回复：【长篇阅读】公子的传记

At the completion of Return of the Gunfighter there were the usual two days of retakes involving an extra fee for Taylor. Unpredictable, asusual, about money, he refused the ＄2,000.
“This feature film for TV was ‘out of the old MGM cat bin,’ ” one critic wrote, “but had a little something extra—that would be the old pro, Robert Taylor, who no doubt could have played the aging gunfighter blind-folded.”

Taylor was not feeling well and rode his horse on the ranch with great effort. A year or so ago he could ride all day filming a movie, come home and saddle up for a few more hours.
He sold his plane and this put an end to his flying. He said, “Old Betsy is air weary and so am I.” Ursula insisted he gave up the plane for his family. Terry became ill in high altitudes and in low altitudes, so it wasn’t fun for him anymore.
Taylor was known to fall asleep on moving vehicles—cars, boats, airplanes,etc.—almost before the motors started, but he came to the conclusion that was part of his nature, period. Sleeping was his way of hiding or escaping participation in small talk.

However these days he was truly tired,which made him cranky. He began to dig Ursula in front of friends almost as if to say, “I don’t love her as much as everyone may think!”
She ignored it, but when she left the room he’d smile and rave about her, but always added, “Don’t tell her what I said!” Art, who was very close to the situation, pretended not to notice Taylor’s grouchy attitude.He knew his boss well enough by now to expect periods of gloom and discontentment, and didn’t think Taylor’s lack of energy was anything more than what every man goes through atfifty-five. And despite the fact that he took it easy more often than usual,Taylor looked good and was losing the excess weight which he attributed to drinking too much fluids in Tucson when he was working in the extreme heat.

Hall Bartlett (American International Pictures) signed Taylor for The Glass Sphinx in Egypt, but Bob said he was sure this picture would be the lousiest. The crew was Italian and the cast consisted of one Swede (Antia Ekberg), several Spaniards, one Yankee and a bunch of Egyptians. “How the hell we ever get through dialogue scenes is a real mystery! But the big problem is purely a technical one. Antia Ekberg has an enormous pair of ‘lungs’—and to find a camera lens which can hold HER LUNGS and MY ASS in the same scene is a difficult thing to solve!”
He returned to California and continued his work on Death Valley Days. While on location in Utah he ran into Barbara, but only for a brief minute, and neither said more than “Hello.”They both seemed surprised to see each other and the expression on Bob’s face was tense. That night he sat down with the boys and had a few drinks. Everyone carefully avoided any mention of Barbara, and then suddenly he said, “Do you realize I’m still paying her 15 percent of my salary? She doesn’t need the God damn money, but I sure as hell do!”

Nothing more was said, but those who were at the table were shocked. They had assumed that she had waived alimony long ago since her television series, The Big Valley, was a popular one, and she had invested very well. In fact, she could have retired on her income from her business ventures alone. Socially she had not been linked with any man since her divorce from Taylor, but her friends said she was always attracted to young men who resembled Bob.
In 1967, after a brief appearance in Where Angels go . . . Trouble Follows, Taylor flew to Spain to star in The Day the Hot Line Got Hot (American International Pictures—Commonwealth United Entertainment) with Charles Boyer. This spy-comedy was moderately successful and made money, but perhaps it is seen by more people on television today than viewed it on the movie screen.

Taylor’s biggest thrill on his trip to Spain was sitting in the cockpit of the jet from London to Madrid.The Spanish crew offered to let him take over the controls for awhile, but he said he thought that was carrying the “good neighbor” policy a bit too far! He was like a little boy, studying the instrument panel, asking questions and taking notes. He told Tom later that he’d like to buy a small jet if they could raise the cash together, but “with my fat ass and your big gut, we’d never fit in the cockpit!”
Ursula joined him in Spain for tendays. Bob had been suffering through Spanish coffee saying it was difficult to breathe after the first gulp and it took him awhile to get his eyes uncrossed, but Ursula brought him a good supply of instant coffee, which he always took with him to Europe.

