Reagan to Deliver Eulogy

Reagan to Deliver Eulogy at Rites for Robert Taylor

 

Tuesday, June 10, 1969—Van Nuys (Calif.)

 

 

Gov. Ronald Reagan will deliver the eulogy at the funeral services for veteran actor Robert Taylor tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. at the Church of the Recessional, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

 

The services are expected to be attended by many Hollywood celebrities.

 

Taylor died at the age of 57 on Sunday at St. John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, after a long battle with lung cancer.

 

The one-time leading man for some of the screen’s most glamorous actresses, he starred in more than 70 movies as part of a Hollywood career that spanned 36 years.

 

Right Lung Removed

 

Plagued by a lung condition, Taylor underwent minor surgery in 1960 at the same hospital where he died at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.

 

Additional surgery had been performed in 1961. Finally, after several more hospital stays, he entered St. John’s last October for removal of his right lung, reportedly because of a fungus condition often called “Valley Fever.”

 

When Taylor last Dec. 3 re-entered St. John’s for treatment of an infection which had complicated his recovery from the October surgery, his wife, the former actress Ursula Thiess, confirmed a report the actor was suffering from cancer.

 

She said then Taylor had known about his true condition for some time.

 

Returned to Hospital

 

Since then, Taylor had returned to the hospital four more mtimes for treatment, resting and attempting to regain strength between hospital visits at his Mandeville Canyon Ranch near Pacific Palisades.

 

It was learned on June 6 that he was once more a patient at the Santa Monica Hospital. A spokesman at St. John’s announced his condition was “deteriorating rapidly.”

 

The spokesman added that Taylor’s illness was terminal and he might be expected to live about a week. He was described as “resting as comfortably as can be expected and . . . not in too much pain.”

 

Stepson Found Dead

 

The Taylors only recently had been struck by tragedy when 23-year-old Michael Thiess, Taylor’s stepson and Miss Thiess’ son by a former marriage, was found dead in a West Los Angeles motel last May 26 by his mother.

 

A coroner’s aide said at the time the death did not appear to be a suicide, but that an overdose of drugs was a possible cause.

 

Taylor was born as Spangler Arlington Brough in Filley, Neb., on Aug 5, 1911. He attended Doane College, Crete, Neb., and Pomona College, Claremont, taking an active part in college dramatic presentations.

 

Taylor decided while in college that he wanted to be a professional actor. His six-foot height spread over a slender frame topped by black hair and blue eyes made his a natural choice for motion pictures.

 

He got his first starring role in 1934 in “Handy Andy” under a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract that continue without interruption, but with frequent salary increases, for 24 years.

 

On May 13, 1939, he was married to a young actress named Barbara Stanwyck. Like Taylor, she rose to heights of Hollywood prominence.

 

Their marriage, considered one of the movie colony’s most secure, lasted 12 years before it was terminated by divorce.

 

Taylor married the German-born Miss Thiess on May 24, 1954.

 

They became the parents of two children, Terence, born June 16, 1955, and Tessa, born Aug. 16, 1959. Miss Thiess had two children by an earlier marriage—Manuela and Michael.

 

During his long career, Taylor starred in such films as “Camille,” opposite Greta Garbo, “A Yank at Oxford,” “Waterloo Bridge” and “Ivanhoe.”

It was the golden age of motion pictures and Taylor was one of its brightest stars.

 

As he matured and his motion picture career approaches its twilight, Taylor turned to television, starring in “Death Valley Days” as a replacement for then-actor Ronald Reagan after the latter embarked on a political career.