Sam Taylor

New York-born writer and director with a penchant for comedy. He graduated from Fordham University, and, from 1916, worked at Kalem on the 'Ham and Bud' series ('Lloyd Hamilton' (qv) & 'Bud Duncan' (qv)). When Kalem was taken over by Vitagraph, Taylor became feature continuity writer. Sometime after 1920, he joined 'Hal Roach' (qv) as a full screenwriter, eventually becoming an integral part of 'Harold Lloyd' (qv)'s writing staff. He often worked in tandem with 'Fred C. Newmeyer' (qv) as co-director of such comedy classics as _Safety Last! (1923)_ (qv) and _The Freshman (1925)_ (qv). Among his important solo directing efforts were 'Harold Lloyd' (qv)'s _For Heaven's Sake (1926)_ (qv), _Exit Smiling (1926)_ (qv), with 'Beatrice Lillie' (qv); _Tempest (1928)_ (qv), with 'John Barrymore' (qv) and _Ambassador Bill (1931)_ (qv),with 'Will Rogers' (qv).In 1937, Taylor founded Chase Productions in conjunction with his writer-brother Matt and authored the Broadway play 'Stopover', which ran for 23 performances at the Lyceum Theatre. Taylor directed 'Laurel & Hardy' (qv) in one of their last features, _Nothing But Trouble (1944)_ (qv), then turned to writing. His best novel was a thriller, 'The Man With My Face', about an accountant who comes home one day to find that his life has been taken over by a doppelganger and he is subsequently persecuted as an impostor. This was turned into a 1951 motion picture, starring 'Barry Nelson' (qv), for which Taylor also wrote the screenplay.::I.S.Mowis