Forrest Taylor (December 29, 1883 - February 19, 1965) was a character actor whose artistic career spanned six different decades, from silents through talkies to the advent of color.
A native of Bloomington, Illinois, Taylor was a veteran of the stage by the time he started appearing as a silent lead in both short and feature-length films. Little is known about his early days on stage, but he essayed prime roles in the films The Terror of Twin Mountains (1915), Sunset Country (1915), April (1916), True Nobility (1916) and The Abandonment (1916), before joining the army during World War I. He would not return to films until 1926, appearing in A Poor Girl's Romance.
During the 1930s, Taylor became entrenched as a supporting player in B-westerns and several cliffhanger serials, often playing either the action or brains heavy roles. As he grew older and grayer, Taylor migrated to nice guy roles, such as the father of the heroine, a lawman, or a scientist. Then, after the westerns and serials faded he migrated to television work. From 1952 through 1954, he costarred as Grandpa Fisher on the religious TV series This is the Life.
Extremely effective and versatile, Taylor is identified in about 400 films, including 325 sound era films and of those, 201 are westerns and 36 are chapterplays, according to the Internet Movie Database. As well, his credits at Republic Pictures number about 75 for the period 1937-1953 (most all of these are B-westerns and serials).
Taylor finally retired in 1963 after filming an episode of Ripcord and died two years later of natural causes in Garden Grove, California, at the age of 81.
