Taylor, Ron 1952–2002

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Ron Taylor 1952–2002

Actor

Veteran stage and screen actor Ron Taylor was best known for his deep and resonant voice, which served most memorably as the voice of Audrey, the flesh-eating plant in the campy off-Broadway remake of The Little Shop of Horrors, an equally campy schlock film from the year 1960. In 1999 Taylor was nominated for two Antoinette Perry (Tony) awards, given to outstanding Broadway productions of the season, for the stirring musical revue he co-wrote, It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues.

Taylor was born in October 16, 1952, and grew up in Galveston, Texas. A standout football player in high school, he went on to Wharton County Junior College, where a teacher overheard his impressive voice one day in the hallway as he sang a Temptations song a cappella, and encouraged him to join the school’s choir. From there Taylor was drawn to the theater department, and another instructor suggested that he try out for a spot at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. At the time, Taylor had never even heard of the school. But he won a place, and moved to New York City at the age of 19.

After earning his degree, Taylor’s first big break came in 1977 when he was cast as the Cowardly Lion in the first national touring company of The Wiz. For some years he found steady work as a back-up singer with performers such as Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Sheila E., and Etta James; he appeared on recordings as well, including Joel’s 1983 album An Innocent Man, for which he also co-wrote the title track. Around this time Taylor began to win small parts in films, beginning with the 1982 Eddie Murphy comedy Trading Places. Other film roles followed, in releases such as Who’s That Girl, Relentless, and A Rage in Harlem.

Voice of “Audrey”

In 1982 Taylor and his distinctive basso voice were cast as Audrey II in an off-Broadway production of The Little Shop of Horrors, an off-stage role for which he delivered the comically commanding lines of a voracious talking plant. The show became a terrific success, and went on to a total of more than 2, 000 performances during the 1980s. Taylor earned a Drama Desk award in the outstanding special effects category for the role, shared with the play’s puppeteer. “It was a role Mr. Taylor’s booming voice was made for,” noted

At a Glance…

Born October 16, 1952, in Galveston, TX; died January 15, 2002, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Robert James and Marian Taylor; married DeBorah Sharpe-Taylor (an actress); children: Adamah. Education: Attended Wharton County Junior College; earned degree from American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Career: Stage, television, and film actor; appeared as the Cowardly Lion in first national touring company of The Wiz, 1977) made film debut in 1982 in Trading Places; cast as voice of “Audrey II” in the stage version of The Little Shop of Horrors, 1982; appeared on the 1983 Billy Joel album An Innocent Man; co-wrote and appeared in Broadway musical revue, It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, 1999.

Awards: Drama Desk award, 1982, for The Little Shop of Horrors.

New York Times writer Jesse McKinley, “and the actor, who sat just offstage, soon put his stamp on Audrey’s signature line: Teed me, feed me!’”

Taylor was also a small-screen veteran, appearing in episodes of L.A. Law, E.R., The Profiler, Ally Mc-Beal, City of Angels, and NYPD Blue. He also provided the voice of saxophonist “Bleeding Gums” Murphy on The Simpsons. He suffered a setback, however, when he once refused to take a role offered him—that of a prisoner who sexually assaults another. “I said I couldn’t do it,” he recalled in an interview with Diane Haithman of the Los Angeles Times. He believed he was informally blacklisted for a time, for the jobs suddenly disappeared, and he was forced to take a telemarketing job selling security systems to make ends meet.

During this time Taylor also worked on what would become his career’s highest achievement, the musical revue It Ain ‘t Nothin’ But the Blues. The idea for such a show dated back to 1987, when he was preparing for a role in a stage show called Lost Highway: The Music and Legend of Hank Williams in Denver. Taylor was cast as “Tee-tot,” a nickname for “teetotaler,” the name given an actual blues singer who served as a mentor to Williams. The country-and-western star, who died in 1953, made his mark in the industry with plaintive, melancholy songs that owed much to the influence of black blues singers like Tee-tot.

Taylor began thinking about these forgotten bluesmen, who often died unrecorded, and wondered how their legacy had become such a pervasive part of the American musical landscape. “Who named this music ‘the blues’? We don’t know,” Taylor reflected in the interview with Haithman.” But we do know this type of music helped people to survive. It made the day go faster, it made the heat a little cooler for people who worked from ‘can’t see to can’t see’—from sunup to sundown.”

