Robert Taylor, one of Hollywood’s most beloved leading men, raised his right hand before Congress in October 1947 and denounced what he called signs of communist activity in the film industry. In an ornate hearing room packed with spectators, the matinee idol known as “the man with the perfect profile” named colleagues he believed were subversive, knowingly putting their careers at risk. It was a surreal tableau: one of the silver screen’s most popular stars cast in a real-life political drama at the heart of America’s Red Scare. Born Spangler Arlington Brugh on August 5, 1911, in the tiny village of Filley, Nebraska, Taylor was the only child of a farmer turned osteopath and his wife.
The family moved frequently before settling in Beatrice, Nebraska, in 1917. Taylor later said his parents’ devoted marriage “conditioned my young idea of what marriage should be and how a man ought to treat a woman. ”
As a boy, he was a natural athlete but music captured his heart first. Encouraged by a music teacher, he took up the cello and won statewide competitions.
After high school, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, to study medicine while continuing his musical training. When his cello mentor accepted a position at Pomona College in California in 1931, Taylor followed him west. At Pomona, he joined the campus theater group almost on a lark, and a role in a World War I play caught the eye of a talent scout from Goldwyn. In 1934, MGM signed him to a contract, and studio boss Louis B.
Mayer decreed that Spangler Arlington Brugh would never fit on a marquee. Thus Robert Taylor was born. At first, Taylor was just one of dozens of contract players at MGM, earning a record-low $35 a week and earning the unglamorous nickname “the test boy. ” His acting was rough and his confidence uncertain.
Then, in late 1934, the lead actor on a short film fell ill, and Taylor stepped in. His intense performance startled everyone, and MGM realized they had a leading man in the making. His first big break came in 1935 when Irene Dunne requested him as her co-star in Magnificent Obsession. That same year, he was paired with Greta Garbo in Camille, and his star ascended with the film.
By the late 1930s, Taylor’s face was on magazine covers worldwide, and a 1937 nationwide poll of 20 million filmgoers voted him the second most important male star in America, just behind Clark Gable. Despite the hype, Taylor remained modest. When asked to explain his appeal, he shrugged, “Darned if I know. Acting is the easiest job in the world, and I’m the luckiest guy.
” He worked hard to hone his craft, and colleagues remembered him as collegial and free of ego. Actress Shelley Winters called him “the sweetest man to work with. ”
In 1936, Taylor’s personal life became entwined with another Hollywood luminary: Barbara Stanwyck. Four years older and famed for her toughness, Stanwyck was freshly divorced and wary of romance when a mutual friend arranged a dinner with Taylor.
They bonded over a love of horseback riding and the outdoors, and both leaned conservative politically. After a three-year courtship, they married on May 14, 1939, eloping to San Diego to avoid media frenzy. For a while, the marriage was one of Hollywood’s most admired. Stanwyck helped guide Taylor’s career, nudging him toward more challenging roles.
Friends said she pushed him to break his pretty-boy image. They presented a picture of domestic bliss, often photographed at their ranch with their dogs and horses. But behind the polite smiles, fault lines were forming. As World War II erupted, Taylor, a visceral patriot, enlisted in the U.
S. Naval Air Force in 1943, earning a commission as a lieutenant and training as a pilot. He was assigned stateside as a flight instructor and starred in and directed dozens of Navy training films. He narrated the acclaimed documentary The Fighting Lady in 1944.
The war years were not easy on the marriage. Taylor’s long absences combined with the stresses of service put distance between the couple. There was also the matter of Lana Turner. During the filming of Johnny Eager in 1941, Taylor had begun an affair with his co-star, a liaison that was Hollywood’s worst-kept secret.
Stanwyck initially swallowed her hurt, but some of the warmth between the couple cooled. In the late 1940s, Taylor took on darker, more interesting roles. In the psychological thriller Undercurrent, he played against type as a mysterious, possibly murderous husband. In the gritty film noir High Wall, he portrayed a World War II veteran tormented by brain trauma and accused of murder.
Critics praised his performances and noted the war had seemingly ruggedized Taylor. It was in this period that Taylor also took a definitive political stand. In 1944, he was a founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a fervently anti-communist group that included John Wayne, Walt Disney, and Ronald Reagan. Taylor saw no contradiction in opposing both Nazi fascism and Soviet communism.
“I speak out against communism now for the same reason I spoke out against Nazism a decade ago, because I am pro-freedom and pro-decency,” he declared in 1951. The trigger for his controversy came with Song of Russia, a 1944 film Taylor starred in that was pro-Soviet propaganda during the wartime alliance. By 1947, the Cold War had begun, and the film looked very different in hindsight. That year, the House Un-American Activities Committee, known as HUAC, turned its attention to Hollywood.
