Oscar Actors: Todd, Richard–Background, Career, Awards

Richard Todd Career Summary:

My Oscar Book:

Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd OBE (June 11, 1919–Dec 3, 2009), an Irish actor, who worked in UK and Hollywood, made a splash as Corporal Lachlan MacLachlan in the 1950 The Hasty Heart.

Another defining role was the portrayal of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., in the 1955 film The Dam Busters.

Richard Todd was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father, Andrew William Palethorpe Todd, was an Irish physician and international Irish rugby player who gained three caps.

Richard spent some of his childhood years in India, where his father, officer in the British Army, served as a physician. Later his family moved to Devon, and Todd attended Shrewsbury School.

Todd trained for a potential military career at Sandhurst before joining the Italia Conti Academy in London. This change in career led to estrangement from his mother. When he learned at the age of 19 that she had committed suicide, he did not grieve long.

He first appeared as an actor at the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park in 1936 in Twelfth Night. He played in regional theatres and co-founded the Dundee Repertory Theatre in Scotland in 1939.

He also appeared as extra in British films including Good Morning, Boys (1937), A Yank at Oxford (1938) and Old Bones of the River (1939).

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

Todd enlisted soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, entering the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1940. On Jan 29, 1941, he was one of 26 cadets injured when ‘D’ Block of New College was hit by a German bomb in attack by the Luftwaffe.

He describes seeing the bomb pass through the ceiling in front of him before he was blown out of the building by its blast, landing on grass bank and suffering multiple lacerations; five cadets were killed in the incident.

Todd was commissioned in spring of 1941. He tried to join friends at the Café de Paris in London, but could not get a table. That evening, the venue was destroyed in air raid, and 15 newly commissioned subalterns were killed.

He served in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI), then joined the Parachute Regiment and the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion as part of the British 6th Airborne Division. On 6 June 1944, as captain, he participated in Operation Tonga during the D-Day landings.He was among first British soldiers to land in Normandy as part of Operation Overlord. His battalion parachuted in after glider-borne forces had landed to capture the Pegasus Bridge near Caen. During the operation he met John Howard and was involved in helping to repulse counter-attacks by the Wehrmacht forces in the area.

Todd played Howard in the 1962 Oscar nominated film The Longest Day, recreating these events.

After months fighting in Normandy, 6th Airborne Division was withdrawn back to the UK to reconstitute, but returned to the continent three months later as emergency reinforcements to halt the German offensive in the Ardennes. Short of transport as they advanced into Germany, Todd, as the motor transport officer, was responsible for gathering a rag-tag selection of commandeered vehicles to ferry troops forward. After VE day, the division returned to the UK for a few weeks, then was sent on counter-insurgency operations in Palestine. Todd returned to the UK to be demobbed in 1946.

After the war, Todd was unsure what direction to take. His former agent, Robert Lennard, had become casting agent for Associated British Picture Corporation and advised him to try out for the Dundee Repertory Company.

Spotted and Screen Test

Todd did so, performing in plays such as Claudia, where he appeared with Catherine Grant-Bogle, who became his first wife. Lennard arranged for screen test and Associated British offered him long-term contract in 1948.

He was cast in the lead in For Them That Trespass (1949), directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, and the film was minor hit, launchng Todd’s career.

The Hasty Heart

Todd appeared in the Dundee Repertory stage version of John Patrick’s play The Hasty Heart, portraying the role of Yank and was chosen to appear in the 1948 London stage version of the play, this time in the leading role of Cpl. Lachlan McLachlan.

This led to being cast in that role in the Warner adaptation of the play, filmed in Britain, alongside Ronald Reagan and Patricia Neal. Todd was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for the role in 1949. He was also voted favourite British male film star in Britain’s National Film Awards. The film was the tenth most popular movie at the British box office in 1949.

He was lent to Constellation Films for the thriller ThInterrupted Journey (1949).

Hitchcock then used him in Stage Fright (1950), opposite Marlene Dietrich and Jane Wyman – Hitchcock’s first film Britain since 1939.

Associated British put him in Portrait of Clare (1950), which did not perform well. Neither did Flesh and Blood (1951) for London Films, in which Todd had  dual role. Director King Vidor offered Todd a lead in Lightning Strikes Twice (1951).

More popular was The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), in which Todd played the title role for the Disney Corporation.

Associated British put him in 24 Hours of a Woman’s Life (1952), with Merle Oberon.

The Rank Organisation borrowed him for Venetian Bird (1952), directed by Ralph Thomas.

Disney reunited the Robin Hood team in The Sword and the Rose (1953), with Todd as Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. It was not as popular as Robin Hood in the U.S. but performed well in Europe. The same went for Disney’s Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953), in which Todd played the title role. Disney pulled back on making costume films as a result.[13]

In 1953, he appeared in a BBC 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.[14]

Todd’s career received a boost when 20th Century-Fox signed him to a non-exclusive contract and cast him as the United States Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall in the film version of Catherine Marshall’s best selling biography A Man Called Peter (1955), which was a popular success.

