Note: Fans of the classic Perry Mason TV series say Vaughn Taylor did the trifecta, playing victim, accused, and culprit. Post-Mason, Taylor did a lot of TV up to the middle Seventies. But in his mid-sixties, he was suffering from a bad back, and he had to retire in 1976. He passed away at the age of 72 in 1983.
Tribute to Vaughn Taylor
Medium height with a slim build, balding, and middle-aged, Vaughan Taylor looked like a bookkeeper so he often played white-collar professionals. But he was versatile enough to play petty grifters, too.
In TCOT Corresponding Corpse, he plays a bent insurance investigator who is blackmailing an artist. The painter has faked his own death and his wife, not knowing, has collected his insurance and started a business. Taylor gets a laugh when on the stand, asked by Mason why he didn’t blackmail the wife, another obvious target, he replies blankly, “I didn’t think of it.”
In TCOT Witless Witness, Taylor does a great job as a political operative who would get involved in any kind of flimflam with government contracts if there was a chance to cut himself a little piece of cake. In a drunken rant before he is done away with, Taylor sounds like a wrecker that wants to burn down everybody's life because his own sorry existence hasn't been happy. It’s a brilliant episode, about integrity assailed by malice and corruption, with an edge as real as death and taxes.
In TCOT Blonde Bonanza, he portrays an heir hunter. That’s a kind of detective who tracks down family members of people who died without a will. Finding a “distant” relative and getting 50% of the inheritance as a fee could be lucrative. Depending on one’s point of view, this enterprise could be described as “racket” or “profession.” Pal Vaughn plays it like a racket.
Taylor played genial and relatable too. In TCOT Travelling Treasure he plays an absent-minded chemist being used and conned by a gangster. His only solace is being able to play gin rummy with our Lisa Gaye. In TCOT Stuttering Bishop, for his earnest pains in trying to obtain justice for a young woman, he is beaten up and later killed.
In TCOT Fickle Fortune, he‘s totally persuasive as a mild-mannered civil servant who ends up in the dock because of his own poor judgement and a low-down in-law. His manner at the defense table is that of a deer in the headlights – the little guy facing impending doom, accused by a criminal justice system that is positive it is doing the right thing by rushing an innocent clerk into the gas chamber.
Doubtless, Taylor’s most memorable outing on the show was his mixture of everyman and culprit in TCOT Restless Redhead, the very first show of the series. His facial expression speaks volumes when he’s recalled to the stand to be grilled by a relentless Mason. Taylor looks like a guy who realizes that the walls are closing in on him and he’s going to be a long time wishing he were dead. Strangely, he seems to brag when he claims he did the crime all by himself and that his wife called him stupid, but he got the $10,000, didn't he? Then it dawns on him that he really was stupid, that no amount of money, no action on his part now is going to remedy the consequences of his own stupidity. If he had just wanted to get out of his monotonous life and loveless marriage, he could have deserted his wife, leaving her the business and starting a new life. Easy if not nice. Easier than being called to account for robbery and murder.
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