Dub Taylor

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Dub Taylor
Dub Taylor in Bonnie And Clyde.jpg
Taylor in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde
Born
Walter Clarence Taylor Jr.

(1907-02-26)February 26, 1907
Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
DiedOctober 3, 1994(1994-10-03) (aged 87)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationActor
Years active1938–1994
Spouse(s)Florence Gertrude Heffernan (1930-1987) (her death)
Children2

Walter Clarence Taylor, Jr. (February 26, 1907 – October 3, 1994)[1], known professionally as Dub Taylor, was an American character actor who from the 1940s into the 1990s worked extensively in films and on television, often in Westerns, but also in comedies.

Early life[edit]

Walter C. Taylor Jr. was born February 26, 1907, in Richmond, Virginia, the middle child of five children of Minnie and Walter C. Taylor, Sr.[2] According to the federal census of 1920, young Walter had two older sisters, Minnie Marg[aret] and Maud, a younger brother named George, and a little sister, Edna Fay.[2] The family moved to Augusta, Georgia, around 1912, when Walter was five years old, and the Taylors lived in this city until he was 13. The census of 1920 also documents that Dub's mother was a native of Pennsylvania and his father was a native of North Carolina, who worked in Augusta at that time as a "cotton broker".[2] While living in Georgia as a boy, Walter, Jr., got his lifelong nickname when his friends began calling him "W" (double-u), and then shortened his nickname even farther, to just "Dub".[3]

Film Work[edit]

A vaudeville performer,[4]Taylor made his film debut in 1938 as the cheerful ex-football captain Ed Carmichael in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It with You. Taylor secured the part because the role required an actor who could also play the xylophone. Later, during the 1950s and early 1960s, he used his xylophone talent on several television shows, including on the syndicated series Ranch Party.[5]

In 1939, he appeared in the film Taming of the West, where he originated the character of Cannonball, a role he played for the next 10 years, in over 50 films. Cannonball was a comedic sidekick to Wild Bill Elliott, in 13 features. He played the same character in B

Tex Harding (left) and Taylor in the 1945 Western Rustlers of the Badlands

Westerns starring Charles Starrett, Russell Hayden, Tex Ritter, and Jimmy Wakely. Then Taylor dropped the Cannonball name because he felt it held him back from getting roles in films with larger budgets. [6]

He had bit parts in a number of classic motion pictures, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, A Star Is Born, and Them!.

The 1954 film Dragnet had him in an uncredited role. His character, gangster Miller Starkie, is killed in the opening scene. He had a small role in the 1958 Walt Disney film Tonka as a rustler of stray horses for sale. The same year, Taylor performed in No Time for Sergeants as the representative of the draft board who summoned Will Stockdale (Andy Griffith) from his rural home in Georgia to the United States Air Force.[7]

He later joined Sam Peckinpah's stock company in 1965's Major Dundee, playing a professional horse thief, and he appeared in The Wild Bunch (as a minister who gets his flock shot in the film's opening scene), Junior Bonner, The Getaway, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as an aging, eccentric outlaw friend of Billy's. He also appeared in Michael Cimino's crime film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.[8] Taylor played Ivan Moss, the father of Michael J. Pollard's character, C. W. Moss, in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.

Taylor portrayed an ill-tempered chuckwagon cook in the 1969 film The Undefeated, starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson. He appeared in the 1971 movie Support Your Local Gunfighter as the drunken Doc Shultz.[9]

In Back to the Future Part III, he appeared with veteran Western actors Pat Buttram and Harry Carey Jr. Taylor’s last film role was in Maverick. Though he had only a fleeting appearance as an unnamed “Room Clerk”, Taylor’s name appears in the opening credits of the film.

Television work[edit]

In the 1950s, he guest-starred three times on the syndicated series The Range Rider, starring Jock Mahoney and Dick Jones. He appeared in the 1955 episode "The Outlander" of Cheyenne, and on the syndicated series Death Valley Days playing the Colorado silver miner "Chicken Bill" Lovell.[10]

In 1957, Taylor was cast alongside Alan Hale, Jr., in the syndicated Casey Jones TV series.[11] He played in the 1961 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather". Taylor was on The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962–1963), in the episodes "My Child Is Yet a Stranger" and "The Tyrees of Capital Hill". He was in The Andy Griffith Show, first as the preacher who marries Charlene Darling to Dud Wash, then as postmaster Talbert, and next as the brother-in-law of town handyman Emmett Clark.

