Gil Taylor
| Gilbert Taylor | |
|---|---|
with George Lucas filming Star Wars (1977)
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| Born |
12 April 1914 Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, UK |
| Died | 23 August 2013 (aged 99) Newport, Isle of Wight, UK |
| Occupation | Cinematographer |
Gilbert Taylor, B.S.C. (12 April 1914 – 23 August 2013) was a British cinematographer, best known for his work on films such as Dr. Strangelove, A Hard Day's Night (both 1964), Repulsion (1965), The Omen (1976), and the original Star Wars (1977). In the course of his career, he collaborated with directors like Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Mike Hodges. He was nominated for two BAFTA Awards, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Society of Cinematographers.
The son of a Hertfordshire builder, Taylor grew up in Bushey Heath. A paternal uncle was a newsreel cameraman and contact with him from the age of ten gave Taylor early experience of working with cameras and developing film stock. He was, however, as a teenager studying for a career as an architect intending to work in the family business, but without any real enthusiasm, before his plans changed. While his father disapproved of the movie industry, populated he thought by "harridans, whores and gypsies", it was his mother who consented to their son's altered career plans.
A neighbour offered Taylor, aged 15, a job as a camera assistant to William Shenton, a cinematographer working for Gainsborough Studios at their Islington base. In 1929, Taylor worked on the studio's final two silent films. Shenton took Taylor to Paris where he worked on two more silent films, before returning to Gainsborough. Soon he was working at Elstree for British International Pictures, where he was clapper loader on the Alfred Hitchcock film Number Seventeen (1932). Despite his junior status, formally a second camera assistant, Taylor was entrusted with some of the special effects work, including the use of mattes, to disguise the roofs of badly maintained buildings.
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