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SAMUEL TAYLOR (1913 - 2000) |
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Nationality: USA Email: Click here to contact Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: International Creative Management |
San Francisco Chronicle, May 27, 2000. -- Playwright Samuel Taylor, author of such Broadway hits as ``Sabrina Fair'' and ``The Pleasure of his Company,'' as well as the screenplay of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller ``Vertigo,'' died yesterday at his home in Blue Hill, Maine. Mr. Taylor, who was 87, had been in failing health for the past year. Although he considered himself primarily a playwright, in an irony he fully appreciated, he was best known for two movies he co- wrote -- ``Vertigo'' and the 1954 version of ``Sabrina,'' based on his play and later remade as a 1995 film starring Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond. Mr. Taylor was born in Chicago, and his family moved to San Francisco when he was an infant. He graduated from Lowell High School and attended the University of California at Berkeley in the early 1930s, interrupting his studies from time to time to ship out as a merchant seaman. In the mid-1930s, Mr. Taylor moved to New York to be a writer. He asked Harold Ross for a job at The New Yorker magazine, but when Ross assigned him to go out and interview people, Mr. Taylor quickly found that journalism was not his strong suit. More interested in theater, he soon found a job reading plays for an agent. When the agent found plays that looked promising but needed work he asked Mr. Taylor for his ideas. Mr. Taylor rewrote many plays, some of which were later produced. Although he received no listed credit, his reputation in the theater community grew and he got jobs as a play doctor and rewrite man. Toward the end of the 1930s, Mr. Taylor worked on Clifford Goldsmith's play ``What A Life,'' and he later wrote scripts for the radio series ``The Aldrich Family,'' based on the Goldsmith play. After marrying singer Suzanne Combes Robinson in 1940, Mr. Taylor worked in radio and the nascent television industry. While keeping his day job as a radio and TV writer, Mr. Taylor spent several years writing ``The Happy Time,'' a comedy about the foibles of a French-Canadian family in 1920s Ottawa, adapted from the Robert Fontaine novel. The play opened in 1950 to glowing reviews, and Mr. Taylor gave up writing radio comedies so he could devote full time to his own plays. ``Sabrina Fair,'' with Joseph Cotten and Margaret Sullavan, a Cinderella story about a chauffeur's daughter who falls in love with the millionaire son of the family that employs her father, opened three years later. Director Billy Wilder later made it into a movie with Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. Mr. Taylor then wrote ``The Pleasure of His Company'' with Cornelia Otis Skinner, who co-starred with Cyril Ritchard. The play was set in San Francisco and one critic called it ``the sort of gay and silken comedy of manners that puts everyone at ease on and off the stage.'' While working on that play, Mr. Taylor was hired by Hitchcock to try to salvage the script of ``Vertigo,'' which had already been through two writers. Mr. Taylor wrote a substantially different screenplay, adding characters and deciding to let the audience in on the film's secret two-thirds of the way through, rather than waiting until the end, as in previous versions. According to Dan Auiler's book, ``Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic,'' Mr. Taylor also reached into his childhood memory of growing up in the Bay Area to introduce bits and pieces of San Francisco color that had not been in the original script. Although most of the final movie was Mr. Taylor's work, enough of writer Alec Coppel's script remained to allow the Writers' Guild to order that both writers share the credit. Among Mr. Taylor's other movie credits were another Hitchcock picture, ``Topaz,'' as well as ``The Eddy Duchin Story, ``Goodbye Again,'' and ``Rosie.'' ``Vertigo,'' which premiered in 1958, was given a new lease on life in 1996 when a restored version of the film was released nationwide in a 70mm print. In 1998, the American Film Institute named ``Vertigo'' one of America's 100 best movies. Mr. Taylor's only foray into the world of musicals produced the 1962 Broadway play ``No Strings.'' Mr. Taylor wrote the book and Richard Rodgers provided the music and lyrics. The story of a white expatriate writer in Paris (Richard Kiley) who falls in love with a black model (Diahann Carroll) played for more than a year in New York, but plans for a movie version were scotched when producers said they feared a backlash from movie distributors in the South. At the time of his death, Mr. Taylor was working on a play set in Northern California in the mid-19th century. Mr. Taylor was a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers' Guild of America, the Century Association and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was a past president of the Dramatists Play Service. He is survived by his wife, Suzanne, of Blue Hill, Maine; two sons, David Taylor of Brookline, Mass., and Michael Taylor of Berkeley; a stepdaughter, Ellinor Mitchell of New York; and nine grandchildren.
