Kent Taylor

Who was Kent Taylor?

Kent Taylor was an American actor of film and television.

Born Louis William Weiss in Nashua in northeastern Iowa, Taylor appeared in more than 110 films, the bulk of them B-movies in the 1930s and 1940s, although he also had roles in more prestigious studio releases, including I'm No Angel, Cradle Song, Death Takes a Holiday, Payment on Demand, and Track the Man Down. He had the lead role in Half Past Midnight in 1948, among a few others.

In the 1950s, with his movie career on the decline and television production on the upswing, he played the title role in 58 episodes of the detective series Boston Blackie and the lead, as Captain Jim Flagg, in ABC's The Rough Riders, an adventure series about three soldiers, two Union and one Confederate, traveling together through the American West after the Civil War. The Rough Riders aired thirty-nine episodes from 1958 to 1959.

Other small screen credits include My Little Margie, Tales of Wells Fargo, Zorro, Riverboat, The Rifleman, Tombstone Territory, Sugarfoot, Bat Masterson, Laramie, Mr. Lucky, Tightrope, Peter Gunn, Hawaiian Eye, The Brothers Brannagan, The Ann Sothern Show, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.