Spangler Arlington Brugh Taylor.
16 min read
Reading time
3,158
Words
Published
1
Award
Robert Taylor, born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911, became a major MGM star in 1935 with Magnificent Obsession. He starred in classic films like Camille 1936, Quo Vadis 1951, and Ivanhoe 1952, and later hosted TV’s Death Valley Days. He died of lung cancer in 1969 at age 57.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Robert Taylor — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Robert Taylor by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Robert Taylor — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Born Spangler Arlington Brugh on August 5, 1911, in Filley, Nebraska, Taylor was a standout track athlete and orator at Beatrice High School. Playing cello in the school orchestra, he initially studied music at Doane College. In the early 1930s, he switched to pre-med at Pomona College, but campus theater led him to the Neely Dixon Dramatic School. An MGM talent scout spotted him in a college play and signed him to a contract in 1934.
Taylor made his film debut in Handy Andy 1934 and broke out as the lead in Magnificent Obsession 1935 with Irene Dunne. Appearing in seven films in 1935 alone, he quickly became a top leading man. His role opposite Greta Garbo in Camille 1936 cemented his stardom. In the late 1930s and 1940s, he starred in A Yank at Oxford 1938, Billy the Kid 1941, Johnny Eager 1941, and the war film Bataan 1943. World War II saw him serving as a flight instructor in the U.S. Navy and directing training films. He reestablished his career after the war with Quo Vadis 1951, Ivanhoe 1952, and Knights of the Round Table 1953. Television beckoned in the late 1950s, with a starring role in The Detectives 1959–1962 and hosting Death Valley Days 1966–1968 until his death.
Taylor was married to actress Barbara Stanwyck from 1939 to 1952. In 1954, he married Ursula Thiess, remaining with her until his death. With Thiess, he had two children: Tessa and Terence. Conservative in his political views, he testified as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. An avid pilot, he was a close friend of Clark Gable and served as a pallbearer at Gable’s funeral in 1960.
Robert Taylor became the quintessential MGM leading man of the 1930s and 1940s. His films like Magnificent Obsession and Camille remain classics, and he helped popularize the swashbuckling genre with Ivanhoe and Knights of the Round Table. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in 1970. A section of U.S. Highway 136 in Nebraska was named the Robert Taylor Memorial Highway in 1994. His good looks and dramatic range are part of his legacy.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Robert Taylor — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from Robert Taylor — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
Acting Is the Easiest Job in the World, and I’m the Luckiest Guy. All I Have to Do Is Be at the Studio on Time and Know My Lines. the Wardrobe Department Tells Me What to Wear, the Assistant Director Tells Me Where to Go, the Director Tells Me What to Do. What Could Be Easier?
I Was This Punk Kid from Nebraska Who Had an Awful Lot of the World’s Good Things Tossed in His Lap.
It’s Happens That I Like the People of Nebraska. They’re the Best, the Most Hospitable, the Most Honest, the Most Trustworthy People in Our Whole Darned Country. and You Lucky Nebraskans Who Are Still Living There Just Believe Me. I’ve Been a Lot of Places, and I Have Met a Lot of People, and I Still Say Nebraskaland Has the Best Hunting and the Best People in the Whole Country.
I Got $35 a Week and My Mother, Grandmother and I Had to Live on It. There Was That Awful Night When I Realized We Had One Thin Dime in the World. I Had Been Studying Hard at the Studio, Trying to Do Everything They Told Me. but I Seemed to Be Getting Nowhere, and Getting There Fast. I Had Nothing and No Prospects of Ever Getting Anywhere. I Hadn’t Any Chance of Being a Success in This Business but I Had Confidence in Myself. I Knew I Could Land Something – Maybe a Salesman’s Job – and Make More Money Than I Had Been Getting. We Would Be All Right, Then. in the Morning I Went to Mr. Louis B. Mayer and Asked Him to Release Me from My Contract . . .
A Screen Metamorphosis Is More Psychology Than Histrionics. the Thing Is to Analyze the Character You Are Playing and Then the Various Stages of Self-development Become a Logical Outgrowth of That Individual Finding Himself.
