The Last Boy Scout
Background:
“When I started out having the first name Taylor was a rarity. Now it's the name of every little girl. I can’t walk into any restaurant with out hearing a screeching mother 'Taylor don’t do that with that Olive'.” Taylor Negron
Taylor Negron is an American actor, writer and skilled stand up comedian. He is perhaps best known for playing “The Pizza guy” on Amy Heckerling's “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” (1982) and as the villain Milo in “The Last Boy Scout” (1991). He has also appeared in many other films like “Easy Money” (1983), “River's Edge” (1986), “Punchline” (1988), “Nothing But Trouble” (1991), “Angels in the Outfield” (1994), “Stuart Little” (1999), “Pledge This!” (2006) and “The No Sit List” (2009). Negron played regular roles on “Detective School” (1979, as Silvio Galindez), “So Little Time” (2000-2001, as Manuelo Del Valle) and recurring roles on HBO's “Encyclopedia Brown” (2 episodes, 1990), NBC's “Hope & Gloria” (3 episodes, 1995) and ABC's “The Hughleys” (8 episodes, 1998-2000). He has also guest starred in numerous television shows, including “ER,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Reno 911,” “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and “Party of Five.” As a stand up comic, Negron performs regularly across the United States. He has written the plays “The Unbearable Lightness of Being Taylor Negron – A Fusion of Story and Song,” “Gangster Planet” and “Downward Facing Bitch,” to name a few. His comedy essays have been published in the anthology “Dirty Laundry” (Phoenix Books) and “Love West Hollywood: Reflections of Los Angeles” (Alyson Books).
Negron is a blend of Puerto Rican and Jewish heritage. He has developed really good friendship with Whoopi Goldberg and Savage Steve Holland. A very talented stand up comic, Negron was differentiated for being asked to teach one of the first comedy courses offered at UCLA.
Tay
Childhood and Family:
Brad Taylor Negron was born on August 1, 1958, in Glendale, California. His father, Conrad Negron Sr., was the mayor of Indian Wells, California. He was raised in Pasadena, California and has two brothers. He is the cousin of Chuck Negron, ex-main lead singer of 60s/70s rock/pop group Three Dog Night. Tay, as he is known by his family and close friends, studied acting under Lee Strasberg and studied comedy at a private seminar taught by Lucille Ball.
Tay has divided his time between Venice, California and a home in France.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Career:
Taylor Negron began his career as a stand up comedian and was in an improvisational comedy group, whose lines included talents like Robin Williams, Betty Thomas and Martin Short. In 1979, he made his television debut as a regular cast on the short lived sitcom “Detective School,” which appeared on ABC from July 31, 1979 to November 24, 1979. He played disco-dancing Silvio Galindez. In the following year, Negron landed an uncredited part as blond-haired man auditioning on “The Gong Show Movie,” a comedy film directed and co-written by and starring Chuck Barris. He went on to make his television film debut in the ABC drama “Freedom” (1981), starring Mare Winningham, and have his first significant role in a motion picture when he was cast as Dr. Phil Burns on the Garry Marshall helmed comedy “Young Doctors in Love” (1982), starring Sean Young, Michael McKean, Harry Dean Stanton, Dabney Coleman and Patrick Macnee. Following “Young Doctors in Love,” Negron offered a memorable turn as the obviously annoyed Mr. Pizza Guy on “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” a coming of age teen comedy film written by Cameron Crowe and based on his 1981 book of the same name. Directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates, among other actors, the film grossed over $27 million against a budget of $4.5 million.
Negron portrayed Julio, Rodney Dangerfield's son in law, on the comedy film “Easy Money” (1983), which was directed by James Signorelli and written by Dangerfield, Michael Endler, P.J. O'Rourke and Dennis Blair, “Better Off Dead...” (1985), appeared as Mailman on “Better Off Dead...” (1985), a teen romantic comedy film starring John Cusack and written and directed by Savage Steve Holland, and as Pepe the cab driver in Harvey Miller's “Bad Medicine” (1985), starring Steve Guttenberg, Alan Arkin, and Julie Hagerty. He reunited with director Savage Steve Holland for the romance/comedy film “One Crazy Summer” (1986), starring John Cusack and Demi Moore, supported Michael O'Keefe, Paul Rodriguez and Denholm Elliott on “The Whoopee Boys” (1986), had a notable supporting role as Checker on the Tim Hunter award winning drama film “River's Edge” (1986), starring Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck, and Dennis Hopper, appeared with Tom Hanks and Sally Field on David Seltzer 's “Punchline” (1988) and again worked with Savage Steve Holland on “How I Got Into College” (1989), starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Anthony Edwards and Corey Parker. Meanwhile, Negron also guest starred in several television series, such as “Hill Street Blues” (1985, as Tommy Rodriguez), “Faerie Tale Theatre” (1985), “The New Adventures of Beans Baxter” (1987), “ Anything But Love” (1989, as Anthony Amore), “ On the Television” (1989). He also appeared as Roger MacDonald in an episode of the CBS soap “Falcon Crest” called “Rescue Me” (1988) and would appear on the show again in a 1990 episode called “Walking Money,” this time playing Wendell.
