Taylor Holmes

Taylor Holmes (May 16, 1878 – October 1, 1959) was an American actor born in Newark, New Jersey, whose career spanned more than five decades and encompassed over 100 Broadway productions and screen performances. He made his Broadway debut in February 1900 in the controversial play Sapho, which was briefly shuttered on indecency grounds, and continued performing on Broadway through 1946. Among his many stage credits were starring roles in Man Bites Dog and Not So Fast, as well as appearances in Cold in Sables, Vickie, and the comedy What Big Ears! Earlier in his stage career he played Rosencrantz opposite E. H. Sothern in a production of Hamlet, toured with Robert Edeson, and appeared in such productions as The Commuters, The Music Master, and His Majesty Bunker Bean.

Holmes transitioned into film during the silent era, with early screen appearances including Efficiency Edgar's Courtship, Fools for Luck, and a starring role in A Pair of Sixes (1918). By the 1940s his work had shifted predominantly to film, and he became particularly associated with morally compromised characters in film noir. He portrayed the gullible millionaire deceived in Nightmare Alley (1947), a shifty lawyer in Kiss of Death (1947), and Gavery, a disbarred lawyer described as reptilian, in Act of Violence (1949). He also appeared as the Bishop of Avranches, who fiercely denounces Pierre Cauchon, in the Ingrid Bergman vehicle Joan of Arc (1948), and as Marilyn Monroe's prospective father-in-law in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). His final credited screen role was providing the voice of King Stefan in Disney's animated feature Sleeping Beauty (1959). He additionally played Ebenezer Scrooge in a low-budget half-hour television adaptation of A Christmas Carol, first broadcast in 1949.

Beyond his acting work, Holmes made a spoken-word recording in 1915 of Rudyard Kipling's poem "Boots," which was subsequently used for its psychological effect in U.S. military SERE schools and later featured in the trailers and film for Danny Boyle's 2025 zombie apocalypse film 28 Years Later. In his personal life, Holmes was married to actress Edna Phillips and was the father of actors Phillips Holmes, Madeleine Taylor Holmes, and Ralph Holmes. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Holmes died on October 1, 1959, at the age of 81, eight months after the release of Sleeping Beauty, and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.