Name Samuel Taylor Role Novelist | Parents John W. Taylor | |
Died September 26, 1997, Provo, Utah, United States Books The Man with My Face, Nightfall at Nauvoo Movies Flubber, The Absent‑Minded Professor, The Man with My Face, The Man Who Returned Similar People Bill Walsh, John W Taylor, Les Mayfield, John Taylor, Robert Stevenson | ||
Education Brigham Young University | ||
Samuel Woolley Taylor (February 5, 1907 – September 26, 1997) was an American novelist, scriptwriter, and historian.
Contents
Biography
Taylor was born in Provo, Utah to Janet "Nettie" Maria Woolley and John W. Taylor, the son of John Taylor, the late president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Samuel's father was a former member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, having left in 1905 in protest over the church's recent abandonment of polygamy. Despite his father's ecclesiastical history and excommunication in 1911, Samuel was raised in the LDS Church. He later wrote a biography of his father called Family Kingdom, and one of his grandfather titled The Kingdom or Nothing.
In the late 1920s Taylor attended Brigham Young University (BYU) studying journalism. He became editor of the student newspaper Y News, in which he also wrote a weekly column called "Taylored Topics." After covering a story about bootleggers on campus, Taylor was questioned by school administration to divulge his sources, but he refused. After a temporary suspension, he returned to his previous position with the paper, and returned to upsetting administration with his writing. After six suspensions, he later recalled that he could "take a hint" and dropped out of BYU. By then he had already published five articles in nationally distributed magazines. He decided to "escape" Utah and followed Gay Dimick, a fellow BYU student, back to her native California. They married there in 1934 and established their longtime home in Redwood City.
In World War II, he served as an officer in the Army Air Force public relations office in the European theater of war.
He was awarded an honorary lifetime membership by the Association for Mormon Letters in 1994.
Film scripts and adaptations
In 1942, the first film based on one of Taylor's stories, The Man Who Returned to Life, was released. This was later followed in 1951 by The Man with My Face based on his novel of the same name.
His first foray into screenwriting began with Bait in 1954.
In contrast to the serious nature of these films, Taylor was also the author of two short stories, published in Liberty, on which the Disney movies The Absent-Minded Professor, Flubber, and Son of Flubber were based.
He is sometimes incorrectly credited as the writer of Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo, though that screenplay was actually written by Samuel A. Taylor.
General novels
Those novels not dealing specifically with Mormonism:
Latter-day Saint works
(republished as The Last Pioneer, Signature Books, 1999, ISBN 1-56085-115-5)
(autobiography)
Mormon comedy set in Utah, originally published as serials in Collier's magazine under the title "The Mysterious Way". Has been called the funniest piece of fiction written on Mormon culture.
Criticism
Taylor was an early proponent of a Mormon literature in essays such as "Peculiar People, Positive Thinkers and the Prospects of Mormon Literature" (Dialogue, 1967) and "Little Did She Realize: Writing for the Mormon Market" (Dialogue, 1969), wherein he decried the current state of the literature and called for greater artistry and realism. Taylor continued to publish criticism related to Mormon culture in Dialogue as well as Sunstone magazine.