Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 28 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #34 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes a 1920s Hollywood morality scandal involving actress Estelle Taylor. The narrative mocks the hypocrisy surrounding "free love" and sexual propriety in the era. **The scandal**: Miss Taylor lived with George (likely actor George Ullman) while unmarried. When police ("Dicks") raided the house, actress Seena Owen apparently reported the arrangement. Taylor sued Owen for $100,000, claiming damage to her reputation—despite publicly defending cohabitation and laughing at the trial. **The satire's point**: The magazine ridicules the contradiction between Taylor's stated belief that unmarried couples should live together freely, and her simultaneous claim that exposure destroyed her "morality and virtue." It's absurd to defend free love while suing for reputation damage based on exactly that behavior. **Final section reference**: The piece transitions to Upton Sinclair's relationship—his ex-partner wrote articles arguing against free love after their relationship failed, setting up a similar hypocrisy angle for continuation. The humor targets both Hollywood and progressive ideology of the period.
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26 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Cahuenga Avenue and, therefore, something wrong was going on. However, Miss Taylor, said there certainly was **nothing** wrong going on and she didn't see why they shouldn't live in the same house if they wanted to! Miss Taylor has even gone a step further by bringing a $100,000 damage suit against Seena Owen for “destruction of her good reputation for morality and virtue.” And Miss Taylor appeared in court the other day and laughed right out loud at Seena, too. You see Estelle's mamma invited George to live at their house on Cahuenga and move away from the Ambassador Hotel. Then mamma went to New York on a trip and on January 27th at midnight, three horrid “Dicks” burst into the front door of the house. George was getting ready for bed and Estelle was in the bath-tub but what's wrong with that, pray tell? The “Dicks” had to acknowledge they saw nothing wrong! Estelle says grandma didn't want her to go into pictures anyhow—too risky. She had tried to keep her in the clean path of vaudeville. She says she's an innocent pawn in the whole trouble between George and Seena and is peeved to the extent of $100,000! *** DOES FREE love bring happiness? Upton Sinclair's former common law wife, after their free love union had come to disaster wrote a series of articles in order to prove that