In Zabriskie Point, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970. With G.D. Spradlin and an unknown actress.
Actors as a rule don’t get to choose their directors but Taylor had the appeal, talent, and luck to get him chosen by a bunch of the greatest: George Stevens (Taylor’s in Giant, briefly); John Ford/Jack Cardiff, then Cardiff solo; Hitchcock, Tashlin, M.A., and…Generally Quite Good director Quentin Tarantino eventually. Richard Quine, Burt Kennedy, and Edward Dmytryk were no slouches either, and Taylor worked for them as well. I sought him out for an interview in my Première days and was told he didn’t see or talk to anybody, so was both gratified and slightly professionally miffed to see him turn up in Inglourious Basterds years later. His entirely honorable and memorable career in cinema had one of its oddest highlights when he played John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee in Darker Than Amber, the same year as Zabriskie Point. Directed by future Enter The Dragon man Robert Clouse, it features one of the most insane fight scenes ever committed to celluloid, a ship’s cabin battle with a bizarrely coiffed and VERY amped up William Smith. If you can find it you need to see it.
I watched it on Youtube a few weeks ago. I’m a huge Travis McGee fan, and Taylor did all right, better than I expected.
Dude! For all the “you didn’t KNOW that” (or, “REALIZE” that) shit I give people daily/weekly/yearly in real life and online (or, my mind) I honestly had NO CLUE that was him in BASTERDS.I even remember seeing the name, thinking, “Oh, wow, Rod Taylor?” but never piecing it together. Wow.
Michael Gebert over at Hollywood Elsewhere already said it better than I could:
“In many ways [Taylor’s] most influential role was his voice work in 101 Dalmatians, which helped bring an urbane sensibility to Disney that was, along with the rougher drawing style/xerography, a major turning point for that studio.”
Maybe not the most consistent director, but Gordon Douglas shouldn’t be overlooked, and “Chuka”, also produced by Taylor, is worth seeing.
Watching THE BIRDS again fairly recently, I was particularly struck by his acting in the scene where he finds Suzanne Pleshette’s body. A forgotten moment, but for me one of the most moving in all of Hitchcock’s work.
Getting a call from him at my day job (turning down an invitation to a BIRDS screening – he said something like “I am residing against my will at Cedars-Sinai”) was one of the biggest thrills of my office life, second only to when Christopher Lee called.
And until I saw Taylor in the otherwise lamentable WELCOME TO WOOP WOOP, I had no idea he was Australian (though to think about it his name sounds incredibly Australian)