Rod Taylor News and Site Updates

May 27, 2013

More steady progress to report on the gallery updates. Check out the following:

Catered Affair // Chuka // Darker Than Amber // Dark of the Sun // Do Not Disturb

Family Flight // Fate is the Hunter // Gathering of Eagles // Giant // Glass Bottom Boat

I've also started adding scans of Rod-centric items from pressbooks of his various films. Here are the uploaded ones so far (PDFs):

36 Hours // Chuka // Darker Than Amber // Dark of the Sun // Do Not Disturb

Fate is the Hunter // Gathering of Eagles // Glass Bottom Boat

I've also uploaded a scan of an item about Catalina Island and Glass Bottom Boat from a Rod-Lore fan newsletter written by Marco Lopez, Rod's assistant and stand-in for many years.

May 18, 2013

I've started re-doing the various photo galleries related to particular TV shows and movies. Again, I'm working alphabetically through the site. Here's my progress so far:

36 Hours // Ask Any Girl // Bearcats! // The Birds

I've also updated the page of one of my most-wanted shows -- Rod's appearance on "Bus Stop." I want it even more after reading the description from from an Australian Women's Weekly magazine from 1962:

"There is no doubt he has sex appeal, but in case we females didn't realise it, Mr. Taylor was photographed whenever possible stripped to the waist, in bed, wearing short shorts and tight muscle-revealing shirts on the tennis courts, or having revealing rub-downs in the massage rooms."

May 1, 2013

I have added another page -- John Newcombe's Australian Stars in the States -- and would add another, but I really haven't found enough information.

Perhaps any fans in Europe could help with this: IMDb lists Rod as making an appearance on the German show "Gottschalk Late Night" on Dec. 3, 1994. I haven't been able to confirm this, however. There a several clips of Thomas Gottschalk's late night show on YouTube, but Rod is not in any of them.

Does anyone out there have any info to shed light on the matter? Please contact me at completerodtaylor@gmail.com with any leads you may have.

By the way,two items on Rod's IMDb page should not be there: The Rack and Gulliver's Travels. Rod has said he never did "The Rack," and I have watched "Gulliver's Travels" and the "uncredited" voice is not his.

One last stray credit. TV listings for April 30, 1964, had Rod making appearance on the game show "Password," but he did not appear. Jack Jones was on in his place.

April 28, 2013

The site updates are progressing and include some new pages. Probably by next weekend, I will start updating the galleries with lots of new pictures and, eventually, magazine scans. Like I said on the home page, this could take months!

Here are some of the latest highlights and additions:

April 16, 2013

The site update has progressed through the "R" titles. A lot of this site had been built during dial-up days, with small images and a general lack of multimedia. So many page revisions involve adding links to film clips, trailers and even full movies on YouTube -- in addition to fresh screen captures and additional information about various titles.

Here are some of the pages with notable upgrades:

March 31, 2013

I've been making steady progress on updating the site, mostly working my way alphabetically through the various pages. (I finished with the H's last night! )

I thought I'd point you toward some of the more notable recent updates:

So, click around and have fun. There's still a lot to update, including an eventual re-working of the galleries. I also am finding I'll need to make a second pass through the site with additions of things I missed the first time around. On the Internet, nothing is ever "finished"!

March 2013

I happened to be over on Veronica Cartwright's Web page, checking links, and lo and behold -- on the front was a photo of her, Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor taken this year at Rod's house!

The caption says "Tippi Hedren, Veronica and Rod Tayler do an interview for a documentary on Rod Taylor's life -- 'Pulling No Punches: Rod Taylor' -- scheduled for release next year."

The documentary is being made by Lowland Media Pty Ltd, with Robert De Young, Stephan Wellink producers and Mark Hartley, director. A synopsis says, "Pulling No Punches profiles the career and legacy of rugged Australian actor Rod Taylor."

Is it next year yet?!?

March 10, 2013

As you can see, I have begun a gradual update of the Rod Taylor Site! As time permits, I will be revising pages, pictures and features of the site. Please forgive any oddities along the way, such as broken links and wonky pictures. This project will take weeks, if not months, but I hope you will enjoy the ride -- and the result.