Taylor performed on other sitcoms, including Hazel with Shirley Booth. His character, Mitch Brady, was owner of a local cab company and a frequent boyfriend of Hazel's.[12] He was cast in an episode of I Love Lucy and on The Brian Keith Show and in a fourth-season episode of The Cosby Show. .He was on NBC's series Laredo and The High Chaparral.

Taylor played Houston Lamb in four episodes of Little House On The Prairie in seasons six and seven (1979 to 1981). He appeared on Hee Haw for six seasons, from 1985 to 1991,[13] where he was mostly seen as a regular in the Lulu's Truck Stop skit featuring Lulu Roman and Gailard Sartain. Taylor was in several episodes of Designing Women as a rustic enamored with the women from Sugarbaker's during a camping expedition.

Starting in the late 1970s, Taylor appeared in a series of Western-style commercials for Hubba Bubba bubble gum.[14][circular reference]

In 1994, he appeared in a commercial for Pace Foods, performing as one of four participants in a fair's "Dip-Off" contest, where two other competitors and he use their "secret ingredient" of Pace Picante Sauce in their dips. When the fourth participant holds up a jar of "Mexican sauce" as a "secret ingredient", Taylor's character realizes the sauce was "made in New York City!".[15]

Death[edit]

Dub Taylor died of a heart attack on October 3, 1994, in Los Angeles, just one day shy of the four-month anniversary of his grandson Adam's death in an accident. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered near Westlake Village, California. Taylor was survived by his two children, son Buck Taylor and daughter Faydean Taylor Tharp.

Legacy[edit]


In early 2006, filmmaker Mark Stokes began directing a feature-length documentary on the life of Dub Taylor, That Guy: The Legacy of Dub Taylor, which has received support from the Taylor family and many of Dub's previous co-workers, including Bill Cosby, Peter Fonda, Dixie Carter, John Mellencamp, Don Collier, and Cheryl Rogers-Barnett. The project is from executive producers Stokes and James Kicklighter from JamesWorks Entertainment and Professor Pauper Productions.

Selected filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Television[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Dub Taylor, 87, Actor in Westerns, The New York Times, October 5, 1994, Section B, Page 12
  2. ^ a b c "The Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920", enumeration date January 15, 1920, Augusta City, Richmond County, Georgia. Digital copy of original census page, FamilySearch. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  3. ^ "Dub Taylor: Movie and TV Star". The Augusta Chronicle. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-02-06.
  4. ^ Dub Taylor; Character Actor,The Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1994
  5. ^ A video of "Cannonball Taylor" playing the xylophone on Ranch Party, ca. 1957; uploaded by GatorRock788, YouTube, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Mountain View, California. Retrieved August 6, 2017.
  6. ^ Triplett, Gene, Hollywood's Old Codger, January 24, 1982 Oklahoman, Oklahoma, OK
  7. ^ No Time For Sergeants, cast and crew, American Film Institute (AFI), Los Angeles, California. Retrieved August 5, 2017.
  8. ^ Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, cast and crew, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Turner Broadcasting System, subsidiary of Time Warner, New York, N.Y. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  9. ^ "Dub Taylor: Complete Filmography", including identifications of Taylor's characters in his films, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Turner Broadcasting System, a division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, New York. Retrieved August 6, 2017.
  10. ^ ""Chicken Bill" on Death Valley Days". Internet Movie Data Base. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  11. ^ Summers, Neil and Crowley, Roger M., The Official TV Western Round-Up Book, Page 36, The Old West Shop Publishing, 2002
  12. ^ Terrace, Vincent, Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 Through 2007: F - L, Page 654, McFarland & Company, 2009
  13. ^ Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946 - Present, Page 437, Ballentine, 1999
  14. ^ Hubba Bubba#cite note-3
  15. ^ Pace Picante commercial (1994) on YouTube

External links[edit]

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