Malibu bachelor pad

Welcome to Rod Taylor’s place, circa 1956! With the stability of an MGM contract under his belt, Rod moved from a tiny Hollywood apartment into this house at 19210 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California.

Rod shared the three-bedroom/two-bath house with two roomates (more on that later). It was built in 1948 and is located along Las Tunas Beach.

So, here’s a treat for Rod’s fans while we observe his January 11th birthday.

Scroll through the following galleries for scans from a series of proof sheets. The photo shoot took place in 1956 to accompany a Photoplay magazine article that ran in March 1957. Rod has his “Raintree County” haircut at this time.

Below, we go inside for a look at Rod reading, joking and playing Mr. Fix-it!

A quick change of shirts and here’s more of Rod around the house.

For the series of pictures below, the photographer must have asked Rod to pretend he’s getting an early call? Cute way to get Rod in bed!

Finally, Rod hits the beach and romps in the surf with dogs and surf board.

Here’s the result from the photo shoot, leading in to a nice feature story about Rod in Photoplay, March 1957 (PDF). Surprisingly, only one other photo was used to accompany the article, making the above galleries even more special.

Rod shared the Malibu pad with fellow actor Jeff Richards and casting director Bob Walker. Other roomates came and went, including Charles Bronson. A neighbor was Russ Tamblyn. Below are Bob and Jeff at a cafe in Malibu from the same photoshoot as above. The one of Rod and Jeff fishing was taken at another time.

Finally, below are two later renovations of the house, which is now valued at more than $2,700,000. There’s a Zillow listing that shows the interior and its views. Quite a difference from 1956!