Obituary: Richard Todd
Obituary by Jack Foley
RICHARD Todd, best known for his role in The Dam Busters, has died at the age of 90 following a battle with cancer.
A spokesman for his family said he died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday (December 3, 2009) at his home near Grantham in Lincolnshire. He “had been suffering from cancer, an illness that he bore with his habitual courage and dignity”.
“His family were with him throughout,” the spokesman added.
A war hero in his own right, Todd was one of the first British soldiers to parachute into France on D-Day, and served with distinction in the Army, the Infantry and the Parachute Regiment throughout the Second World War.
But after the war he pursued his passion for acting, establishing a name for himself on the stage before successfully playing dashing heroes like Robin Hood and Rob Roy on the screen.
Born Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd in Dublin in 1919, but educated in England, Todd originally wanted to become a playwright and enrolled at the stage school Italia Conti.
He made his first professional appearance at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 1936 and helped to found the Dundee repertory company before volunteering for the Armed Forces once war broke out in Europe.
Despite retaining strong links with the theatre, Todd pursued a screen career more vigorously after the war and eventually broke into films in 1948 in For Them That Trespass.
He also enjoyed theatrical success in the West End and on Broadway with The Hasty Heart, which was also turned into a movie that earned him an Oscar nomination.
And although he would become one of the top box office attractions of the early ’50s, Todd had to endure some flops – including Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright (1949) – before signing a deal with Disney that transformed his fortunes.
The deal in question involved three costume dramas, including The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men, The Sword and the Rose and Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue – and their success paved the way for the seminal roles that followed.
In 1955, Todd played Wing Commander Guy Gibson, leader of the 1943 mission codenamed Operation Chastise, in the historical re-enactment of The Dam Busters, which told of the development of the bouncing bomb used during World War II to destroy the Ruhr dams in Germany.
The role is perhaps his most enduring and iconic… and has since captured the interest of Peter Jackson, who intends to remake the movie.
It also put him in the running to play James Bond, as he was reportedly author Ian Fleming’s first choice to play 007 before Sean Connery stepped into the spy’s shoes for Dr No.
But further successes did follow, most notably in movies such as The Virgin Queen in 1995, Yangtse Incident in 1957, and The Longest Day, in 1962.
But as movie offers started to become less frequent, Todd turned his attention bacl to the stage where he found success in several West End productions during the ’60s, including An Ideal Husband at the Strand Theatre (now the Novello) and Dodie Smith’s Dear Octopus at the Haymarket.
In 1974, he toured the US with the Royal Shakespeare Company and, in the 1980s, he embarked upon an unbroken eight-year run in Richard Harris’s Business of Murder at the Mayfair Theatre.
He also appeared in four episodes of Doctor Who during the ’80s, opposite Peter Davison, and was last seen on screen in a 2007 episode of ITV drama Heartbeat.
The actor was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1993. And he also was named a Disney Legend in 2002.
In spite of his personal and professional success, however, his life wasn’t without tragedy as two two of his sons committed suicide: his youngest son, Seamus, shot himself at the age of 20 in 1997, while Peter, his eldest, took his own life after suffering depression eight years later.
He was also married twice, with both marriages ending in divorce.
Earlier this year, he celebrated his 90th birthday with a quiet gathering near his home.
Among the many tributes paid, Michael Winner, who directed Todd in the 1978 thriller The Big Sleep, described him as “a splendid person and a very, very good actor.”
“He was a good friend and wonderful to work with, utterly professional, very quiet, just got on with it,” he added.