Taylor Mead

Taylor Mead (December 31, 1924 – May 8, 2013) is often dubbed “the first underground movie star.” Raised in Grosse Pointe, a wealthy Detroit suburb, Mead experienced his parents’ divorce as a child. Known for his playful nature and wandering spirit, he began hitchhiking across the country shortly after high school, crossing it a half dozen times. In the late 1950s, while in San Francisco’s North Beach, he performed poetry in a café, where Ron Rice discovered him. Rice cast him as the lead in The Flower Thief. Mead quickly became a key figure in the New American Film movement, one of its first openly queer characters. He also won an Obie for a role in a Frank O’Hara play. Early on, he joined Warhol’s circle and starred in one of Warhol’s first films, Tarzan and Jane…. After wandering through Europe, he returned to star in Lonesome Cowboys, Nude Restaurant, and Wynn Chamberlain’s Brand X. Mead performed throughout his life at poetry readings, in plays, and in films like Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes. William Kirkley later made a documentary about him, Excavating Taylor Mead.

In this Artifacts Bonus: Jonas Mekas describes the way Taylor performs both in movies and in real life, and reflects his prominence as a poet. Mary Woronov remembers his rubbery physical on Quaaludes. Finally, take a tour through Taylor’s chaotic, ultra-bohemian apartment on Ludlow Street.