Born Louis William Weiss on May 11, 1907, Kent Taylor was a modestly popular "B" actor of the 1930s and 940s. The tall, dark and handsome leading man who sported rugged looks, a slick, pencil-thin mustache and solid physique was certainly star material with the potential and durability of a Clark Gable and Errol Flynn, but he somehow lacked the star quality and charisma of the aforementioned pair. An avid outdoorsman, Taylor nevertheless churned out over 110 films during his lengthy career, appearing in a number of quality "A" pictures as a second lead.
The son of farmers, he was born just southeast of Nashua, Iowa. As a teenager he performed in several high school plays. The family then moved to Waterloo, Iowa, where he made a living as a window trimmer in a ladies' clothing shop. After a brief move to Chicago, the family relocated to Los Angeles, where his father and he started an awning company. Taylor pursued acting as a profession after being introduced to director Henry King. He apprenticed for a couple of years in bit parts after making his unbilled debut in The Magnificent Lie (1931). He peaked in the 1930s with prominent support roles in Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) with Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Je ne suis pas un ange (1933) as one of Mae West's earnest pursuers, the classic La mort prend des vacances (1934) again with Fredric March, the Will Rogers vehicles David Harum (1934) and Le démon de la politique (1935), and Ramona (1936) top-lining Loretta Young and Don Ameche, which was directed by his old friend Henry King.
Taylor then starred in his own modest succession of "B" programmers with Un ménage modèle (1937), Pirates of the Skies (1939), Repent at Leisure (1941), Mississippi Gambler (1942), Alaska (1944), The Crimson Key (1947) and The Sickle or the Cross (1949), which, at the very least, kept him busy and in the public eye. More noticeable during this period was his portrayal of Doc Holiday in Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die (1942) opposite Richard Dix's Wyatt Earp.
With his film career on the decline, Taylor turned more and more to TV, becoming the medium's Boston Blackie (1951) for a couple of seasons, a role that had him following in the popular footsteps of Chester Morris, who starred in a series of Boston Blackie films as the urbane master thief-cum-detective. He followed that with a lead in the series The Rough Riders (1958). Taylor was also a frequent visitor on the sets of popular western series, including Zorro (1957), Laramie (1959), L'homme à la carabine (1958) and Rango (1967). Toward the end of his career, however, the elderly actor took a bizarre John Carradine-like turn into Grade "Z" schlock. Some of these--including such unbearables as The Crawling Hand (1963), Brides of Blood (1968), Satan's Sadists (1969), Hell's Bloody Devils (1970), Blood of Ghastly Horror (1967) and Girls for Rent (1974)__achieved cult infamy as some of Hollywood's most notorious "turkeys." Taylor died following a series of heart operations at the age of 79.
