Rod Taylor

Rodney Sturt Taylor, popularly known as Rod Taylor was an Australian actor who was born on 11th January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney. He was known for his charming performances in more than 50 feature films, which included notables like Young Cassidy, Nobody Runs Forever, A Matter of Wife... and Death, and The Train Robbers. His father was an industrious steel construction contractor and a commercial artist while his mother was famous for authoring children's books. Inspired by an Old Vic touring production of Richard III, featuring Laurence Olivier, Taylor dedicated himself to acting. His first film role was a depiction of Charles Sturt's expedition, where Taylor played an essential character, George Macleay.

Throughout his prolific career, Taylor had the opportunity to portray diverse characters and his work was widely appreciated. His popularity grew when he starred in The Time Machine (1960), where he depicted H. George Wells and then gave his voice to Pongo in Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). One of his standout roles was playing Mitch Brenner in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). In the late 1990s, Taylor started spending most of his time in semi-retirement and his final role in a movie was when he made a cameo as Winston Churchill in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009). Unfortunately, Taylor passed away on 7th January 2015 in Beverly Hills, California.