The Robert B. Aldrich Award for extraordinary service to the Directors Guild of America has been bestowed on many fine directors whose selflessness and talents certainly reflect the award's namesake. But rarely has an award been appreciated so personally than by this year's recipient, former Guild president Jud Taylor.
Taylor received his initiation into film as an actor in Aldrich's 1956 film Attack!
The following year, the fiercely independent Aldrich re-hired Taylor for The Garment Jungle, from which the director was eventually fired in midstream, giving both future DGA presidents, Aldrich and Taylor, primary lessons in the need for a powerful union that would back its members in disputes with studios and producers and defend their creative rights. During their presidencies, the Guild made strides that strengthened both needs into maxims.
"I thought that Bob Aldrich was always an extraordinary guy, dedicated, loyal, professional — a guy who cared a great deal for his actors and treated them especially well," Taylor said. "It was a pleasure to know him. I was a very good friend of Bob's and he was a mentor in many ways.
"To me, even though I have won a DGA Award (for Foxfire in 1988) and been nominated for Emmys, this award takes on greater importance, because of my relationship with Bob," Taylor said. "The Guild's negotiations in 1973 and 1981 were under his aegis. He was very supportive of me and probably had a great deal to do with my being elected president.
"Bob was very influential in the direction of the Guild. He was bright, very aggressive, and he cared a great deal. He started as an assistant director, and he always stuck up for the assistant directors. He was totally devoted to the Guild. When it came to negotiations, he gave his all."
Taylor served as president from 1981 to 1983, succeeding George Schaefer as the second central leader of the Guild to come from television's ranks. Prior to Schaefer, the Guild's presidency had been filled by feature directors including Aldrich, Frank Capra and George Sidney.
"George Schaefer clearly broke the differentiation line between feature and TV directors," Taylor said. "I was aware that I was a TV guy who was in the Guild's top position, but in terms of the Guild's supportiveness at all times for both feature and TV directors — it was always there."
Taylor joined the Guild in 1964 when his continuing acting role on Dr. Kildaire led to his ability to express interest in directing the show. Once a member, his interest in the Guild led him to attend meetings of the Directors Council and the DGA's National Board.
"I used to sit in on these meetings, listen to the nature of the problems — political and otherwise. I found it fascinating," Taylor said. "After a few years, I was elected a delegate to the National Board, and then served on the National Board for four terms. I was looking for something challenging beyond the TV work. Directing was challenging, but the DGA offered me a different kind of stimulation in seeing how contracts and disputes were dealt with."
Taylor served two terms as a second vice president of the Guild — one under Aldrich and one under Schaefer — and looked into how the Guild's pension plans were being managed in the mid-1970s.
"I went to Bob and said, 'This plan is not doing particularly well,'" Taylor remembered. "He said, 'Well, talk to some investment advisors.' I did and that led us to making a marketing report to the National Board. That led to us going to the trustees of the plan, and telling them that we weren't doing as well as other pension plans. That led to a change in our investment manager and contributed to my chairing of the negotiations in 1980 and election to the presidency."
Taylor admits that serving as Guild President can mean a scaling back in directing work. "Serving the Guild takes time, energy and devotion away from your directing career," Taylor said. "However, it's very important. You just do it. The hard part is that you sacrifice time at home with your family, but you also know that term will conclude."
Taylor felt that one of the important achievements of his presidency was negotiating a formula for pay-TV directors at a time when upstart HBO sued the Guild on anti-trust charges (the Guild prevailed), and increasing the Guild's awareness of equal opportunity for minorities and women.
The veteran of more than 40 made-for-TV movies, Taylor was nominated for an Emmy Award for directing Tail-Gunner Joe (1977), a fact-based historical drama about the life of Sen. Joe McCarthy, played by Peter Boyle. Taylor's other TV movies include Hawkins on Murder (1973) with James Stewart, Broken Vows (1987) with Tommy Lee Jones, Great Escape II: The Untold Story (1988) with Christopher Reeve (Taylor acted in the 1963 original feature directed by John Sturges) and The Old Man and the Sea (1990) with Anthony Quinn. In 1983, Taylor was president of production for Columbia Pictures, but returned to TV after a year.
Taylor twice used the general Guild pseudonym Alan Smithee, for the TV movies Fade-In (1968) with Burt Reynolds and City in Fear (1980) with David Janssen. "I had a couple of problem in my career having to do with editing and not having the contractually required number of days in the editing room that my agent couldn't resolve," Taylor said. "So, I went to the Guild and said, 'This is what's going on.' The Guild went to bat for me. I got Alan Smithee on them both. It was a signal to the industry from a creative rights point of view that the shows had been tampered with."
