Richard Todd

Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd was a British actor born in Dublin on 11 June 1919, who died on 3 December 2009. His father, Andrew William Palethorpe-Todd, was an Irish physician and international rugby player who earned three caps for Ireland. Todd spent part of his childhood in India, where his father served as an army physician, before the family relocated to Devon. He attended Shrewsbury School and initially trained for a military career at Sandhurst before shifting to acting studies at the Italia Conti Academy in London. That change in direction led to estrangement from his mother, who died by suicide when Todd was nineteen.

His professional acting debut came in 1936 at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, in a production of Twelfth Night. He subsequently worked in regional theatre and co-founded the Dundee Repertory Theatre in Scotland in 1939. During this period he also appeared as an extra in several British films, among them Good Morning, Boys (1937), A Yank at Oxford (1938), and Old Bones of the River (1939).

Todd enlisted following the outbreak of the Second World War and entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in late 1939. He was among 26 cadets injured on 29 January 1941 when a German bomb struck New College, killing five cadets. After completing his training in spring 1941, he was commissioned into the 2nd/4th Battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He later transferred to the Parachute Regiment and was posted to the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion, part of the 5th Parachute Brigade of the 6th Airborne Division. On 6 June 1944, he participated in Operation Tonga during the D-Day landings, becoming one of the first British soldiers to land in Normandy. His battalion parachuted in after glider-borne forces had secured Pegasus Bridge near Caen, and Todd was involved in repulsing German counter-attacks in that area, where he met Major John Howard. He was promoted to captain five days after D-Day. Following three months of fighting in Normandy, the division returned to Britain before deploying again as emergency reinforcements during the Battle of the Bulge. After VE Day, the division was sent on counter-insurgency operations in Palestine, where Todd was seriously injured when his Jeep overturned, breaking both shoulders and causing a concussion. He was demobilised in 1946.

Returning to the stage after the war, Todd performed with the Dundee Repertory Company in productions including Claudia, where he appeared alongside Catherine Grant-Bogle, who became his first wife. His former agent, Robert Lennard, had become a casting agent for Associated British Picture Corporation and arranged a screen test that led to a seven-year contract in 1948. Todd made his Broadway appearance in 1945 in The Hasty Heart, the play by John Patrick. He had performed in the Dundee Repertory stage version of the play in the role of Yank before being cast in the leading role of Corporal Lachlan McLachlan in the 1948 London stage production. That performance led directly to his being cast in the same role in the 1949 film adaptation, made for Warner Bros. alongside Ronald Reagan and Patricia Neal. The performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, and a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male. The film ranked among the ten most popular pictures at the British box office that year.

His film career expanded rapidly in the years that followed. Alfred Hitchcock cast him as Jonathan Cooper in Stage Fright (1950), opposite Marlene Dietrich and Jane Wyman. He played the title role in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) for Walt Disney Productions, and reprised his association with Disney in The Sword and the Rose (1953), in which he portrayed Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953), in the title role. In 1953 he also appeared in a BBC television adaptation of Wuthering Heights as Heathcliff. 20th Century Fox signed him to a non-exclusive contract and cast him as Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall in A Man Called Peter (1955). That same year he portrayed Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters and Sir Walter Raleigh in The Virgin Queen. In 1962 he played Major John Howard in The Longest Day, recreating events he had personally witnessed at Pegasus Bridge during the D-Day landings.