When I Went to College at Pomona, California, I Still Had No Clear Idea as to What I Wanted to Do. the Operation on the Settler Must Have Made Some Sort of Imprint on My Mind, for I Remember Playing About with the Idea of Studying Medicine. but I Soon Changed My Mind, And, Throwing Overboard All Intentions of Wielding a Scalpel, I Took up Economics! Sounds Strange, Doesn’t It? And, from Economics, I Drifted to Psychology, Where, for the First Time, I Took Root. the Subject Interested Me, and in a Very Short Time I Found Myself Studying It Pretty Deeply. but Fate Was Already Mapping Out a Different Sort of Career for Me.
Know Yourself, Said the Wise Old Greeks. That Is the Simple but Profound Maxim Which, I Am Convinced, Has Been Largely Responsible for My Feet Stepping Firmly up the Movie Ladder. Unless You Do Know Yourself, Your Capabilities, and – What Is Perhaps More Important Still – Your Limitations, Then Opportunity Will Go on Knocking on Your Door in Vain. If You Analyze Yourself and Find Out Your Own Strength and Weaknesses, Then You Have Taken the First Step Towards Understanding Others and Being Able to Interpret Them. in Its More Direct Application to the Film Business This Will Result in There Being Less Likelihood of Any Miscasting. And, by Carrying Out These Principles I Very Soon Learned to Resist the Temptation of Flying High and Playing Roles for Which I Was Temperamentally and Physically Unsuited.I Have Rigorously Kept to That Rule of Only Playing Roles for Which I Know Myself to Be Fitted.
Looks Are Good or Bad, According to Taste. My Appearance Doesn’t Fascinate Me. but I’m Not the One Who Has to Be Pleased, Either. It’s a Big Help to an Actor If People Like to Look at Him but It Has Nothing to Do with Acting.
People Seem to Think I’m a Millionaire, but I’m Not. I’ve Saved a Little Money but Every Time a Chance Came Along to Strike It Rich Outside the Movie Business, Like the Real Estate Deals of Some Stars, I Was Always a Dollar Short or a Day Late. It’s the Story of My Life.
If I Didn’t Need the Money I Make on TV, I Tell Myself I’d Hunt and Fish All the Time. Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper Got Me Interested in It Years Ago, and Looking Forward to Hunting and Fishing Has Often, in This Business, Kept Me from Going Nuts.
The Middle East Is Going to Get Us into the Third World War.
However, Any Time Any of the Left-wing Press or Individuals Belonging to the Left Wing or Their Fellow-traveler Groups Ridicule Me, I Take It as a Compliment Because I Really Enjoy Their Displeasure.
Believe Me, I Didn’t Know What the Hell I Was Doing. but a Beautiful Director, George Cukor, Told Me What to Do. He Acted It and I Just Copied Him, and Out Came a Good Performance. You Show Me What to Do and I’ll Do It.
I’m Not an Actor. I Don’t Know What I’m Doing.
Little-known facts about Robert Taylor — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
After doctors predicted his mother would die before age 30, his father became a doctor to cure her and succeeded.
Right-handed Taylor spent weeks learning to draw a gun left-handed for Billy the Kid 1941; the famous photo of Billy with a left-side holster was a tintype mirror image.
His interest in flying began after Flight Command 1940; he bought a single-engine plane and earned a pilot’s license. During WWII he served as a flight instructor and narrator of 17 training films.
Diagnosed with lung cancer in spring 1968, he underwent cobalt treatment and later surgery to remove his right lung on October 8, 1968, but continued smoking until shortly before the operation.
He and Clark Gable were close friends; Taylor was an active pallbearer at Gable’s funeral in November 1960.
His favorite film was Waterloo Bridge 1940.
After Knights of the Round Table 1953, his film career declined; he left MGM in 1958 and signed for TV series The Detectives 1959.
His second favorite film was Camille 1936 and his favorite co-star was Greta Garbo.
Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, delivered the eulogy at Taylor’s funeral.
