Richard Todd

For other people named Richard Todd, see Richard Todd (disambiguation).

Richard Todd
Born	Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd
Died	Near Grantham, Lincolnshire, UK
Years active	1937–2009
Spouse(s)	Catherine Grant-Bogle (1949–1970) Virginia Mailer (1970–1992)

Richard Todd OBE (11 June 1919 – 3 December 2009) was an Irish-born British stage and film actor and former soldier.

Early life

He was born Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd in Dublin, Ireland. Todd's father, Andrew William Palethorpe Todd, was an Irish physician and also notably an International Irish Rugby player who gained three caps for his country. His son spent a few of his childhood years in India, where his father, a British officer, served as an army physician.

Later his family relocated to West Devon, England and Todd attended Shrewsbury School. Upon leaving school, Todd trained for a potential military career at Sandhurst before inaugurating his acting training at the Italia Conti Academy.

He first appeared professionally as an actor at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in 1936 in a production of Twelfth Night. He played in regional theatres and then co-founded the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1939.

Military

Captain Richard Todd landed near Pegasus Bridge on 6 June 1944.

During the Second World War, Todd joined the British Army receiving a commission in 1941. Initially, he served in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry before joining the Parachute Regiment and being assigned to the 7th (Light Infantry) Battalion as part of the British 6th Airborne Division.

On 6 June 1944, as a captain, he participated in the British Airborne Operation Tonga during the D-Day landings. Capt. Todd was among the first British officers to land in Normandy as part of Operation Overlord. His battalion were reinforcements that parachuted in after glider forces had landed and completed the main assault against Pegasus Bridge near Caen. He later met up with Major John Howard on Pegasus Bridge and helped repulse several German counter attacks.

As an actor, Todd would later play Howard in the 1962 film The Longest Day.

Acting

After the war, Todd returned to repertory theatre in England. A film contract with Associated British followed and in 1948, he starred in the London stage version of The Hasty Heart (as Lachlan MacLachlan) and was subsequently chosen to star in the Warner Bros. film adaptation of the play, which was filmed in England. Todd was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role in 1949.

He later appeared in the The Dam Busters (1955) as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, probably the role for which he is best known. Americans remember Todd for his role as the United States Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall in the film version of Catherine Marshall's best selling biography, A Man Called Peter. Todd was the first choice of author Ian Fleming to play James Bond in Dr. No, but a scheduling conflict gave the role to Sean Connery. In the 1960s, Todd unsuccessfully attempted to produce a film of Ian Fleming's The Diamond Smugglers and a television series based on true accounts of the Queen's Messengers.

Richard Todd, from the trailer for Stage Fright (1950).

In 1953, he appeared in a BBC Television adaptation of the novel Wuthering Heights, as Heathcliff. Nigel Kneale, responsible for the adaptation, said the production came about purely because Todd had turned up at the BBC and told them that he would like to play Heathcliff for them. Kneale had to write the script in only a week as the broadcast was rushed into production.

In the 1970s, he gained new fans when he appeared as the reader for Radio Four's Morning Story. In the 1980s his distinctive voice was heard as narrator of the series Wings Over The World, a show about the history of aviation shown on Arts & Entertainment television. He himself appears before the camera in the episode about the Lancaster bomber. Todd continued to act on television, including roles in Virtual Murder, Silent Witness, and in the Doctor Who story Kinda in 1982.

His active acting career extended into his eighties. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1993.

Personal life

Todd married twice, to actress Catherine Grant-Bogle, whom he met in Dundee Repertory (1949–1970) and model Virginia Mailer (1970–1992); Todd had two children with both women. In retirement, Todd lived in the village of Little Humby, 8 miles from Grantham.

Two of Todd's four children committed suicide. In 1997 Seamus Palethorpe-Todd, his son from his second marriage, shot himself in the head. An inquest heard the suicide might have been a depressive reaction to the drug he was taking for severe acne. Then on 21 September 2005 Todd's eldest son from his first marriage, Peter, killed himself with a shotgun following marital difficulties.

His sons' suicides affected Todd profoundly, and he admitted to visiting their adjoining graves regularly. He told the Daily Mail, "It is rather like something that happens to men in war. You don't consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it because that is what you are there for."

Richard Todd died in his sleep on 3 December, 2009.

Selected films

• The Hasty Heart (1949)
• Stage Fright (1950)
• The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952)
• The Sword and the Rose (1953)
• Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1954),
• The Dam Busters (1955) as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, VC
• A Man Called Peter (1955) as Peter Marshall
• The Virgin Queen (1955) as Sir Walter Raleigh
• D-Day the Sixth of June (1956)
• Marie-Antoinette reine de France (1956) as Comte Axel von Fersen
• Chase a Crooked Shadow (1957)
• Yangtse Incident (1957)
• Saint Joan (1957)
• Danger Within (1958)
• The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961)
• The Hellions (1961)
• Don't Bother to Knock (1961)
• The Longest Day (1962)
• Death Drums Along the River (1963)
• Operation Crossbow (1965)
• The Boys (1962)
• The Love-Ins (1967)
• Subterfuge (1968)

External links

• Richard Todd - Daily Telegraph obituary

• Selected performances in Theatre Archive, University of Bristol
• BBC Inside Out - Richard Todd
• Richard Todd - Biography