The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures

by Edward Ball,
The San Francisco Chronicle, January 27, 2013

On the surface, Leland Stanford and Eadweard Muybridge were an odd couple. One of the wealthiest men in the United States, Stanford lived high, dressed well (rarely leaving home without a top hat and an ivory-headed, gold-inlaid cane), said little and exuded rectitude and dignity. Fast-talking, intense and unkempt (with a beard down to his chest, dirty pants, dusty boots and a sombrero), a self-proclaimed artist and visionary, Muybridge had committed a premeditated murder that nearly sent him to the gallows.