"Little Rascals Actress Jackie Lynn Taylor Dies at 88" Topic

Jackie Lynn Taylor, who played one of The Little Rascals in five Our Gang comedy shorts released in 1934, died Monday in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, Calif. She was 88.

Jack Fries, a former CBS journalist and TV anchor/producer, said his wife had Alzheimer's disease, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Taylor debuted as Jane, the "girlfriend" of gang leader Wally (Wally Albright), in Hi-Neighbor, an episode in which the youngsters decide to build their own fire engine. When she grew too tall, she was replaced by Darla Hood.

"We didn't have scripts," she told The Bee in 2000. "We played together. We were kids who worked together, who played together and who went to school together. We weren't great actors, but we got along."

She wrote a 1970 book about the Rascals, The Turned-on Hollywood 7, and co-hosted along with Fries The Little Rascals Family Theatre , which aired on TV in the 1970s and was a big hit.

A native of Compton, Calif., Taylor also appeared in Our Gang producer Hal Roach's Laurel & Hardy films The Devil's Brother (1933) and Babes in Toyland (1934).

Later, she worked at KTTV in Los Angeles as one of the first female TV co-hosts in Southern California. She went on to host shows or work as a reporter in such California cities as Bakersfield, Tulare, Stockton, Salinas and Sacramento.

Her first husband was actor and drama teacher Ben Bard.

Above photo of Rascals in 1934 (from left): Tommy Bond, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Tommy Bupp, Jackie Lynn Taylor, Wally Albright, Jerry Tucker and George "Spanky" McFarland.

Here's that photograph:

According to Wikipedia, there are nine 'Our Gang'/'Little Rascals' members still alive, including Robert Blake ("Mickey"), Jean Darling, and Dickie Moore.

Godspeed, Ms. Taylor, and thank you very much.

I used to watch Our Gang/Little Rascals both before and after school on the local TV stations. Great fun.

I preferred Jane to Darla. Cute blondes have always sent me.

RIP, ma/am.

I used to watch Our Gang/Little Rascals both before and after school on the local TV stations. Great fun.

Same here, jpattern2. It was a local UHF station, then known as KDTV Channel 39 (later KXTX), that showed 'Our Gang'/'Little Rascals' every weekday afternoon back in the early- to mid-'70s, along with 'Speed Racer', 'Bugs Bunny', 'Space Angel', and 'The Bozo Show', just to name a few. It was a really cool little station.

As to the Rascals, it motivated me to try and get some of my neighborhood friends together to play. Unfortunately, the "real world" often interfered and some of them had other things to do or they went somewhere with their parents. Ah well.

By the way, here's a photo of Ms. Taylor that I just found. It's dated from 1972:

I too used to watch reruns after school back in the '70s.

A number of years ago, the building in which I worked contained a Library of Congress satellite office where they did film preservation work. They had vaults filled with old films, and there was always a distinct chemical odor whenever I walked down that hallway.

Anyway, one day during lunch hour they set up a projector in the conference room and showed some old, rare Little Rascals episodes. Funny stuff, if a bit politically incorrect by today's standards.

They were fun to watch, they were also reminders of the changes in economic conditions that started with and followed WW2. We moved to France with my father (Air Force) in 1960 and heard complaints about the 'rich Americans'. We were middle class, and everybody, except the Germans, were still suffering the economic impact of the war. You could get 20 francs to the dollar, but only 4 Marks. Italy and Spain had funny money. The pound was still doing well. Anyway, I've wandered off into the brush.

Jean Darling also has the distinction of being one of the few remaining actors left from the silent era (she started in '27). Always liked their early stuff – "Kid From Borneo" still makes me laugh…

That "build their own fire engine" episode inspired an awful lot of shenanigans and building on my part as a kid! It's one of the ones I still remember best, 35+ years later.