In 1990, Negron had a recurring role as Parker Gaffeny on the HBO series “Encyclopedia Brown.” He went on to join the cast of the short lived CBS sitcom “Frannie's Turn” (1992), where he portrayed Armando, as well as guest star in “Dream On” (1990), “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (1990), “ The Ben Stiller Show” (1992), “ Civil Wars” (1993), “Seinfeld” (1993), “Dave's World” (1993) and “Grace Under Fire” (1994) before landing the recurring role of Gwillem on the 1995 NBC situation comedy series “Hope & Gloria,” starring Cynthia Stevenson and Jessica Lundy, respectively, as the titular characters. He appeared in a total of three episodes: “Don't Take Any Wooden Elephants,” “Sisyphus, Prometheus and Me” and “The Face with Two Men” (all 1995).
Negron returned to the big screen in 1991 when he was cast as Fausto Squiriniszu on the Dan Aykroyd helmed horror/comedy feature “Nothing But Trouble” and delivered a chilling turn as the villain Milo on “The Last Boy Scout,” an action film starring Bruce Willis and directed by Tony Scott. The following years saw roles on the films “Morning Man at 88.0” (1993, TV), “Mr. Jones” (1993), “Angels in the Outfield” (1994), “Inevitable Grace” (1994), “Hart to Hart: Secrets of the Hart” (1995, TV), “ Freaky Friday” (1995. TV) and “Mr. Stitch” (1995, TV). As a comedian, Negron wrote and starred in the March 19, 1991 episode “Taylor Negron” of the HBO stand up series “One Night Stand.”
During 1996- 1999, Negron guest starred in television series like “Clueless,” “Party of Five” (as Dr. Blalock), “Touched by an Angel,” “The Pretender,” “Arsenio,” “Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man “ (as the voice of Wilhelm van der Klerk), “ Oddville, MTV,” “ The Practice,” “Smart Guy,” “ER,” “Friends,” “Jenny,” “You Wish,” “ Nash Bridges” and “Good vs Evil.” In 1997, Negron co-wrote comedy Central's “Un-Cabaret.” The next year, he played the role of Reuben Windsor on the Disney Channel Emmy nominated telefilm “You Lucky Dog,” which was directed by Paul Schneider and starred Kirk Cameron, Chelsea Noble and John de Lancie, and landed the recurring role of Chuck Ballard on the ABC sitcom “The Hughleys.”
The actor also acted in a number of movies during this period. Negron appeared with Pauly Shore, Stephen Baldwin and William Atherton on Jason Bloom's “Bio-Dome” (1996), Leslie Nielsen, Nicollette Sheridan, Andy Griffith and Charles Durning on the spy comedy film “Spy Hard” (1996), which parodied James Bond films and other action films, Mike Andrews, Eliza Coyle and Adam Eastwood in Paul Tarantino's “Courting Courtney” (1997), Moira Kelly and Teri Garr in “Changing Habits” (1997) and Billy Zane, Tippi Hedren, Ron Perlman, Christina Ricci in “I Woke Up Early The Day I Died” (1998), Scott 'Carrot Top' Thompson, Courtney Thorne-Smith and Larry Miller in “Chairman of the Board” (1998), and played the role of Genie on “A Kid in Aladdin's Palace” (1998), an adeventure/family film starring Thomas Ian Nicholas, Rhona Mitra and Nicholas Irons. In 1999, he worked in five movies: “ Swap Meet” (directed by David Schweizer), “Can't Stop Dancing” (directed and written by Stephen David and Ben Zook), “ This Space Between Us” (directed by Matthew Leutwyler and starred Jeremy Sisto), “Every Dog Has Its Day” (co-written and directed by Marc Chiat ) and “Stuart Little” (as salesman in mall).
