Researching Robert Taylor

Taylor began his career in films in 1934 when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He won his first leading role the following year in Magnificent Obsession. His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in Camille (1936), A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Bataan (1943). During World War II, he served in the United States Naval Air Forces, where he worked as a flight instructor and appeared in instructional films. From 1959 to 1962, he starred in the television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor. In 1966, he assumed hosting duties from his friend Ronald Reagan on the series Death Valley Days.

Taylor was married to actress Barbara Stanwyck from 1939 to 1952. He married actress Ursula Thiess in 1954, and they had two children. A chain smoker, Taylor died of lung cancer at the age of 57.

A charismatic speaker, Taylor is remembered for defeating his older brother, Alfred A. "Alf" Taylor, in the 1886 gubernatorial campaign known as "The War of the Roses." The campaign involved storytelling, fiddle-playing, and practical jokes, standing in contrast to the state's previous gubernatorial campaigns, which typically involved fierce rhetoric and personal attacks. Though Robert Taylor won in 1886, Alfred Taylor was elected as governor in the early 1920s.

Along with politics, Taylor was a public lecturer and magazine editor. He published several collections of his lectures and short stories in the 1890s and early 1900s, and was co-editor of the Taylor-Trotwood Magazine.

Uniquely, Taylor had no formal academic training or research experience in computer science; Severo Ornstein likened Taylor to a "concert pianist without fingers," a perception reaffirmed by historian Leslie Berlin: "Taylor could hear a faint melody in the distance, but he could not play it himself. He knew whether to move up or down the scale to approximate the sound, he could recognize when a note was wrong, but he needed someone else to make the music."

His awards include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the Draper Prize. Taylor was known for his high-level vision: "The Internet is not about technology; it's about communication. The Internet connects people who have shared interests, ideas and needs, regardless of geography."

A native of Wilmington, North Carolina, Taylor remained in architectural practice in the American South for over forty years. He designed many of the early buildings of the Tuskegee Institute, and at several other Historically black colleges and universities. As second-in-command to Booker T. Washington, the Tuskegee Institute's founder, Taylor was instrumental in both campus planning and inventing the school's industrial curriculum.

Born in Blyth, Northumberland, Taylor became a coal miner and then a checkweighman. He became active in the Labour Party, serving on Blyth Council from 1935 until 1938, and also on Northumberland County Council.

He was elected at the 1935 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Morpeth constituency in Northumberland, and held the seat until his death in 1954, aged 73.

In Clement Attlee's post-war Labour Government, he was a Lord of the Treasury from 1945 to 1951, serving as Deputy Chief Whip from 1946. After Labour's defeat at the 1951 general election, he was appointed in 1952 as a Privy Counsellor.

Selby Taylor was educated at Harrow and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Ordained in 1933, his first post was a curacy at St Olave's Church, York. He then emigrated to Africa to become a Missionary Priest in the Diocese of Northern Rhodesia, rising to become principal of its diocesan theological college and then in 1951 bishop of the diocese. Translated to Pretoria a decade later and Grahamstown in 1959 he was appointed Archbishop of Cape Town in 1964. Ten years later he announced his retirement but in 1979 he was petitioned to return to a part of his first diocese and serve as Bishop of Central Zambia.

In 1983 he was honoured by The Queen (made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire) and in 1991, the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred on him the Lambeth Doctorate of Divinity to mark his fifty years of service in the episcopate. A Sub Prelate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, he died on 23 April 1995. A Chair at the University of Cape Town is named in his honour and in 2009 events were held to honour his centenary. Many of his papers are stored at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was a member of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd.

Taylor was originally from Wigan, England. In 1819, he was convicted of larceny and sentenced to transportation to New South Wales for seven years. He was released in 1826, and subsequently became a businessman and landowner in Sydney. Located on Robert Taylor's land, and named after him, is Taylor Square.

Category:1792 birthsCategory:1850 deathsCategory:Convicts transported to AustraliaCategory:19th-century Australian businesspeople

Taylor's credits include such films and television series as The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, The Flintstone Kids, It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown, Challenge of the GoBots, Challenge of the Super Friends, Bonkers, Goof Troop, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, TaleSpin and Heidi's Song.

He died in Woodland Hills, California on December 11, 2014, from complications due to COPD.

Taylor was born in Metheringham in Lincolnshire, and became a tailor in Lincoln. He also studied at Ruskin College. He was a supporter of the Labour Party, and served on Lincoln City Council from 1914. He stood unsuccessfully in Lincoln at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, and again in 1922 and 1923, before finally winning the seat in 1924.

Taylor lost his seat at the 1931 United Kingdom general election, and in 1933 became an organiser for the Shop Assistants' Union. However, he was in poor health and died the following year.

The son of William Taylor, a municipal politician, and Alicia Jane Hobbs, he was born in London, Ontario and was educated there and graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1916. He pursued post-graduate studies in medicine and surgery at New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago. In 1928, Taylor married Letta Ruth Guenther. Taylor was chair of the public school board in Dashwood for 15 years.

He collapsed on the floor of the Ontario legislature during the 1945 session. Taylor died in office two years later following a heart attack at his home in Dashwood at the age of 53.