BABY-faced Squizzy Taylor didn’t look like your average criminal. But what the 157-centimetre tall gangster lacked in physical attributes he made up for in charisma, and his name resonates more than 80 years after his death.Taylor’s life will be displayed in an exhibition at the Old Melbourne Gaol. Opening on Monday, and drawing on material from the Victoria Police Museum, State Library and Public Records Office, the exhibition will feature digital copies of police records, newspaper reports, images, costumes and footage from the latest in the Underbelly franchise, Underbelly: Squizzy, which premieres on the Nine Network next month.
“People have always been fascinated with the Squizzy story because he was quite a celebrity for the day,” says Rosemary Hanscombe, a National Trust curator who spent six months putting the exhibition together. “He was often writing articles and poetry for newspapers and he knew how to manipulate the media to his advantage. In the mid-’20s, when he came out of hiding and handed himself in to police, he complained he was being blamed for all the crimes in Melbourne. He had become larger than life.”
Taylor was able to get away with almost all his crimes. He was implicated in six murders – including the brutal killing of chauffeur William Haines who refused to co-operate in one of Taylor’s audacious armed robberies – but was never convicted of a capital charge.
“He was regularly involved in crimes and would get acquitted for stuff,” says Hanscombe. “Either through luck or getting people to do the crimes, or through jury tampering and witness tampering. It’s interesting to read about this as it shows us how the legal system has changed and how it protects people today.”
Born in 1888 in Brighton, Joseph Leslie Theodore Taylor – who was said to have been nicknamed Squizzy because of an eye defect – was a sullen child. He was the second youngest of five siblings and was very close to his mother. When his father died, the family, crippled by poverty, moved to the slums of Richmond where Squizzy trained as a jockey. But the lure of money seduced him into crime, and instead of competing in front of the wealthy racegoers, he was often behind them, scavenging their pockets. By his teens he had joined a gang called the Bourke Street Rats.
“He also modelled himself on Al Capone and the bootleggers of the 20th century,” says Hanscombe, “although he was never quite as rich as them, and he did a lot more of his own crimes.”
The exhibition reveals how Taylor became a key underworld figure. His income came from armed robbery, prostitution, illegal liquor and drugs, race-fixing and protection rackets. “Squizzy painted himself a bit like a Robin Hood character,” says author Chris Grierson, whose book, Touch the Black: The Life and Death of Squizzy Taylor, was published last year. “A lot of poor people looked up to him. He was sometimes generous, giving money to people in the street, and people liked the idea that he was sticking it to the authorities.”
Grierson, who worked with National Trust curators on the exhibition, says he was inspired to write the book after hearing anecdotes and folk tales. “He seems to have a presence in Melbourne,” says Grierson. “Even today, everyone has a Squizzy Taylor story.” Although Taylor was as despised as he was admired, records highlight his fashionable appearance and excessive lifestyle. Journalist and Squizzy Taylor expert Russell Robinson reported in one article that the gangster liked to smoke expensive cigars and filled his St Kilda villa with pink and white statues, thick carpets and Mae West lounge chairs. A wanted poster in the Police Gazette read that Taylor was: “Aged 44 years, looks 31 years, 5ft 2in in height, of light build, dark complexion, clean-shaven, dark piercing eyes, generally dressed in a blue twill suit, a black overcoat with belt at back and a velvet collar and a black boxer hat.”
Peter Gawler, a writer and producer on Underbelly: Squizzy, says the series focuses on Taylor’s many personas – from master manipulator to limelight-loving rogue. “Squizzy is not without faults,” he says. “He always puts himself first … But he is incredibly engaging and has the ability to gather a lot of crooks and people around him. People want to be mates with him, others want to follow him and he has a way with women.”
No story of Taylor would be complete without his three main women. Two of his lovers joined his criminal pursuits, working as drivers, shoplifters, temptresses. Prostitute Dolly Gray, his first lover, dispensed sexual favours to Taylor’s associates and was involved in blackmailing and pickpocketing. She took a bullet to her head. Waitress Irene Lorna Kelly married Squizzy in 1920 and gave birth to his first child not long after. But it was Ida Muriel Pender, the 17-year-old jazz dancer, who was Taylor’s kindred spirit. Pender became Bonnie to Squizzy’s Clyde. “One of the interesting things about Squizzy was that all the women in his life seemed to love him for all their lives,” says Gawler.
Underbelly: Squizzy premiers on Channel Nine in late July.■
