Researching Rod Taylor’s biography entailed me viewing pretty much everything he’d ever acted in that was still on record and available. (There’s still a few TV shows and a lot of radio I would like to get my hands on.) Here are my five favourite films and performances of his.

1)         The Time Machine (1960) – Rod’s first lead in a feature and still one of his best performances: scientist, dreamer, action man, lover, time traveller. Made under the radar by George Pal at MGM it’s been an audience favourite ever since – deservedly.

2)         The Birds (1963) – Hitchcock’s last uncontested classic about an unexplained bird attack in a small coastal town. Tippi Hedren and Rod were cast as cheaper alternatives to Grace Kelly and Cary Grant and they pull it off. Why were they never re-teamed in another film?

3)         36 Hours (1964) – WW2 thriller where Rod plays a very sympathetic German who tries to convince American officer James Garner that the war has ended so he’ll give up details of the D-Day landing. A real gem.

4)         Young Cassidy (1965) – hard-to-find biopic of Irish playwright Sean O’Casey, this was originally directed by John Ford, who fell ill during shooting and had to be replaced by Jack Cardiff. Rod gives a great performance in the lead role, managing to hold his own with Maggie Smith and Julie Christie.

5)         Dark of the Sun (1968) – a favourite of Tarantino and Scorsese, this is a gripping guys-on-a-mission film set during the Simba rebellion of 1960s Congo. It has everything: chainsaws, ex-Nazis, drunk doctors, trains, hookers, diamonds, nuns, racism, male rape, a literal ticking clock, and a genuinely different ending for an action film.

Special mention: Welcome to Woop Woop (1998) Stephan Elliot’s unpopular follow up to Priscilla Queen of the Desert is a film with many flaws, but gives Rod his best chance in 25 years as Daddy-O, the patriarch of a small town stuck in the 1950s, and he’s brilliant – scary, touching, and funny all at the same time.

Anyone out there interested in writing a biography might be interested in these lessons I learned from the experience of Rod Taylor: An Aussie in Hollywood.

1)         It’s going to take you forever. But you can’t think of that when you’re doing it – just lie to yourself (and your partner) that it won’t take long.

2)         The best way to get people’s phone numbers for interviews is through recommendations. Whenever you interview someone, always try to ask at the end if they can think of anyone else who’d be good to talk to – and get the phone numbers there and then if you can.

3)         Another good source for phone numbers is – surprise – the phone book. I found it a lot easier to get them directly out of the phone book than through agents or guilds. Although you do find yourself praying that the person you’re tracking down as a long convoluted surname rather than “Smith.”

4)         The internet is not the solution to all your problems. You will at some stage have to go to the library and go through microfiche, old newspapers and musty books. Not everything has been digitized yet. Of course, sometimes things are digitized after you’ve already done the work – this happened to me with old Sydney Morning Heralds, and google news archive. What took me a week could have taken a day. Still, it’s a risk you have to face.

5)         Americans sometimes have trouble understanding the Australian accent over the phone. It can be easier to just put an American accent on when you’re speaking with them.