Rod Taylor
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| Rod Taylor | |
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| Born | Rodney Sturt Taylor January 11, 1930  Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Spouse(s) | Carol Kikumura Taylor Peggy Williams (1951-1954) Mary Hilem (1963-1969) |
Rodney Sturt Taylor (born January 11, 1930) is an Australian-born film and television actor. His middle name comes from his great-great grand uncle, Captain Charles Sturt, a famous British explorer of Australia.
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[edit] Life
Born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, Taylor was the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor, and Mona Stewart Taylor, a writer of plays and children's books.
He had attended Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College before deciding to become an actor after having seen Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production in Australia.
After acquiring radio and stage experience in Australia (his radio work included a stint on Blue Hills), Taylor moved to the United States in 1954, where he became a leading man in feature films of the 1960s and 1970s.
In the 1960-1961 television season, Taylor starred as a foreign correspondent Glenn Evans in the ABC series Hong Kong. The program faced stiff competition on Wednesday evenings from NBC's Wagon Train during the season in which Ward Bond died of a heart attack and was replaced as trailmaster by John McIntire.
Equally adept at light comedy and drama, his best-known films are the film version of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1960) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). Other films include Sunday in New York (1963), Fate is the Hunter (1964), Young Cassidy (as the young Sean O'Casey, 1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) with Doris Day, Darker Than Amber (1970), The Picture Show Man (1977), and Cry of the Innocent (1980). In 1993, Taylor hosted "Time Machine: The Journey Back" directed by Clyde Lucas. At the end of the special there was a mini-sequel, written by David Duncan, original writer of the George Pal classic. Taylor recreated his role as George, reuniting him with Filby (Alan Young).
[edit] Married life
Married to third wife Carol Kikumura, Taylor is the father of former CNN financial reporter Felicia Taylor (born 1964), from an earlier marriage.
A life-long artist, he had homes in southern California and in Australia.
[edit] Partial filmography
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[edit] TV shows
Taylor has had several lead roles in television, from the early 1960s to the early 2000s. Among his TV shows are
- The Twilight Zone (1959)
- Hong Kong (1960)
- Bearcats! (1971)
- The Oregon Trail (1976)
- Masquerade (1983)
- Outlaws (1986)
Among semi-regular appearances or multiple episodes:
