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Grant Taylor (1917-1971) was an English actor best known as the abrasive General Henderson in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO.

Australian work

Early work took Taylor to Australia where he starred in the war films Forty Thousand Horsemen and The Rats of Tobruk alongside Chips Rafferty. During World War II he served in the Australian Army as a military policeman and in the Australian Army Entertainment Unit alongside Smoky Dawson.^[1]

In 1955 he co-starred as Patch behind Robert Newton in Australian television's (and the World's) first ever colour television series Long John Silver. His son Kit played Jim Hawkins. In 1959 he appeared in a brief role in Stanley Kramer's On the Beach.^[2] In 1964 he appeared in the ABC-TV children's adventure serial The Stranger, Australia's first locally-produced science fiction TV series^[3], which was also sold to the BBC.

UK work

Returning to the United Kingdom, he worked on the long-running medical drama Emergency Ward 10. This led to plenty of work in character roles, from Anglia TV's soap opera Weavers Green and several Lew Grade-backed projects, including The Avengers, The Champions and The Troubleshooters. He was a Scots border chieftain in the BBC's 1968 colour costume drama The Borderers. His most fondly-remembered role was in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO, where he played sometime-ally, sometime-antagonist General Henderson, with wild eyebrows! His last appearance in the series was in the penultimate episode 'Mindbender', where he also appears as himself, acting the role of Henderson in the studio.

On the movie side he appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and opposite the kids in Calamity the Cow (with Phil Collins).

He died of cancer in 1971 aged 54.

References