Rodney Sturt Taylor (11 January 1930 – 7 January 2015) was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including Young Cassidy (1965), Nobody Runs Forever (1968), The Train Robbers (1973) and A Matter of Wife... and Death (1975).
Taylor was born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, to a father who was a steel construction contractor and commercial artist and a mother who was a children's author. He began taking art classes in high school, and continued in college. He decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production of Richard III.
His first film role was in a re-enactment of Charles Sturt's voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, playing Sturt's offsider, George Macleay. At the time, he was also appearing in a number of theater productions for Australia's Mercury Theater. He made his feature film debut in the Australian Lee Robinson film King of the Coral Sea (1954). He soon started acting in television films, portraying several different characters in the 1950s anthology series Studio 57.
He started to gain popularity after starring in The Time Machine (1960), as H. George Wells. He later starred in the Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), voicing Pongo. In one of his most famous roles, he played Mitch Brenner in The Birds (1963), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. By the late 1990s, Taylor had moved into semi-retirement. His final film role was in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), portraying a fictionalized version of Winston Churchill in a cameo.
Taylor was born on 11 January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and Mona Taylor (née Thompson), a writer of more than a hundred short stories and children's books. His middle name comes from his great-great-granduncle, Captain Charles Sturt, a British explorer of the Australian outback in the 19th century.
Taylor attended Parramatta High School and later studied at the East Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College and took art classes. His mother wanted him to be an artist, and pressured him into taking the art classes. For a time he worked as a commercial artist, but he decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production of Richard III.
Taylor soon landed roles in television shows such as Studio 57 and the films Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) and Giant (1956). In 1955, he guest-starred as Clancy in the third episode ("The Argonauts") of the first hour-long Western television series, Cheyenne, an ABC program starring Clint Walker.
Toward the end of 1955, Taylor unsuccessfully screen tested to play boxer Rocky Graziano in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Somebody Up There Likes Me after James Dean's death, but his use of a Brooklyn accent and physical prowess in the test impressed the studio enough to give him a long-term contract. At MGM, he played a series of supporting roles in The Catered Affair (1956), Raintree County (1957), and Ask Any Girl (1959). He had a significant role in Separate Tables (1958), which won Oscars for two of its stars, David Niven and Wendy Hiller. He also made a strong impression guest-starring in an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "And When the Sky Was Opened" (1959).
Taylor's first leading role in a feature film was in The Time Machine (1960), George Pal's adaptation of the science-fiction classic by H. G. Wells, with Taylor as the time traveller who, thousands of years in the future, falls for a woman played by Yvette Mimieux. Taylor played a character not unlike that of his Twilight Zone episode of a year earlier and the film World Without End in 1956.
In or around 1960, he was approached regarding the role of James Bond in the first feature-length Bond film. Taylor reportedly declined to become involved because he considered the character of Bond "beneath him" Taylor later commented: "Every time a new Bond picture became a smash hit ... I tore out my hair."
Taylor starred in Alfred Hitchcock's horror thriller The Birds (1963), along with Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy and Veronica Cartwright, playing a man whose town and home come under attack by menacing birds. Taylor then starred with Jane Fonda in the romantic comedy Sunday in New York (also 1963).
During the mid-1960s, Taylor worked mostly for MGM. His credits including The V.I.P.s (1963), his first feature film role as an Australian, with Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Maggie Smith; Fate Is the Hunter (for 20th Century Fox, 1964) with Glenn Ford and Suzanne Pleshette; 36 Hours (1964) with James Garner; Young Cassidy (1965) with Julie Christie and Maggie Smith; The Liquidator (1965) with Jill St. John; Do Not Disturb (1965); and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), both co-starring Doris Day.
He began to change his image toward the end of the decade to more tough-guy roles, such as Chuka (1967), which he also produced, and he starred in Hotel (1967) with Catherine Spaak; Dark of the Sun (or The Mercenaries, 1968), again with Yvette Mimieux; Nobody Runs Forever (1968) where he played New South Wales Police Sergeant Scobie Malone, this being Taylor's first starring feature film role as an Australian; and Darker than Amber (1970) as Travis McGee.
He was also reportedly up for the role of martial artist Roper in the Bruce Lee vehicle Enter the Dragon (1973). The film was directed by Robert Clouse, who had also directed Taylor in the film Darker than Amber (1970). Taylor was supposedly deemed too tall for the part, and the role instead went to John Saxon.
His first wife was model Peggy Williams (1951–1954). They divorced after allegations of domestic violence. Taylor later claimed that they divorced because they felt they were too young to have a healthy marriage. Taylor dated and was briefly engaged to Swedish actress Anita Ekberg in the early 1960s. He dated model Pat Sheehan in the late 1960s.
His second marriage was to model Mary Hilem and lasted from 1963 until they divorced in 1969. The couple had one daughter, former CNN financial reporter Felicia Taylor (1964-2023). Taylor bought a home in Palm Springs, California in 1967.
He married his third wife, Carol Kikumura, in 1980. They had originally dated in the early 1960s when she was an extra on his TV series Hong Kong. The couple got back together in 1971 and dated for an additional nine years before marrying.
Taylor died of a heart attack at his home, surrounded by his family, on 7 January 2015, in Beverly Hills, California, four days before his 85th birthday.
If you want to read more, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Taylor#Early_life
- SERVES
- 4
- COOK TIME
- 15 Min
Shake up your ordinary dinner (or breakfast) routine with our mouthwatering Redneck Chicken-Fried Steak. Not only does it take just 15 minutes, but this is a dish that'll get requested over and over again!
- 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
- 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 4 (4-ounce) cubed steaks
- 5 tablespoons butter, divided
- 1 cup milk
- In a shallow dish, combine 1/3 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. In another shallow dish, combine the eggs and water. Place bread crumbs in a third shallow dish; add cayenne pepper and mix well. Coat steaks with flour mixture then dip in egg mixture, and coat with bread crumb mixture.
- In a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, melt 4 tablespoons butter. Add steaks and fry 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until cooked through and golden. Drain on a paper towel-lined platter and cover to keep warm.
- Make a white gravy by adding remaining butter to skillet and melting over low heat; add remaining flour and stir until smooth. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add milk; cook over medium heat until thickened and bubbly, stirring constantly. Stir in remaining salt and pepper. Serve steaks topped with gravy.
- The origin of lasagna is debated with varying theories.
- Initially, the word lasagna referred to the pot in which the dish was cooked rather than the food.
- A 14th-century English cookbook featured a recipe for lasagna.
- Even cartoon characters enjoy the dish. Garfield, the cat, declares his love for lasagna in the cartoon strip with his name.
