Name Grant Taylor Role Actor | Children Kit Taylor | |
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Died 1971, London, United Kingdom Movies and TV shows Similar People | ||
Grant taylor
Grant Taylor (6 December 1917 – 1971), real name Ronald Grant Taylor, was an English-born actor best known as the abrasive General Henderson in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO and for his lead role in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940).
Contents
- Grant taylor
- Grant taylor the makas
- Early life
- Acting debut
- Forty Thousand Horsemen and Stardom
- Army service
- Post War career
- Australian Television
- Return to the UK
- Personal life
- Filmography
- Select TV credits
- Select theatre credits
- Select radio credits
- References
Grant taylor the makas
Early life
Taylor was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in England, but moved to Australia with his parents as a child. For a time he worked as a professional boxer in Melbourne under the name of Lance Matheson. According to a later newspaper report, he had 70 bouts, lost 8 and drew 11.
Acting debut
Cinesound Productions were looking for someone with wrestling skills to play the part of a gorilla in Gone to the Dogs (1939), so Taylor auditioned. He did not get the part but met Alec Kellaway who persuaded him to join Cinesound's Talent School.
Ken G. Hall said that one of the problems of the Australian industry of this time was they "were consistently short of trained juveniles and ingenues". Cinesound in particular had a great deal of trouble finding male romantic leads. They either left to work in radio (Dick Fair), returned overseas (John Longden, Billy Rayes), left for overseas (Frank Leighton), or died (Brian Abbot). Cinesound Talent School was partly founded with an intention to rectify this.
Taylor's physique, good looks and charm saw Ken G. Hall cast him as the juvenile lead in Dad Rudd, MP (1940) opposite Yvonne East. The Sydney Truth later wrote:
Taylor... scored in the scenes of the flood, where, clad in oilskins, he shouted instructions above the torrent of the waters. He was happier in the romantic finale, too, than Australian leading men are wont to be. But lighting did not flatter his appearance, nor microphone his voice, in some of the early scenes.
Forty Thousand Horsemen and Stardom
Taylor was then selected by Charles Chauvel to play the lead role of 'Red' Gallagher in the war film Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940). Chauvel had cast Errol Flynn in his first lead role. His wife Elsa described Taylor as like "a big kid on the set.
This movie was a massive international success and a Hollywood or English career beckoned, but Taylor elected to stay in Australia. Career-wise it proved to be a bad decision, as film production in Australia declined sharply with the advent of World War II and Taylor was unable to follow up his success immediately.
Army service
Taylor enlisted in the Australian army on 7 October 1942. During the war he served as a military policeman, in the Army Amenities Unit based in Sydney and in the Australian Army Entertainment Unit alongside Smoky Dawson. Part of his duties involved visiting the troops and touring the islands.
Taylor was given leave to appear in some propaganda shorts, such as While There is Still Time (1942), 100,000 Cobbers (1942), Another Threshold (1942) and South West Pacific (1943). He was allowed to appear in the feature The Rats of Tobruk (1944), which reunited him with Chauvel and Chips Rafferty.
In 1945, it was announced that he would star in another Chauvel film, Green Mountain, but by the time the movie was actually made in 1949 (as Sons of Matthew), he did not appear in it. His final film made during his army service was Australia Is Like This (1945). He appeared in A Soldier for Christmas at the Minerva Theatre in Kings Cross.
Taylor was discharged on 26 February 1946.
Post War career
After the war Taylor was unable to consolidate his position as a film star, and saw the majority of leading man roles go instead to actors such as Charles Tingwell and Chips Rafferty. However he remained busy as a character actor, and in radio and theatre.
He was a sergeant in Eureka Stockade (1949) - Rafferty had the leading role - and played a thug in The Kangaroo Kid (1950). He took part in the 1951 re-enactment of Sir Charles Sturt's journey down the Murrimbidgee River, playing Sturt - a film of this was made, called Inland with Sturt (1951). He had a role in another short, Far West Story (1952) then returned to lead roles when he played the title part in Captain Thunderbolt (1953).
He was cast in a support role in a Hollywood film shot in Fiji, His Majesty O'Keefe (1954). The director, Byron Haskin liked Taylor's performance and used him again as a pirate in Long John Silver, and its television spin off, The Adventures of Long John Silver. His son Kit played Jim Hawkins. He was in two big stage hits, Dial M for Murder and Teahouse of the August Moon.
In the late 1950s Taylor appeared in several productions for the Elizabethan Theatre Trust, including The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day.
In 1959 Taylor appeared in a brief role in Stanley Kramer's On the Beach. He played a mystery man in Smiley Gets a Gun (1958), and a policeman in The Siege of Pinchgut (1959). He toured with a production of Fire on the Wind.
He had several roles in Whiplash (1960-61). He then focused on theatre, touring the country in The Pleasure of His Company (1960), Bye Bye Birdie (1961), and Woman in a Dressing Gown (1962-63).
Australian Television
Taylor made his live TV debut in Funnel Web (1962) for the ABC, playing a murderer. The Sydney Morning Herald called his performance "easy-limbed, masterful". He had good roles in the TV plays Jenny (1962), Flowering Cherry (1963), The Right Thing (1964), and The One That Got Away (1964).
He was kicked in the head filming a brawl while making Smiley Gets a Gun and had to take off a number of days.
In 1964 he appeared in the ABC-TV children's adventure serial The Stranger, Australia's first locally produced science fiction TV series, which was also sold to the BBC. He was in an episode of Adventure Unlimited.
Return to the UK
Returning to the United Kingdom in early 1963, Taylor worked on the long-running medical drama Emergency Ward 10. This led to plenty of work in character roles, from Anglia TV's soap opera Weavers Green (where Taylor had a regular part) and several Lew Grade-backed projects, including The Avengers, The Champions and The Troubleshooters. He also appeared in a British TV adaptation of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1964).
He appeared in a production of Twelve Angry Men on the West End and had a regular role in the TV series Weaver's Green' (1966)' He was a Scots border chieftain in the BBC's 1968 colour costume drama The Borderers.
A high profile role for him was in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO, where he played sometime-ally, sometime-antagonist General Henderson. His last appearance in the series was in the penultimate episode 'Mindbender', where he also appears as himself, acting the role of Henderson in the studio.
Taylor appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and in Calamity the Cow (with Phil Collins).
Personal life
Taylor's wife, Jean, was fatally injured in an accident at their Potts Point home after she fell over on her way back from a party on 23 April 1956. She was taken to hospital and died a few days later of bronchial pneumonia.
He died of cancer in 1971 aged 54.