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Rod Taylor was born Rodney Taylor in a suburb of Australia in 1929. He had planned to be an artist, but he saw Laurence Olivier in a stage production in Australia and that convinced him to become an actor! He moved to the U.S. in 1954 (wisely changing "Rodney" to "Rod"!), and he was far from an overnight success, doing much TV, and getting some small parts in major movies. In 1960, he got two big breaks. He was given the lead role in a TV series, Hong Kong, and was cast as George, The Time Traveler, in the wonderful movie, The Time Machine. Taylor continued in TV, until 1963, when he played the lead in Hitchcock's great The Birds, and that finally made him a movie star. He was very busy throughout the rest of the 1960s, in both romantic comedies and action movies. His career paralleled that of Sean Connery, who also had striking good looks and a great speaking voice, who also worked with Hitchcock but got an even bigger break in becoming James Bond, and Taylor likely got every single role that Connery turned down! In the 1970s he returned to a mix of movies and TV, and while he kept working in the 1980s and 1990s, his appearances became increasingly sporadic. In 2009 Quentin Tarantino talked him out of retirement to play Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds! He passed away in 2015 at the age of 84.

One final footnote. I loved The Time Machine as a kid (who wouldn't love it, with the scary Morlocks and the gorgeous young Yvette Mimieux, along with Taylor and Alan Young?), and have watched it umpteen times over the years. Yet somehow I missed that in 1993, the man who wrote the screenplay for the movie, David Duncan, wrote a brief scene, showing The Time Traveler and his best friend Filby reuniting many years later, and was able to coax both Rod Taylor and Alan Young (the original actors) to recreate their roles! This was filmed as "Time Machine: The Journey Back" and is included in a DVD release of the movie, along with a "Making of..." segment. I learned of this researching Taylor, and I ordered it, and recommend you do the same!

Important Added Info: Note that this REPRODUCTION still has been personally autographed (signed) by Rod Taylor! Note that many celebrities kept multiple 8" x 10" (or smaller) copies of good publicity images of themselves to sign for fans, and also many memorabilia shops sold such copy stills themselves. While they are not original stills, they are usually excellent clear copies, with a great shot of that celebrity in their heyday, which, when signed by the celebrity, makes for a wonderful framed picture on any fan's wall!

About the Collection this Item Comes From
Note that this item (and 83 others we are auctioning this week, each in its own auction) was consigned to us by a man who purchased the collection of a dedicated collector, who was a major film buff from the 1950s through the 1990s. He would purchase stills on stars he liked, and then he would go to events or collectibles shows (he went to virtually every collectibles show where stars appeared!), and he would get the items autographed, and many of his photos were personalized to him with nice inscriptions, because over time many of the celebrities who regularly attended shows came to be friends with him! Over many years he was able to acquire a large number of signed stills, and his collection was purchased by our consignor. In this set of auctions we are auctioning 84 of his autographed items (and we will auction others in future "all signed" auctions). We feel certain that the autographs on these items are authentic! Note that each of the 84 items from this consignor all have this paragraph on them.

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Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775