His HUAC testimony led to bans on his films in Soviet-occupied Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Communist boycotts in France.
Directed 17 U.S. Navy training films during WWII.
After their divorce, Barbara Stanwyck auctioned their Bel-Air home and collected 15% of his earnings until his death.
He left his handprints and footprints at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on June 11, 1941, alongside Barbara Stanwyck.
He started smoking in his early teens and often smoked three to five packs daily as an adult.
He was the first American actor to star in a film made in England: A Yank at Oxford 1938.
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, in the Garden of Honor, Columbarium of the Evening Star.
Magnificent Obsession 1935 made him a star; the 1954 remake did the same for Rock Hudson.
He had romantic relationships with Virginia Bruce, Irene Hervey, Lia Di Leo, Virginia Grey, and Eleanor Parker.
In a 1961 interview, he said he became a hunter after meeting Gary Cooper in Sun Valley in 1939; hunting companions included Hemingway, Wallace Beery, Clark Gable, Robert Stack, and John Wayne.
A 12-mile section of U.S. Highway 136 between Beatrice and Filley, Nebraska, was officially designated the Robert Taylor Memorial Highway in 1994.
His only musical was Broadway Melody of 1936 1936, in which he sang ‘I’ve Got a Feeling You’re Fooling’.
He spent two years as a flying instructor during the war.
His first screen test was with Samuel Goldwyn in 1933 on a 14-day option, but nothing came of it.
He appears in three Oscar Best Picture nominees: Broadway Melody of 1936 1935, Quo Vadis 1951, and Ivanhoe 1952.
Four episodes of The Robert Taylor Show 1963 were produced before cancellation when NBC learned producers hadn’t obtained permission to use U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare files.
He was called The New King after Clark Gable’s departure from MGM in 1953.
He supported Thomas E. Dewey in the 1944 and 1948 presidential elections and Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.
He inspired the fictional character Danger: Diabolik 1968, created by the Giussani sisters in 1962, who gave the character Taylor’s dark eyebrows, widow’s peak, and blue eyes.
Despite the popularity of Ivanhoe and Knights of the Round Table, Taylor felt miscast and called them his iron jockstrap roles.
He starred in Devil’s Doorway 1950, one of the first post-WWII pro-Indian Westerns, completed before Broken Arrow but released one month later due to studio nervousness.
Joined the theatrical club The Lambs in 1939.
According to his biographer Jane Ellen Wayne, his last movie was Devil Make Care 1968, but its fate is unknown.
He was a music major at Doane College from 1929 to 1931, playing cello in the trio The Harmony Boys and in the Doane Symphony Orchestra; he later attended annual Hollywood Bowl concerts.
Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1970.
Mentioned in the Three Stooges short Three Missing Links 1938.
Narrated the award-winning documentary The Fighting Lady about a warship.
He studied music at college and was spotted by an MGM talent scout playing the lead in Journeys End; he signed a contract for $35 a week and changed his name.
Actively supported Ronald Reagan’s campaign for Governor of California in 1966.
After WWII, he worked on relatively insignificant films until Quo Vadis reestablished him as a major star.
In the final months of his life, he was hospitalized seven times due to infections and complications from lung cancer.
Ranked fourth in box-office appeal in 1936, third in 1937, sixth in 1938.
After the war, he joined the ultra-right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, founded in 1944 by Sam Wood and Walt Disney.
Portrayed by Terrence E. McNally in The Silent Lovers 1980.
He was considered for the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind 1939.
Worked on Many Rivers to Cross 1955 while on his honeymoon with Ursula Thiess; their honeymoon cabin was only three miles from the filming location.
His youthful good looks turned rather set and grim in middle age, but he remained a star through the 1950s.
In June 1933, he did a screen test in a Roman gladiator shirt; Samuel Goldwyn saw it and told him to go home and fatten up.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Robert Taylor.
Celebrities similar to Robert Taylor — same craft, ranked by reach.
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇮🇹 Italy
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇮🇹 Italy
🇭🇺 Hungary
🇺🇸 United States
