Robert Taylor is a retired librarian/lifelong reader, writer, and collector who lives in rural Indiana. He is presently co-authoring a mystery novel and teaching enrichment classes for retired people at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. The courses he has moderated include “Kings of Comedy” (film comedians 1910-1945), “Classic Horrors” (films and actors 1910-1960), and “The Butler Did It” (classic suspense films, 1930-1960). Mr. Taylor has written articles for “Monster Bash” magazine and for a couple cyber-zines.
A lifelong fan of classic films, he began corresponding with silent film actors and actresses in the late 1960s–and later with the stars of talkies. This began a long, happy period spent getting to know the people whose images were so memorably preserved on celluloid, whose shadows were thrown on the screen for our entertainment. Among his correspondents were Lillian Gish and Eddie Quillan, Leatrice Joy Gilbert and Lloyd Nolan. As the years passed and as opportunity presented itself, Mr. Taylor was able to meet some of his correspondents. He dined with Myrna Loy, had Cesar Romero come to his home for lunch, and he had an unforgettable conversation with John Carradine. And once, while visiting Los Angeles in his teens, he had a distant figure pointed out to him, an elderly, bent man leaning on a cane–his hero, Boris Karloff.
Robert Taylor studied art under Elizabeth Peyton for three years as a teenager, but is otherwise self-taught. He does artwork only for his own amusement. “I leave it to the truly talented,” he says, “the others whose work is represented in this gallery. My pen and ink is in lofty company here! I feel honored to have been asked to include any of my work.”
Robert Taylor can be contacted at:
taylorro@nalu.net.
