Past president of Directors Guild

Jud Taylor, 76, a past president of the Directors Guild of America who was well known for directing television movies, died Wednesday in New York City after a long illness.

Taylor, a former actor who joined the guild in 1964, won the DGA’s Outstanding Directorial Achievement Award for the 1987 TV movie “Foxfire.” He also received an Emmy nomination for directing the 1977 TV movie “Tail Gunner Joe.”

Other directing credits include the TV movies “The Old Man and the Sea,” “Out of Darkness,” “A Question of Honor” and “Flesh & Blood,” as well as episodes of TV series, including “Star Trek” and “The Fugitive.”

Taylor served as DGA vice president from 1977 to 1981 and as president from 1981 to 1983. In 2003, he received the Robert B. Aldrich Award for Extraordinary Service to the Guild.

Taylor was born Feb. 25, 1932, in New York City, and earned a bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley. As an actor in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, he mostly worked in television.

But he also had a small role in the 1963 World War II classic “The Great Escape.” He and stars Steve McQueen and James Garner wore makeshift Spirit of ’76 costumes and served moonshine to British prisoners of war during a Fourth of July celebration in a German prison camp.