John Lark Taylor was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1881. He attended Tarbox School and Fall Business College in Nashville before turning his attention to the stage.

As a teen, he played piano to accompany silent films in Nashville's first movie house. His first professional job was a $5/week vaudeville stint in St. Louis when he was 17 years old. The following year, he moved to New York and joined the Augustin Daly Stock Company. His first Broadway play was the Daly production of Taming of the Shrew with Tyrone Power, Sr. After Daly died in 1899, Taylor played with other stock companies in California and Nashville before returning to New York.

By 1906, Lark Taylor had joined the Sothern-Marlowe Company, and he played in theater productions for the company for the next 10 years. In 1922-1923, he played a part in the Arthur Hopkins' production of Hamlet with John Barrymore.

In 1924, Taylor sold his New York residence and moved back to Nashville with his mother. He started a Little Theater and began performing plays in a movie house near the Belcourt Theatre in Hillsboro Village. In 1933 he began doing radio programs for WSM, announcing broadcasts and performing in radio dramas. He continued his radio career until his retirement in 1942.

John Lark Taylor died on March 27, 1946 after a long illness.