Ken Taylor, Heroic Real Life Ambassador From Argo, Dies At 81

Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador who hid American diplomats from the US embassy during the Iran hostage crisis – as immortalised in the movie ‘Argo’ – has died.

The news was confirmed by his wife Pat, who said that he had been fighting colon cancer for two months. He was 81.

She told the Associated Press: “He did all sorts of things for everyone without any expectation of something coming back.

“It’s why that incident in Iran happened. There was no second thought about it. He just went ahead and did it. His legacy is that giving is what is important, not receiving. With all his friends that’s what he did.”

Though his role in the Oscar-winning movie adaptation of the hostage crisis was overshadowed by the actions of Ben Affleck’s character, CIA man Tony Mendez, it was Taylor who took huge risks to ensure the hostages could return to the US.

It was he who took in the four US diplomats and two of their wives for three months in Tehran in 1979, after student rioters seized the US embassy, in a plot that was supported by the then prime minister of Canada Joe Clark.

He eventually masterminded the arrangement of plane tickets and issued fake Canadian passports, allowing them safe passage out of the country.

It’s been said that the movie, in which he was played by Victor Garber, seriously underplayed how vital his role was in the operation.

Clark posted on Twitter: “Ken Taylor was a Canadian hero & a valued friend.”

Added Roger Lucy, who was First Secretary at the Canadian Embassy during the hostage crisis: “He was the right man in the wrong place at the right time.

“He showed the highest degree of leadership and kept his head throughout the revolution and the hostage crisis.”

Image credits: AP/Rex Features