The name's Taylor...Rod Taylor ...Who ?

Cannes, 1997

There was one helluva lotta interest in Welcome To Woop-Woop at the 50th Cannes festival.

It was another off-beat Australian movie from Stephan Elliott, flamboyant director of the highly successful Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, in 1994.

Woop-Woop, however, was the sound of instant vomit.

A major (and quite delirious) disappointment.

No matter, it had served my purpose. It had brought the craggy Aussie, Rod Taylor - the Russell Crowe of his hey-day - back to Europe.

We’d not sunk a schooner or two together for 28 years. Back in 1969 was when he’d summed up his movies for me (The Birds, Zabriskie Point, The Time Machine, The Mercenaries) as “the usual Rod Taylor bullshit.”
Now he had a bigger surprise...

The cowardly British spy, Boysie Oakes, in The Liquidator (by John Gardner, no less) had not been the only spy offered to him when he was a hot Rod. “I’m sure I never told you this before, but back in the 60s Cubby Broccoli - dear old Cubby! - said he had something for me. I should do a test. He had these books written by Ian Fleming. Whaddyer mean, I yelled, a fucking TV series? No fucking way!”
Taylor laughed, cracked open another bottle. “I should be shot in the head.”

Tony Crawley
Photo © Tony Crawley
[Every 007 film has a page on Tony’s website, crawleyscasting calls.com]