From 1942 to 1946, Taylor served in the
United States Navy during
World War II. During his service, he wrote numerous stories and Adrift in a Boneyard, an extended fiction about survivors of a disaster. In 1949,The Saturday Evening Post commissioned a series of biographical sketches of
W. C. Fields. He published them together as W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes. Taylor continued to write fiction and biographies, including one on
Winston Churchill.[citation needed]
Taylor's 1958 novel The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, about a 14-year-old and his father in the
California Gold Rush, won the Pulitzer Prize and was purchased for a film, but eventually became a television series, instead.[3]A Journey to Matecumbe was adapted in 1976 as the Disney movie Treasure of Matecumbe.[4] His novel Professor Fodorski served as the basis for the 1962 musical All American.[5]