British writer
John Russell Taylor
(born 19 June 1935) is an
English
critic
and
author
. He is the author of critical studies of
British
theatre
; of critical biographies of such figures in
film
as
Alfred Hitchcock
,
Alec Guinness
,
Orson Welles
,
Vivien Leigh
, and
Ingrid Bergman
; of
Strangers in Paradise: The Hollywood Emigres 1933?1950
(1983); and several books on
art
.
Personal
[
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]
Taylor was born in
Dover
, England, the son of Arthur Russell and Kathleen Mary (Picker) Taylor, and now lives in London and West Wales.
[1]
He attended Dover Grammar School, took a double first in English at
Jesus College, Cambridge
, and studied Art Nouveau book illustration at the
Courtauld Institute of Art
.
[2]
In 2006, he entered a civil partnership with his longtime companion, the artist and photographer Ying Yeung Li.
[3]
Career
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]
In the 1960s, Taylor wrote on
cinema
for
Sight and Sound
and the
Monthly Film Bulletin
, on the
theatre
in
Plays and Players
, on
television
for
The Listener
and the
Times Educational Supplement
, and on the
arts
for
The Times Literary Supplement
. From the late 1950s, he began writing anonymously on television and theatre for
The Times
, and by 1962 he had become the paper's film critic, initially anonymous but later named after the paper abandoned its anonymity rule in January 1967 when
William Rees-Mogg
became editor.
During this era, Taylor wrote books including
Anger and After: A Guide to the New British Drama
(1962), titled
The Angry Theatre
in the USA; revised and expanded and published in paperback (1969);
Anatomy of a Television Play
(1962), concerning the
Armchair Theatre
productions
Afternoon of a Nymph
and
The Rose Affair
;
Cinema Eye, Cinema Ear: Some Key Film-Makers of the Sixties
(1964); and
The Art Nouveau Book in Britain
(1966). Subsequently, he wrote
The Penguin Dictionary of the Theatre
(1966),
The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play
(1967),
The Art Dealers
(1969) and
The Hollywood Musical
(1971), as well as
British Council
monographs on
Harold Pinter
,
Peter Shaffer
and
David Storey
. He also edited the film criticism of
Graham Greene
in
The Pleasure Dome
(1972, called
Graham Greene on Film
in the USA).
In 1969, Taylor was a member of the jury at the
19th Berlin International Film Festival
,
[4]
and was later frequently on the juries at other festivals, including Delhi, Venice, Krakow, Cork, Istanbul, Troja, Parnu, Rio de Janeiro, Montreal and, several times, the
Chicago International Film Festival
.
In the early 1970s, Taylor wrote the book
The Second Wave: British Drama of the Sixties
, a sequel to
Anger and After
, and several television plays, including a version of
Dracula
with
Denholm Elliott
in the title role, which was praised by
Kingsley Amis
as the best version ever. In 1972, he moved to
California
, to teach film at the
University of Southern California
, in
Los Angeles
, serving as a Professor of Cinema from 1972 to 1978,
[5]
while continuing to contribute to the London
Times
, as its American Cultural Correspondent,
Sight and Sound
,
The New York Times
, and the
Los Angeles Times
. During this period, he wrote
Directors and Directions: Cinema for the Seventies
(1975).
Having developed a friendship with
Alfred Hitchcock
during the 1970s, he became Hitchcock's authorised biographer.
[6]
In 1978, after publishing
Hitch
, Taylor returned to the
UK
, becoming the art critic for
The Times
, a post that he held until 2005. His other books since 1978 include
Strangers in Paradise: The Hollywood Emigres 1933?1950
(1983), and bio-critical studies of
Ingrid Bergman
(1983),
Alec Guinness
(1984),
Vivien Leigh
(1984),
Orson Welles
(1986),
Elizabeth Taylor
(1991), film historian
John Kobal
(2008) and the artists
Edward Wolfe
(1986),
Peter Samuelson
(1987),
Robin Tanner
(1989),
Bernard Meninsky
(1990),
John Copley
(1990),
Muriel Pemberton
(1993), Ricardo Cinalli (1993),
Claude Monet
(1995), Bill Jacklin (1997),
Cyril Mann
(1997), Peter Coker (2002),
Zsuzsi Roboz
(2005),
Peter Prendergast
(2006),
Panayiotis Kalorkoti
(2007), Carl Laubin (2007),
Philip Sutton
(2008),
Kurt Jackson
(2010), Philip Hicks (2013) and
Paul Day
(2016). More general books on art include
Impressionist Dreams
(1990) and
Exactitude: Hyperrealist Art Today
(2009).
Since 2005, he has contributed frequently to
The Times
on art and film subjects and to
Apollo
on art, and reviewed drama regularly for
Plays International
. He was also editor of the magazine
Films and Filming
from 1983 until its closure in 1990. In 2013, an e-book edition of
Hitch
with a long introductory chapter giving the history of his relationship with Hitchcock was published, and five of his early books,
Anger and After
,
The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play
,
The Second Wave
,
Cinema Eye, Cinema Ear
and
Directors and Directions
, were reprinted as part of the
Routledge
classic critical text series.
References
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External links
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]
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