In May 1947, Taylor was one of a handful of film figures quietly invited to testify in a closed-door HUAC session in Los Angeles. Believing the meeting confidential, he spoke candidly. He vented that he’d been “forced” to make Song of Russia and complained about certain colleagues without explicitly calling them communists. HUAC’s chairman promptly leaked Taylor’s testimony to the press, and headlines blared that Taylor had blown the whistle on Hollywood Reds.
Taylor felt betrayed by the committee and by his own naivete. His boss, Louis B. Mayer, was furious for a different reason, resenting the implication that MGM made pro-Red films. For the first time in his career, Taylor was at serious odds with his studio and facing public controversy.
As HUAC announced plans for aggressive public hearings that October, Taylor wanted no part of it. He received a subpoena ordering him to Washington, facing contempt of Congress if he refused. On October 22, 1947, he found himself in a packed hearing room on Capitol Hill under kleig lights and newsreel cameras. Taylor kept his testimony brief.
He affirmed his staunch anti-communism and again mentioned Howard Da Silva and Karen Morley by name but carefully avoided making formal accusations. Both were later blacklisted, and both were indeed acknowledged Communist Party members. After barely 25 minutes, he exited as flashbulbs exploded and admiring fans cheered. The fallout was mixed.
HUAC supporters hailed Taylor as a patriotic friendly witness, though he insisted he had been dragged there against his will. Many in Hollywood’s liberal community regarded him with scorn. The left-leaning press never quite forgave him, and decades later, his testimony was still cited as an example of Hollywood’s capitulation to the Red Scare. Friends sensed the experience deeply embittered him.
By the early 1950s, Taylor faced upheavals at home and at his studio. In 1951, Stanwyck filed for divorce, ending their 12-year marriage. The official reason was incompatibility, but the cracks had been visible. Taylor’s wartime affair with Lana Turner and rumors of a dalliance with Ava Gardner had eroded her trust.
Stanwyck later confided to friends that Taylor was the love of her life. She never remarried. Taylor publicly called her “a wonderful woman. ”
Professionally, Taylor reached the end of one epoch and the start of another.
He had been under contract at MGM for 25 years, a Hollywood record. In 1953, he scored one of the biggest triumphs of his career with Quo Vadis, an epic spectacle that grossed over $11 million. In 1954, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association named him the world’s most popular male film star. Taylor’s interests were shifting.
He found himself increasingly drawn to westerns, a genre he loved since boyhood. Beginning with Devil’s Doorway, a controversial film in which he portrayed a Native American war hero, Taylor brought an easy authenticity to the screen. In his personal life, the 1950s brought renewal. In 1952, he met a German actress named Ursula Thiess.
They dated for two years before marrying in May 1954. Taylor embarked on a second chance at domestic happiness, and soon they welcomed a son and a daughter. Friends noted that he seemed more content puttering on his ranch than chasing roles at the studio. Taylor remained a working actor into the 1960s, segueing from feature films to television.
In 1959, he produced and headlined the weekly crime series The Detectives, which ran for three seasons. In 1964, he reunited on screen with Stanwyck for the first time since their divorce in The Night Walker, a small horror film. They were friendly on set, professionals to the end. In 1966, Taylor took over hosting the western anthology TV show Death Valley Days from his friend Ronald Reagan, who was preparing to run for governor of California.
Taylor hosted the show until 1969. In early 1968, Taylor received a devastating diagnosis: lung cancer. A lifelong heavy smoker, he underwent surgery to remove one lung, but the disease had spread. He kept his illness largely private.
By the spring of 1969, he grew too weak to continue working. On May 26, 1969, he filmed a brief farewell message for Death Valley Days. Less than two weeks later, on June 8, 1969, he died at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica.
He was 57 years old. Taylor’s funeral drew a who’s who of Hollywood’s golden age. Stanwyck attended in somber silence. The eulogy was delivered by his close friend, Governor Ronald Reagan, who spoke warmly of Taylor’s integrity and Midwestern virtues.
Through over 80 films and two decades of stardom, Taylor had never once played a scene that could embarrass conservative America. In the final analysis, Robert Taylor’s life was not a tale of scandal or tragedy, but of steady, earnest dedication to his craft and principles. He began as the face that launched a thousand sighs and ended as a steady figure of integrity in an industry often short on it.
It’s the character behind the perfect profile—the professionalism, the decency, the resilience—that marks his place in Hollywood history.