Articles
Robert Taylor and the Studio System
The Golden Age of Hollywood has always been of great interest to and held enjoyment for me. I love the films that the studio system produced during their glory years. It’s not that they were all great or even good, but they were made by people who loved movies, which is the big difference with the moguls of today. The stars of that era were more mysterious than today. An explanation for this is because the press of the day, particularly the Hollywood columnists, worked hand in hand with the studios and protected them with publicity that had the studios’ stamp of approval.
One of the reasons I decided to write a book on Robert Taylor was because he was one of the great stars manufactured by the studio system. I stress great star instead of great actor. Bob Taylor would be the first to insist that he wasn’t a great actor. He was a modest man, sometimes too modest. While he wasn’t a great actor, he certainly did develop into a fine one. In his early career he had to live down his own good looks. Many snide columnists labeled him ‘beautiful Robert Taylor” as a putdown. He obviously hated it. His early films emphasized his romantic quality, but he wanted to move as quickly away from that image as possible and take on roles with a harder edge.
The great romantic figure of Magnificent Obsession, Camille, Three Comrades and Waterloo Bridge eventually played more complex characters, such as the would-be murderer in Undercurrent; the tortured war veteran who thinks he may have killed his wife in High Wall; the Indian who seeks the same dignity as a white man in Devil’s Doorway; the dedicated flyer given charge of the dropping of the Atomic Bomb and the effect it has on him and his family in Above and Beyond; the veteran cop who goes bad in Rogue Cop; and the sadistic Buffalo killer in The Last Hunt. He really didn’t enjoy it, but he also made his mark in the epic and costume film realm in huge, popular pictures like Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe and Knights of the Round Table. Maybe not a great actor, but his body of work is as good as any produced by the studio system.
(Taylor in Publicity Still)
My book on Robert Taylor also takes a look at the studio system as it existed during the years that Robert Taylor was under contract to the greatest example of that system--Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer--from 1933 to 1958. Twenty-five years spent at one studio and he saw them come and go, outlasting such contemporaries as Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Robert Montgomery, William Powell, Katharine Hepburn, Greer Garson and Joan Crawford. The studio system could be compared to a factory churning out product, but in the case of MGM the product, even its B pictures, was consistently glossy and well produced and overseen by the overpowering father figure known as Louis B. Mayer. How they found and molded Robert Taylor and maintained his stardom for over two decades is a big part of his story.
Bob Taylor the man was considered by most people who knew him as an open, considerate and friendly man. Arlene Dahl, who worked with him in the western Ambush! told me that “Fred Astaire and Bob Taylor were the two gentlemen of Hollywood. He was a generous actor. Ambush! was one of Miss Dahl’s earliest films and he was of great help and consideration to her during its production. When the film wrapped production he gave her a gift she still has to this day: an Ivory carved Buddha that Greta Garbo had given him at the end of production on Camille when he was a young, relatively wet-behind-the-ears actor. His friend and colleague Robert Loggia recalled Taylor as “an extremely talented artist (who) was also the ultimate gentleman and a true professional who followed the rules of the day--arrive on time, know your lines--and be willing to do whatever had to be done to make the picture successful.”
Taylor loved the outdoors, flying, barbecuing and, in his successful second marriage, his family. He also had a strong patriotism instilled in him from the day she was growing up on the prairies of Nebraska. In many ways the small-town boy never abandoned him. He never went Hollywood. He stayed in touch with friends from boyhood and beyond. His patriotism worked against him at times. In 1947 he was a so-called “friendly witness” before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was strongly anti-Communist, as were most people, but by naming names (or at least insinuations about certain people) he later paid for it with his reputation in Hollywood--mostly in the years after he was gone and couldn't respond.
(Taylor dining with wife Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone)
He was married to two women. His first wife of twelve years was Barbara Stanwyck, one of the finest actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood. She was a dedicated actress who was four years older and sometimes treated him more like her child than her husband. He admired her tremendously and learned a lot about being a Hollywood professional from her. His second marriage was to actress Ursula Thiess, who was not a careerist in the way that Stanwyck was, and when she married Bob and had children, she gladly abandoned her profession to be a wife and mother. It was a happy and loving union for both and lasted for fifteen years--up to the day he died. Of Ursula he would write (in a private letter) to Hedda Hopper, “Not only is she a most perfect wife, but she’s also one of the best damned mothers I’ve ever seen.” In the dark days between 1968 and 1969, when Bob was dying of cancer, he had no rock more solid than Ursula, who lovingly nursed him as much as humanly possible.
I think Taylor’s son, Terry, who I was so fortunate to interview for my book—along with his sister Tessa—and who also wrote the preface, summed up his dad best when he wrote, “To the directors, producers, actors and film crews for and with whom he worked, my father was kind, generous, humble, modest, self-deprecating, hard-working, and the consummate professional. To his friends and fans, he was folksy, All-American, a Nebraskan through and through and reticent about fame. Because of the private man he was, the press was an unavoidable annoyance that came with the job…for every inch of stardom, he gave a mile of modesty.”
