Robert Taylor

• Birth name:

  Spangler Arlington Brugh

• Date of Birth:

  8 June 1911 Filley, Nebraska, USA

• Height:

  5' 11½" (1.82 m)

Considered by many the most handsome actor ever to grace the silver screen, Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington Brugh in the small town of Filley Nebraska on August 5, 1911, being the only son of a farmer who worked in grain business but turned doctor in order to find a cure for his wife, a women with recurrent health problems. Arlington grew up in a rural environment surrounded by natural open spaces developing a love for the outdoors that he conserved the rest of his life. He often accompanied hi... more

Considered by many the most handsome actor ever to grace the silver screen, Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington Brugh in the small town of Filley Nebraska on August 5, 1911, being the only son of a farmer who worked in grain business but turned doctor in order to find a cure for his wife, a women with recurrent health problems. Arlington grew up in a rural environment surrounded by natural open spaces developing a love for the outdoors that he conserved the rest of his life. He often accompanied his father to his medical classes and practices and afterward, he continued accompanying Dr Brugh in his regular visits to the patients even as his assistant but although he considered studying medicine and psychiatry years later, was more drawn to music and dramatics. The young Arlington began to take private cello lessons in 1924 and had his first dramatics experiences at Beatrice High School. From 1929 to 1931 he attended at Doane College in Crete, where as a musician he was a member of the Doane String Quartet, performed at Doane Symphony Orchestra, at Lincoln's Symphony Orchestra and worked during two years in KKMJ radio in Clay Center as part of a musical trio called "The Harmony Boys." As an actor he integrated the dramatics group Doane Players. Taylor's first appearance on stage at Doane was on December 19, 1929 in the play "Helena Boys." Holder of a deep commanding voice he also won several oratorical contests at that time. His classmates recalled him as an intelligent and sensitive young man, polite and caring but very shy, not outgoing. In 1931 he moved to Claremont, California and enrolled at Pomona College where he continued participating in various plays like "The Importance of Being Ernest" and "Camille". While performing "Journey's End" in December 1932, he was discovered by an MGM talent scout Ben Piazza, was offered a screen test and dramatic instruction from dramatics coach Oliver Hindsdell at MGM Studios in Culver City. After he graduated from Pomona College, on February 6, 1934 he signed a seven year contract with MGM for $35.00 a week (the lowest-paid actor in record) and his name was changed to Robert Taylor. He made his screen debut six months later for 20th Century Fox playing a supporting role in Handy Andy (1934), which starred Will Rogers. After a few small parts he was loaned to Universal in 1935 to star in Magnificent Obsession (1935) with Irene Dunne as his leading lady. The title was a public success and his performance was praised by the critic, establishing him as a major star. Quickly the studio publicity department focused all its resources on promoting the young performer. Breathtakingly handsome, with debonair manners and disarming candor, Taylor was artfully groomed by MGM to become "The Heartthrob of the Nation." He was cast to play romantic roles opposite the most famous leading ladies of that time like Janet Gaynor, Eleanor Powell, Jean Harlow, Loretta Young, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo. He was again the reckless but charming playboy in Small Town Girl (1936) and Personal Property (1937) and the callow and naive lover in Camille (1936), Private Number (1936) and Three Comrades (1938). In a short time he became one of the most popular box-office stars of the period and had a fan-mail that exceeded Clark Gable's luring crowds everywhere he went. In 1936 he met Barbara Stanwyck beginning a long and solid relationship which was another focus of attention. On January 1939 famous Photoplay magazine published an article titled "Hollywood's Unmarried Husbands and Wives" condemning the relationships between Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard and Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck among others. As in the case of Gable, Louis B. Mayer encouraged Taylor to marry Barbara Stanwyck as quickly as possible in order to avoid public scandal. They married on May 14, 1939. The continuous and excessive publicity deployed by the studio, the screaming women mobbing him everywhere, and the systematic contempt displayed by certain press belaboring him with the issue of his handsomeness seemed to have reached its culminating point when he returned from England after filming A Yank at Oxford (1938), MGM's first British production. "Nobody survives the sort of publicity that he's had" said director George Cukor at that time. But he survived.Leaving behind his hysterical beginnings and his pretty boy image, Taylor's range extended in the early forties into several genres and characters playing an aristocratic Scottish officer in the tragic love story of Waterloo Bridge (1940) with Vivien Leigh, a despairing man trying to rescue his mother from a Nazi concentration camp in Escape (1940) with Norma Shearer, the impulsive outlaw William Bonney in Billy the Kid (1941), his first western and color film, a cold-blooded racketeer in the impressive film noir Johnny Eager (1941) with Lana Turner and a tough no-nonsense sergeant in the war film Bataan (1943). He also proved to have a skillful sense of comic timing in titles like Her Cardboard Lover (1942), Norma Shearer's last picture, and When Ladies Meet (1941) with Joan Crawford and Greer Garson. With the arrival of World War II, Taylor entered in the U.S. Navy where he served under the name of Spangler Arlington Brugh as a flight instructor