Deems Taylor was born in New York City to JoJo and Katherine Taylor. He attended New York University. Taylor married three times. His first wife was Jane Anderson. They married in 1910 and divorced in 1918. In 1921, he married Mary Kennedy, who was an actress and a writer. They had a daughter, Joan Kennedy Taylor, in 1926, and divorced in 1934. Taylor married his third and final wife, costume designer Lucille Watson-Little, in 1945. They divorced eight years later.