It is with great sadness that Cult Faction has to report that Rod Taylor has passed away aged 84 following a heart attck. Taylor was most known for his staring role in the H.G. Wells’ movie version of The Time Machine and an Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 thriller The Birds. In recent years Taylor was known for his award winning portrayal of Winston Churchill in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds – a role Tarantino offered him long after his retirement that he initially declined, suggesting Albert Finney instead! Taylor though was soon convinced by Tarantino and went on to win a Screen Actors Guild award in 2010 for the role.
Taylor was born on 11 January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, Austrailia, the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and Mona Taylor (née Thompson), a writer of more than a hundred short stories and children’s books. His middle name comes from his great-great grand uncle, Captain Charles Sturt, a British explorer of the Australian Outback in the 19th century.
Taylor attended Parramatta High School and later studied at the East Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College. For a time he worked as a commercial artist, but decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production in Australia.
Taylor acquired extensive radio and stage experience in Australia where his radio work included a period on Blue Hills and a role as Tarzan. Earlier in his career he had to support himself by working at Sydney’s Mark Foy’s department store designing and painting window and other displays during the day. In 1951 he took part in a re-enactment of Charles Sturt’s voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers, playing Sturt’s offsider, George Macleay. A short documentary, Inland with Sturt (1951), was based on it. Taylor also appeared in a number of theatre productions for Australia’s Mercury Theatre.
Taylor made his feature film debut in the Australian Lee Robinson film King of the Coral Sea (1954), playing an American. He later played Israel Hands in a Hollywood-financed film shot in Sydney, Long John Silver (1954), an unofficial sequel to Treasure Island. Following these two films, Taylor was awarded the 1954 Rola Show Australian Radio Actor of the Year Award, which included a ticket to London via Los Angeles, but Taylor did not continue on to London instead he headed for Hollywood.
In Hollywood, Taylor impressed everyone he met and received a number of roles including a major role in James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor’s Giant in 1956), but his first appearance on the Cult Faction radar happened in 1959 in The Twilight Zone episode And the Sky Was Opened.
Taylor was apparently the first choice for the role of Caucasian martial artist Roper in the Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon (1973). The film was directed by Robert Clouse, who had also directed Taylor in the film, Darker than Amber (1970), but unfortunately Taylor was supposedly deemed too tall for the part, and the role instead went to John Saxon.
In the 1970s, Taylor turned again to television. He starred in Bearcats! (1971) and in The Oregon Trail (1976). He had a regular role in the short-lived spy drama series Masquerade (1983), and played one of the leads in the equally short-lived series Outlaws (1986).
From 1988 to 1990, Taylor appeared in Falcon Crest as Frank Agretti as well as appear in several episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger.
In 1993, he hosted the documentary Time Machine: The Journey Back. At the end of the special came a mini-sequel, written by David Duncan, the screenwriter of the George Pal film. Taylor recreated his role as George, reuniting him with Filby (Alan Young).
Taylor returned to Australia several times over the years to make films, playing a 1920s travelling showman in The Picture Show Man (1977), and a paid killer in On the Run (1983). In the black comedy Welcome to Woop Woop (1997) he played the foul-mouthed redneck ‘Daddy-O’. Then Tarantino came calling…
The actor is survived by his third wife Carol Kikumura, whom he married in 1980, and by his daughter
Ogun Bat is a Japanese superhero created by Takeo Nagamatsu in 1931 and is considered to be the first Japanese superhero. The anime ran 52 episodes between April 1st 1967 and March 23rd Read more
Released in December 1980, Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I aka Zork I was an interactive fiction video game written by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels and Tim Read more
The CW has released a new extended trailer for The Flash, offering up some new footage from several upcoming episodes and teasing the unmasking of Zoom:
Zoolander is back but a lot has happened since 2001! Rest assured the Ben Stiller comedy features familiar faces and a few new ones with plenty to get you excited. Read more
At a dinner party with their wives, NASA scientist Dr. Keith Ritchie (Tony Huston) reveals to his colleague Dr. Curt Taylor (John Agar) that he has secretly been in communication Read more
In Italy during World War II, an American military patrol discovers a spaceship that has crash-landed in the woods, along with its alien crew. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm9fnNfLg8M A nearby Nazi unit also Read more
Zone Fighter was a tokusatsu science fiction/superhero television series produced by Toho Company Ltd. It aired from April 2nd 1973 to September 24th 1973, with a total of 26 episodes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdhcjsVLDQY The series follows Read more
Zone 414 is an upcoming American science fiction thriller film written by Bryan Edward Hill and directed by Andrew Baird. The film stars Guy Pearce, Matilda Lutz, Jonathan Aris, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Olwen Fouéré, Colin Salmon, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Read more
It is the final episode of Season 1, and as expected following the somewhat calmness of last week's episode this week is about to go off the scale. Our crew Read more
Episode 5 of Zomboat! is the penultimate episode of Season 1 and it gave the audience a chance to catch their breath before the grand finale. Instead of the fast Read more
In Zomboat! Episode 4 we discover that even a shopping trip can be hazardous to your health in post-apocalyptic Birmingham. With the boat moored and apparently safe Amar (Ryan McKen) Read more
After our diversion last week our Zomboat crew begin travelling in the right direction and end up back where they first got on the boat. This also happens to be Read more
Zomboat! burst onto our screens last week and while we loved it we noted that it felt "a bit rushed with lots crammed in." As Episode 2 washed over us Read more
Debuting on ITV2 in the UK, Zomboat! is filmed in the 2.35:1 widescreen ratio of most zombie movies and answers the life long question of what would happen if you Read more
When the government's latest crime deterrent, obmoz, goes completely off the rails and starts to destroy everything from the underfunded super team Planetronix to the president himself, who ya gonna Read more
Homemade horror-comedy feature Zomblogalypse received its UK premiere at Dead Northern Film Festival - in association with Fangoria and Shudder - at City Screen York on 26th September 2021. The Read more
Tony Todd is back in an all new zombie movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBlWz-n-nec When the world is in shambles, plagued by a zombie outbreak, only the strong will survive, but just how Read more
Columbus, Tallahasse, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6NTQhEqn4 Read more
In Zombieland 2: Double Tap, Columbus, Tallahasse, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of Read more
Directed by Chris Watson and distributed by Troma Entertainment, Zombiegeddon begins as Satan creates a human-like race called zombies. When the zombies begin taking over the world, dirty cops Jeff Read more
More Stories
Preview- Yakuza Wolf 1 & 2 (Eureka Classics Special Edition Two-Disc Bluray)
Preview- Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (4k UHD + Bluray – Criterion Collection)
Preview- Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials Blu-Ray