from 1943 to 1945. He also directed 17 Navy training films and was the narrator for Academy Award winning documentary The Fighting Lady (1944). In 1947, he was subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about alleged Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry. On May 14th in a closed session at Biltmore Hotel in California he stated that the government had pressed him to star in Song of Russia (1944), delaying his entry into the Navy in 1943 until he had finished the film. He asserted that he didn't want to do it because he thought it was definitely Communist propaganda. Louis B. Mayer denied Taylor's statement and in a public hearing held by the Committee in Washington D.C. on October 1947 pressured this time by MGM and HUAC, Taylor retracted and declared to HUAC's chairman John Parnell Thomas that he was not forced to do the picture. In his testimony, evidently rehearsed, he also named Karen Morley, Howard Da Silva and Lester Cole as disrupters within guild meetings. Although these persons were members of the Communist Party, were previously investigated by the FBI, and were also named by other witnesses, the act of mentioning them at a public hearing affected Taylor's public image in the following years. After a lingering absence from the screen and from home during his service, resuming his matrimonial life and his career was difficult. What was once considered the perfect marriage, soon began to crumble and the films he made at that time were unsubstantial and commercial failures, one after the other except one. Although also a box-office flop, Devil's Doorway (1950) was a remarkable western ahead of its time in which he portrays a Shoshone Indian who defends his land and his people against the contempt and the abuse of the white man. He regained the top spot in 1950 when he landed the role of commander Marcus Vinicius in the epic Quo Vadis (1951), which became the biggest box-office draw of its time. However, during the filming Taylor lost the two most influential persons in his professional and personal life. His marriage to Barbara Stanwyck ended in divorce after he had a very public affair with an Italian starlet in Rome, and Louis B. Mayer was ejected from MGM, replaced by Dore Schary as president. But he survived.Other big, lavish and flamboyant productions followed; Ivanhoe (1952), Knights of the Round Table (1953), the first film made by MGM using the wide-screen process known as CinemaScope, and Quentin Durward (1955), all filmed in England, which made him the epitome of the knight in shining armor. He also represented a box-office insurance in adventure films like Valley of the Kings (1954),the first American film made in Egypt. Nevertheless, he gave his most notable performances playing harsh characters in other less popular titles. He was the rude, arrogant and misogynist scout in William A. Wellman's Westward the Women (1951), the troubled man struggling between his duty and his conscience in Above and Beyond (1952) the biopic of Col. Paul Tibbets who commanded the mission that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, the violent and racist buffalo hunter in Richard Brooks's The Last Hunt (1956), the cynical, crooked cop in Rogue Cop (1954) and the hard-bitten, crippled lawyer of a mobster boss in Nicholas Ray's Party Girl (1958). With the decline of the movie industry in the 50's the studio system began to collapse, dropping its old contract players, but Taylor signed another six-year contract with MGM in January, 1955 which turned him into the longest running contract player in the history of motion pictures (this contract would be voided in 1958). In April of 1952 he met German-born actress Ursula Thiess and married her two years later, becoming father for the first time when his son Terry was born in 1955. His wife abandoned her screen career in order to take care of the family and gave birth to his daughter Tessa in 1959 when Taylor decided to own a large ranch in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, afterward known as The Robert Taylor Ranch. There the Taylors enjoyed a quite life away from the limelight. Although as a movie star he was a permanent resident in Hollywood, he never forgot his Nebraska roots. After the war he returned to his beloved natal land on various occasions to visit relatives and hometown friends and for hunting and fishing trips often flying his own Beechcraft plane. Taylor turned successfully to television in 1959 after negotiating a new non-exclusive contract with MGM, starring in a crime series "The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor" (1959) featured on ABC-TV (1959-1961) and NBC-TV (1961-1962). The first film he made outside of MGM was Michael Curtiz's The Hangman (1959) for Paramount, closing out his MGM contract with Cattle King (1963). After filming in Austria Miracle of the White Stallions (1963) for Disney, he was teamed with former wife Barbara Stanwyck for the third time in the bizarre William Castle's The Night Walker (1964), the last big screen appearance of the actress. After that he continued working in minor films and was host and occasional star of television series "Death Valley Days" (1952) from 1966 until 1968 when he became too ill to continue working. A longtime smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after returning from a trip to Beatrice in April, 1968. After a long struggle with disease, Robert Taylor died on June 8, 1969 in St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California at the age of 57. A host of celebrities and friends attended his funeral, including his former wife Barbara Stanwyck and friend Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, who delivered the eulogy. Co-workers, directors and producers recall him as a humble, unpretentious and self-effacing actor but also as a very hard working, diligent and dedicated professional. During 34-year career they always heard him say: "I really don't have any talent and won't last long. I'm a flash in the pan."