Dub Taylor

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Walter Clarence Taylor Jr February 26 1907 October 3 1994 known as Dub Taylor was an American character actor who from the 1940s into the 1990s worked extensively in films and on television often in Westerns but also in comedies He was the father of actor Buck Taylor who played the character Newly OBrien on Gunsmoke Walter C Taylor Jr was born in 1907 in Richmond Virginia the middle child of five children of Minnie and Walter C Taylor Sr According to the federal census of 1920 young Walter had two older sisters Minnie Margaret and Maud a younger brother named George and a little sister Edna Fay The family moved to Augusta Georgia around 1912 when Walter was five years old and the Taylors lived in this city until he was 13 The census of 1920 also documents that Dubs mother was a native of Pennsylvania and his father was a native of North Carolina who worked in Augusta at that time as a Cotton Broker While living in Georgia as a boy Walter Jr got his lifelong nickname when his friends began calling him W doubleu and then shortened his nickname even farther to just Dub It was in Georgia too where Taylor befriended Ty Cobb Jr the son of the legendary professional baseball player A vaudeville performer Dub Taylor was a member of the 1937 Alabama Crimson Tide football team that played in the 1938 Rose Bowl He stayed behind to establish a career in films making his film debut in 1938 as the cheerful exfootball captain Ed Carmichael in Frank Capras You Cant Take It with You Taylor secured the part because the role required an actor who could also play the xylophone Later during the 1950s and early 1960s he demonstrated his considerable talent for playing the xylophone on several television shows including an episode on the syndicated series Ranch Party hosted by Tex Ritter In 1939 he appeared in the film Taming of the West in which he originated the character of Cannonball a role he continued to play for the next ten years in over 50 films Cannonball was a comic sidekick to Wild Bill Saunders played by Bill Elliott a pairing that continued through 13 features during which Elliotts character became Wild Bill Hickok Despite his extensive career as a character actor in a wide range of roles Dub Taylor continued to find his niche in Westerns a genre in which he performed in literally dozens of more films and in episodes of many television series Taylor often appeared in the guise of talkative hotel or postal clerks court bailiffs cooks or dissolute doctors He portrayed for example an illtempered chuckwagon cook in the 1969 film The Undefeated starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson He appeared as well in the 1971 movie Support Your Local Gunfighter as the drunken Doc Shultz Taylor played Houston Lamb over the course of four episodes of Little House On The Prairie in seasons six and seven 1979 to 1981 Taylor made at least two film cameos in the early 1990s In Back to the Future Part III he appeared with veteran Western actors Pat Buttram and Harry Carey Jr His last appearance was in the film Maverick as a hotel room clerk Dub Taylor died of a heart attack on October 3 1994 in Los Angeles In addition to being father to Buck Taylor Dub had a daughter Faydean Taylor Tharp CLR