Ann Todd

Dorothy Ann Todd was born on 24 January 1907 in Hartford, Cheshire, England, to Thomas Todd, a Scottish-born salesman, and his London-born wife Constance. Although Todd later claimed 1909 as her birth year, the 1911 census records confirm 1907, with her christening documented in March of that year. Her younger brother, Harold Brooke, who adopted their mother's maiden name, went on to become a screenwriter of light comedies. After the family relocated to London, Todd received her education at St. Winifrid's School in Eastbourne, Sussex, and subsequently trained in speech and drama under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then housed at the Royal Albert Hall. Her original intention was to teach drama, but a stage debut playing a fairy in The Land of Heart's Desire at the Arts Theatre Club in Soho redirected her toward a performing career.

Todd established herself initially as a London-based theatre actress before accumulating film roles, making her screen debut in Keepers of Youth in 1931. Early film appearances included These Charming People, The Ghost Train, The Water Gipsies, and The Return of Bulldog Drummond. She worked for producer Alexander Korda on Things to Come (1936), Action for Slander (1937), The Squeaker (1937), and South Riding (1938). During the Second World War she appeared in Poison Pen (1939), Danny Boy (1941), and Ships with Wings (1941), while also returning to the stage, delivering a notable performance in Enid Bagnold's psychological thriller Lottie Dundass at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1943. The following year she played Madeleine Smith in The Rest is Silence at the Prince of Wales Theatre, a role she would revisit in the 1950 film Madeleine.

Her international profile rose sharply when she played a suicidal concert pianist opposite James Mason in The Seventh Veil (1945), a film that became a major success in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The role led to a contract with producer David O. Selznick that was described at the time as the most lucrative ever signed by an English cinema actress, with over one million dollars involved in its clauses; Todd later noted in her autobiography that she paid $880,000 in taxes on that contract. Alfred Hitchcock subsequently cast her opposite Gregory Peck in The Paradine Case (1947). She also appeared in So Evil My Love (1948) and the US-British co-production The Passionate Friends (1949). In 1951 she reprised her celebrated role in a West End stage version of The Seventh Veil.

Three of Todd's films were directed by David Lean, to whom she was married from 21 May 1949 until their divorce on 15 July 1957. In addition to The Passionate Friends, Lean directed her in Madeleine (1950) and The Sound Barrier (1952), the last of which performed well commercially. Her later film credits included the thrillers The Green Scarf (1954) and Time Without Pity (1957), as well as Hammer Films' Taste of Fear (1961) and Ninety Degrees in the Shade (1965). On television, Todd appeared in Ann and Harold (1938), identified as the first British television serial, starred in two episodes of Playhouse 90 — "Not the Glory" and "The Grey Nurse Said Nothing" — and took the title role in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1958. She was also a member of The Old Vic theatre company.

Following her divorce from Lean, Todd made her Broadway debut in 1957 in the comedy Four Winds. In her later years she wrote, produced, and directed a series of travel documentaries. Her autobiography, titled The Eighth Veil in reference to the film that had made her a star, chronicled her life and career. Todd died of a stroke at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 6 May 1993 at the age of 86.