Richard Todd OBE (born 11 June 1919) was an Irish-born British soldier and stage and film actor.
Birth Name: Richard Andrew Palethorpe Todd
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 9"
Quote: "You don't consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it because that is what you are there for."
Whilst performing in a play. he was spotted by Robert Lennard, a casting director for Associated British Picture Corporation, who offered him a screen test, and he subsequently signed a long-term contract in 1948. He was cast in For Them That Trespass (1949).
Todd had appeared in the Dundee Repertory stage version of The Hasty Heart, playing the role of Yank and was subsequently 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 his being cast in that role in the Warner Bros. film adaptation of the play, which was filmed in Britain. Todd was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role in 1949.
Alfred Hitchcock used him in Stage Fright (1950), then he made a film in Hollywood for King Vidor, Lightning Strikes Twice (1951). Neither did particularly well at the box office. He appeared in three films for the Disney Corporation, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953).
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.
In the mid-1950s Todd's acting career reached its zenith with performances as the epitome of the heroic English male lead in commercially successful and critically acclaimed films such as The Dam Busters (1955) in which he played Wing Commander Guy Gibson, which would become the defining role of his movie career. In the same year he appeared in The Virgin Queen opposite Bette Davis playing Walter Raleigh. Other notable films that he starred in during this period were Saint Joan (1957), directed by Otto Preminger and The Yangtse Incident (1957).
His career in films rapidly declined in the 1960s as the counter-culture movement in the Arts became fashionable in England, with Social-realist dramas commercially replacing the more middle-class orientated dramatic productions that Todd's performance character-type had previously excelled in.
Todd, who had been suffering from cancer, died in his sleep at a nursing home in Bourne in Lincolnshire on 3 December 2009, at age 90.
Birth Name: Richard Andrew Palethorpe ToddHair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 9"
Quote: "You don't consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it because that is what you are there for."
Whilst performing in a play. he was spotted by Robert Lennard, a casting director for Associated British Picture Corporation, who offered him a screen test, and he subsequently signed a long-term contract in 1948. He was cast in For Them That Trespass (1949).
Todd had appeared in the Dundee Repertory stage version of The Hasty Heart, playing the role of Yank and was subsequently 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 his being cast in that role in the Warner Bros. film adaptation of the play, which was filmed in Britain. Todd was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role in 1949.
Alfred Hitchcock used him in Stage Fright (1950), then he made a film in Hollywood for King Vidor, Lightning Strikes Twice (1951). Neither did particularly well at the box office. He appeared in three films for the Disney Corporation, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953).
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.
In the mid-1950s Todd's acting career reached its zenith with performances as the epitome of the heroic English male lead in commercially successful and critically acclaimed films such as The Dam Busters (1955) in which he played Wing Commander Guy Gibson, which would become the defining role of his movie career. In the same year he appeared in The Virgin Queen opposite Bette Davis playing Walter Raleigh. Other notable films that he starred in during this period were Saint Joan (1957), directed by Otto Preminger and The Yangtse Incident (1957).
His career in films rapidly declined in the 1960s as the counter-culture movement in the Arts became fashionable in England, with Social-realist dramas commercially replacing the more middle-class orientated dramatic productions that Todd's performance character-type had previously excelled in.
Todd, who had been suffering from cancer, died in his sleep at a nursing home in Bourne in Lincolnshire on 3 December 2009, at age 90.
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