This Is Your Life: Richard Todd 2

Richard TODD (1919-2009)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Richard Todd, actor, was surprised by Michael Aspel during the curtain call for the play The Business of Murder at the Theatre Royal in Windsor, from where the programme was then recorded.

Richard was already a successful theatre actor before joining the Parachute Regiment during the Second World War. As a captain he participated in the D-Day landings, and was among the first British officers to land in Normandy. Returning to acting after the war, he became a popular leading man in a string of successful films including The Hasty Heart in 1949 – a role which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

Richard would portray his own superior officer, with another actor portraying Richard himself, in a recreation of his own experiences of the D-Day landings in the film The Longest Day released in 1962. As the starring roles dwindled, Richard had success as a character actor in British film and television roles, and returned to working in the theatre - co-forming Triumph Theatre Productions in the late 1960s, which produced more than 100 plays, musicals and pantomimes, some of which Richard starred in.

Richard Todd was a subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions – previously surprised by Eamonn Andrews in March 1960 at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios.

"It can't be!"

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