Rod Taylor, the Australian actor who starred in Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds, died at his home in the US city of Los Angeles, at the age of 84.
Rod Taylor was one of the great stars of the cinema of the United States and participated in more than 50 films shot in Hollywood, in addition to a dozen television series. His most remembered role is that of Mitch Brenner, the protagonist of Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds (1963).
Films to remember
Rod Taylor's first leading role came in 1960 with the film Time in His Hands, an adaptation of the science fiction novel The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
Three years later he gave life to Mitch Brenner, the protagonist of The Birds, along with Tippi Hedren. In that same year, he would also work together with Jane Fonda in the movie A Sunday in New York. At this time he also participated in other memorable films such as Los Pasos del Destino (1964), 36 Hours (1965), and Last Train to Katanga (1968).
In 1985 he starred, with Britt Ekland, in a film shot in Spain: Marbella, a five-star coup, starring Fernando Fernán Gómez and Paco Rabal.
Rod Taylor recently starred in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, in which he played Winston Churchill, a role for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award.
The Australian actor began his television career in the 1950s. He participated in the Studio 57 series and in the western Cheyenne. He also appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone.
With his participation in the ABC series Hong Kong, which he starred in in 1960, he was considered the highest-paid actor in a series, earning $3,759 per episode.
In the 1970s he returned to television to take part in the series Two Against the World and The Oregon Trail. He also participated in the spy series Masquerade. His recent television appearances include Falcon Crest, as Frank Agretti, Murder, She Wrote, and Walker, Texas Ranger.
The death of the Australian interpreter occurred at his house, due to a heart attack, just four days after his 85th birthday, and surrounded by his family, his representatives indicated. "My father loved his work," said his daughter Felicia, confirming the death in a statement sent to the media, in which she stressed that "being an actor was his passion."
Rod Taylor was a highly eligible bachelor in his youth and had high-profile romances with France Nuyen and Anita Ekberg. He was married (he married for the first time at the age of 21) to the model Peggy Williams from 1951 to 1954.
At the age of 33, he went through the vicarage again with another model named Mary Hilem, with whom he lived from June 1963 to 1969, whom he had met at a party given by his friend Kirk Douglas, and who made him the father of Felicia Taylor, He married Carol Kikumura for the third time, in 1980 (he had known her for two decades before).
