Jack Taylor (American actor)

Taylor was born George Brown Randall^[2] on October 21, 1926 in Oregon City, Oregon,^[4] a suburb of Portland. He began acting as a child, first appearing in a stage production of Macbeth.^[5]

After adopting the stage name Jack Taylor, he began his acting career in small roles on 1950s American television shows such as The Jack Benny Program and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. He relocated to Mexico during the late 1950s and featured in a number of films for director Federico Curiel, often featuring the Mexican characters Nostradamus the Vampire and the superhero Neutron. Reportedly, he relocated to Europe to appear in the film Cleopatra (1963), but his small part was uncredited.

Taylor had a minor role in the international co-production of Robert Siodmak's Custer of the West (1966).

In 1967, Taylor began his prolific collaboration with Jesús Franco for the film Succubus (1968, his first onscreen lead role) and Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion (1970).^[6] He went on to play Quincey Morris in the 1970 Franco opus Count Dracula alongside Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom, Soledad Miranda and Klaus Kinski, before appearing in many of Franco's softcore pornography films, most famously Female Vampire (1973) with Lina Romay.^[7]

During this period, Taylor also featured with Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy in Dr. Jekyll vs. The Werewolf (1971) and The Mummy's Revenge (1975) and worked for director Amando de Ossorio on three occasions, for The Ghost Galleon (1974), Night of the Sorcerers (1974) and The Sea Serpent (1985). He appeared in León Klimovsky's The Vampires Night Orgy (1972) and the Italian giallo film Red Rings of Fear (1978). Juan Piquer Simón directed him in two films, a Jules Verne adventure film named Where Time Began (1978) and the gory cult film Pieces (1982).^[8] Taylor next appeared as a priest in John Milius' Conan the Barbarian (1982).

José Ramón Larraz directed Taylor in two other Spanish slasher films: Rest in Pieces (1987) and Edge of the Axe (1988). He also had a supporting role in Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), and later featured with Johnny Depp in Roman Polanski's horror film The Ninth Gate (1999).

He next appeared in André Téchiné's Loin (2001), and Miloš Forman's Goya's Ghosts (2006). Taylor had a supporting role in Son of Cain (2013), followed by Grand Piano (also 2013), featuring Elijah Wood and John Cusack.^[9]

Taylor died on May 12, 2026, at the age of 99.^[10]