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Richard Todd: World War
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Richard Todd served as an officer and paratrooper in the British 6th Airborne Division during the Second World War. One of the first British officers to land in Normandy on D-Day, he met up with Major John Howard on Pegasus Bridge — he would later appear in two films in which this scene was recreated: in D-Day the Sixth of June (1956), he played the commanding officer of the unit in which both of them served, and in The Longest Day (1962), he played Major Howard himself.
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Todd's achievments in The Dam Busters (directed by Michael Anderson), are made more remarkable when you consider the real life character he portrayed, Wing Cmdr. Guy Gibson was actually a decade younger than Todd when the real life dam busting took place during the 2nd World War. Also from accounts from others who participated in the missions, Gibson wasn't well liked, a bit of a loner - Todd at least gives the character some likeability and it is arguable that without it the film would have failed. The film does have some minor faults; it never really gets over the problems in making the special effects with water believable. Moreover, the build up of tension until the climax in the last 15 minutes could have been better and the language of those on the mission really is too polite. Those on the mission have confirmed that in the tension of the death defying mission much stronger language was used than the British politeness portrayed in the film!
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By 1946, Richard was a ready-made hero for post-war movies. His role with Ronald Reagan in "The Hasty Heart" in 1949, won him critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, including an Academy Award® nomination and British National Film Award. The next year, he was cast by Alfred Hitchcock with Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich in "Stage Fright." His other films include "Lightning Strikes Twice" directed by King Vidor, "The Virgin Queen" with Bette Davis and "A Man Called Peter" directed by Henry Koster.
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In the 70s, Todd returned to the stage with a vengeance, founding Triumph Theatre Productions and touring extensively in the company's plays. He even performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company in two 1974 productions, "The Hollow Crown" and "Pleasure and Repentance". His turn as an LSD-advocating, hippie messiah in "The Love-Ins" (1967) may have been a bad trip, but then most of his later features were either trashy or forgettable (or both), with perhaps the exception being the remake of "The Big Sleep" (1978). Todd returned to familiar WWII terrain as General Benjamin Cutler in the British miniseries "Jenny's War" (1985) and played Lord Roberts of Kandahar in the syndicated miniseries "Sherlock Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls" (1992). Among his other TV appearances, he portrayed Colonel Alec Scofield in 1989's "The Appointment in Athens" episode of CBS' "Murder, She Wrote" and appeared in "D-Day Remembered: A Musical Tribute from the QE2" (PBS, 1994).
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Richard was particularly well-suited for war-themed motion pictures. Among them, "The Dam Busters" with Michael Redgrave, "D-Day the Sixth of June" with Robert Taylor, "The Longest Day" directed by fellow Legend Ken Annakin, and more.
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