He jotted a letter to Nudie about the food. “At lunch today I ran across some new ‘leather’ they have here in Spain. It’s kinda brown on the outside—and pink in the middle—and I think they call it ‘steak.’ In any case it would, I'm sure, outlast anything you've ever used in boots. I’m not at all sure that it would take the ‘dye’ for some of those ‘fag’ colors you use in your boots, Nudie—but I’ll guarantee you on the basis of the slab I worked my way through at lunch it would outlast anything you’ve ever tried for soles. GooooooooooooDamn!!!!!!!”
He also wrote to Purvis, but this letter was far from amusing. He confided that he had had an x-ray of his chest and the doctors said his “boyhood” spot on one lung had grown bigger. Taylor said he wasn’t surprised because somehow he knew he had lung cancer and wouldn’t live too long. It was a frustrating letter because that was all Bob said, and when he arrived home he did not say anything further to Tom except that he had made some simple requests in his will. The preacher should not take more than five minutes and there was to be no sacred music at his funeral because it was too depressing ... sentimental music was beautiful. His last request was that he be cremated.
Devil Make Care was his last movie . . .

With both children in school and his cabinin Wyoming sold, Taylor wanted to find some outdoor place not too far from Los Angeles where the family could go even on short school vacations. They had a family conclave: they all liked to swim and preferred still-water fishing. Terry had two ambitions—to own a boat and to live in a trailer, so Bob went looking.
He bought a mobile home at the Lake Mohave Resort where he enjoyed fishing for bass and trout in the man-made lake: sixty-seven miles of Colorado water backed up between Hoover and Davis Dams. He bought two boats, a thirteen-foot Boston Whaler for Terry and a twenty-one foot Thompson inboard-outboard for himself.
His neighbors there were doctors, lawyers and a few industrialists, and none in show business. The resort was the kind of place where the children could run loose without any worry and Ursula had her warm climate and sunshine. As for Taylor, he knew the pilot’s eye view of the Arizona desert and he didn’t knock it, but he liked it better from where he sat fishing.

In February, 1968, he and Ursula went around the world on behalf of the Winchester people. As Honorary Director of the Winchester Claybird Tournament, Taylor accompanied the winning team to Hawaii, Australia,Thailand, Italy, Germany and England.
Winchester reported that they could not have found a better man for the job: “All his life Mr. Taylor has been deeply involved in outdoor sports—particularly shooting. He is a fine actor, an excellent shot and a gentleman. We feel his association with this Claybird Tournament will greatly add to the lustre of the shooting sports.”
Taylor looked exceptionally well, tanned and cheerful. He said he felt great, but again showed sighs of puffiness and fatigue.
He told the press he was delighted with the week he had spent in the Bahamas the previous October during the claybird finals and especially enjoyed the “round of skeet” with His Serene Highness Prince Ranier Ⅲ of Monaco.

He was relaxed but gave Ursula credit for that because she was as organized as he was and having her with him put Bob at ease. He was interviewed but he spoke mainly about Winchester rifles and the Cowboy Hall of Fame, mentioning that Joel McCrea was the only living trustee, which he felt was quite an honor. Was there any chance that he would be the second? Taylor shrugged it off.(In 1970 he was given the award of Cowboy of the Century posthumously, and was the only nonliving trustee of the Museum in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.)
Taylor said he had no plans to make any movies and was satisfied with his television series, Death Valley Days, and with having his picture on the back of the Borax boxes! He answered questions about his glamorous leading ladies of the past and joked about doing a movie with Debbie Reynolds. “She was the cutest piece of femininity when I first saw her wiggling thru the MGM commissary. I think she was only fifteen years old, but she was wearing short, short shorts and she reallllly filled them out—in fact, she filled out EVERYTHING she was wearing purty good! I must admit I took a good look and got a stiff neck trying to follow her when she walked past me. Yeah, she was something, alright!”

Ursula stood tall, statuesque and beautiful—soft-spoken and swan-like in her movements. Bob said she wasn’t jealous when he spoke about the gorgeous women he had made love to on the screen. He got a plug in about Tessa. “What a beautiful child she is! Both kids are blonde, would you believe that? Nobody would know they were mine!”
The Taylors arrived back at Ursula Rancho with Bob complaining that the trip had been wonderful, but tiring. However, he started work immediately on Death Valley Days. Bob Stapler, the producer, noticed Taylor was not himself though he never let it affect his work. He had a slight persistent cough and on one trip back to Los Angeles from location, Stapler found an empty box of tissues under Bob’s seat on the plane. “It was full when he started home and it was a short hop . . . .”
Ursula commented that no one was THAT tired ALL the time. He went to bed around 8:00 every night complaining about the heat or saying, “I HAVE to get up at dawn, don’t I?” Trouble was, Ursula commented, Bob always was an early riser, but now he was making a point of it.
He began to drink more than his usual few drinks before dinner and added several during the evening. Ursula said nothing, but when she caught him pouring one too many, he said, “It ease the pain of life.”

