A tall, handsome romantic lead, Robert Taylor appeared in dozens of costume and action pictures during his 25 years at MGM. He originally studied music and medicine at Doane College in Nebraska and then at Pomona College, California.
A successful screen test led to a number of minor pictures at Fox, Universal and MGM during the mid-Thirties, and he had his first major successes with Magnificent Obsession and Camille.
Taylor developed into a reliable, if dull, leading man during the following years at MGM. If his performance in Quo Vadis? as Marcus Vinicius, the commander of a Roman legion who is converted to Christianity, failed to convince, the picture was still a big box-office hit. And he coped rather better with the title role of the British-made Ivanhoe.
The decline in his career during later years reflected the decline into mediocrity of MGM. once the leading Hollywood studio. The first of Taylor’s two wives was Barbara Stanwyck.
Taylor was born in 1911 and died in 1969.
Key Films include:
1934: Handy Andy
1935: Magnificent Obsession
1936: The Gorgeous Hussy.
1938: A Yank at Oxford (GB): Three Comrades.
1939: Stand Up and Fight.
1940: Waterloo Bridge
1941: Johnny Eager
1943: Bataan
1949: Conspirator
1951: Quo Vadis?
1952: Ivanhoe
1953: Knights of the Round Table
1958: Party Girl