Even more popular was The Dam Busters (1955) in which Todd played Wing Commander Guy Gibson. This was the most successful film at the British box office in 1955[15] and became the defining role of Todd’s movie career.

Fox offered Todd The Virgin Queen (1955), playing Sir Walter Raleigh opposite Bette Davis’ Queen Elizabeth I. It did not do as well as Peter.

In France, he played Axel Fersen opposite Michèle Morgan in Marie Antoinette Queen of France (1956), popular in France but not widely seen elsewhere.

Fox cast him in D-Day the Sixth of June (1956), opposite Robert Taylor, which was a mild success.

Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst (1957) attempted to repeat the success of The Dam Busters, with the same director (Michael Anderson) and Todd playing another real-life hero. It was popular in Britain but not on the scale of The Dam Busters.

He was Dunois, Bastard of Orléans in Saint Joan (1957), directed by Otto Preminger.

Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) was a thriller with director Anderson for Associated British. Intent to Kill (1958) was another thriller, for Fox, with Betsy Drake.

He returned to war films with Danger Within (1958), a POW story. Then more thrillers, with Never Let Go (1960), directed by John Guillermin and co-starring Peter Sellers in rare straight acting role.

Few of these films had been popular but Todd was still the top-billed star of The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961), with Laurence Harvey and Richard Harris.

He tried comedy with Don’t Bother to Knock (1961), then made The Hellions (1961).

Todd’s career rapidly declined in the 1960s as the counter-culture movement in the Arts became fashionable in England, with social-realist dramas replacing the more middle-class orientated films that Todd’s performance character-type had previously excelled in.

The Boys (1962) was a courtroom drama in which Todd played the lead prosecuting barrister.

He had a good part among the many in The Longest Day (1962), playing Major John Howard during the paratroop action before D-Day in which he had taken part in 1944 (another actor portrayed Todd); this was his biggest hit.

He appeared in The Very Edge (1963), a thriller, then played Harry Sanders in two films for Harry Alan Towers: Death Drums Along the River and Coast of Skeletons (both 1965). He also had small role in Anderson’s Operation Crossbow (1965).

In 1964. he was a member of the jury at the Berlin Film Festival.[18]

He had a supporting part in The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965) and the lead in The Love-Ins (1968).

In the 1970s, he gained new fans as the reader for Radio Four’s Morning Story.

In the 1980s, his distinctive voice was heard as narrator of Wings Over the World, a 13-part docu series about the history of aviation shown on Arts & Entertainment television. He appeared before the camera in the episode about the Lancaster bomber.

Todd continued to act on TV, in Virtual Murder; Silent Witness and in the Doctor Who story “Kinda” in 1982.

In 1989, he appeared in the first episode of the 6th season of Murder, She Wrote in which he played Colonel Alex Schofield in episode titled “Appointment in Athens”.

He formed Triumph Theatre Productions with Duncan C. Weldon and Paul Elliott in the late 1960s. It produced more than 100 plays, musicals and pantomimes all over the country; some of them starred Todd.

His acting  extended into his 80s, and he made appearances in British shows such as Heartbeat and The Royal.

He appeared in The Royal as Hugh Hurst, a retired solicitor, in the episode “Kiss and Tell” (2003).

His last appearance in Heartbeat was as Major Harold Beecham in the 2007 episode “Seeds of Destruction”.

Richard Todd was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1993.

He was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions: in March 1960 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC’s Lime Grove Studios; and in November 1988. when Michael Aspel surprised him on stage at the Theatre Royal Windsor.

James Bond?

Todd was the first choice of author Ian Fleming to play James Bond in Dr. No, but scheduling conflict gave the role to Sean Connery.

In the 1960s, Todd attempted to produce a film of Ian Fleming’s The Diamond Smugglers and TV series based on true accounts of the Queen’s Messengers. He was also announced for a proposed film about William Shakespeare.

In his book British Film Character Actors (1982), Terence Pettigrew described Todd as “an actor who made the most of what he had, which could be summed up as inability to sit still while there was a horse to leap astride, a swollen river to swim or a tree to vanish into.”

Both Todd’s marriages ended in divorce. His first wife was actress Catherine Grant-Bogle, whom he met in Dundee Repertory and was married to from 1949 until 1970; they had a son, Peter (1952–2005), and a daughter, Fiona.

In 1960 he had a son Jeremy with model Patricia Nelson. He was married to model Virginia Mailer from 1970 until 1992; they had two sons, Andrew and Seumas (1977–1997).