Some examples of updated pages include pictures for "Cheyenne" and "Tales of the Unexpected" and various additions and changes to the Rod Taylor, artist page as well as "Bearcats!" On the latter, you will see a change: I will include a "Viewer's Guide" section on each page rather than the separate "Buyer's Guide" page that was hard to keep updated.

And that brings me to some news for today. The box art for the "Bearcats!" DVD release coming up on May 14th!

Feb. 18, 2013

For many years, Rod Taylor fans  have been searching for five "missing" episodes of "Hong Kong." The series has never been released officially on VHS or DVD, and the same 21 episodes have been circulating among tape traders and on eBay.

Then, yesterday, I stumbled upon the motherlode on YouTube. The five episodes (and other complete episodes) are online and can be viewed here:

1.2 Murder Royal // 1.13 When Strangers Meet // 1.15 Lesson in Fear
1.19 Lady Godiva // 1.20 The Hunted

Dec. 8, 2012

The Dec. 14 issue of Entertainment Weekly arrived yesterday, bearing a surprise: A DVD "Cult Classic" review of Dark of the Sun, giving it an "A" and raving about  the "rollicking red-meat adventure." The item has special praise for "terrific Rod Taylor" who "oozes sweaty, 100-proof charisma." What a joy to see this praise in a major, mass-audience publication!

A scan of the review is below for your reading enjoyment:

Oct. 29, 2012

Canadian Derek Redmond recently shared a page related to "Hong Kong" that he added to his website, The CJ3B Page, which deals with Jeeps of the 1950s-60s.

The Web page -- The Gold Jeeps of 1961 and the TV series Hong Kong -- includes discussion of the use of Jeeps in "Hong Kong," which was sponsored by Willys Motors and its parent company, Kaiser Industries.

I discovered another mention of Kaiser Industries in a March 11, 1962, column in the Torrance Herald in California. Columnist Terence O'Flaherty noted that the series "attracted the eye of sponsor Henry Kaiser," who was a major industrialist, shipbuilder and philanthropist. "He and Taylor hit if off right away," O'Flaherty wrote. "They call each other 'Dad' and 'Son.' No other actor I know enjoys this kind of friendship with a former sponsor."

Read on for new information about the ill-fated follow-up to "Hong Kong" -- "Dateline: San Francisco."

Oct. 27, 2012

Many thanks also go to Arthur Tashiro for sending along the following account of the screening of "Darker Than Amber" Oct. 22 at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.

The print of the movie was like new. A pleasure to look at. The print is basically the same cut I saw at a theater back in the late 1970s. The movie, as you know, was withdrawn from circulation for a while and re-edited to remove its R rating. I think this is the re-edited version -- longer than what you might see on TV but shorter than what originally went out to theaters. The story is coherent, so I think the cuts took out some moments of violence and perhaps nudity.

Rod does well in it. I think he's let down by the script, a little. The emotional core of the movie ought to be his accidental but real relationship with Suzy Kendall -- that's what motivates the story, which otherwise has him bulling his way around Florida like any other action hero. Both he and Kendall play their parts well, but there's something heavy-handed and rushed about the way their scenes are constructed. Instead of letting the audience see a connection between them grow, the movie gives viewers a set of illustrations: now they're mad at each other, now they're tender, now some other thing. To believe, you have to bring a certain amount of goodwill to the show and stick with the actors' sense of reality.

So the movie is welcome but frustrating.

I enjoyed Arthur's comments about the relationship between the characters. Not only are they insightful, but it's refreshing to see a review that isn't dwelling on the famous fight scene.

Oct. 12, 2012

Mark Hartley, the Australian writer/director of "Not Quite Hollywood," was in Los Angeles in September to start work on new documentary. The topic this time... Rod Taylor!

Deadline Hollywood reports that the documentary is tentatively titled "Pulling No Punches," and is being produced by Robert de Young, who wrote and produced films about Peter Finch and Errol Flynn.

In further good news, a book on the making of "The Birds" will be published in 2013 to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary. The author is Tony Lee Moral, who also wrote a book about the making of "Marnie." More info >>

March 28, 2012

Here's a link to a blog post from an Australian radio station in which the author, Jim Schembri, praises his top six Rod Taylor flicks. I highly recommend this snappy, deliciously descriptive commentary.

 

 

   

 

 

         
   

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