*Wally Taylor (b. July 14, 1930, Maywood, Illinois – d. October 7, 2012, San Antonio, Texas) an American actor known for his role as Clubber Lang's manager in Rocky III (1982) was born in Maywood, Illinois. Taylor also appeared Escape from New York (1981) and The Golden Child (1986) and starred in the Arena Stage production of Before It Hits Home.
Growing up in Maywood with four brothers raised by a working single mother, Wally Taylor hustled to help his family.
Taylor collected pop bottles and ran errands to make extra money to eat. When he scraped together a little cash, he went to the theater. If they could get enough money with pop bottles, then they would go to the movies. Wally Taylor was just fascinated by the movies.
Eventually, Taylor would study acting at the Goodman School of Drama. His rugged intensity and mastery of his craft made him a busy film and TV actor. Relatives said he was sensitive and gentle in real life, but on screen, he often played the heavy.
In 1972, he was the evil Johnny Kelly in Shaft's Big Score! which included this classic bit of Blaxploitation dialogue from Richard Roundtree: "Stay away from black honkies with big flat feet!"
Taylor was also in an iconic gem of Black Cinema, Cotton Comes to Harlem. He played a militant who gets thrown up in the air by Detectives Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques). "When I learned director Ossie Davis was looking for a stunt man to do that bit, I volunteered and said I'd do it if I could keep the few lines I had," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor appeared in the Eddie Murphy vehicle The Golden Child; in John Carpenter's Escape from New York; in Rocky III; and the 1979 version of When a Stranger Calls.
For the play The Great White Hope, Taylor understudied James Earl Jones. He also appeared as Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun at Chicago's Forum Theater. In 1990, he starred with Yaphet Kotto in Fences at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage theater.
Taylor's television resume reads like a road map of pop culture, including guest shots on "Knight Rider," "Starsky and Hutch," "Sanford and Son," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "St. Elsewhere," "Cagney and Lacy," "Hill Street Blues," "The Dukes of Hazzard," "The Rockford Files," "Ironside," "Moonlighting," "Falcon Crest," "Webster," and "227."
Taylor also played Reverend in Alex Haley's epic 1977 TV miniseries "Roots," which sparked a national conversation on the legacy of slavery.
One of Taylor's favorite roles was as a bartender in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play "No Place to Be Somebody."
Wally Taylor died of heart disease on October 7, 2012, in San Antonio, Texas. He was 82.
Taylor collected pop bottles and ran errands to make extra money to eat. When he scraped together a little cash, he went to the theater. If they could get enough money with pop bottles, then they would go to the movies. Wally Taylor was just fascinated by the movies.
Eventually, Taylor would study acting at the Goodman School of Drama. His rugged intensity and mastery of his craft made him a busy film and TV actor. Relatives said he was sensitive and gentle in real life, but on screen, he often played the heavy.
In 1972, he was the evil Johnny Kelly in Shaft's Big Score! which included this classic bit of Blaxploitation dialogue from Richard Roundtree: "Stay away from black honkies with big flat feet!"
Taylor was also in an iconic gem of Black Cinema, Cotton Comes to Harlem. He played a militant who gets thrown up in the air by Detectives Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques). "When I learned director Ossie Davis was looking for a stunt man to do that bit, I volunteered and said I'd do it if I could keep the few lines I had," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor appeared in the Eddie Murphy vehicle The Golden Child; in John Carpenter's Escape from New York; in Rocky III; and the 1979 version of When a Stranger Calls.
For the play The Great White Hope, Taylor understudied James Earl Jones. He also appeared as Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun at Chicago's Forum Theater. In 1990, he starred with Yaphet Kotto in Fences at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage theater.
Taylor's television resume reads like a road map of pop culture, including guest shots on "Knight Rider," "Starsky and Hutch," "Sanford and Son," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "St. Elsewhere," "Cagney and Lacy," "Hill Street Blues," "The Dukes of Hazzard," "The Rockford Files," "Ironside," "Moonlighting," "Falcon Crest," "Webster," and "227."
Taylor also played Reverend in Alex Haley's epic 1977 TV miniseries "Roots," which sparked a national conversation on the legacy of slavery.
One of Taylor's favorite roles was as a bartender in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play "No Place to Be Somebody."
Wally Taylor died of heart disease on October 7, 2012, in San Antonio, Texas. He was 82.
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