RIP Jack Taylor

 

Jack Taylor, legend of European fantasy and dean actor of Spanish cinema, dies

El Mundo

By Daniel Izeddin

May 12, 2026

 

Jack Taylor, cult actor, unmistakable face of European fantasy and a resident of Chamberí for more than six decades, has died. He did it this morning at the age of 99.

Born George Brown Randall in Oregon City on October 21, 1926, Taylor went through almost a century of cinema without ever losing the desire to continue working, already becoming an unrepeatable figure of horror, B series and auteur cinema shot between Spain, Mexico and Europe.

As a child, he discovered his vocation when he stepped on a school stage dressed as Santa Claus. In 1938, he listened to Orson Welles' famous radio program The War of the Worlds, which announced an alien invasion, and was so impressed that years later he decided to create his own radio space.

At the age of 25, Taylor spent a year in San Francisco saving up to go to Los Angeles to try his luck as an actor, where he debuted on comedian Jack Benny's television show, coinciding with Marilyn Monroe herself. That time in Hollywood had something of learning and also of disenchantment. Taylor himself explained it by quoting a phrase from his childhood hero Orson Welles: "Hollywood is a place where you go to bed young and wake up at 65", so he decided to leave California in search of an industry less rigid than that of the big studios. "I wanted to go to Italy, but I didn't have any money. Then I took my car and I drove thousands of kilometers to Mexico, where I arrived without even speaking the language."

But in just 8 months he learned to defend himself in Spanish, integrating himself into an industry that he himself compared to the North American for his ambition and professional muscle. Julio Alejandro, Buñuel's screenwriter, wrote for him his first leading role in The Ivory Tower (Alfonso Corona, 1958). That stage allowed him to work in popular and fantastic cinema, which he would later connect with his later status as an icon of European horror, participating in productions linked to sagas such as Neutron or Nostradamus, popular titles of Mexican fantasy cinema. "'People loved them. They were films for the people," he recalled in 2025 in an interview for this newspaper. Taylor is related at that stage with other essential names in the Mexican film environment, such as María Félix or Emilio "El Indio" Fernández.

CHAMBERÍ, THE NEIGHBORHOOD THAT WELCOMED HIM

Already at the beginning of the 60s, the Oregon native arrived in Spain almost accidentally, dragged by the theatrical success he had achieved in Mexico with the musical comedy La pelirroja, since one of its producers, who was Spanish, decided to take it to Madrid to represent it at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in 1961; that trip, which at first was only a professional stopover, ended up becoming a definitive change of life, because after making his debut in the capital he decided to stay and live, settling since then in the traditional neighborhood of Chamberí, where he has remained until his death.

In our country he found a definitive place to live and a consolidated career in the seventh art, where his tall, pale, elegant and strangely magnetic presence would end up making him unforgettable. It began almost as a silhouette within the great machinery of epic cinema, with an appearance in Cleopatra, by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. "If you blink you won't see me, but I'm there, playing Rex Harrison's Greek slave," he said of his role as an extra.

His first character with dialogue in Spanish cinema came from the hand of director Pedro L. Ramírez in Los guerrilleros (1963), where he played Dubois, a lieutenant in Napoleon's Army. The film was also the film debut of Manolo Escobar and Rocío Jurado.

From there, Taylor wandered through the ambiguous, nocturnal and feverish territory of Spanish fantaterror, where his physique and accent made him a perfect presence for sinister scientists, shady aristocrats, disturbing priests or refined villains.

His name was forever linked to the universe of Jesús Franco, with whom he shot eight films in a decade. Taylor remembered the director as an endearing man, overflowing with imagination, chaotic at times, but essential in his career; from that collaboration were born titles such as Necronomicon or Count Dracula, and also a way of making films on the margins of everything, multilingual, improvised, artisanal and free.

Jack Taylor's career has been as extensive as it has been unique, working with more than 40 directors on some 140 films and several television series. The actor moved naturally between international blockbusters, popular fantasy and the freest and most heterodox cinema. He shared credits with actors and actresses such as Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, Paul Naschy, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Soledad Miranda and Natalie Portman, and was under the orders of filmmakers such as Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott, Joseph, Robert Siodmak, Milos Forman, Amando de Ossorio, Juan Piquer Simón, León Klimovsky, Javier Aguirre. "I think he's the best actor I've ever worked with. And our time co-directing together in theater, especially in Auto de los Reyes Magos, was a great learning experience. A great friend is leaving, a real one," said Víctor Matellano, another of the directors who directed him.

Among his most remembered roles are the ambiguous Luis inThe Night of the Vampires (1973); archaeology professor Jonathan Grant in Night of the Sorcerers (1974); the priest whose robe Arnold Schwarzenegger tears off in Conan the Barbarian (1982); Professor Arthur Brown in A Thousand Screams Has the Night (1982); the captain of a whaler in La iguana (1988), by Monte Hellman; the collector of old books Victor Fargas in The Ninth Door (1999), by Roman Polanski; Quincey Morris in Count Dracula (1970), the film by Jesús Franco in which he shared a cast with Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski; or in a more recent stage, the sinister Doctor Knox in Wax (2014), by Víctor Matellano. The actor participated in series such as Goya (1986), Cervantes (1981) or Curro Jiménez (1977).

But Jack Taylor wasn't just an actor. He was also a set designer, theatre director and writer, someone who spoke of silent films, impossible shootings, censorship, festivals and sets with the same naturalness with which he spoke of wine, reading or walks. Even in old age he was still linked to new projects, such as his participation as one of the voices narrating the recent documentary Call me Paul, about the figure of Paul Naschy, with whom he coincided on three occasions.

Those who dealt with him found in him not only a living memory of fantasy cinema, but also irony, lucidity and a humility rare in someone who had shared the screen with several generations of legends. Recently he said that he had not made pacts with the devil because he was 99 years old, despite having frequented him so many times in fiction, and attributed his vitality to walking, reading, listening to music and continuing to be interested in everything.

Tireless until the end, he recently published his memoirs, My 100 Years of Cinema (Sial Pygmalion Publishing Group), and told us that he was waiting for a new role that he did not want to talk about so that it would not be lost.

TAYLOR, Jack (George Brown Randall)

Born: 10/21/1936, Oregon City, Oregon, U.S.A.

Died: 5/12/2026, Chamberí, Madrid, Spain

 

Jack Taylor’s westerns – actor:

Billy the Kid – 1963 (Blackie/Black Jack)

Tomb of the Pistolero – 1964 (Herbert/Russ Brandon)

Fall of the Mohicans – 1965 (Major Duncan Heyward)

The Christmas Kid – 1966 (John Novak)

Custer of the West -1967

Sons of Trinity – 1994 (Theopolis)

Once Upon a Time in Europe (TV) – 2001 [himself]

Jack Taylor – 2007 [himself]

Print the Legend – 2023 [narrator]