January 11, 1930 – January 7, 2015
Do you happen to have a pair of birds that are… just friendly?
Rod Taylor, star of The Birds and The Time Machine has died on Wednesday, January 7.
According to his daughter, the Australian born actor died of a heart attack just a few days before his 85th birthday in his Los Angeles home.
Source: CBS
RIP
So, I am in the Rome Airport late at night in 1972 and my flight to New York and then Norfolk (I was in the Navy) won’t take off until 8 AM the next day. The bars are about to close up and Crazy Krause (Dude was hilarious.) and I buy 6 Rum and Cokes apiece to get us through the night (As you do.). Crazy Krause is hitting on this VERY hot blonde and she is laughing her azz off when her boyfriend Rod Taylor, comes over and gives us the stinky eye. He then insists that his girlfriend leave with him. She sticks around for about a half an hour and we laugh pretty hard at Crazy’s antics.
He comes back, she leaves.
I looked up his (Taylor’s Wife), it wasn’t her. Maybe he wasn’t married at the time, whateva.
Back then, I was about 5 ft 7 inches and 1/2 ( I am 70 now and way shorter.), Rod was shorter than I was. I kinda liked that.
Anyway, I’m not mad or anything, I liked his movies, but, that is my story!
An interesting man. He liked to portray himself as a tough, hard drinking party guy, but he could do comedy and was also capable of portraying great sensitivity.
A versatile guy, he did The Time Machine, ,The Birds and a couple of Doris Day comedys.
There is a great website devoted to his work with photos and commentary on his many roles.
He was a fitness buff long before that became fashionable, it must have worked since he made it until 85.
We never met but I did have some interaction with him.
When I was a kid his sadly short lived CBS adventure series “Bearcats!” was a favorite…A cross between Have Fun will Travel and The A Team …but not as silly as the latter. It was an early 20th Century western, and he drove a nifty Stutz Bearcat…actually a replica built by George Barris.
I loved the car and wanted it, well after 30 years I found it, bought it and started a restoration.
Lacking photos of it (this was before the internet and the series being released on DVD) I wrote Mr. Taylor asking if he had any information on it.
A couple of weeks later, I received an envelope filled with promotional photos from the series, a few were signed. No letter or note, but I was impressed.
Class act.
I wrote him back to thank him and eventually sent him a photo of my restored car.