Taylor began working with another Lost Highway actor, Dan Wheetman, and Randal Myler, the show’s director, on what would become It Ain’t Nothin But the Blues. The work was designed to showcase the history of the musical style from its earliest incarnations in the African chants brought to North America by slaves, to its evolution into popular song, the Broadway musical, and other genres. The show made its debut in Denver in 1994, and toured in some Western states before going on to a run at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, where audiences liked its rundown of such classic numbers as “St. Louis Blues,” “Come On in My Kitchen,” “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I Put a Spell on You,” and “Strange Fruit.” Taylor was one of seven featured singers in the show, which contained little narration or dialogue. A live band performed the songs, and slides shown behind the performers helped illustrate the story of the development of the blues.

Nominated for Two Tony Awards

It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues also played at two other venues, which also served as its producers, the Crossroads Theater Company in New Jersey and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, before heading to the New Victory Theater in New York City in the spring of 1999. Back Stage critic Robert Windeier saw it there and termed it “a celebration of American life and music.” The show was such a hit that it was invited for a run at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, an actual Broadway venue which allowed it to be considered for a Tony Award nomination.

Variety’s Charles Isherwood reviewed the show and noted that It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues was a marked departure from the usual glitzy Broadway musical, but predicted it could be “the sleeper hit of the musical season.” Isherwood asserted that the show was” not a traditional book musical, and it won’t snare the tourists looking for shiny, expensive-looking diversions, but this pleasingly unpretentious revue has soul and spirit to spare.”

Taylor won praise from reviewers for his part. Time critic Richard Zoglin called him “the show’s soulful heart,” while Isherwood remarked that the actor, “large of voice, charisma and, not incidentally, girth, has his own ribald charm, and he isn’t afraid to flaunt it on ‘Hoochie Coochie Man.’ He’s equally commanding plumbing the depths of Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell’s The Thrill Is Gone.’” Taylor and the show earned four Tony Award nominations in all; Taylor himself was singled out for two of them: Best Featured Actor and Best Book.

Slighted by Awards Show Producers

During the Tony Awards ceremony in June of 1999, one of the events ran too long, and a musical number had to be cut in the interest of keeping to the allotted television broadcast time. The Tony producers decided that a number from It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues would be excised. Songs from each of the four other nominated musicals—The Civil War, Fosse, Parade, and Little Me —were included, and the move by Tony Award producers was viewed as an insult, arousing a small furor in the theater community. A spot in the show is considered vital to a musical’s health, for the exposure helps pique the interest of a potentially national audience. “I never expected what happened on the TV, that they wouldn’t allow us to sing,” Taylor told Haithman.” But even through that, I stood up on that empty [Tony Awards] stage with my producers and said, ‘God is good.’ I had my producers saying it with me: ‘God is good.’ It’s all going to work out, just do what you have to do. What happened here tonight is what the blues is all about.”

Broadway insiders hinted that racism or favoritism was behind the decision, and mention was made of a lawsuit. The CBS network, which carried the Tony Awards broadcast, immediately invited Taylor and other cast members to appear on the highly rated Late Show With David Letterman. But just five days later, Taylor’s fortitude was put to an even greater test. He woke up on the morning of June 11th with no apparent symptoms of ill health, but looked in the mirror and realized that he could see out of only one eye. The vision in the other was blocked, and “it looked like a storm was going on in one eye,” he told Haithman. He went to the theater, but told the stage manager, whom he could not recognize,” I can’t see people,” as he recalled in the same interview. He was taken to the hospital, where doctors told him that he had suffered a mild stroke from a blood clot on his optic nerve. After five weeks of treatment and rest, Taylor returned to the cast of It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues.

Taylor and his wife, DeBorah Sharpe-Taylor, whom he met while touring with The Wiz in 1977, had been residents of Los Angeles since 1988. There Taylor worked with at-risk youth and was involved in the Rosa Parks Institute. He often sang at area venues with his blues band, the Nervis Brothers. On January 16, 2002, he died of cardiac arrest at his home. Those who knew Taylor mourned his passing. “We’ve all lost a major talent,” It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues’ director Myler told the Denver Post. That paper’s former theater critic, Sandra Dillard, also spoke highly of the veteran actor. “He was always so enthusiastic, and he loved the reactions of the audience,” Dillard told the Denver Post. “Here was this giant, entertaining talent who exited too early. I think Ron had a lot more shows in him.”