(USA TODAY) -- Suave Australian-born actor Rod Taylor, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, along with many other films and TV shows, died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles.
Taylor was 84. His daughter, Felicia Taylor, told the Los Angeles Times that the actor was surrounded by family and loved ones. No cause of death was given.
"My dad loved his work. Being an actor was his passion -- calling it an honorable art and something he couldn't live without," Taylor, a former CNN correspondent and only child of the actor, told CNN in a statement.
Taylor's long career encompassed dozens of films, including The Time Machine, The Train Robbers and more recently, Inglorious Basterds. He also did stints on Falcon Crest, Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger.
"Rod was a great pal to me," said Tippi Hedren, his Birds co-star, reports CNN. "We were very, very good friends," she said. "He was one of the most fun people I have ever met, thoughtful and classy, there was everything good in that man."
Taylor is survived by his wife of more than three decades, Carol, and his daughter.
