Was any other actor directed by Hitchcock, Antonioni (see above)
and Tarantino? To note that is not even to mention his two perhaps-most-beloved roles, in
The Time Machine and the latterly-appreciated
Dark of the Sun. Taylor was never a major star yet is arguably an iconic figure of his heyday, the Sixties. His casting by Antonioni in
Zabriskie Point, a film much concerned with the iconography of the consumer landscape, makes sense in that regard. Taylor had a meandering up-and-down career, bouncing between movies and TV through the late Fifties and even making an Italian peplum film,
Colossus and the Amazon Queen before finally establishing himself fairly firmly as a Hollywood leading man. In the Seventies he headed back to TV but had a memorable turn against type as a vicious villain in
The Deadly Trackers, a film so transgressive that Al Lettieri was a good guy in it. It isn't really that hard to think of a film Rod Taylor was cool in, and I'm sure readers will think of some I haven't even seen. He may not rank among the most beloved stars, but we're sure to see now just how many movie fans really liked the guy.
3 comments:
Dark of the Sun is a great movie and it has to be the performance of his career.
Taylor's last two TV shows were failures. Neither Bearcats! nor Masquerade lasted beyond a season. Maybe it's better, then, that he is remembered for his film work.
And John Ford as well ! - for the first scenes in Young Cassidy with Rod and the young Julie Christie.
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