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 O'Brien 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 Marg[aret] 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 Dub's 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" (double-u) 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 ex-football captain Ed Carmichael in Frank Capra's You Can't 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 Elliott’s 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 ill-tempered 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
157 movies · 60 shows
Maverick
1994·6.9
Falling from Grace
1992·5.0
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw
1991·4.8
Conagher
1991·6.7
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
1991·6.3
Back to the Future Part III
1990·7.5
Once Upon a Texas Train
1988·5.2
The Best of Times
1986·5.6
The Outlaws
1984·0.0
Cannonball Run II
1984·5.4
Soggy Bottom, U.S.A.
1981·5.1
Used Cars
1980·6.4
1941
1979·5.8
They Went That-A-Way & That-A-Way
1978·4.4
Doc Hooker's Bunch
1978·7.0
The Great Smokey Roadblock
1978·5.7
Beartooth
1978·4.6
The Rescuers
1977·6.8
Moonshine County Express
1977·4.9
Great Day
1977·0.0
Kit Carson and the Mountain Men
1977·9.0
Pony Express Rider
1976·6.0
Burnt Offerings
1976·6.5
Gator
1976·5.2
Treasure of Matecumbe
1976·6.5
The Winds of Autumn
1976·6.0
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
1976·8.5
Creature from Black Lake
1976·5.2
Hearts of the West
1975·5.6
Poor Pretty Eddie
1975·5.2
Flash and the Firecat
1975·8.5
The Fortune
1975·5.4
The Daughters of Joshua Cabe Return
1975·4.8
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
1974·6.8
Honky Tonk
1974·8.0
Shootout in a One-Dog Town
1974·10.0
This Is a Hijack
1973·5.4
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
1973·7.2
Tom Sawyer
1973·6.4
Brock's Last Case
1973·5.0
Country Blue
1973·4.6
The Getaway
1972·7.1
Junior Bonner
1972·6.1
The Delphi Bureau: The Merchant of Death Assignment
1972·9.0
Wild in the Sky
1972·8.0
Evel Knievel
1971·5.0
Man and Boy
1971·6.7
Support Your Local Gunfighter
1971·6.6
Who Killed the Mysterious Mr. Foster?
1971·9.0
The Wild Country
1970·6.1
A Man Called Horse
1970·6.4
The Liberation of L.B. Jones
1970·6.0
Menace on the Mountain
1970·5.3
… tick… tick… tick…
1970·6.7
The Reivers
1969·6.4
The Undefeated
1969·6.3
The Learning Tree
1969·6.7
The Wild Bunch
1969·7.6
Death of a Gunfighter
1969·6.2
Ride a Northbound Horse
1969·10.0
Something for a Lonely Man
1968·7.6
The Shakiest Gun in the West
1968·6.2
Bandolero!
1968·6.6
The Money Jungle
1967·5.6
Bonnie and Clyde
1967·7.5
Johnny Banco
1967·6.0
Don't Make Waves
1967·5.2
The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin
1967·6.6
The Cincinnati Kid
1965·7.0
The Hallelujah Trail
1965·6.1
The Decorator
1965·6.0
Major Dundee
1965·6.7
Spencer's Mountain
1963·6.8
The Losers
1963·0.0
Mooncussers
1962·6.7
How the West Was Won
1962·7.0
Period of Adjustment
1962·6.0
Black Gold
1962·4.5
Sweet Bird of Youth
1962·6.7
Pocketful of Miracles
1961·7.3
Parrish
1961·5.0
Home from the Hill
1960·6.9
A Hole in the Head
1959·6.2
Auntie Mame
1958·7.0
Hot Rod Gang
1958·5.3
No Time for Sergeants
1958·7.3
You Can't Run Away from It
1956·5.1
The Fastest Gun Alive
1956·6.9
I Died a Thousand Times
1955·6.2
Tall Man Riding
1955·5.8
A Star Is Born
1954·7.1
The Bounty Hunter
1954·6.8
Dragnet
1954·6.1
Them!
1954·6.8
Riding Shotgun
1954·6.0
Crime Wave
1953·7.1
Life with Buster Keaton
1951·8.5
The Marshall of Trail City
1950·6.0
Riding High
1950·6.1
Lawless Code
1949·9.0
Roaring Westward
1949·8.0
Brand of Fear
1949·6.5
Across The Rio Grande
1949·4.5
Gun Law Justice
1949·10.0
Gun Runner
1949·8.0
Courtin' Trouble
1948·10.0
Outlaw Brand
1948·10.0
Silver Trails
1948·9.0
Cowboy Cavalier
1948·10.0
Range Renegades
1948·9.0
Partners of the Sunset
1948·10.0
The Rangers Ride
1948·10.0
Oklahoma Blues
1948·9.0
Song of the Drifter
1948·7.0
Ridin' Down the Trail
1947·9.0
Frontier Gunlaw
1946·7.0
Texas Panhandle
1945·7.0
Lawless Empire
1945·10.0
Outlaws of the Rockies
1945·7.5
Blazing the Western Trail
1945·6.3
Rustlers of the Badlands
1945·8.0
Both Barrels Blazing
1945·5.5
Rough Ridin' Justice
1945·10.0
Sagebrush Heroes
1945·9.0
Saddle Leather Law
1944·7.0
Cyclone Prairie Rangers
1944·9.0
Cowboy from Lonesome River
1944·7.0
The Last Horseman
1944·8.0
Wyoming Hurricane
1944·7.0
Sundown Valley
1944·10.0
Cowboy Canteen
1944·8.0
Cowboy in the Clouds
1943·7.0
The Vigilantes Ride
1943·9.0
Minesweeper
1943·5.2
Silver City Raiders
1943·8.0
Saddles and Sagebrush
1943·5.0
Riders of the Northwest Mounted
1943·7.5
A Tornado in the Saddle
1942·3.0
The Lone Prairie
1942·8.5
Tanks a Million
1941·5.8
King of Dodge City
1941·9.0
The Son of Davy Crockett
1941·10.0
Hands Across the Rockies
1941·7.2
The Return of Daniel Boone
1941·6.0
North from the Lone Star
1941·8.0
Across the Sierras
1941·4.5
The Wildcat of Tucson
1940·10.0
Beyond the Sacramento
1940·9.0
Prairie Schooners
1940·8.0
One Man's Law
1940·10.0
The Return of Wild Bill
1940·7.0
The Man from Tumbleweeds
1940·5.0
Pioneers of the Frontier
1940·9.0
Taming of the West
1939·10.0
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1939·7.8
Carefree
1938·6.7
You Can't Take It with You
1938·7.5