BYE BYE MR AMERICAN PIZZA GUY: TAYLOR NEGRON DELIVERED

Taylor Negron with Ray Walston in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH

Some celebrity deaths creep up, hit you in a sad way, out of the blue, bringing up a tinge of nostalgia and, in this case, a related sense of workplace experience: As a former pizza delivery guy, it can be personally said that Taylor Negron, who died recently, turned in a memorable and utterly realistic depiction in perhaps one of the most iconic scenes in a movie full of iconic scenes, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, using two expressions summing up the existence of anyone who ever delivered pizza: annoyed and impatient, but ever so subtle. 

For bigger roles you can see Taylor as a villain in THE LAST BOY SCOUT; a struggling comic doing a terrific Iranian carpet salesman imitation in PUNCHLINE; a smitten med student in YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE; the frustrated husband of FAST TIMES ingenue Jennifer Jason Leigh in EASY MONEY; an irate mailman in BETTER OFF DEAD; and he may not want to be remembered for the abysmal NOTHING BUT TROUBLE starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd and John Candy, but Taylor was actually pretty good in it... As usual.

Taylor with Sean Penn; a BETTER OFF DEAD actress; and his EASY MONEY wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh

REST IN PEACE TAYLOR NEGRON 1957-2015