Who was Robert Taylor and what unforgettable movies did he star in? 54 years since the loss of the legendary Hollywood actor
Robert Taylor was one of the most important leading men in classic cinema since his big screen debut in the decade of the 30s. The actor was born on August 5, 1911 in the town of Filley, Nebraska (United States) and was the son of Spangler Andrew and Ruth Sanhope.
The interpreter, who moved to California to continue his medical studies, decided to join a university theater group. From there, “the man with the perfect profile” (as he was nicknamed in the 1930s) made a tremendous leap to movie stardom with his great performances and made his Fox debut in 1934 with a small role in ‘Recipe for happiness’.
Soon after, Taylor managed to sign a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and he was linked to this studio for practically his entire acting life. In addition, the actor was a strong commercial bulwark for the well-known company.
Robert, in the second half of the 30’s, carried out an endless number of projects such as ‘broadway tunes‘ (1936), ‘A Girl From the Provinces’ (1936), ‘Marguerite Gautier’ (1937), ‘three comrades‘ (1938) or ‘A Yankee in Oxford’ (1939), among others.
In the year 1939, he married the great actress Barbara Stanwick (born 1907), with whom she had shared the bill in films such as ‘His Brother’s Wife‘ (1936) and ‘Password‘ (1937), and with whom he met again in ‘love between shadows‘ (1964), a horror film directed by William Castle. However, in this last film Taylor’s marriage was completely broken after her divorce in 1951.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Robert continued to cement his position as a romantic heartthrob in classic cinema. The actor participated in important titles that raised his prestige to the highest point in Hollywood: ‘Exhaust‘ (1940), ‘Forbidden Path’ (1941), ‘bataan‘ (1943), ‘Undercurrents’ (1946), ‘Quo Vadis‘ (1951), based on a novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz and which he played alongside Deborah Kerr, ‘The Devil’s Gate’ (1950), ‘Caravan Of Women’ (1951), ‘King Arthur’s Knights‘ (1953), ‘Prisoner Of His Betrayal’ (1954), ‘The Wild Bride’ (1955), comedy in the West with the co-prominence of Eleanor Parker, both directed by Roy Rowland and ‘Chicago, Years 30’. These were the films -among others- that Robert starred in over these two decades.
In the 60s, Robert Taylor settled on television with the series ‘The detectives’ (1959-1962), playing the captain Matt Holbrookand participated in various minor productions such as Tay Garnett’s ‘Guns On The Border’ (1963), ‘wild pampas‘ (1966) by Hugo Fregonese or ‘The Crystal Sphinx‘ (1968) by Luigi Scattini, the last two with Spanish participation in the production.
In 1954 Taylor remarried another actress. Ursula Thiess (born 1924), German performer who can be seen in films like ‘Bengal Rifles’ (1954), ‘The Iron Glove’ (1954) with Robert Stack or ‘Bandit’ (1956), film co-starring Robert Mitchum.
After filming the Franco-Spanish spy comedy ‘El Rublo De Dos Caras’ (1968), Taylor said goodbye to the cinema and life: he died of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California, on June 8, 1969 at the age of 58.
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