Oscar Profile #425: Richard Todd

Born June 11, 1919 in Dublin, Ireland, Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd was the son of Andrew William Palethorpe Todd, an an international Irish rugby player who gained three caps for his country before becoming a British Army physician. Todd spent much of his early years in India where his father was stationed. The family later moved to Devon where he attended Shrewsbury School. Upon graduation, he trained for a military career at Sandhurst but gave it up to become an actor, causing him to become estranged from his mother. When he learned at 19 that she had committed suicide several years earlier, he refused to grieve.

Todd 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 Scotland in 1939. He also appeared as an extra in three British films including 1938’s A Yank at Oxford. He served in the British Army with distinction from 1941-1946, taking part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and later played his commanding officer in 1962’s The Longest Day while another actor played him.

Todd made his credited film debut in the 1949 British noir, Them That Trespass and quickly followed it with his star-making turn in the same year’s The Hasty Heart for which he received a Golden Globe award for Most Promising Newcomer as well as a Best Actor nomination followed by an Oscar nomination as well. He was now a full-fledged movie star, and continued to play in both British films and Hollywood productions filmed in England including Alfred Hitchcock’s 1950 film, Stage Fright opposite both Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich and the Disney swashbucklers, 1952’s The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, 1953’s The Sword and the Rose and 1954’s Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue.

Brought to Hollywood to star as Peter Marshall, the Scottish born chaplain of the U.S. Senate in 1955’s A Man Called Peter, the film was a huge success for Todd as was his same year’s British film, The Dam Busters. Other successful Hollywood films included 1955’s The Virgin Queen with Bette Davis, 1956’s D-Day the Sixth of June with Robert Taylor and 1958’s Chase a Crooked Shadow with Anne Baxter. As his star faded somewhat in the 1960s, he was still prominent in major supporting roles in 1962’s afore-mentioned The Longest Day, 1965’s Operation Crossbow and 1970’s Dorian Gray.

Todd was married to first wife Catherine Grant-Bogle from 1949-1970 and second wife Virginia Mailer from 1970-1992. Both marriages ended in divorce. He had two children with Bogle, one with model Patricia Nelson and two with Mailer. In 1997, his twenty-year-son Seamus shot himself in the head, his death attributed to a depressive reaction to acne medication. In 2005, his oldest son, Peter, killed himself with a shotgun in the wake of marital difficulties. Both suicides affected him profoundly. He visited their adjoining graves regularly.

In his later years, Todd was a frequent guest on such TV series as Doctor Who, Murder She Wrote and Midsomer Murders. He died December 3, 2009 at the age of 90. He is buried between his two sons.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE HASTY HEART (1949), directed by Vincent Sherman

John Patrick’s beloved 1945 Broadway play launched the career of Richard Basehart as the dying Scottish soldier. It has subsequently been remade for TV at least five times to date. Although it takes place in a Burma M.A.S.H. unit at the end of World War II, this version had to be filmed in England so that money that couldn’t be removed from the country could be spent by Warner Bros. Gordon Jackson had originally been cast, but Sherman replaced him with Todd who had played the part on the London stage. Just as the play made a star of Basehart, the film made an even bigger one of Todd who received an Oscar nod for his performance.

THE STORY OF ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRIE MEN (1952), directed by Ken Annakin

Another film made in England with British funds that had to be frozen during the war, and another hit, this time for Disney which subsequently tried to recapture the magic with Todd in 1953’s The Sword and the Rose and 1954’s Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue which were well-received critically but not commercially. Disney recaptured the success of this film with a long-running TV series. England’s Queen Mum was so smitten with Todd’s performance that she dubbed him the “dashing young blade”, a reference that appears on the actor’s tombstone after his death at the age of 90.

A MAN CALLED PETER (1955), directed by Henry Koster

This biography of the Scots-American preacher Peter Marshall who emigrated to the U.S. in 1934 with no money, became a preacher and rose to become chaplain of the United State Senate before his untimely death of a heart attack in 1949 at the age of 46, was a best-selling 1951 book by his widow Catherine that was adapted into this hugely successful film. Todd is, as was to be expected, was brilliant in the role, but Jean Peters as his wife is also perfectly cast in what would be her last film. She returned decades later in a couple of films and made her last appearance as a reclusive former actress in an episode of Murder, She Wrote.

THE LONGEST DAY (1962), directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki

Todd made an early appearance as an extra in 1938’s A Yank at Oxford starring Robert Taylor. In 1956, Todd and Taylor were co-stars in D-Day the Sixth of June. Six years later Todd was featured in this all-star cast of the D-Day landing in which his own World War II heroism was depicted with another actor playing an un-named Todd while Todd himself played his commanding officer. That scene was directed by Ken Annakin, who had earlier directed him in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men and The Sword and the Rose.

DORIAN GRAY (1970), directed by Massimo Dallamano

Todd had his last major big screen role as Basil Harwood, the man who painted the portrait of Dorian Gray in this notorious version of Oscar Wilde’s immortal work. The actor later said in interviews that he had no idea the film was considered something akin to a softcore pornographic film until he discovered that it was playing in a well-known porn theatre in London. Second billed to Helmut Berger as Dorian, Todd himself does not appear in the film’s most sensational scenes in this Italian production filmed in England in English and recently restored and re-released as The Secret of Dorian Gray.