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Robert Taylor
from the trailer for Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Birth name	Spangler Arlington Brugh
Born	August 5, 1911(1911-08-05) Filley, Nebraska
Died	June 8, 1969 (aged 57) Santa Monica, California
Spouse(s)	Barbara Stanwyck (1939-1951) Ursula Thiess (1954-1969)

Robert Taylor (August 5, 1911 – June 8, 1969), was an American actor.

Born Spangler Arlington Brugh (homonym of "brew"), he made his first film appearance in 1934. Handsome, wavy dark haired leading man of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, at one time billed as "the man with the perfect profile".^{[citation needed]} He was a top romantic and action lead through the majority of his long career, forever type cast as the charming, handsome ladies man.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Acting career 3 Pre-McCarthy era controversy 4 Personal life 5 Death 6 Trivia 7 Selected filmography 8 External links 9 References

Spangler Arlington Brugh was born in Filley, Nebraska to a country doctor and his invalid wife. He had an impressive number of accomplishments to match his rather impressive name. As a teenager, he was a track star and showed a flair for public speaking. His real love, however, was music. He played the cello in his high school orchestra and upon graduation he enrolled at Doane College in Nebraska to study music.

Inspired by his father, who had become a doctor with the intent of curing his invalid wife, the younger Brugh subsequently changed tracks and moved west to study medicine at Pomona College in Los Angeles.^{[citation needed]} While at Pomona he joined the campus theater group and, aided by his remarkable good looks, found yet another calling. He considered continuing on to drama school upon his graduation from Pomona in 1933, but before he could follow through on the plan an MGM talent scout spotted him and gave him both a contract and a new name.^{[citation needed]}

Never the best actor of his generation, but Taylor had staying power transforming from a handsome almost pretty youth in the 1930s to an older tougher somewhat weathered though still handsome mature lead in the 1950s. His many directors and famous co-stars always found him a most professional actor, always on time and willing to work hard to get the film to be the best. Many actors and actresses later claimed that he was underrated as an actor, especially in films in his later years. Although he was known for his classic features, Taylor always strived for different films where he could play more rugged and challenging roles, not wanting to be known as just a "pretty face."

One of his first major films was Camille (1936), opposite Greta Garbo. When he was cast in the MGM musical Broadway Melody of 1936, his previous roles were all in Dramas. In the film, he surprised everyone with his pleasant singing voice. Mervyn LeRoy's drama Waterloo Bridge (1940, Taylor's personal favorite of his films), opposite Vivien Leigh, his former co-star in A Yank at Oxford (1938), was another of his successes at the box office during these years. By the early 1950s, his handsome face was already beginning to show signs of age, and roles were harder to come by. Still, he managed to make his mark in what would become one of his best known roles, as General Marcus Vinicius in [[Quo Vadis (1951 film)|Quo Vadis]] (1951), opposite Deborah Kerr. The following year, he starred opposite a much younger Elizabeth Taylor in the film version of Walter Scott’s classic [[Ivanhoe (1952 film)|Ivanhoe]]. The movie proved to be a smash hit and MGM quickly followed it up with 1953’s Knights of the Round Table.

In later life, he made many television appearances, notably in the 1959 series, The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor.^{[citation needed]}

In 1970, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.^{[citation needed]}

In 1947, Taylor testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).^{[citation needed]} Originally considered a "reluctant witness" because he didn't want to appear in front of the committee, he even wrote a letter to J. Parnell Thomas to tell him he thought the entire event a "circus."^{[citation needed]} Instead, he was reclassified as a "friendly witness" and subpoenaed to appear in front of the cameras.^{[citation needed]} He said he appeared in the film Song of Russia against his personal beliefs and desires but at the urging of not only MGM but also the United States government.

When Taylor was asked during the hearings: “Mr. Taylor, these people in the Screen Actors Guild who, in your opinion follow the Communist Party line, are they a disrupting influence within the organization?," he responded that " . . . it always occurs that someone is not quite able to understand what the issue is and the meeting, instead of being over at 10 o’clock or 10:30 when it logically should be over, probably winds up running until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning on such issues as points of order, and so on.”^{[citation needed]}

The questioning persisted, pushing Taylor to respond in a certain fashion. “Do you recall the names of any of the actors in the guild who participated in such activity?”

