papers and attributed to an anonymous New Yorker who stated he recognized him.
Connection to the murder of William Desmond Taylor
Many theories exist trying to tie the disappearance of Denis to the murder of his brother William. While the rumors vary from the wild and salacious to mere conjecture, the reality is that through the investigations of both the police and reporters of the time, Denis was not the murderer, nor was he a part of the murder. Reporters at the time floated the idea that Denis was masquerading as Edward Sands, his brother's felonious butler. Handwriting analysis of both men and known photo comparisons quickly disqualified the misinformation.
Denis never contacted his family in the United States, nor his family in England and Ireland. It was believed within the family that Denis eventually succumbed to tuberculosis while living in anonymity in either the United States or Europe.
See also
References
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Sources
- I Know Who Killed Desmond Taylor (1997) by Ed King
- Los Angeles Herald Express (2 February 1937)
