Underbelly Goes Back In Time Again For The Squizzy Taylor Story

TV Tonight are reporting that the next but one entry in Channel 9′s Underbelly franchise will once again be a period piece and the 1920′s in particular. With Underbelly: Badness already heavily in production the next series will focus on notorious 1920′s Melbourne gangster Squizzy Taylor.

Taylor was involved in sly-grog, two-up, bookmaking, extortion, prostitution, assault, robbery and murder. At just 156 cm tall, he was a household name, leading a violent gang war against a rival criminal faction and constantly flouting the law.

His gunfight death with long-time rival gangster, John Daniel ‘Snowy’ Cutmore, in 1927 was dramatised in Underbelly: Razor, with Taylor’s role played by actor Justin Rosniak

Nine’s Squizzy Taylor series is due to begin filming in Melbourne in coming months and will screen in 2013.

Squizzy actually featured as a character in Underbelly: Razor and in 1982 was played in a movie by David Atkins. The image above is the real life Squizzy in a police mug shot from the Melbourne Walking tours site which offers up tours of Squizzy haunts

Source: TV Tonight