Samuel W. Taylor
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Samuel W. Taylor was a notable novelist, scriptwriter and historian.
Taylor was born on February 5, 1907, the son of John Whittaker Taylor, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1884 to 1904, and a grandson of President John Taylor. He wrote a biography of his father called "Family Kingdom", and one of his grandfather titled "The Kingdom or Nothing".
In World War II, he served in the Army Air Force Public Relations Office in the European theater of war, reaching the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.
He died on 26 September 1997 in Redwood City, California, and is buried in Provo, Utah.
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[edit] Film scripts and adaptations
In 1942, the first film based on one of Taylor's stories, The Man Who Returned to Life, was released. This was later followed in 1951 by The Man with My Face based on his novel of the same name.
His first foray into screenwriting began with Bait in 1954. He is sometimes incorrectly credited as the writer of Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). The screenplay for that film was written by Samuel A. Taylor, who also wrote the play Sabrina Fair (1953) and the adaptation of his play for Billy Wilder's film Sabrina (1954).
In contrast to the serious nature of these films, Samuel W. Taylor was also the author of the short stories on which the Disney movies The Absent Minded Professor, Flubber, and Son of Flubber were based.
[edit] General novels
Those novels not dealing specifically with Mormonism:
- The Grinning Gismo, A. a. Wyn Inc, 1951.
- Man With My Face
- Take My Advice, Mr. President, Taylor Trust, 1996, ISBN 1-56684-344-8.
- Taylor-made Tales, Aspen Books, Murray, UT, 1994, ISBN 156236216X
- Uranium Fever, With Raymond Taylor, Macmillan Company, 1970
[edit] Mormon history novelizations and other publications
- Family Kingdom, ISBN 0-914740-14-8.
- The Kingdom or Nothing (republished as The Last Pioneer, Signature Books, 1999, ISBN 1-56085-115-5)
- I Have Six Wives (based on the life of Rulon C. Allred)
- Nightfall at Nauvoo, ISBN 0-380-00247-7.
- Rocky Mountain Empire
- The John Taylor Papers (2 vols), Taylor Trust, 1984.
- Heaven Knows Why, Thousand Oaks, CA: Millennial Productions, 1979.
Several of these works are non-fiction, but Heaven Knows Why is a Mormon comedy set in Utah. It was originally published in Colliers in 1948, and is considered by many to be the funniest piece of fiction written on Mormon culture.
