she refused to apologize after a troublesome classmate caused her to spill ink from her inkwell on the floor. In 1911, she married bank cashier Kenneth M. Peacock. The couple remained together for five years until Taylor decided to become an actress. She soon found work as an artists' model, posing for Howard Pyle, Harvey Dunn, Leslie Thrasher, and other painters and illustrators. In April 1918, Taylor moved to New York City to study acting at the Sargent Dramatic School. She worked as a hat model for a wholesale millinery store to earn money for her tuition and living expenses. At Sargent Dramatic School, she wrote and performed one-act plays, studied voice inflection and diction, and was noticed by a singing teacher named Mr. Samoiloff who thought her voice was suitable for opera. Samoiloff gave Taylor singing lessons on a contingent basis and, within several months, recommended her to theatrical manager Henry Wilson Savage for a part in the musical Lady Billy. She auditioned for Savage and he offered her work as an understudy to the actress who had the second role in the musical. At the same time, playwright George V. Hobart offered her a role as a "comedy vamp" in his play Come-On, Charlie, and Taylor, who had no experience in stage musicals, preferred the non-musical role and accepted Hobart's offer. Career Broadway debut and Fox (1919–1922) Taylor made her Broadway stage début in George V. Hobart's Come-On, Charlie, which opened on April 8, 1919 at 48th Street Theatre in New York City. The story was about a shoe clerk who has a dream in which he inherits one million dollars and must make another million within six months. It was not a great success and closed after sixteen weeks. Taylor, the only person in the play who wore red beads, was praised by a New York City critic who wrote, "The only point of interest in the show was the girl with the red beads." During the play's run, producer Adolph Klauber saw Taylor's performance and said to the play's leading actress Aimee Lee Dennis: "You know, I think Miss Taylor should go into motion pictures. That's where her greatest future lies. Her dark eyes would screen excellently." Dennis told Taylor what Klauber said, and Taylor began looking for work in films. With the help of J. Gordon Edwards, she got a small role in the film