RIP Jack Taylor

 

American born Spanish actor Jack Taylor died in Chamberí, Madrid, Spain on May 12^th he was 99. Born George Brown Randall in Oregon City on October 21, 1926, Taylor went through almost a century of cinema without ever losing the desire to continue working, already becoming an unrepeatable figure of horror, B series and auteur cinema shot between Spain, Mexico and Europe. At the age of 25, Taylor spent a year in San Francisco saving up to go to Los Angeles to try his luck as an actor, where he debuted on comedian Jack Benny's television show, coinciding with Marilyn Monroe herself. "Hollywood is a place where you go to bed young and wake up at 65", so he decided to leave California in search of an industry less rigid than that of the big studios. "I wanted to go to Italy, but I didn't have any money. Then I took my car and I drove thousands of kilometers to Mexico, where I arrived without even speaking the language." In eight months, he learned enough Spanish to converse with producers and actors. He became a regular in Jess Franco films and became a star of Horror, Sci-Fi and Westerns. But Jack Taylor wasn't just an actor. He was also a set designer, theatre director and writer, someone who spoke of silent films, impossible shootings, censorship, festivals and sets with the same naturalness with which he spoke of wine, reading or walks. Even in old age he was still linked to new projects, such as his participation as one of the voices narrating the recent documentary Call me Paul, about the figure of Paul Naschy, with whom he coincided on three occasions. Tireless until the end, he recently published his memoirs, My 100 Years of Cinema (Sial Pygmalion Publishing Group), and told us that he was waiting for a new role that he did not want to talk about so that it would not be lost. Taylor appeared in six Spaghetti westerns and three documentaries: “Billy the Kid” in 1963 as Blackie/Black Jack, “Tomb of the Pistolero” in 1964 as Herbert/Russ Brandon, “Fall of the Mohicans” in 1965 as Major Duncan Heyward, “The Christmas Kid” in 1966 as John Novak, “Custer of the West” in 1967, “Sons of Trinity” in 1994 as Theopolis, “Once Upon a Time in Europe (TV) in  2001 as himself, “Jack Taylor” 2007 as himself and “Print the Legend” 2023 [narrator].