Theodore Langhans Taylor was born June 23, 1921 in Statesville, NC, to the parents Edward Riley and Elnora Taylor. He was one of six children in his house hold, however, none
…of them ever knew how their mother and father got together, they were like polar opposites. Their mom was delicate, fragile, and liked to recite poetry where as their father was a “man’s man”/ “workingman’s workingman,” stocky, muscular, endlessly talking about the ‘working man’, and was a member of “the wobblies” or International Workers of the World during the well known Roaring 20’s. He had had a brother, Edward, who died of pneumonia two years prior to Theodore’s birth. It was probably for this reason that his sisters spoiled him and also since he was the youngest of the family. Mary, one of his sisters, was the one who was with him the most and spoiled him the most since the others; Noama, Eleanor, and Louise worked. They grew up with nature since they were right next to the woods and since they had very little money, but Taylor didn’t realize it until much later in his life. Since he and his sisters were always trying to do their own thing to stay busy and have fun, they didn’t care about the outside world mostly since they didn’t have the money for a radio, but mainly since their inner worlds, and his, were so busy His schooling consisted of a stint at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY between 1942 and 1943. He then went to Columbia University in 1948 and studied with the American Theatre Wing between 1947 and 1949. He was married twice and had three children by his first wife. His first wife was Gweneth Goodwin and they married on October 25, 1946 and divorced in 1977. Their children were Mark, Wendy, and Michael. In his second marriage he married Flora Gray Schoenleber, a library clerk, and they said their vows on April 18, 1981. This marriage lasted all the way to Taylor’s passing in 2006. Taylor died on October 26, 2006 in Laguna Beach, California due to complications from a heart attack. He was eighty-five years old, four months and three days old at the time of his passing and still working on more books to publish. He was in the middle of working on one right up until his final breath and always seemed to be working on one to those around him. Taylor’s characters were reflections of himself and he even used the places that he had been to in his stories. All his experiences and past locations are reflected through his works. Some of the people who he expressed himself through were: the newspaperman, the prize-fighter manager, the merchant seaman, the naval officer, the magazine writer, the movie publicist, the production assistant, and the documentary filmmaker. The places that he described in his books of which he had visited were: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, most of the European countries, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and The U.S. Virgin Islands. These were some of the fundamental building blocks of which he used to build and develop his books on along with his research. He based most of his stories on historical events that happened and would occasionally adjust some parts of his books in order to appeal to his younger audience. (MORE) 
