Malcolm John Taylor was born on June 13, 1943 in Leeds, England to working class parents Charles and Edna Taylor. He was brought up in where his parents owned and ran a pub. At 11 he was sent from the Tunbridge Boarding School to the Cannock House School in Eltham, Kent. His father was an alcoholic and beat his child regularly. Malcolm hated his parent's ways and fought against it. At this time he decided that he wanted to become an actor, it was also around this time that his love for race cars began. He attended the London Academy of Music and Art to study acting. Meanwhile he worked at his parent's pub but lost his job when the pub went bankrupt, his father drinking all the profits. He then had a variety of jobs, from coffee salesman to messenger.

His first big screen role was in Poor Cow, although his 2 minutes scene was ultimately cut from the completed film. Soon after he caught the attention of director Lindsay Anderson who cast him in the role of a rebellious student in his film If..... The film catapulted Malcolm to stardom in Britain but failed everywhere else. He was so enthusiastic about the film success that he wanted to do another right away. He began writing what would become the semi-autobiographical O Lucky Man!. Meanwhile he starred as the infamous Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick's controversial A Clockwork Orange, a role that caused him to be typecast as a manic psychopathic villain. In early 1976 he spent nearly a year working on what would later be one of the most infamous films of all time, the semi-pornographic Caligula, financed by Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione. Around that time the British film industry collapsed, forcing him to flee to America to continue working. His first American film was Time After Time. He then did Britannia Hospital, the last part of Lindsay Anderson working class trilogy which started with If.....

In the mid-1980s the years of alcohol and drug abuse including $1000 a week on cocaine caught up with him. Years of abuse took it's toll on him, his black hairs were now grey. Looking older than he really was, nobody wanted to cast him for playing young. The big roles having dried up, he did many B-rated movies.

The 1990s were kinder to him though. In 1994 he was cast as Dr. Soran, the man who killed Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. He was back on the track playing villains again. He played another in the classic BBC mini-series, Our Friends in the North. Today with more than 100 films under his belt he is one of the greatest actors in America. He still doesn't have American citizenship but he likes the no-nonsense American ways. He currently resides in the north suburb of Los Angeles.


His first wife, Margot Bennett, was Keir Dullea's ex wife. Keir was the main character in Stanley Kubrick's "2001", while McDowell was the main character in Kubrick's next film, "A Clockwork Orange". Uncle of Alexander Siddig ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993)). Along with Sir John Gielgud, he is one of only two actors to play both King Arthur and Merlin. He played King Arthur in Arthur the King (1985) (TV) and Merlin in Kids of the Round Table (1997). Has said that his favorite actor of all time is James Cagney. He and Wife, Kelley McDowell, had a son, Beckett Taylor McDowell (born January 29, 2004). Was the first well-known actor to appear non-animated and in the flesh for "South Park" (1997) because he is one of Trey Parker's favorite actors and he was specifically requested. His performance as Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange (1971) was ranked 100 on the list of the "100 Greatest Film Performances of All Time". Lives in Santa Barbara, CA. Good friends with Christine Noonan and David Sherwin. As he wanted to get into the SAG, he took his mother's maiden name McDowell because there was another British actor called Malcolm Taylor. He and Wife, Kelley McDowell, had a son, Finnian Anderson McDowell (born December 23, 2006). In an interview he said that a magazine named him "King Of Punk" after his appearance in "A clockwork orange". This is probably because of the punk references that appears in the movie, such as the droogies costume style. Announced that wife, Kelley, is expecting their third child, a boy, in January 2009. [September 8, 2008]. When he went to meet with Stanley Kubrick for the first time, he had little knowledge of film and confused him with Stanley Kramer. In preparation, McDowell's friend and mentor, Lindsay Anderson, showed him all of Kubrick's films from Paths of Glory (1957) to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).