Plays by Samuel Taylor
Appeal, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French Inc, New York | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #120607 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Lord Byron, Dorothy and William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge get drunk | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Avanti! | ||
| 1st Produced: | Booth Theatre, New York | 1968 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service 1975 | ISBN/ASIN: | 9780822211617 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34143 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Romantic Comedy in Two Acts Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | aka Touch of Spring | |||||
Synopsis: | As the New York Post outlines: "It is set in a real Rome. A Rome you really miss&It is set there because a young, conservative, slightly stuffy American businessman has come to retrieve the body of his father, who was killed in an automobile accident. Confronted with bureaucratic pasta and accustomed to his own business power, he blusters futilely until the arrival of a "professional assistant'-a young Italian who, for a fee, will cut through any red tape. And though we have seen this character, more or less, in many stories about Americans in Italy, Mr. Taylor has created him extra special wonderfully. He is a pimp for all sexes and all variations, and takes his own sex any way you choose. He deals with the bureaucracy as he deals with life-optimistically, high spiritedly and with a sure knowledge of his own childishness. The American businessman also meets a young lady, as he would have to in such a play. She is the daughter of his father's lover, who was killed in the car accident. Nor should it come as a surprise to anyone that they have an affair, that the young man is married, that his wife unexpectedly arrives and that he leaves agreeing to meet her for a month in Italy. Just as her father and her mother had been doing for twelve years&So then what it adds up to is grown-up entertainment&so well done and so basically diverting that it can only be taken for the pleasurable thing it is." | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Beekman Place | ||
| 1st Produced: | Morosco Theatre, New York | 08 Oct 1964 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Random House 1965 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34144 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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First Love | ||
| 1st Produced: | New Locust Theatre, Philadelphia | Dec 1961 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34145 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 19 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | 4 boys (of the 19 men, many are bit parts): 20 total | |||||
Notes: | Based on the memoir Promise at Dawn, by Romain Gary | |||||
Synopsis: | Richard Watts describes the play as the "appealing heartfelt chronicle of a son's often sorely tried devotion to a remarkable, courageous and almost epically exasperating mother. Episodic and somewhat leisurely, it possesses a kind of humorous sadness that is steadily engaging. If the French author-diplomat hadn't loved his mother deeply, he might have made a fairly devastating case against her. Possessive, driving and ruthlessly resourceful, she could be a trial to everybody and an embarrassment to her child. But she had the indomitable quality of never accepting defeat, she fought on unceasingly for the goal she had set, and her ambition was not for herself, but for the two loves of her life, her son and France. And she was capable of every sacrifice to further the dreams to which she devoted her life" | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Flying Colors | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107111 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Happy Time, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34146 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | based on stories by Robert Fontaine | |||||
Synopsis: | The "happy time" of the title is the growing up of twelve-year-old Bibi Bonnard, youngest member of a gay, uninhibited French family living in Ottawa. Bibi's father is a good-humored whimsical musician, leader of a vaudeville orchestra, who wants his son to grow up to appreciate the warmth and humor of life, and to understand that "to be truly a man one must know two things: One must know love, one must know truth." The other men of the family are: young, exuberant Uncle Desmonde, bon vivant, travelling salesman, and "Casanova of Canada"; Uncle Louis, who drinks wine from a water cooler, and "has not let the thought of work disturb his slumbers in twenty years"; and Grandpere, who believes that one lives only as long as one loves, and is determined to live forever. The quieting influence in this mercurial household is Bibi's mother, Maman, a Scot among Frenchmen, who tries with amused determination to rule her men with some kind of order and usually fails, though in so doing she manages to retain her good-humored tolerance. It is Maman who warns the men that their carefree ways may someday get Bibi into trouble, but when her prediction comes true and the trouble comes, she has reason to be proud of her, for they really rally like the Three Musketeers, rise to the occasion, and show their true honesty and humanity. They strike a blow for freedom, and in a scene that is warmly humorous and deeply touching, Bibi learns what it is "truly to be a man." | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Legend | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34147 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Romantic Comedy Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Although fast and furious and filled with lively action, this delightful comedy is also, in essence, a "dream" play, for it treats the classic period of the Old West as a part of American mythology. It tells of a mysterious, romantic girl who appears in a remote mining town in quest of the fabled West and its legendary heroes, and who finds what she is seeking in an Outlaw, a Sheriff, a Banker and the rough but lovable men of the town. It is comedy that echoes all the facts and fancies, and dreams and illusions, of Western lore as it follows the heroine through a series of lively escapades: from bank robbery to enforced, unaccustomed domesticity after being taken into custody by the Sheriff. In the end a burst of violence seems to shatter the myth which she has summoned to life, leaving her with no more than memories. But, ironically, they are memories which, together with her own story, are sure to merge into yet another legend of the West-to be told and re-told, with suitable embellishments, by generations yet to come. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Nina | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107112 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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No Strings | ||
