Rod Taylor, Australian-American actor and screenwriter (b. 1930)
Rodney Sturt Taylor (11 January 1930 – 7 January 2015) was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including The Time Machine (1960), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Birds (1963), and Inglourious Basterds (2009).
Taylor was born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, to a father who was a steel construction contractor and commercial artist and a mother who was a children's author. He began taking art classes in high school, and continued in college. He decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production of Richard III.
His first film role was in a re-enactment of Charles Sturt's voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, playing Sturt's offsider, George Macleay. At the time, he was also appearing in a number of theatre productions for Australia's Mercury Theatre. He made his feature film debut in the Australian Lee Robinson film King of the Coral Sea (1954). He soon started acting in television films, such as Studio 57 (1954), where he played multiple different characters.
He had started to gain popularity after starring in The Time Machine (1960), as H. George Wells. He later starred in the Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), as Pongo. In one of his most famous roles, he played Mitch Brenner in The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1963). By the late 1990s, Taylor had moved into semi-retirement. His final film role was in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds in 2009, portraying a fictionalized version of Winston Churchill in a cameo.
2015Jan, 7
Rod Taylor
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Events on 2015
- 29Apr
2015 Baltimore protests
A baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox sets the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public due to the 2015 Baltimore protests. - 3May
Charlie Hebdo shooting
Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting. - 14Jul
New Horizons
NASA's New Horizons probe performs the first flyby of Pluto, and thus completes the initial survey of the Solar System. - 20Jul
Cuba-United States relations
The United States and Cuba resume full diplomatic relations after five decades. - 14Aug
Cuba-United States relations
The US Embassy in Havana, Cuba re-opens after 54 years of being closed when Cuba-United States relations were broken off.