In 2000, Negron had roles on “Gun Shy,” a comedy film directed and written by Eric Blakeney and starring Liam Neeson, Sandra Bullock and Oliver Platt, Mike White's “Rebel Yell,” a biopic based on the life of Billy Idol (played by Leland Orser), Brian Levant's “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas,” where he played Gazaam & Gazing, “Civility,” a thriller film starring Liam Waite, William Forsythe and Tom Arnold, and “The In Crowd,” a psycho thriller film helmed by Mary Lambert and starring Susan Ward and Lori Heuring. He went on to appear in the films “The Fluffer”
“Lloyd” (both 2001), “Treading Water,” “ Duty Dating” (both 2002), “ Pauly Shore Is Dead,” “My Dinner with Jimi” (both 2003) and “Funky Monkey” (2004) as well as the direct to video “Death to the Supermodels” (2005). On the samll screen, Negron played the regular role of Manuelo Del Valle on the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen sitcom “So Little Time” (2000-2001) and guest starred in the television series “ Special Unit 2” (2001), “ My Wife and Kids” (2004) and “ That's So Raven” (2005). Besides, he worked on the TV films “On the Edge” (segment “Happy Birthday”, 2001) and “Call Me Claus” (2001, as Ralph).
Negron co-starred with Michael Naughton, Ethan Sandler and Roy Jenkins on Rhett Smith's comedy film, “The Enigma with a Stigma” (2006), portrayed Boris on “ Surf School” (2006), a comedy/sport film directed and written by Joel Silverman and starring Harland Williams, Corey Sevier and Ryan Carnes, was cast as Professor Milchik on “National Lampoon's Pledge This!” (2006), which starred Paris Hilton, who also served as an executive producer, supported Peter Falk, Rip Torn and George Segal on “Three Days to Vegas” (2007) and teamed up with D.B. Sweeney, Missi Pyle and Cedric Yarbrough on Douglas Horn's drama film, “Entry Level” (2007). 2007 found guest roles on the television series “ Legion of Super Heroes” (as the voice of Starfinger), “Reno 911!” (as Hector), “Zoey 101” (as Mr. Billiam), “ Curb Your Enthusiasm” (as Daviday Waiter) and “Wizards of Waverly Place.”
Next up for Negron, he played the role of Niles on the romance film “Channels” (2008), which was directed and penned by Nat Christian, appeared as Marla (played by Twink Caplan)'s boyfriend on the made for TV film comedy “Secrets of a Hollywood Nurse” (2008) and was cast as a judge in the short film “The Gold Lunch” (2008). It was also in 2008 that Negron wrote “The Unbearable Lightness of Being Taylor Negron – A Fusion of Story and Song,” which was directed by opera director David Schweitzer and co-starring singer/songwriter Logan Heftel. The show premiered to critical acclaim in the Green Room at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. Negron has also written such plays as “Gangster Planet,” a four character domestic comedy set during the Los Angeles Riots, and a suspense comedy called “Downward Facing Bitch.”
In 2009, Negron co-starred as Marty Post on the comedy film “Lock and Roll Forever,” opposite Lucas Grabeel and Ike Barinholtz, appeared in Ray Griggs' comedy, “Super Capers,” starring Justin Whalin, Ray Griggs and Danielle Harris, and played a priest in “The Deported,” a comedy starring Talia Shire, Nicholas Turturro and Michael Rapaport. The same year, he also appeared in Eric Amadio's “Stuntmen,” with Marc Blucas, Ross Patterson and Chris Tarantino, Kiff Scholl's “Scream of the Bikini,” with Kelsey Wedeen, Rebecca Larsen and Donald Agnelli, and Douglas Horn's “The No Sit List,” with Trenton Rogers, Rico Rodriguez and Chris Cleveland. He guest starred as ticket clerk in an episode of “'Til Death” called “The Courtship of Eddie's Parents” (2009). In the following year, Negron played Doglas in “Shoot the Hero,” an action/comedy film directed and written by Christian Sesma and starring Jason Mewes, Samantha Lockwood and Danny Trejo, King Edward I Longshanks on the short “The Braveheart Musical: For England” and guest starred in an episode of “Everyone Counts.” He also scripted the short film “What Kind of Planet Are We On?,” with director Varda Hardy.
Negron will portray Jimmy the doorman on the comedy/drama film “Santorini Blue,” by director/writer Matthew D. Panepinto. The film is set to be released in the Unites States on September 1, 2011. He has completed filming “The Chateau Meroux” (2011), a romance film starring Christopher Lloyd, Amanda Righetti and Marla Sokoloff, directed by Bob Fugger and written by Adam Morrison. He will play the role of Francois.
Awards:
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