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Robert Taylor in a late Western, Return of the Gunfighter (1967) |
I’ve grown quite fond of many of them, including Joel McCrea, Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott. But there’s one that I’ve come to appreciate because of what he meant to a member of my family.
The actor is Robert Taylor and he was Grandma Brady’s favorite. Taylor passed away this month back in 1969. Here’s a small article that appeared in the Journal on June 7, 1969.
Taylor died the next day on June 8, 1969.
As an article that appeared in the Journal on June 12, 1969, noted, “He epitomized an era of motion pictures: a time in the 30s, 40s and 50s when all leading men were handsome. During those decades the matinee idol was at his height.
“Of them all, Bob Taylor was perhaps the most popular in Hollywood."
Well, he was popular with Grandma, that’s for sure. She even had his photo taped to her cash register at Kline’s in Downtown Lorain, where she worked for thirty years.
But despite Grandma's hardships, my own mother remembers her mother-in-law as sweet, kind and generous. She was practically a saint.
Maybe that picture of Robert Taylor taped to her cash register helped Grandma cope, like a little window into a private world where she could forget about her problems for a while – and dream.