Stephen Taylor, 80

Stephen Taylor of Springs, who had a long and varied career in computer technology, writing, film criticism, and academia, died on April 26 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. He was 80 years old. Death was attributed to cardiopulmonary arrest.

The New York Times in 1988 profiled Mr. Taylor after he wrote the nonfiction book “Building Thoreau’s Cabin,” also titled “A Place of Your Own Making,” following his quest to build a writing studio on his property by himself. The Times observed that he “put some invention and ingenuity into play.”

“It’s actually a book about personal competence, about seeing what you can accomplish by doing it yourself and learning as you do,” Mr. Taylor told the interviewer.

His fiction and film criticism ap­peared in The Kenyon Review, Hudson Review, Transatlantic Review, The Village Voice, and more. His plays were produced Off Broadway and regionally, including at the Yale Repertory Theater, the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and the Pasadena Playhouse. He also contributed to East End-theme publications such as “Springs: A Celebration.”

Mr. Taylor was a computer software consultant and systems analyst as well, first with the Sylvania Electric Company and then at the Corporation for Economic and Industrial Research. He was part of the team that worked on the ballistic missile early warning system, according to his family. 

In his academic career, Mr. Taylor taught both film history and an introductory computer class at the Cooper Union in Manhattan.

Mr. Taylor was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 15, 1938, to Robert Taylor, formerly Morris Cohen, and Mollie Plotkin. He grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Erasmus High School in 1955, one year earlier than scheduled. He attended Columbia University and New York University before transferring to Brooklyn College, and graduated with honors in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in math.

Over the years he also lived in Cambridge, Mass., but he met his wife, Barbara Hulsart, in East Hampton. The two were married in Springs in July 1983; Dr. Hulsart survives. Mr. Taylor is also survived by two sons, Sam Taylor and Matt Taylor, both of Brooklyn.

He was cremated. A private memorial was held at the family home in Springs on May 4. Memorial donations have been suggested to the East Hampton Library, 159 Main Street, East Hampton 11937.