Rodney Sturt Taylor (born January 11, 1930) is an Australian-born actor . Born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, Taylor was the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and the former Mona Thompson, a writer of plays and children's books . His middle name comes from his great-great grand uncle, Captain Charles Sturt, a famous British explorer of outback Australia in the 1800s . He attended Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College before deciding to become an actor upon seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production in Australia . After acquiring radio and stage experience in Australia (his radio work included a stint on Blue Hills), Taylor moved to the United States in 1954, where he became a leading man in feature films of the 1960s and 1970s . In 1955, Taylor guest-starred in the third episode entitled "The Argonauts" of the first hour-long western television series, Cheyenne, an ABC program starring Clint Walker . Taylor and Edward Andrews played gold seekers Clancy and Duncan, respectively, who are best of friends until they strike it rich, only to see Native Americans release their gold dust to the wind . In the 1960-1961 television season, Taylor starred as foreign correspondent Glenn Evans in the ABC dramatic series Hong Kong. His principal co-star was Lloyd Bochner. The program faced stiff competition on Wednesday evenings from NBC's Wagon Train. In 1961, Taylor guest-starred on Marilyn Maxwell's short-lived ABC series Bus Stop. In 1962, he starred in an episode of The DuPont Show of the Week (NBC) entitled The Ordeal of Dr. Shannon, an adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel, Shannon's Way. .