| 1st Produced: | 54th Street Theatre, New York | 15 Mar 1962 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | Original cast recording: Angel (64694) 1962 | doollee no | #107113 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Musical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers; book by Samuel Taylor | |||||
| Barbara a famous model meets an American writer, David in Paris. He has been suffering from severe writers block and has been spending his time hanging around in St Tropez and other high class French seaside resorts. Barbara believes that he will only start writing again if he goes back to the US. He agrees and asks her to come too - but she declines | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Perfect Pitch | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, NY, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34148 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | a famous violin virtuoso is determined to retire but is frustrated in his intentions by his cook, wife, fiery Russian manager and an old flame | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Pleasure Of His Company, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Heinemann, London, 1959 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34149 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | American Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | written by Skinner, Cornelia and Taylor, Samuel | |||||
Synopsis: | As told by McClain, "A somewhat tarnished international playboy returns to the San Francisco home of his former wife to give away their daughter in marriage. He hasn't laid eyes on the girl since she was a sprout and now discovering her a resplendent young woman, he turns on the charm that has won his reputation in all the playgrounds of the world. The daughter is utterly transported, the mother and the fiance are helpless against this sophisticated tidal wave. But the impasse is rationally resolved when the girl wins her plea to be allowed a small sabbatical abroad [with her father] before settling down to the marriage she still cherishes." | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Sabrina Fair | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London, 1954 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34150 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Romantic Comedy in Two Acts Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 7 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | is a modern version of the Cinderella fable, writes Atkinson, in the Times. It is set on Long Island in the 1950s, and deals with the involvement of a very rich family named Larrabee with Sabrina Fairchild, the daughter of their family chauffeur. She is bright, well-educated, and has just returned from five years in Paris, where she has done a brilliant job as an executive in a U.S. government overseas office. She has come home to find out if she is still in love with the younger Larrabee son, David. The elder son, Linus, a cynical, good-humored tycoon who has taken control of the family fortune, detects Sabrina's feeling for his brother, and for his own amusement lays a trap to bring them together. It works: David falls in love with Sabrina and wants to marry her. At the same time, a rich young Frenchman who has known Sabrina in Paris turns up and asks her to marry him. Faced with this dilemma, Sabrina discovers it is really Linus she wants. After an amusing scene in which Sabrina's father, the chauffeur, makes a rather amazing revelation, Sabrina breaks down Linus' resistance and gets her man. An unusual number of fine character parts for actors: the beautiful mother of wit and perception; the father, whose one passion is attending funerals; the chauffeur who has been dabbling in the stock market and likes his job because it gives him time to read; the smart magazine editor who, as a house guest, is the interested observer. "SABRINA FAIR is a delightful, sparkling hit." -Robert Coleman, NY Mirror. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Touch Of Spring, A | ||
| 1st Produced: | Booth Theatre, New York | 1968 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London, 1975 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #34151 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Romantic Comedy in Two Acts Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | aka Avanti | |||||
Synopsis: | As the New York Post outlines: "It is set in a real Rome. A Rome you really miss&It is set there because a young, conservative, slightly stuffy American businessman has come to retrieve the body of his father, who was killed in an automobile accident. Confronted with bureaucratic pasta and accustomed to his own business power, he blusters futilely until the arrival of a "professional assistant'-a young Italian who, for a fee, will cut through any red tape. And though we have seen this character, more or less, in many stories about Americans in Italy, Mr. Taylor has created him extra special wonderfully. He is a pimp for all sexes and all variations, and takes his own sex any way you choose. He deals with the bureaucracy as he deals with life-optimistically, high spiritedly and with a sure knowledge of his own childishness. The American businessman also meets a young lady, as he would have to in such a play. She is the daughter of his father's lover, who was killed in the car accident. Nor should it come as a surprise to anyone that they have an affair, that the young man is married, that his wife unexpectedly arrives and that he leaves agreeing to meet her for a month in Italy. Just as her father and her mother had been doing for twelve years&So then what it adds up to is grown-up entertainment&so well done and so basically diverting that it can only be taken for the pleasurable thing it is." | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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