Robert Lewis Taylor (September 24, 1912 – September 30, 1998) was an American writer who won the 1959Pulitzer Prize for Fiction forThe Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. His writing has been adapted into a television series, film, and musical.
From 1942 to 1946, Taylor served in theUnited States Navy duringWorld War II. During his service, he wrote numerous stories andAdrift in a Boneyard, an extended fiction about survivors of a disaster. In 1949,The Saturday Evening Post commissioned a series of biographical sketches ofW. C. Fields. He published them together asW. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes. Taylor continued to write fiction and biographies, including one onWinston Churchill.[citation needed]
Taylor's 1958 novel,The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, about a 14-year-old and his father in theCalifornia Gold Rush, won the Pulitzer Prize and was purchased for a film, but eventually became a television series instead.[3]A Journey to Matecumbe was adapted in 1976 as the Disney movieTreasure of Matecumbe.[4] His novelProfessor Fodorski served as the basis for the 1962 musicalAll American.[5]
