Actor Dub Taylor Dies at 87

Former Oklahoma City resident Dub Taylor, a character actor who last starred in "Maverick" with Mel Gibson this summer, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 87.

Taylor died of congestive heart failure at Westlake Medical Center in Westlake Village, Calif., said hospital spokeswoman Jane Kelly. He had been admitted Sept. 9. Taylor got his break in films in Frank Capra's 1938 classic comedy "You Can't Take It With You" with James Stewart and Jean Arthur.

In the 1940s he played Cannonball, the sidekick in Bill Elliot Westerns and played the father of an innocent draftee played by Andy Griffith in "No Time for Sergeants," in 1958. In 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde" he played the treacherous father of one of the Barrow gang members.

He later made several appearances on television's "Hee Haw. " "There's been a bunch of them both good and bad," Taylor said in an interview with The Oklahoman in 1982.

Born Walter Clarence Taylor III, in Georgia, Taylor attended Classen High School and was a hunter and vaudevillian before his film debute.

Taylor said while attending the Oklahoma City high school, "I didn't learn nothin', but I went there. " He played football, basketball and handled an $18-a-week newspaper route while performing on the stage of the local Orpheum Theater to pay for his xylophone.

Taylor also appeared on TV's "Laramie," as gunslinging Jess Harper.

Taylor was a regular at Enid's Grand National Quail Hunt.

Survivors include his son, Buck Taylor and daughter Faydean Tharp, both of Los Angeles and many grandchildren. BIOG: NAME:

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