Taylor responded, a direct quote, "“Well, yes, sir; I can name a few who seem to sort of disrupt things once in awhile. Whether or not they are Communists I don’t know.”^{[citation needed]} He was very clear … he was not naming anyone to be a Communist.

Yet he was under subpoena, and the questions persisted, determinedly requiring him to come out with a name. “Would you name them for the committee please?”

“One chap we have currently, I think, is Mr. Howard Da Silva. He always seems to have something to say at the wrong time. Miss Karen Morley also usually appears at the guild meetings.”^{[citation needed]} Taylor still at this point was not naming the name of anyone he claimed was a Communist. He was, rather, replying to a direct question about people he felt were disruptive in the SAG meetings.

He did go on to say, " “… I must confess that I objected strenuously to doing Song of Russia at the time it was made. I felt that it, to my way of thinking at least, did contain Communist propaganda."^{[citation needed]}

His first wife was the actress Barbara Stanwyck. Taylor and Stanwyck were one of the Hollywood's "golden couples" and were good friends with another famous couple, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. The marriage had its ups and downs, lasting from 1939 to 1951.

In 1951 Taylor starred in the film Above and Beyond, a biopic of "Enola Gay" pilot Paul Tibbets. The two men met and found that they had much in common. Both had considered studying medicine, and were avid skeet-shooters and fliers. Taylor learned to fly in the mid-1930s, and served as a United States Navy flying instructor during World War II. His private aircraft was a Twin Beech called "Missy" (wife Stanwyck's nickname) which he used on hunting and fishing trips. She complained that he spent all his time polishing his guns and aircraft, but when airborne could "do anything a bird could do, except sit on a barbed wire fence".^[1]

Taylor considered remarrying Stanwyck several times after their 1951 divorce.^{[citation needed]} He also had a serious romance with Eleanor Parker,^{[citation needed]} but ultimately he chose as his second wife German-born actress, Ursula Thiess, with whom he had two children.^{[citation needed]} They owned a large ranch and home in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, California, which to this day is still referred to by locals as the old "Robert Taylor ranch." He was ultimately happy and well-suited to Thiess, who gave up her acting career when she became his wife, although she did a few spots on his later television series, Robert Taylor's Detectives. She has written an autobiography ...but I have promises to keep: My Life Before, With & After Robert Taylor.

Robert Taylor died of lung cancer (he was a chain smoker) at the age of 57, and he was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. The crème de la crème of Hollywood celebrities went to his funeral, and his best friend Ronald Reagan gave the eulogy.^{[citation needed]}

• In the Rodgers and Hart song "The Lady Is a Tramp", Taylor is immortalized in a verse ending with the line "for Robert Taylor I whistle and stamp / that's why the lady is a tramp." [1]

Magnificent Obsession (1935) Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) Camille (1936) Personal Property (1937) Three Comrades (1938) A Yank at Oxford (1938) Lady of the Tropics (1939) Waterloo Bridge (1940) Escape (1940) Billy the Kid (1941) When Ladies Meet (1941) Bataan (1942) Undercurrent (1946) High Wall (1947) Conspirator (1949)

Quo Vadis (1951) Westward the Women (1951) Ivanhoe (1952) Ride, Vaquero! (1953) Knights of the Round Table (1953) Rogue Cop (1954) Valley of the Kings (1954) The Adventures of Quentin Durward (1955) The Last Hunt (1956) D-Day the Sixth of June (1956) The Law and Jake Wade (1958) Party Girl (1958) Miracle of the White Stallions (1963) A House Is Not a Home (1964)

• Robert Taylor at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert Taylor at the TCM Movie Database
• Robert Taylor collection at the Nebraska State Historical Society
• [2] - "The Family Legacy of Robert Taylor, Film Legend . . . & Father" - author, Linda J. Alexander
• [3] - "The Love Life of Robert Taylor" - author, Linda J. Alexander
• [4] - "Robert Taylor: Still A Star" - author, Linda J. Alexander
• [5] - "Tales of Love" - author, Linda J. Alexander