Lia Chang
Meshach Taylor and Joe Mantegna in Criminal Minds – “The Fallen”. Photo: Screen Grab/CBS © 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Emmy Award-nominated actor Meshach Taylor (“Designing Women”) returns to CBS on “Criminal Minds,” guest starring opposite Joe Mantegna (FBI Special Agent David Rossi) as Harrison Scott, Rossi’s former Marine sergeant with whom he served with in Vietnam on the episode, “The Fallen”, which airs on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT). The BAU travels to Santa Monica when burned bodies of homeless people begin showing up by the famous pier.
Keliher Walsh and Meshach Taylor in Year of the Rabbit. Photo by Betsy Newman
Most recently, Taylor was onstage at Ensemble STudio Theater-LA in Keliher Walsh’s Year of the Rabbit, playing Vietnam vet JC Bridges, who upon returning from his first tour in Vietnam in 1967, experienced hatred and racism in the turbulent States. The play examines wartime experiences from Vietnam and Afghanistan. Click here to read more about the play.
Meshach Taylor and Debby Ryan in JESSIE – “The Whining” which aired on the Disney Channel in October, 2012. (DISNEY CHANNEL/ADAM LARKEY)
Meshach Taylor (Lia Chang)
Taylor’s first professional gig was in a National tour of Hair. He honed his craft in repertory theater as a member of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, and the Organic Theater Company alongside Mantegna, André De Shields, Dennis Franz, Keith Szarabajka, Jack Wallace, and director Stuart Gordon. While in Chicago, he received the Joseph Jefferson Award for Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, and an Emmy Award for his role as Jim in the WTTV production of “Huckleberry Finn.” In 1998, Taylor made his Broadway debut as Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast, starring alongside Toni Braxton.
In 1979, Taylor moved to Los Angeles, where he has crafted a gallery of memorable characters in film and on television, including his Emmy nominated turn in the long-running CBS hit sitcom “Designing Women” as Anthony Bouvier, the assistant at the fictitious Sugarbaker interior design firm in Atlanta, Georgia, starring Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts and Jean Smart. He was a series regular on “Dave’s World” (CBS), and has had recurring guest starring appearances on Nickelodeon’s “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide” and “Buffalo Bill” (NBC) with Dabney Coleman. He has appeared on “The Unit” (CBS), “Jessie” (Disney Channel),”“Hannah Montana” (Disney Channel), “The Drew Carey Show” (ABC), “Static Shock” (Kids WB!), “Caroline in the City” (NBC), “Aaahh!!! Real Monsters” (Nickelodeon), “Women of the House” (CBS), “In the Heat of the Night” (NBC), “Punky Brewster” (NBC), “What’s Happening Now!”, “Hill Street Blues” (NBC), “ALF” (NBC), “Melba” (CBS), “The Golden Girls” (NBC), “Cagney & Lacey” (CBS), “Barney Miller” (ABC), “M*A*S*H” (CBS), “Lou Grant” (CBS), “The White Shadow” (CBS), “The Incredible Hulk” (CBS), and “Barnaby Jones”(CBS). His made-for-TV movies include The Right Connections with MC Hammer, Sidney Sheldon’s Nothing Lasts Forever with Brooke Shields, Virtual Seduction, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child and Double, Double, Toil and Trouble with the Olsen Twins. Taylor also hosted his own series on HGTV, The Urban Gardener with Meshach Taylor and was a regular panelist on the 2000 revival of the television game show To Tell the Truth. He co-hosted Living Live! with Florence Henderson on Retirement Living TV; in 2008, the program was revamped as The Florence Henderson Show.
Taylor has appeared in the feature films Wigger, Damien: Omen II, The Howling, Jacks or Better, Kid ‘N Play’s Class Act, How to Murder a Millionaire, David Mamet’s House of Games, The Allnighter, The Last Innocent Man with Ed Harris, Explorers, Friends and Family, The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue, One More Saturday Night, Warning Sign, and Inside Out with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason.
Other articles by Lia Chang:
Meshach Taylor talks Wigger on Wendy Williams Show
Playing Lady Thiang in the Harbor Lights’ Production of The King and I is a dream come true for Christine Toy Johnson
Photos: Q & A with Mel Sagrado Maghuyop, The King in Harbor Lights’ Production of The King and I
Photos: Pauletta Pearson Washington, Roscoe Orman, Ruby Dee, Denise Burse, Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Micki Grant, George Faison, Constance C.R. White, Will Calhoun and More at Lorey Hayes’ POWER PLAY
Manu Narayan Dazzles as Richard Roma in La Jolla Playhouse’s Revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross
Photos: Tonya Pinkins, André De Shields, S. Epatha Merkerson, Billy Porter and George C. Wolfe at 54 Below
Photos: All-Access Pass to Disney’s Aladdin at The Muny with Thom Sesma, Francis Jue, Robin De Jesus, John Tartaglia, Jason Graae, Curtis Holbrook, Eddie Korbich, Samantha Massell and Ken Page
Performing Arts Images from the Asian American Pacific Islander Collection on Display at the Library of Congress to Celebrate APA Heritage Month
Photos: Yellow Fever Playwright Rick Shiomi Explores New Territory with An All-Female Cast
Click here for the Lia Chang Articles Archive and here for the Lia Chang Photography Website.
Lia Chang. Photo by Brianne Michelle Photography
Lia Chang is an actor, a performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist.
All text, graphics, articles & photographs: © 2000-2012 Lia Chang Multimedia. All rights reserved. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Lia Chang. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. For permission, please contact Lia at liachangpr@gmail.com