Charles Tranberg is the author of six books: I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead, Not so Dumb: The Life and Career of Marie Wilson, Fred MacMurray: A Biography, The Thin Man Films: Murder Over Cocktails, Robert Taylor: A Biography and Walt Disney & Recollections of the Disney Studios 1955-1980.
One of the reasons I decided to write a book on Robert Taylor was because he was one of the great stars manufactured by the studio system. I stress great star instead of great actor. Bob Taylor would be the first to insist that he wasn’t a great actor. He was a modest man, sometimes too modest. While he wasn’t a great actor, he certainly did develop into a fine one. In his early career he had to live down his own good looks. Many snide columnists labeled him ‘beautiful Robert Taylor” as a putdown. He obviously hated it. His early films emphasized his romantic quality, but he wanted to move as quickly away from that image as possible and take on roles with a harder edge.
The great romantic figure of Magnificent Obsession, Camille, Three Comrades and Waterloo Bridge eventually played more complex characters, such as the would-be murderer in Undercurrent; the tortured war veteran who thinks he may have killed his wife in High Wall; the Indian who seeks the same dignity as a white man in Devil’s Doorway; the dedicated flyer given charge of the dropping of the Atomic Bomb and the effect it has on him and his family in Above and Beyond; the veteran cop who goes bad in Rogue Cop; and the sadistic Buffalo killer in The Last Hunt. He really didn’t enjoy it, but he also made his mark in the epic and costume film realm in huge, popular pictures like Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe and Knights of the Round Table. Maybe not a great actor, but his body of work is as good as any produced by the studio system.
(Taylor in Publicity Still)
My book on Robert Taylor also takes a look at the studio system as it existed during the years that Robert Taylor was under contract to the greatest example of that system--Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer--from 1933 to 1958. Twenty-five years spent at one studio and he saw them come and go, outlasting such contemporaries as Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Robert Montgomery, William Powell, Katharine Hepburn, Greer Garson and Joan Crawford. The studio system could be compared to a factory churning out product, but in the case of MGM the product, even its B pictures, was consistently glossy and well produced and overseen by the overpowering father figure known as Louis B. Mayer. How they found and molded Robert Taylor and maintained his stardom for over two decades is a big part of his story.
Bob Taylor the man was considered by most people who knew him as an open, considerate and friendly man. Arlene Dahl, who worked with him in the western Ambush! told me that “Fred Astaire and Bob Taylor were the two gentlemen of Hollywood. He was a generous actor. Ambush! was one of Miss Dahl’s earliest films and he was of great help and consideration to her during its production. When the film wrapped production he gave her a gift she still has to this day: an Ivory carved Buddha that Greta Garbo had given him at the end of production on Camille when he was a young, relatively wet-behind-the-ears actor. His friend and colleague Robert Loggia recalled Taylor as “an extremely talented artist (who) was also the ultimate gentleman and a true professional who followed the rules of the day--arrive on time, know your lines--and be willing to do whatever had to be done to make the picture successful.”
Taylor loved the outdoors, flying, barbecuing and, in his successful second marriage, his family. He also had a strong patriotism instilled in him from the day she was growing up on the prairies of Nebraska. In many ways the small-town boy never abandoned him. He never went Hollywood. He stayed in touch with friends from boyhood and beyond. His patriotism worked against him at times. In 1947 he was a so-called “friendly witness” before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was strongly anti-Communist, as were most people, but by naming names (or at least insinuations about certain people) he later paid for it with his reputation in Hollywood--mostly in the years after he was gone and couldn't respond.
(Taylor dining with wife Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone)
He was married to two women. His first wife of twelve years was Barbara Stanwyck, one of the finest actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood. She was a dedicated actress who was four years older and sometimes treated him more like her child than her husband. He admired her tremendously and learned a lot about being a Hollywood professional from her. His second marriage was to actress Ursula Thiess, who was not a careerist in the way that Stanwyck was, and when she married Bob and had children, she gladly abandoned her profession to be a wife and mother. It was a happy and loving union for both and lasted for fifteen years--up to the day he died. Of Ursula he would write (in a private letter) to Hedda Hopper, “Not only is she a most perfect wife, but she’s also one of the best damned mothers I’ve ever seen.” In the dark days between 1968 and 1969, when Bob was dying of cancer, he had no rock more solid than Ursula, who lovingly nursed him as much as humanly possible.
I think Taylor’s son, Terry, who I was so fortunate to interview for my book—along with his sister Tessa—and who also wrote the preface, summed up his dad best when he wrote, “To the directors, producers, actors and film crews for and with whom he worked, my father was kind, generous, humble, modest, self-deprecating, hard-working, and the consummate professional. To his friends and fans, he was folksy, All-American, a Nebraskan through and through and reticent about fame. Because of the private man he was, the press was an unavoidable annoyance that came with the job…for every inch of stardom, he gave a mile of modesty.”
Charles Tranberg is the author of six books: I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead, Not so Dumb: The Life and Career of Marie Wilson, Fred MacMurray: A Biography, The Thin Man Films: Murder Over Cocktails, Robert Taylor: A Biography and Walt Disney & Recollections of the Disney Studios 1955-1980.