Joseph Taylor (17th-century actor)

Joseph Taylor (died 1652) was a 17th-century English actor. As the successor of Richard Burbage as the leading actor with the King's Men, he was arguably the most important actor in the later Jacobean and the Caroline eras.

Taylor started as a child actor with the Children of the Chapel in the first decade of the century. As he matured he remained in the profession, with the Lady Elizabeth's Men and Prince Charles's Men. With those companies, he developed into an important leading man.

Richard Burbage died in March 1619; Taylor joined the King's Men the next month, and over the coming years he acted all the major roles of the Shakespearean canon. According to James Wright's Historia Histrionica (1699), Taylor "acted Hamlet incomparably well" and was noted for his Iago. He was also famous for the parts of Paris in The Roman Actor (Philip Massinger), Ferdinand in The Duchess of Malfi (John Webster), and Mosca in Volpone, Face in The Alchemist, and Truewit in Epicene (all by Ben Jonson). Taylor starred in many King's men plays; he played the protagonists in Massinger's The Picture and Arthur Wilson's The Swisser; he was the Duke in Lodowick Carlell's The Deserving Favourite.

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