Biography
Born in Wiltshire, Taylor moved to London to study at the Chelsea School of Art, where he was awarded the National Diploma in Design and the Chelsea Diploma. He then worked for several years as an illustrator and teacher before moving to the USA where, based in New York City, he went into the theatre, first as a designer, then as an actor. As an actor he worked on Broadway and in various theatres across the country, later taking up writing as well, including several children's plays which were successfully produced.
Following his return to England, he continued with his acting career, appearing in numerous stage, film and television productions, but concentrating on his writing. His first play, Daughter of the Apaches (which he directed and appeared in), was produced in 1975 at the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch. It won Taylor Thames Television's Most Promising Playwright award, and he was also seconded as Resident Playwright to the theatre for a year. During this time the theatre produced his second play, Mice on the First Floor, starring Frances Tomelty, and produced several children's plays which he wrote in partnership with Ginnie Hole.
Also in 1975, he wrote his first novel, The Godsend. Between 1976 and 2006 he published ten novels and three non-fiction works under his own name, and five novels under the pseudonym Jess Foley. Taylor's three non-fiction works were all shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction Award. Perfect Murder, written with the late Stephen Knight, won the award in 1987. Taylor currently lives in Blackheath, southeast London.
Read more about this topic: Bernard Taylor (author)
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)