Charles Hollis Taylor (June 24, 1901 – June 23, 1969) was an American basketball player and basketball shoe salesman/product marketer who is best known for his association with the Chuck Taylor All-Stars, which he helped to improve and promote.
Early life and education
Charles H. "Chuck" Taylor was born in rural Brown County, Indiana, on June 24, 1901. Taylor, a graduate of Columbus High School in Columbus, Indiana, in 1919, played guard position on the school's basketball team. He became captain of the varsity team while a high school sophomore, and was also a two-time all-state team selection.
Marriages
Taylor's first wife was Ruth Adler (Actress), a former Hollywood actress who appeared in films such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Design for Scandal (1941). They married on May 26, 1950, in Carson City, Nevada, and settled in Los Angeles, California. The couple separated in 1955 and divorced in 1957.
Taylor married Lucille Kimbrell on December 11, 1962, in Reno, Nevada. She was the former wife of Eugene Kimbrell, a co-founder of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. Chuck and Lucille Taylor resided in Port Charlotte, Florida, where Taylor spent the final years of his life.
Career
Taylor began his career as a semi-professional basketball player in 1919 and as the player-manager for the Converse All-Stars basketball team in the mid-1920s, but he became widely known as a salesman and promoter of Converse All Star basketball shoes. Taylor traveled the country providing local basketball clinics, making special appearances, and meeting with customers in local sporting goods stores to promote the company's basketball shoes. During World War II he coached the Wright Field Air-Tecs basketball team during the 1944–45 season and served as a physical fitness instructor for the U.S. military before resuming his career as a traveling salesman for Converse. Taylor retired from work in 1968. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969.
Early years
Taylor made his debut as a semi-professional basketball player on March 19, 1919, playing for the Columbus Commercials when he was seventeen years old. (Taylor played as a substitute for another of the team's players during the final three minutes of the game, but he scored no points.) After the Columbus Commercials disbanded the following season, Taylor continued to pursue a career in professional basketball, which included playing for the Akron Firestone Non-Skids, a semi-professional team, as well as other semi-professional teams in Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois. Although Taylor played on professional and semi-professional teams for eleven seasons, no records have been located that confirm Taylor's link to playing for the Buffalo Germans and Original Celtics as some have claimed. Taylor did not clarify the assertions.
With one notable exception, Taylor's career as a player on a semi-professional team ended in the 1920s in Chicago when he became a traveling salesman and product promoter for the Converse Rubber Shoe Company. However, during the 1926–27 season, Taylor was a player-manager of the All-Stars, the Chicago-based touring team that the Converse company sponsored to promote sales of its Converse All Star basketball shoes.
In 1917, while Taylor was still in high school, Converse began manufacturing one of the first basketball shoes. At least one source indicates that in 1918 Taylor wore Converse Non-Skids, the canvas and rubber shoe that was the forerunner to the Converse All Stars.
Converse salesman
In 1921 S. R. "Bob" Pletz, an avid sportsman, hired Taylor as a salesman for the Converse Rubber Shoe Company when Taylor visited the company's offices in Chicago. The previous year the company had introduced an earlier version of Converse All Stars as one of the first shoes specifically designed to be worn when playing basketball. Within a year of Taylor's arrival the company had adopted his suggestions of changing the design of the Converse All Star shoe to provide enhanced flexibility and support. The restyled shoe also included a distinctive star-shape logo on the patch that protected the ankle. After Taylor's signature was added to the All Star logo on the patch of the shoes, they became known as Chuck Taylor All Stars.