Ron Taylor

Ronald Josiah Taylor, (8 March 19349 September 2012) was an Australian shark expert, as is his widow, Valerie Taylor. They were credited with being pioneers in several areas, including being the first people to film great white sharks without the protection of a cage. Their expertise has been called upon for films such as Jaws, Orca and Sky Pirates.

Biography Ronald Taylor began diving in 1952 and became interested in spearfishing and underwater photography. He met Valerie while both were members of the St George Spearfishing Club in Sydney. They became champion spearfishers, but switched from killing sharks to filming them after becoming fascinated with marine life. They married in December 1963.

Taylor's first major underwater film production, The Shark Hunters (1962), was made with diving and business partner Ben Cropp. In 1964, he made the Slaughter at Saumarez, the first Australian diving adventure to the Coral Sea aboard professional fishing boat Riversong with free divers John Harding, Bob Grounds and Ron Zangari with Captain Wally Muller.

In 1966, the Taylors sold their shark documentary Revenge of a Shark Victim to producer Robert Raymond who won a Logie Award for his adaptation with new footage.

The Taylors were employed by the Belgian Scientific Expedition to the Great Barrier Reef as advisers and 35 mm underwater cinematographers, for six months, the first major educational project of this type on the Great Barrier Reef sponsored by University of Liège, Belgium. In 1969, Ron co-filmed Blue Water, White Death with Stan Waterman, Peter Lake and Peter Gimbel.

In 1974, the Taylors, assisted by Rodney Fox (above water), filmed the live shark underwater sequences for Jaws. and the shark sequences for the film Orca (1976). In 1978, they published Great Shark Stories book. Shadow over the Reef (1993) was filmed at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia and was instrumental in preventing the test drilling for oil inside the Ningaloo Marine Park. The Taylors' documentary Shark Pod (1997) used the Protective Oceanic Device invented in South Africa by Norman Starkey of the Natal Sharks Board against great white sharks, tiger sharks, hammerhead sharks, and other shark species.

Taylor died on 9 September 2012 at age 78, following a two-year battle with acute myeloid leukemia.

The Realm of the Shark is a biographical account of the Taylors' lives between the late 1950s, and the late 1980s.

Selected works Filmography Documentary films Playing with Sharks for Movietone News, 1962 Shark Hunters, 1963; with Ben Cropp Skindiving Paradise, 1965 Revenge of a Shark Victim, 1965; about Rodney Fox (re-edited by Robert Raymond into SHARK which subsequently received a Logie Award) Surf Scene, 1965, featuring top surfers Robert Conneeley, Russell Hughes, Kevin Brennan and Tanya Binning surfing new locations at Noosa Head and Double Island Point, Queensland. Belgian Scientific Expedition, for University of Liège 1967 Sharks, 1975; for Time-Life Television The Great Barrier Reef (IMAX), 1982; technical consultants Operation Shark Bite, 1982 Shark Shocker 1993 (with Richard Dennison) for Channel 4 UK Shadow over the Reef, 1993 Shadow of the Shark, 1999; for Australian Geographic, directed by Tina Dalton-Hagege

Television series and movies Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Episode 3 – Golden Reef (1968) – original story & Episode 57 – The Shark Taggers(1969) – underwater sequences Contrabandits (30 episode series), 1967–68; underwater sequences and diving instruction for cast Barrier Reef (39-episode series), 1971–1972; direction of underwater photography, stunt work and minor acting roles Taylor's Inner Space (13-episode series), 1972–1973 with soundtrack composed by Sven Libaek and narration by William Shatner Those Amazing Animals, 1980–1981; contributed to underwater segments Fortress, 1985; underwater sequences Blue Wilderness (6 episodes), 1992; with Richard Dennison for National Geographic and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Flipper, 1995 series; underwater still photography

Films Age of Consent, 1968 The Intruders (also known as Skippy and the Intruders), 1969 Blue Water, White Death, 1971 Jaws, 1975 Orca, 1976; live shark sequences The Last Wave, 1977; underwater sequences Jaws 2, 1978 Gallipoli, 1981; underwater sequences A Dangerous Summer , 1982: underwater sequences Year of Living Dangerously, 1982 The Silent One, 1983 Sky Pirates, 1984, underwater sequences Frog Dreaming, 1986 The Rescue, for Walt Disney, 1987 Honeymoon in Vegas, 1991, underwater sequences Police Story 4: First Strike, 1995; underwater sequences The Island of Dr Moreau, 1995, live shark sequences 1993 – SSI Platinum Pro 5000 Diver 2003 – Member of the Order of Australia (AM) Citation: For service to conservation and the environment through marine cinematography and photography, by raising awareness of endangered and potentially extinct marine species, and by contributing to the declaration of species and habitat protection.

Ron and Valerie 1992 – Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year 1997 – the jury award for the film Shark Pod at the Antibes Underwater Festival, France 2002 – Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia's Serventy Conservation Medal 2008 – Australian Geographic Lifetime of Conservation Award 2011 – Australian Cinematographers Society Hall of Fame Life membership of the St George Spearfishing & Freediving Club Inc. (date of conferral not stated) 2012 – renaming of the newly declared Neptune Islands Group Marine Park surrounding the Neptune Islands in South Australia to the Neptune Islands Group (Ron and Valerie Taylor) Marine Park