In September, 1968, Taylor finished his work on Death Valley Days for the television season in Kanab, Utah. Waving good-bye to everyone, he said, “See ya down the hill!”
He was scheduled to do a “spaghetti Western” in Italy,but at the last minute it was cancelled. Ursula had been begging him for a year to have a complete physical check-up, but he insisted a good long vacation would fix him up just fine. However, he needed the money and was going to hunt around for another movie until resuming Death Valley Days. He reminded Ursula that he wasn’t going to go through any more anxious days waiting for doctors to make up their minds whether he had a hernia or cancer!
Her pleading finally made him change his mind and the examination showed a mass on the right lung. Since he had had a spot there for years, the one that they had found in 1962, the doctors suspected Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and suggested an operation. Taylor knew better because only two years previously he had confided in Purvis that his x-rays clearly showed there was a growth that was getting bigger.

Taylor said he’d think about the operation. Chatting with Art at the stables one day he asked, “What would you do? Would you let them cut YOU up?”
“No!”
Bob made up his mind to take his chances without surgery. Ursula disagreed and reminded him that he should think of his family, not only of himself.
In September, he was a pallbearer at Dennis O’Keefe’s funeral. Those at the services noticed that Taylor was ashen and did not attend the gathering afterwards “for a drink.” O’Keefe had died of lung cancer and it was written all over Bob’s face that he knew he, too, was facing the same thing.
Ursula did not stop pleading with Bob about his having the operation, but he repeatedly said that his chances were better without going under the knife. If he did have cancer, there would be little time left once the surgeons got through with him. The discussions continued, and it was only for the sake of Ursula and the children that he reluctantly agreed. On October 8, 1968, a portion of his right lung was removed. It was announced to the public that he had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and the doctors assured Bob that was all it was.
He was discharged, but Ursula took him home knowing that he had cancer.

In November he was sent back to the hospital for cobalt treatments and although the word cancer was not mentioned, Taylor knew he was its victim. His last tape to Tom Purvis on the day before Thanksgiving indicated his feelings. He made the recording with a tube from his throat to his lung:
Hello, Curly, Old Buddy. I’m a—I know way behind in this tape department, but in any case I appreciated yours and enjoyed ‘em. Guess half a dozen times I’ve sat down at this darn machine thinkin’ that I’d knock one out but always felt either too pooped or felt lousy—or almost as now, nothin’ to talk about except my miseries and that wears pretty thin—even when you talk to yourself about it—wears pretty thin . . .
Anyway I’m . . . I’m kinda pooped tonight but I’ll give you a rundown on what’s been goin’ on and what we HOPE for in the future. As you know, this damn fever just wouldn’t let up and they didn’t know what was causin’ it and they figured the only way they had of findin’ out was to go back in that damn lung—had to be there some place. So they chased me back to the hospital . . . a . . . about ten days ago and sent me down to the x-rays department and put me on some kind of rotating-gyro that kinda makes motion picture x-rays and they stuck needles into my gullet—God damn nearly made a new hole in the roof when they started that ‘cause this was all without any anesthesia—a—then they pumped stuff into the lungs through my throat and through these needles—ah—tryin’ to find out where there might be an abcess or something in that damn lung which would be sealed off and causin’ the temperature. Well, sure as hell they found her—a pretty good-sized one . . . It was sealed off to the extent that no antibiotic coulda gotten to it. They coulda pumped me full of that stuff for ten years and it wouldn’ta done any good.

Lost so much weight I went out to ol’ pal, Nudie, in the Valley and had a coupla lounge suits made. Those God damn pants,Curly, I tell ya—when I get back on my feet I’m just gonna have to take these pants off, let ’em out a little bit and give ’em to Terry. God damn things wouldn’t go around one leg before I got puny ’cause I’m holdin’ on to all my old stuff.
I’m as breathless as a bride and I’m so God damn weak I can hardly get my pants on and I’m not kiddin’. Everytime I breathe this damn hose talks back to me! Guess I’m down to about 150 pounds . . . I just—Hell, when I get down, I’m just lucky if I get back up again.
Ursula’s been—God Damn—this gal has been takin’ care of the ol’ man and the whole damn family, too. But if I ever get well, why we’ll have a vacation, by God!