In retirement, Todd lived in village of Little Ponton and later in Little Humby, 8 miles from Grantham, Lincolnshire.

Suicide

Two of Todd’s five children died by suicide.

In 1997, Seumas Palethorpe-Todd shot himself in head at family home in Lincolnshire; an inquest determined the suicide might have been depressive reaction to the drug for severe acne.

On Sep 21, 2005, Peter killed himself with shotgun in East Malling, Kent, after marital difficulties.

His sons’ suicides affected Todd profoundly, and he admitted to visiting their adjoining graves regularly. He told the Daily Mail that dealing with those tragedies was like his experience of war: “You don’t consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it because that is what you are there for.”

Todd was supporter of Second World War commemoration events, those associated with the Normandy landings and No.617 (“Dambusters”) Squadron, RAF. He continued to be identified in the public consciousness with Guy Gibson from his portrayal of him in the 1950s film, and attended 617 Squadron anniversaries up to 2008.

He narrated TV documentary about the Squadron, and contributed forewords to several books on the subject, The Dam Buster Story (2003); Filming the Dam Busters (2005); and Bouncing-Bomb Man: The Science of Sir Barnes Wallis (2009).

Death

Todd died at home near Grantham in Lincolnshire on 3 Dec 3 2009. His body was buried between his two sons Seumas and Peter at St. Guthlac’s Church in Little Ponton in the county of Lincolnshire. The gravestone’s epitaph reads “Richard Andrew Palethorpe Todd, 1919–2009, husband of Virginia and Kitty, loving father of Peter, Fiona, Andrew, Seumas and Jeremy, Exit Dashing Young Blade” (a reference to the Queen Mother’s description of him).

Selected filmography

Good Morning, Boys (1937) as Extra in crowd scene (uncredited)
A Yank at Oxford (1938) as Extra in sporting event (uncredited)
Old Bones of the River (1938) as Extra in crowd scene (uncredited)
For Them That Trespass (1949) as Herbert Edward Logan
The Hasty Heart (1949) as Cpl. Lachlan “Lachie” MacLachlan
The Interrupted Journey (1949) as John North
Stage Fright (1950) as Jonathan Cooper
Portrait of Clare (1950) as Robert Hart
Flesh and Blood (1951) as Charles Cameron / Sutherland
Lightning Strikes Twice (1951) as Richard Trevelyan
The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) as Robin Hood
24 Hours of a Woman’s Life (1952) as The Young Man
Venetian Bird (1952) as Edward Mercer

The Sword and the Rose (1953) as Charles Brandon
Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1954) as Rob Roy MacGregor
The Bed (1954) as Capitaine Davidson
A Man Called Peter (1955) as Peter Marshall
The Dam Busters (1955) as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C, D.S.O., D.F.C.

The Virgin Queen (1955) as Sir Walter Raleigh

Marie-Antoinette reine de France (1956) as Comte Axel von Fersen

D-Day the Sixth of June (1956) as Lt. Col. John Wynter

Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst (1957) as John Kerans
Saint Joan (1957) as Jean de Dunois, Bastard of Orleans
Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) as Ward Prescott
The Naked Earth (1958) as Danny
Intent to Kill (1958) as Dr. Bob McLaurin
Danger Within (1959) as Lt. Col. David Baird, M.C
Never Let Go (1960) as John Cummings
The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961) as Sgt. Mitchem
Don’t Bother to Knock (1961) as Bill Ferguson
The Hellions (1961) as Sgt. Sam Hargis
Le Crime ne paie pas (1962) as Col. Roberts William (“L’homme de I’avenue”)

The Boys (1962) as Victor Webster
The Longest Day (1962) as Major John Howard
The Very Edge (1963) as Geoffrey Lawrence
Death Drums Along the River (1963) as Inspector Harry Sanders
Coast of Skeletons (1964) as Inspector Harry Sanders
Operation Crossbow (1965) as Wing Cmdr. Kendall
The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965) as Darrell
The Love-Ins (1967) as Dr. Jonathan Barnett
Subterfuge (1968) as Col. Victor Redmayne
Last of the Long-haired Boys (1968) as Trigg

Dorian Gray (1970) as Basil Hallward

Asylum (1972) as Walter (segment “Frozen Fear”)

No. 1 of the Secret Service (1977) as Arthur Loveday

The Big Sleep (1978) as Commander Barker

Home Before Midnight (1979) as Geoffrey Steele

Bloodbath (1979) as Terence

House of the Long Shadows (1983) as Sam Allyson

Incident at Victoria Falls (1992) as Lord Roberts

Box-Office Star: UK

British exhibitors listed Todd among most popular local stars at the box office:

1950 – 7th most popular British star
1952 – 5th most popular British star in Britain
1954 – 9th most popular British star
1955 – 7th most popular British star
1957 – 3rd most popular star in Britain