Malcolm McDowell's Real Name: Malcolm John Taylor

Quick answer: Malcolm McDowell was born Malcolm John Taylor. The Los Angeles Times Hollywood Star Walk records that form and, with BFI Screenonline, gives his birth date as June 13, 1943, in Leeds (Los Angeles Times; BFI Screenonline).

Real name and early life

The Times gives the full birth name Malcolm John Taylor; BFI Screenonline uses the shorter form Malcolm Taylor and says he later took his mother's maiden name, McDowell, as his professional surname. The Times likewise says he adopted his mother's maiden name. He was educated at Cannock, the BFI says, then turned down a university place to work in his father's Liverpool pub and as a travelling salesman before joining a touring repertory company. Both accounts note the pub-owning father. After moving to London he worked briefly with the Royal Shakespeare Company, appeared in minor television roles, and joined the Royal Court Theatre, where he was asked to audition for Lindsay Anderson's If....

Career highlights

If.... (1968), in which he played rebellious public-school student Mick Travis, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the BFI records, and began a lasting collaboration with Anderson. Stanley Kubrick then cast him as Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange (1971), the role the Times calls the signature part of his career; the paper also records a Golden Globe nomination. He reunited with Anderson and the Mick Travis character in O Lucky Man! (1973), a film the BFI says was inspired in part by McDowell's early work as a salesman, and later in Britannia Hospital (1982). Other 1970s credits in these accounts include Royal Flash (1975), Aces High (1976), Caligula (1979), and Time After Time (1979). After settling in California, the BFI says, he worked frequently in character and villain roles, including a cameo in Robert Altman's The Player (1992). The Times notes that he later played the adversary who kills Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations (1994) and had television work including Entourage, Heroes, and The Mentalist. British television credits in the BFI account include the gangster Bennie Barratt in Our Friends in the North (1996).

Name notes for searchers

Malcolm John Taylor is the documented birth name; he is known professionally as Malcolm McDowell, his mother's maiden name. Searchers looking for Mick Travis in If.... or Alex in A Clockwork Orange are usually aiming at the same person.